SALMON FISHING.
FORMERLY, and indeed not so very long ago, no one in the Highlands of
Scotland was considered free of the hill, or indeed of any account,
unless and until he had slain a stag, a salmon, and an eagle. Nowadays,
matters are somewhat different. The two former, inhabiting as they do
the forests and rivers, are in great request, and have a considerable
money value, and, in consequence, have passed into the hands of those
who have the deepest purses, saving and except where some few Highland
lairds and noblemen retain their ancient rights in their own hands, and
dispense their hospitality amongst their friends as of yore. As for
the golden eagle, few would attempt, or even wish, to shoot so noble a
bird. The ordinary forest fine of £500 is a sufficient deterrent, if,
indeed, any is necessary. Every effort is now being made, and should be
made, to keep the (now, alas! scarce) king of the birds amongst us.
But if, as we have said, the large majority of the forests and
salmon rivers are rented by those who are able and willing to pay
almost any price for the dignity of being lessees of such tempting
and highly-prized sporting grounds, the general appetite and desire
have developed and grown enormously. Ever-increasing facilities for
travelling have brought with them an ever-growing army of men, all
eager to get good salmon fishing, and searching high and low to secure
it. Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Canada, British Columbia, and a host of
other portions of the globe have been brought into requisition in
order to satisfy some portion of this craving. Small wonder, then, that
rents for rivers, spring or autumn, continue to increase, and that
the Government of the day is being constantly and consistently urged
to increase the close time for net fishing, in order that the upper
riparian owners may have some chance of replenishing their pools.
A man who has once hooked and played a clean-run salmon, and has
experienced the thrill of excitement that continues from the rise until
the salmon is safely landed, is not at all likely to forget it, or to
miss any chance of renewing his acquaintance with _Salmo salar_.
The contest is such a fair one, there are so many chances in favour
of the fish, that no element of sport is wanting. He is so strong
in the water, so perfectly built for speed, that unless you handle
him both carefully and skilfully you may easily lose him, even if
you have brought him exhausted to the gaff. In that perilous moment,
when flopping and surging near the top of the water, how many a fish
effects his escape! And who is there amongst us but has experienced the
sickening feeling of the straightened rod, and the fly released from
the worn hold in the fish's mouth? It is just the uncertainty of the
sport, added to the strength and vigour of a hooked fish, that form the
great allurement to salmon anglers.
Whilst in trout fishing--more especially with the dry fly--great
accuracy and delicacy of cast are required, the actual fishing for
salmon with the fly makes no such demands upon the angler. Provided
that he can throw a tolerably straight line of reasonable length,
so as to cover the places in the pools where the salmon are wont to
rise, many faults that would entail failure with the dry fly will pass
unnoticed, owing to the fly having been cast into swiftly running
water, which brawling water straightens out in the kindest manner the
kinks formed in the line by the incompetency of the wielder of the rod.
To this extent, therefore, a novice may have the good fortune to beat
the more experienced hand. Once hooked, however, the novice is out
of it, unless he has at hand an experienced mentor, and the odds are
largely in favour of the fish. It is then that the accomplished angler
asserts himself. I have heard of men who consider that the excitement
of salmon fishing begins and ends with the hooking of the fish, who
are willing to hand over to their attendant, or gillie, the duty which
they consider to be monotonous and fatiguing--of playing the fish.
For my part, I look at the matter from an entirely different point of
view. The combat between the fisherman and the fish is essentially a
gallant one. In the water, a clean-run fish of, say, 18 lb. really
plays the angler for some space of time, and you recognise that
although your experience and intelligence may enable you, within a
reasonable time, to be the victor, yet that you have attached to you a
quarry well worthy of your skill, and one, moreover, who may yet call
forth all your activity and resource, and who cannot be accounted as
caught until he is absolutely on the grass beside you.
I, on the contrary, always consider that playing a salmon is the most
exciting and interesting part of the sport. In playing a fish, whether
it be a heavy trout on a light, single-handed rod, or a clean-run
active salmon on a proportionately suitable rod, a sense of touch is
needed that bears some resemblance to that necessary for the proper
handling of the reins in riding a keen young thoroughbred horse. You
require a keen appreciation of when to allow a certain latitude and
when to exercise all the pressure that the occasion demands.
A heavy-handed man will soon render a sensitive-mouthed young horse
half demented, whilst at the same time quiet, strong hands exert just
that influence that is needed to control his vagaries. Some men are
born with the requisite sensitiveness of touch, others will be clumsy
and heavy-handed to the end of their days. Some will give undue licence
to a fish, will allow him to play for an inordinate length of time,
triplicating thereby the risk of losing him.
It is not possible to lay down on paper any regulations for playing
fish beyond what may be termed the "A B C" of the game. You should
never allow your rod point to be dragged down below an angle of 45°
with the vertical, or a smash of your casting line will be risked. On
the other hand, if the rod be kept too vertical an unfair tax is placed
upon the strength of your middle joint. Another cardinal point, as
every angler knows, is that you should never allow more line off your
reel than you can avoid; that is to say, if your fish means running
either up or down stream, and you feel instinctively that it would be
neither prudent nor practicable to hold him too hard, then you must try
to keep on terms with him by means of your own movements on the bank
side; for it is to be presumed that, although you may have hooked your
fish when wading in mid-stream, you have taken the earliest opportunity
of wading ashore.
Keep nearly level with him, or down stream of him if you can, and get
the weight of the water acting against him as well as the weight of
the line. Never try to force a fish up a heavy stream unless such a
course is absolutely necessary, for the weight of the water, added
to that of the fish, may unduly strain your tackle. That you may be
compelled to try to prevent his going down stream at times goes without
saying, for it may be absolutely necessary to do so; but to endeavour
to force a fresh and strong fish up stream against his will is to court
disaster. Should you have decided that your fish, if it is to be killed
at all, must be kept in the pool in which he then is at all hazards,
by judiciously giving him his head, by means of taking off the strain,
may frequently induce him to abandon his attempt to force his way
down stream, and, under the impression that he has already gained his
freedom, he may often, of his own free will, head up stream once again.
It is a risky, but often the only, course to adopt, if you cannot or
will not follow a fish down.
Mr. Sidney Buxton, in that most charming of books, "Fishing and
Shooting" (John Murray, 1902), sums up the whole matter admirably when
he describes catching and playing salmon as "living moments."
I have seen stalwart soldiers, and I have one V.C. particularly
before my eyes at the moment of writing, covered with perspiration
and quivering in every limb after a long and successful duel with
a clean-run fish. In this respect salmon fishing is ahead of trout
fishing, for the contest is a more even one; though in my opinion the
two, being distinct and incomparable, ought never to be put into the
scales and weighed the one against the other.
Watch an old hand at the game, and observe how easily he controls the
most determined and vigorous rushes of his worthy antagonist; take out
your watch and see how long it will be before the 18 or 20 pounder is
brought alongside for the gaff; and then watch the poor performer,
hesitating and uncertain as to when pressure should be applied or
licence given; see how long it takes him to land the 8 lb. or 10 lb.
fish; count the number of times that he has to thank a beneficent
providence that he has not lost him; and if, after so doing, you still
incline to your statement that there is nothing in landing a fish, that
the whole pleasurable excitement is concentrated in hooking him, then
I can only reply that I don't agree. The contest between the hooked
salmon and the fisherman is no uneven one--witness the number of hooked
fish that escape--and it is one that is still capable of giving a
thrill of real excitement to those who really love angling.
A salmon hooked from a boat in a large loch is, of course, a different
matter; here the odds are so largely in favour of the rod holder as to
unduly diminish the chances of escape to the fish. Such salmon fishing
is outside the scope of our present argument, and falls into a totally
different category. With river-bank fishing, and it is with that that
we are dealing, it would be a bold fisherman indeed that would count a
fish hooked as a fish landed, and a half-hearted angler that would be
content to hand over to the gillie the cream of the contest between the
fish and the man.
_Apropos_ of this nervous excitement, in October, 1900, I formed one
of a shooting party on Don side. The river Don ran within half a mile
from the house, forming as perfect a series of natural pools as the
heart of man could desire. My mouth watered when I saw it, and I longed
to wet a line in it. I found, however, that my host not only loathed
fishing, but was absolutely devoted to bridge. We had but short days
out shooting, everyone rushing back to the lodge to get a rubber or
two before dinner. Professing ignorance of bridge, I begged my host
to let me try the river, as, having been lately fishing on the Dee, I
had my rods and waders with me. With a pitying smile he told me that I
could, of course, amuse myself as I thought best. With no loss of time
I made my way down to the river side, and found it in grand ply. I was
fully aware that the particular part of the Don that we were on was not
popularly supposed to contain many fish at that time of the year, but
it was well worth a trial, and I knew that a ship laden with lime had
lately been sunk at the mouth of the Dee, and I fancied and hoped that
some of the autumn fish might be finding their way into and up the Don.
The pools were so perfect in shape that no gillie was needed to point
me out the best rising-places; they spoke for themselves and told their
own tale.
My first evening produced two clean-run fish of 16½ lb. and 8 lb., and
my host, when he saw them later, began to think that, after all, there
might be something in angling. The second evening the river was up and
unfishable, but by the third evening it had fined down into order,
and I got a beauty of 20 lb. and a small salmon of 7½ lb. The glowing
accounts I gave of the play of these fish at length excited my host,
and, even at the cost of his rubber of bridge, the next evening saw
him by my side, carefully fishing a leg of mutton pool near the house,
where I had seen and risen a fish the night before. I had to hold the
rod with him and show him how to cast, but I knew pretty well where
my fish lay, and that he was within easy reach. We worked down to the
spot, and, sure enough, up he came with a grand head and tail rise,
hooking himself handsomely. Leaving the rod in my friend's hands, I
told him that he had to do the rest. The first rush nearly pulled the
rod down to the water level, my friend hanging on like grim death.
Fortunately, the gut was sound and stood the strain. Nearly dying with
laughter at his frantic appeals for help and advice, I shouted to him
to keep his rod point up, thoroughly enjoying the fact that he was
having a taste of what he had characterised as a "poor and tame kind of
sport."
As I particularly wanted him to catch that fish I went to his
assistance. Trembling with excitement and bathed in perspiration, he
was, shortly afterwards, delightedly examining his first salmon, a
clean-run hen fish of 16 lb. I never shall forget his shake of the hand
and his exclamation, "By Jupiter! you have taught me something, this
is worth living for!" Needless to say, he is now mad keen on salmon
angling, and a very capable performer to boot.
Many of us, however, not quite so young as we were, are paying the
penalty of imprudent wading in the times when we scorned to put on
wading trousers. The rheumatic twinges, that hesitation about deep
wading in rivers with bad bottoms, all these are largely bred of our
former contempt for getting wet, and our ill-founded confidence in our
powers of resisting the effects of such very minor matters as wet legs
and feet. We therefore find our choice of fishing water still more
limited: we seek fishings where many of the pools can be commanded from
the bank side, or where, if wading be unavoidable, the bottom is sound
and shelving, and where there are no round slippery stones to trip us
up. Enough for most of us, if we are lucky enough to get into touch
with a good fish, is it that we may have a longish travel over very
rough ground, up and down, before we can call him ours.
[Illustration: NEARING THE END.]
One particularly bad-bottomed pool I remember very well in the
Aberdeenshire Dee, not very far below Aboyne. It was a long pool, the
head of water very heavy, the wading throughout simply vile. At the
bottom of the pool was a big rock, nearly in mid-stream, and by that
stone there generally lay a good fish. To reach him you had to wade
as deep as your waders would permit, your elbows almost in the water,
leaning your body against the swirl of the stream, and taking cautious
steps forward, inch by inch, to avoid being tripped up by the slippery
big round stones. Then the best cast you were able to produce with your
18 ft. Castleconnel would just about reach him. I never could resist
trying for him, though I knew he would go down stream if hooked, and it
seemed impossible to follow him down, so I always half wished that he
might not come. Wading back against that heavy stream, with a twenty or
thirty pounder making tracks round the corner into the next pool, would
have been no easy job; and, if you had succeeded in reaching terra
firma, there were some big overhanging trees at the corner, beneath
which the current had cut a deep hole. Mercifully for me, though I
often tried for him, he never did take hold, though I rose him several
times. It was always with a chastened spirit of thankfulness that I
gave him up and went further down to try the easier waters of the Boat
pool.
There is a local story of a mighty fish, hooked in that self-same spot,
which took its captor down so that he was obliged, perforce, to swim
the deep water under the trees, and was afterwards taken down, as hard
as he could run, through pool after pool, until at length he managed
to steady it in the third pool of the next fishing water. Then, after
a period of sulks, during which both regained their wind, the fish ran
right away up again to his old haunts, where he succeeded in getting
rid of the hook against his favourite rock. All lost fish are big,
and the lapse of time has not in any way diminished his fabled weight.
Perhaps the one drawback to salmon fishing as an art is that to which
I have already alluded, viz., that the friendly stream corrects of
itself all, or nearly all, errors of slovenly casting, and in that
respect places the duffer more on a par with the really competent. On
the other hand, knowledge and experience, and perhaps more particularly
local experience, will assert itself in the long run, even against the
adventitious success of the novice.
The mere fact of having really fished a pool, whether success reward
your efforts or no, is of itself an element of enjoyment; the feeling
that you have fished, and fished with a really working fly every inch
of fishable water, is _per se_ a cause of satisfaction and pleasure.
Here you are master of the situation; on you depends your chance of
sport, if any is to be obtained.
In grouse driving you may draw the worst butt; or, if you have the luck
to draw the best, the birds may unaccountably take an unusual line,
and, though you may have drawn the "King's butt," nearly every bird may
pass over the heads of your comrades to the right and left of you. You
are, as it were, a mere automaton, to shoot whatever may come within
range; you may be the victim of circumstances, and may get very few
chances.
In hunting, unless you hunt the hounds yourself, you have little chance
of seeing, and none whatever of controlling, the best part of the game,
the working of the hounds. Your main object is to be with them; they
and the huntsman, or master, do the work, you are merely an accessory.
In fishing, whether it be for trout or salmon, everything from start to
finish rests with yourself; you have to work out your own salvation;
and I venture to assert that it is in consequence of this individual
responsibility that fishing, apart from its other many merits, holds so
high a place in all our affections.
I doubt whether there are many men who have not become aware, in
playing salmon (and perhaps more often when the fish is nearly played
out), of a second fish following the hooked one in all its movements
and stratagems to free itself from the unwelcome attachment of the rod
and line. It has several times happened to me personally, and on two
occasions that I can call to mind I was within an ace of being able to
gaff the free fish when bringing the exhausted and hooked fish past
me for the gaffing process. I feel confident that, had I not been too
much engaged in seeing that my hooked fish did not get free through
any unintentional slackening of my line at that most critical moment,
I could have done so successfully, so assiduous was the (apparently)
hen fish in attendance upon the fish at the end of my line. Is this a
mere matter of curiosity on his or her part, or may it be attributed
to a feeling of _camaraderie_ or friendship? I think no one can
seriously contend for the latter hypothesis, as instances of affection
between such cold-blooded animals as fish have never to my knowledge
been even suggested. We must therefore, I take it, assume that it
is mere curiosity, a desire to see why the hooked fish is acting so
capriciously; and, if this be so, has it not a tendency to modify
somewhat our views as to the necessity of resting pools after a fish
has disturbed them by his being played? The following fish will, of
course, have been taken out of the place where it would probably rise
at a fly, and, therefore, out of any danger for the time being; but
travelling fish are not infrequently hooked and landed.
My observations of salmon, such as they have been, have rather tended
to inspire me with the belief that salmon, when resting in a pool,
take little or no notice of what is going on round them. They will
move just so far aside as to let a rampant fish pass them, gliding
back into their former position the moment he has passed. How often,
when fish are really "on the job," have fishermen caught their four,
five, or even more fish out of one pool of very moderate dimensions,
every square yard of which must have been disturbed by the vagaries of
those caught before them? It seems to me that we are all inclined to be
a bit too cautious and careful in this respect. When the water is in
order, then I should be inclined to say, seize the happy moment, often
short-lived enough, and don't waste time in going to other pools as
long as you have any reason to suppose that the fish are "up," and that
there are other occupants of the pool that you are fishing that may be
grassed.
Somehow or other, if a fish be lightly hooked the information is
conveyed through the line, as through a telephone, to the wielder of
the rod. You obtain a kind of realisation that such is the case, no
matter how well you have endeavoured to drive the barb home. And his
subsequent play shows you how well-founded your feeling was. You are
in constant expectation of seeing your rod point come up--unwelcome
sight--and if you have the luck to get the gaff home, and the hook
drops out of his mouth, you are not one whit astonished, only thankful
that your luck for once was in the ascendant, and that you have not one
more to add to the very considerable number of fish hooked and lost.
In the same way with a fish that "jiggers," I, rightly or wrongly,
always set him down as being lightly hooked, and invariably offer up a
thanksgiving if he be safely brought to bank. Can anyone tell us why a
fish so acts? It is undoubtedly most disconcerting to the angler, and
must assuredly have a tendency to wear the hold of the hook. But if it
is so effectual, why do not more fish adopt it? Is it not permissible
to think that my hypothesis is right, and that a lightly-hooked fish
is able to appreciate that if he can only enlarge the hold of the
fly he may get free? Or, if this is too much to attribute to fish
intelligence, what other suggestion can be made? Of course, all my
argument is upset if my premise is unsound, that it is lightly-hooked
fish that employ the manoeuvre of "jiggering" to free themselves.
The question is, of course, difficult of solution; at the same time, I
have invariably found that it is just those fish that I have already
set down in my mind as being lightly hooked that have resorted to that
expedient.
I have always found it very advantageous to keep a good yard of free
casting line in my left hand, letting this slack go at the end of the
cast. This is exceedingly useful in getting out a long line; indeed,
it has become such a part of my nature that I invariably do the same
in dry-fly fishing for trout. In that case I find it helps me to pitch
my fly more lightly, and to correct my length; it has one drawback in
trout fishing, in that it prevents you from striking from the reel, but
it does not inconvenience me, for I merely turn the wrist in striking
a trout, so that the fact of my fingers gripping the line against
the rod does not matter. It may not be quite orthodox, but I find it
convenient, and always practise it; in fact, it is so much a matter of
second nature with me that I could not give it up, even if I wished
to do so. It is of great advantage, in fishing any pool, to have seen
the river in all its various stages, so as to know as much as possible
of its bed. As everyone knows, the places where fish rise vary as the
river may be high or low; one place where, in high water, you might
reckon on getting a rise if anywhere, would be absolutely unlikely when
the river is low; and so also in the intermediate stages. Until you
have become fully acquainted with the bed of the various pools, you are
not in a position to make the best of them; that is why a gillie with
local knowledge is so necessary. Perhaps you have fished a pool when
it was in perfect order. The next time you try it the river has sunk a
foot; it may still be fishable, but if you get a rise it will be almost
certainly in a different spot from the time before.
On the Awe, in Argyleshire, a few years ago, after a summer drought
the river had dwindled down to about half its normal volume. A rod had
been fishing very sedulously a favourite pool of mine called Arroch. I
watched him for some time, and at last suggested that I did not think
he was at all likely to get a fish in the tail of the pool, where he
was employing most of his energies. He replied that he had caught many
a fish in that very part. I told him that it was doubtless true when
the river was in proper order, but that it was most unlikely in its
then condition. Somewhat nettled, he asked me to show him where I would
propose to fish; and, having my rod with me, I commenced to fish at the
very top of the pool, in a narrow, deep neck. At about my fourth or
fifth cast with a very short line, I noticed below me the silvery glint
of a fish that my fly had evidently moved. Stepping back a little, I
began, with great deliberation, to fill and light a pipe, and then
began again where I had originally commenced. At my fourth cast I saw
the same glint, and also felt the fish, which had taken the fly when
it was well sunk and was swirling about in the quick and heavy stream.
It was, of course, a great piece of luck, yet it served to point my
moral and adorn my tale. My friend was good enough to say that it was a
revelation to him, that he would no more have thought of fishing that
neck of the pool than of flying.
It is astonishing how many anglers are similarly constituted. They
are content to fish a pool in just the same way, no matter what the
state of the river may be. They never seem to fish from their heads,
nor to bring any intelligence to bear. In a really big river it is
possible to pick up an odd fish in the most extraordinary places. Once
on the Carlogie water of the Dee, the river was in big flood, full of
snow-brue, and apparently hopeless to fish; but the grilse had begun
to run, and my time on the water was drawing to a close. Something
must be done; it seemed foolish to stop at home and waste a day, so I
walked up to the top of the Long Pool and fished my own bank down with
a short line. My perseverance was rewarded, and I managed to secure
three grilse. The great thing is to keep going, and to try to bring all
your acquired experience to bear. A dry fly will never catch a salmon;
your fly must be kept in the water, and not on the bank. The assiduous
fisherman will beat the lazy one into fits.
National interest is, undoubtedly, being more constantly directed to
the importance of our salmon fisheries. Thus, this very year, 1905, an
influential deputation, headed by the Duke of Abercorn, was received
at the Offices of the Board of Agriculture, the object being to obtain
Governmental support to a private Bill that had been drafted with the
idea of giving increased powers to the Central Board, and to boards
of Conservators generally. The Bill, mild and tentative though it was
in its provisions, met with but qualified support at headquarters, as
it involved questions of finance, and possible rate aid to boards of
Conservators in carrying out necessary improvements in cases where
the local authorities refused to act. The question is, however, too
vast and too important to be dealt with by piecemeal legislation of
any kind, and, in regard to the vast national asset that is being
squandered and frittered away, demands energetic legislation on a bold
scale.
The salmon fishery industry is a factor in the prosperity of the
nation, and the whole issue, with all its branches and ramifications,
should be fairly and squarely tackled in a Government Bill, not in the
interests of a class, but in that of the nation.
It is satisfactory to learn from Lord Onslow that the Government Bill
dealing with obstructions and fish passes, though temporarily withdrawn
last Session, still embodies the views of the present Administration.
We must be thankful for small mercies, but this Bill merely touches one
item of importance, and any Government that has the courage and wisdom
to deal with the question as a whole will certainly have done something
to merit the lasting gratitude of the whole country.
Since these lines were penned, the Election of January, 1906, has come
and gone, and with it a vast change in the aspect of political matters.
The point, however, that we are advocating is not a party question. It
is a matter affecting the interests of all classes, and it is devoutly
to be hoped that the new Government will take a "liberal" view of this
important matter, and will bring forward a bill, in the interests of
the nation at large, dealing with the whole question of our salmon
harvest in the rivers as well as the sea.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: GET THE GAFF READY.]