CHAPTER XIV.
ANOTHER FISHING EXCURSION—LANDING A SALMON—THE CARRIOLE—BOATS ROWED BY LADIES—DEPARTURE FROM LARVIG—CHRISTIANSAND HARBOUR—RETURN TO BOOM—SINCERE WELCOME—ANGLING AT THE FALLS—THE FORSAKEN ANGLER—A MISUNDERSTANDING—RECONCILIATION—ST. JOHN'S DAY—SIMPLICITY OF MANNERS.
On Tuesday morning, at three, I joined R—— and P——, and took a second trip up the river, to indulge in this pastime of angling.
When we arrived on our fishing ground, the salmon were seen springing two or three feet out of the water into the air, a sign not always good for the sportsman; for the Norwegians say, that when the fish begin to leap out of the water, they are moving up the river, and disinclined to take food. It was entertaining to observe them, as they leaped in various places, from rock to rock, up the stream of the Foss; and although they would be brought back by the immense volume of water, nothing disheartened, would repeat the leap again and again. Seated in the pram, I watched in the clear stream, the caution with which some of the salmon approached the fly, and after darting away from it, returned and sported round it, as if perfectly aware of the deceitful manner by which the hook was hid; but in a reckless moment, just as the fly was moved along the top of the water, resembling the living insect with such exactitude that I could be deceived, they would make a sullen plunge, and then as if aware of the foolish act they had committed, secure their death by running away with the whole line before they could possibly feel the hook. A slight jerk is given to the tackle, and their doom is sealed.
I saw one salmon caught through his own folly; for had he been less violent, he might have gratified his curiosity by tasting the fabricated fly, and could, when he found that it was nothing more than a macaw's feather, have quietly spitten it out; but as soon as the hook lanced his lip, the fish made a leap of several feet above the surface, and on falling into the river again, shot like a silver arrow, towards any weed or rock he saw, sheltering himself behind it, as if he deemed this retreat secure. But when he felt a motive power, over which he had no control, gently drawing him by the head from his old abode, and the consequent slight, shooting pang of the hook, away he flew, right up towards the pram, flapped his tail furiously to the right and left, and then bounced about his native pool, indignant of the vile trick that had been played him. R——, was soon rowed to the bank, and I stood by his side gaff in hand.
"Look out," said R——, in an under tone; and, turning up the sleeve of my coat, I gave the gaff the full length of the handle. The fish, however, saw me move, and like a flash of lightning, clove the water to its lowest depth. The line passed with such rapidity between R——'s thumb and forefinger, that it almost cut them off.
The manœuvring of ten minutes more brought the salmon within a few feet of the bank, and crawling through the rushes, I remained ready to perform my part of the tragedy. Near and nearer, turned on his back, and panting laboriously, the fish allowed himself to be drawn towards the shore. Lowering the gaff slowly into the stream, till I guessed it was two or three inches below the fish, and then making a sudden lunge, I pierced the soft part of the stomach a little behind the two fore fins, and lifted the salmon from the water.
"You did that devilish well," exclaimed R——, hurrying up to remove the hook. The salmon plunged in every direction violently; and it was with great difficulty I could keep my hold of the gaff.
"Make haste," I said, "or he will be off the gaff; see, how the flesh of the stomach is ripping!"
And so it was. The weight of the salmon was sufficient to tear the tender part of the flesh under the stomach, and the longer I held the fish from the ground to allow R—— to remove the hook, the more probable it appeared, that, the salmon by his furious struggles, would lacerate and divide the flesh, and fall from the gaff.