La Fontaine gives an anecdote of a gourmand, who having despatched an entire salmon with the exception of the jowl, was taken so ill that the physician pronounced his recovery to be impossible. “Is it so?” said the dying fish-fancier—the doctor gave a desponding nod—“Bring me then the remainder of my salmon.”
Salmon Colour.—Take two ounces of annotto, tie it up in a bag, then throw it into clean cold water, and squeeze it in the rag often, till you melt a quantity of it down; pour off some of this liquor into your dye-pot, put in your stuff and boil it, and if it is pretty red, put in some madder, a little at a time, and if you see it is come to the colour, draw, squeeze out the remainder, put it into your pot, and sparingly add more madder. By using Brazil instead of madder, you will get flesh colour.
Salmon fishing.—In salmon fishing you must alter your manner of moving the fly. It must not float quietly down the water; you must allow it to sink a little, and then pull it back by a gentle jerk, not raising it out of the water, and then let it sink again till it has been shown in motion, a little below the surface, in every part of your cast.
Salmon often in this season haunt the streams in pairs; but so far from rising again after being pricked, they appear to me to learn when they have been some time in the river, that the artificial fly is not food, even without having been touched by the hook. In the river at Galway, in Ireland, I have seen above the bridge some hundreds of salmon lying in rapid streams, and from five to ten fishermen tempting them with every variety of fly, but in vain. After a fish had been thrown over a few times, and risen once or twice and refused the fly, he rarely ever took any notice of it again in that place. It was generally nearest the tide that fish were taken, and the place next the sea was the most successful stand, and the most coveted; and when the water is low and clear in this river, the Galway fishermen resort to the practice of fishing with a naked hook, endeavouring to entangle it in the bodies of the fish; a most unartist-like practice. In spring-fishing, I have known a hungry, half-starved salmon rise at the artificial fly a second time, after having been very slightly touched with it; but even this rarely happens, and when I have seen it the water has been coloured.
I made several unsuccessful casts—“A bad look out, friend Julius; Heaven forefend that the cook has placed any dependence on the angle!” Again I tried the pool, and, like all disappointed fishermen, began to prognosticate a change of weather. “I had remarked mares’ tails in the sky yesterday evening, and there was rain over head, for a hundred.” My cousin smiled; when suddenly my nebulous speculations were interrupted by a deep sluggish roll at the dropper. “Monamondiaoul!” exclaimed Mortien Beg, as he caught a momentary glance of the broad and fan-like tail, “he is fifteen pound weight!” Obedient to the directions of my Mentor, I left the spot the salmon leaped in, and commenced casting a dozen yards below it. Gradually I came over him again. “A light cast, Frank, and you have him.” I tried, and succeeded gallantly. I sent the fly across the water with the lightness of the thistle’s down—at the same moment the breeze eddied up the stream, and curled the surface deliciously. A long, dull ruffle succeeded. Whish, span the wheel: wish-h-h-h-h, whish-h-h, whish—I have him!