"About nineteen pounds, I think," said Kingfisher, who from long experience could name the weight of a fish very correctly.
Returning to the spot where he had hooked the fish, Kingfisher after a few casts rose and hooked another, which he killed in twenty-five minutes—a fish of twelve pounds. After seeing the method of this artist I was presumptuous enough to suppose that I could do it also, and I determined to open the campaign the next day.
July 5. Bent on salmon-killing, I was off this morning at five, hoping to bring home a fish for breakfast. The Upper Indian-house Pool is for Rodman and me to-day, the others going to Patapedia, three miles above. Kingfisher fitted me out with a Castle Connell rod, quite light and pliable, with which he has killed many a fish; a click reel, which obliges the fish to use some force in getting out the line: of this I have one hundred yards of oiled silk, with a twelve-feet gut casting-line, to the end of which is looped a brilliant creature almost as large as a humming-bird—certainly the likeness of nothing inhabiting earth, air or water. Mike and Peter, my Indians, took me to the pool, and I began casting at the place where Kingfisher got his salmon yesterday, while Rodman took the upper end of the pool, which was three or four hundred yards in length. I had fished for trout in a bark canoe, and knew how crank a vessel it is; so I did not attempt to stand up and cast, but seated myself upon the middle cross-bar with my face turned down stream, and began to imitate the casting of Kingfisher as well as I could. I had fished but a few yards of water when the quick-eyed Peter cried, "Lameau!" which is Mic-mac for salmon. He had seen the rise of the fish, which I had not. And here I may observe that good eyes are necessary to make a salmon-fisher, and a near-sighted person like the Scribe can never greatly excel in this pursuit. All the salmon which I hooked fastened themselves: I had only this part in it, that I was the fool at one end of the rod. I waited five minutes, according to rule, and cast again. "Habet!" There can be no mistake this time: my eyes were good enough to see the savage rush with which he seized my fly and plunged with it down to the depths.
"Hold up your rod!" cries Peter, who saw that, taken by surprise, I was dropping the point of it. I raised it nearly upright, and this, with the friction of the reel, caused the fish, which had started to run after he felt the prick of the hook, to stop when he had gone half across the river, and make his leap or somersault.
"A twenty-pounder," said Mike.
When he leaped I ought to have dropped my point, so that he should not fall on the line, but I did nothing of the sort. I felt much as I once did in the woods of Wisconsin when a dozen deer suddenly jumped up from the long grass all about me, and I forgot that I had a gun in my hands. I had so much line out that, as it happened, no bad consequences followed, and the fish started for another run, at the end of which he made his leap, and coming down he struck my line with his tail, and was gone! Slowly and sadly I wound up my line, and found the gut broken close to the hook, and my beautiful "Fairy" vanished.
Then I looped on another insect phenomenon, and went on casting. Rodman, I perceived, was engaged with a salmon on the other bank. Presently I raise and hook another, but he directly shakes out the hook.
I move slowly down the pool, casting on each side—which I find is hard work for the back and shoulders—when, just opposite the big rock where Kingfisher raised his second fish yesterday, I feel a pluck at my fly and see a boil in the water. The robber runs away twenty yards and leaps, then turns short round and comes at me, as if to run down the canoe and drown us all. I wind up my line as fast as possible, but, alas! it comes in, yard after yard, so easily that I perceive all connection between the fish and me is at an end.
"He got slack line on you," said Peter.
By this time it was seven o'clock, and I returned home to breakfast with what appetite I had, a sadder if not a wiser man. Rodman brought in a nine-pound fish, and Kingfisher had three—thirteen, ten and twenty-one pounds. The Colonel had made a successful début with a fifteen-pound fish.