hold
on" is the most intense thing, so far, of my experience with salmon,
not forgetting that surprise, many a year back, when I killed my first
salmon with a No. 1 trout fly by the dorsal in the Galway river. The
split-cane rod comes out of the fray as straight and happy as when new,
and I notice that, as I am recovering my equanimity, the gaffer
examines it closely, handles it fondly, and pronounces it correct, in
warm English words. The rod indeed seems to have entered into the fun,
and to say, "Get up; don't waste time." We therefore move off to
another pool, and in the course of a couple of hours, after trying two
or three different patterns in a bright sun, I get a 12-lb. salmon on a
Carlisle Bulldog, medium size; this, however, in a pool where we all
have fair play.

On either side of a foss below that above mentioned is one of the
salmon traps peculiar to the country, built in the slopes which form a
natural salmon pass. It is a grating of massive timber and stone
blocks, roughly fashioned like an inverted V; and, on the principle of
the Solway stake nets, when a salmon swims into it he cannot return.
He is trapped in a narrow chamber at the end of the open entrance. The
old timbers of these particular traps remained, an irregular line of
upstanding palisadings, at the top of the foss nearest the roadside,
protruding a yard or so, jagged and weather-stained, out of water.
Hereby hangs a tale worth telling. My friend was fishing the short
swift pool above, on his favourite "hold on" principle, but there was
no checking the salmon. "Do they ever go over?" he asked his man, in
the midst of the battle. "No, sir," was the reply. "Well, there's one
over now," said my friend, as the fish shot over into the churning
foam. At the foot of the foss the little road curved round with the
stream, making a sharp bend at the tail of the rapid. Altogether it
was an ugly situation at the best; as the line had become entangled in
those weather-worn palisades it was hopeless. There was a hang-up.
The angler looked at his winch, which was nearly empty: he could see
the barrel between the few coils of line left--left of 120 yards. The
gillie was (and is) one of the smartest, now that he has had a few
years with the Englishman. At the suggestion of his master he departed
to reconnoitre, got round the bend of the road, and was lost to view,
the master remaining rod in hand above the foss, as well hung up as
angler could