Billy was positively polite, as it was his first day. Why many of these West coast men should imagine that politeness means servility, while roughness and rudeness only show equality and independence of character, I never could understand.
It was not long before I was in a fish, but as he was only a 5½ lb. cohoe, he was hauled in with scant ceremony and was soon in the net.
As I shall have something to say about tackle later on, I would only now mention that I was fishing with a fourteen-foot Deeside spinning rod, made by Blacklaw of Kincardine.
I had a large Nottingham reel with 200 yards of tarpon line, purchased in England, not, alas! in New York; a heavy gut trace with large brass swivels which would have frightened any but a Vancouver salmon; a 4 oz. lead, I afterwards came to a 6 oz., and one of Farlow's spoons specially made for the tastes of Vancouver salmon.
My bag that day, fishing morning and evening, was only six cohoe, weighing 3O½ lb. and one cod about 5 lb. I never had a pull from a tyee.
The row home that evening compensated for everything. The sun was setting behind the snow-covered peaks of the Vancouver Mountains, bare and cold below the snow-line, but gradually clothed with foliage down the slopes till the dense pine forest of the plain between the mountains and the sea was reached, from which the evening mists were beginning to rise. In the foreground, the sea, like molten glass, reflected the exquisite colouring of the northern sunset, its surface broken by the eddies of the making tide, or the occasional splash of a leaping salmon. Across the Straits on the Mainland, the tops of the great mountains clothed with eternal snow were lit up a rose-pink by the rays of the setting sun.
I have seldom seen a more beautiful scene, or one which gave such a deep sense of peace. There was a grandeur and immensity about it which satisfied one's very soul, it amply justified the realization of the call of the wild which had brought me so many thousand miles to those distant shores.
The morning of the 31st found me late in starting, as I had to interview Cecil Smith, who was to be my guide, companion and friend on my hunting trip in September.
On that morning, I got only two cohoes of 5½ and 4½ lb., one spring salmon of 9 lb., and as there was evidently no take on, I went up the river for a short time. I saw no salmon, but landed three cut-throat trout weighing 3½ lb., one a good fish of 2 lb.