the fish are becoming sluggish, black, and the reverse of comely. Now
the season of retrospect commences, the time of the pleasures of memory,
and the delights of talking shop dear to anglers Most sporting talk is
dull to every one but the votaries of the particular amusement. Few
things can be drearier to the outsider than the conversation of
cricketers, unless it be the recondite lore which whist-players bring
forth from the depths of their extraordinary memories. But angling talk
has a variety, recounts an amount of incident and adventure, and wakens a
feeling of free air in a way with which the records of no other sport,
except perhaps deer-stalking, can compete. The salmon is, beyond all
rivalry, the strongest and most beautiful, and most cautious and artful,
of fresh-water fishes. To capture him is not a task for slack muscles or
an uncertain eye. There is even a slight amount of personal risk in the
sport. The fisher must often wade till the water reaches above the waist
in cold and rushing streams, where his feet are apt to slip on the smooth
stones or trip on the rough rocks beneath him. When the salmon takes the
fly, there is no time for picking steps. The line rushes out so swiftly
as to cut the fingers if it touches them, and then is the moment when the
angler must follow the fish at the top of his speed. To stand still, or
to go cautiously in pursuit, is to allow the salmon to run out with an
enormous length of line; the line is submerged--technically speaking,
_drowned_--in the water, the strain of the supple rod is removed from the
fish, who finds the hook loose in his mouth, and rubs it off against the
bottom of the river. Thus speed of foot, in water or over rocks, is a
necessary quality in the angler; at least in the northern angler. By the
banks of the Usk a contemplative man who likes to take things easily may
find pretty sure footing on grassy slopes, or on a gravelly bottom. But
it is a different thing to hook a large salmon where the Tweed foams
under the bridge of Yair down to the narrows and linns below. If the
angler hesitates there, he is lost. Does he stand still and give the
fish line? The astute creature cuts it against the sharp rocks below the
bridge, and the rod, relieved of the weight, leaps straight in the
fisher's hand, and in his heart there is a sense of emptiness and sudden
desolation. Does he try to follow, the chances are that his feet slip;
after one or two wild s