fishermen’s stories are said to be proverbially untrustworthy, and the great majority of people—at any rate of those who are not themselves fishermen—never seem to suppose that in the case of a fisherman, as in the case of every one else, truth may sometimes be stranger than fiction.
i have been a fly-fisher since my earliest days, and have had many good days both with the salmon and the trout, but i have never had a day full of such surprising contrasts as the day which i had with a brother of mine many years ago in the early part of september, on a loch through[114] which flows one of the best of the smaller salmon rivers in the north of scotland. strange as were the events of that day, i can vouch for the absolute veracity of the following story.
the loch in question is not very large, and is not deep in any part. it contains a good many trout about three to the pound, and at certain periods of the year many salmon. we had a long drive from x., where we were staying, and reached the loch about 10 a.m. we had with us a gillie, a salmon-fisher of long experience and a typical highlander, in height about 6 ft. 3 in., whose name, like his hair, was sandy. we had not expected to have any salmon-fishing while we were at x., but fortunately i happened to have with me my salmon rod as well as a trout rod, and we arranged on this day that we would fish with the two rods alternately, and that as soon as one of us caught a salmon the other would take the salmon rod.
when we arrived at the loch there was a good breeze blowing from the west, with no sun. we put a medium-sized “jock scott” on the salmon cast, while on the trout cast we put, as a tail fly, a queer, nondescript fly, which sandy fancied, and, as a bob fly, a “march brown.” these two[115] latter flies were the ordinary medium-sized loch-trout flies, and we thought it wiser, as we knew that there were a lot of salmon in the loch, to put only two flies on the trout cast. my brother began fishing with the salmon rod in the stern of the boat, while i tried in the bow for trout. i very soon rose three or four trout, and managed to secure two, but my brother had no luck with the salmon. we had not been fishing for more than half an hour when the wind went down and the sun came out. the surface of the loch became absolutely calm, just like a sheet of glass, and fishing appeared to be hopeless. the salmon now began to jump in different parts of the loch, and, although sandy said it was perfectly useless, we kept trying to cast over them. at length, however, we gave it up, and sat waiting for the breeze. suddenly a salmon rose about twenty yards from the boat. i said, “come on, sandy, put me over that,” and, taking up the salmon rod, proceeded to cast over the place where the salmon had risen. with great difficulty i got the line out, as it was dead calm. i cast once, twice, and for a third time, and just as i was getting to the end of my cast on the third attempt, up came the salmon, rising apparently not with[116] the intention of taking the fly, but with the intention of drowning it. i struck at him and hooked him, as we discovered later, by the tail, and a very lively time he gave me. he played for about twenty-five minutes, during which time he never showed himself, and we all thought he was much larger than he turned out to be. he was a nice clean fish about 9¼ lb. by the time we got him in the wind had risen, and we began to fish again, my brother taking the salmon rod, whilst i fished with the trout rod from the bow. i had not been fishing for more than a few minutes before i rose something which did not show itself. i struck, and exclaimed, “i’ve hooked him!” away went the line off my reel for about thirty yards, and at the end of this run the fish, a salmon which looked considerably larger than the one we had already caught, jumped right out of the water, high into the air. then began the longest and most exciting struggle i have ever had with any fish. the rod with which i was fishing was a light 11-feet trout rod; the cast was a medium-sized trout cast, and i had on my reel about forty to fifty yards of medium-sized trout-line. there is no doubt that i should have several times lost the fish had it not been for the[117] extraordinary skill and speed with which sandy followed him and managed the boat. three times nearly all my line was taken out, and once i had only a few inches left on my reel. after his first rush the fish plunged deep down, and for a time adopted boring tactics. i was able to recover most of the line he had taken out, and then he made another run and a jump, and for some time after that we followed him over the loch. on two occasions he made the most determined efforts to get into some weeds, and it was only by keeping a very severe strain upon him that i managed to keep clear of them. i never played a fish which jumped so many times or sulked less. on one occasion, after taking a large amount of my line, he suddenly turned and headed straight back again for the boat, and although sandy did all he could to keep out of his way, the fish startled us at the end of his mad run by jumping suddenly clean out of the water within three or four yards of the boat, and falling with a tremendous splash.
do what i could i did not seem to have any real effect on the fish, who seemed to do almost exactly as he liked with me, except on the two occasions when he tried to get into the[118] weeds, when, expecting every minute that we might part company, i was determined, whatever happened, that he should come where i wished him to come.
we saw that the fish had taken the bob fly, and this added to my apprehensions, as i was afraid, particularly as i knew the loch was not deep, that the tail fly would catch in something at the bottom of the loch, and there would then be a catastrophe. time wore on, and my back and arms began to ache most prodigiously. still the fish seemed as strong as ever. my brother said he must have some lunch, and whenever sandy and i got the chance we managed to eat some sandwiches. i began to wonder how much longer the fly would hold, and whether this fish would prove to be one more of the many good fish lost through the fly working out at the end of a long fight.
i could do nothing except hold on for all i was worth, keeping as tight a line as i could, and, of course, lowering the point of the rod whenever the fish jumped, as he frequently did. as time went on, however, the rushes made by the fish were not so long, and he seemed, at last, to have abandoned his leaping tactics, which had given[119] me so much anxiety in the earlier stages of the struggle. the fish was gradually becoming exhausted, and the strain on the rod and line seemed to be much greater. “he’ll be turning soon, i’m thinking,” said sandy. the end, one way or the other, could surely not be far off now, and we discussed the question whether or not we should try to land, but, on the whole, we thought we had better not run the risk of getting into very shallow water. at last the fish turned on his side, though he quickly righted himself and made another short run. sandy had got the boat in about three feet of water, a few yards from the bank; he handed the oars to my brother, seized the gaff, and got out of the boat. i slowly reeled in my line; there was another short rush from the fish, and again i reeled him up. nearer and nearer he came to the boat, and again turned on his side. suddenly, in less time than it takes to tell, sandy had the gaff into him, and was struggling to the shore. safely landed, the fish was speedily given his coup de grâce. he was a very red male fish, weighing rather over 10¼ lb., and i had hooked him in the hard part of his upper jaw, which accounted partly for the fact that i had so little power over him, and also[120] for the fact that the hook had kept its hold so well. “now then, sandy,” i said, as i got out my flask, “if any man ever deserved a drop of good whisky, you do.” “shlàinte” (gaelic for “your good health”), said sandy. “it was a grand fight, sir; i’ve never seen a better.” “how long do you think you were playing him?” said my brother. “somewhere about an hour, i should think,” i replied. “four hours and six minutes,” he said. “i looked at my watch when you hooked him, and it was then just a minute or two before half-past one; and i looked at my watch when sandy gaffed him—it was then twenty-five minutes to six. i counted the number of times the fish jumped, and it was seventeen. i don’t suppose you noticed it,” he added, “but there was a cart going off with peats, near the loch, soon after you began to play the fish, and it came back again not long ago.” we heard afterwards that the men in the cart thought i was playing another fish when they passed us on their return journey.
the light was going as we pushed the boat out again. i handed the salmon rod to my brother, and he began to fish from the stern of the boat, while i fished again from the bow with the trout[121] rod. sandy allowed the boat to drift slowly along the edge of some weeds. i do not think that i had more than three or four casts when, just as i was nearing the end of my cast, a salmon, which looked as bright as silver, and about the same size as the one we had just killed, rose at my tail fly, with a head and tail rise as if it meant business; and, as it turned to go down, i felt the hook go home. the fish did not run, but worked about near the surface of the water, close to the weeds, as if it did not realise that it was hooked at all. “back the boat quickly, sir,” said sandy, handing the oars to my brother, and seizing the gaff. my brother took the oars and backed the boat quickly in the direction of the fish. i reeled up my line; there was a momentary vision of about three-quarters of sandy leaning out of the boat, a tremendously quick lightning-like movement of the gaff, and the salmon, gaffed with extraordinary skill behind the shoulder, was in the boat.
i do not think that more than four minutes could possibly have elapsed from the time that i hooked the fish to the time it was in the boat. it was a beautiful, clean-run female fish, with a small head, and in perfect condition. it was[122] very lightly hooked, and if it had run or jumped at all it would almost certainly have got off. it weighed within a few ounces of the weight of the fish which had given me such a tremendous battle, and yet, owing to the extraordinary skill of sandy with the gaff, and the speed with which my brother had acted, this fish occupied us only as many minutes as the other one had hours!
we continued to fish for a short time, but it became dark so rapidly that very soon we had to stop, and without a further rise of any kind.
