Lines in Pleasant Places: Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler

by William Senior

The right-minded salmon fisher will always give first place to casting from the bank, with or without waders. On some rivers such casting is from rocks or boulders, and the work here is of the hardest, since it means severe scrambling and slipping to pass from pool to pool. It is, besides, a hazardous foothold that you get now and then. The remembrance of half an hour in such a position has given me the shivers many a time since. There tumbled over stupendous rocks upheaving masses of pure white foam, true type of the great foss of the Norwegian river in all its thunder and impetuous onrush. They poured into a rock-hollowed basin of churning foam and smoking spray. It was a turbulent oval pool, roaring and racing on either side, and narrowing somewhat at the tail, where it leaped a barrier of boulders and became a succession of rapids. The middle of this pool was, however, comparatively tranquil, very deep, and more like an eddy than a stream. This was the lie of the salmon, and there was said to be always one there. To fish this maelstrom you waded across a platform of shallow paved with slippery boulders bushel basket size, and stood in rough water about a foot deep on a narrow ledge of rock protruding a yard or so into the pool. It was deep enough beneath to drown an elephant; the din of that roaring foss and the swirl of the waters bordered on vertigo and deafness. But there it was to take or leave.

Taken with good heart, after a thorough testing of tackle (the motto being "Hold on for dear life"), the big Butcher failed to attract, and I floundered ashore and sat on a rock before trying again with a Wilkinson. That trial succeeded, for the line was rushed out and across some twenty yards. The butt of the rod was then sternly presented, and thereafter no line of more length than five yards could be allowed. Every muscle strained, I literally leaned back solidly against the bent rod for a full quarter of an hour, the fish below meantime moving in circles or sulking. The gaffing was most cleverly done by the good man who had never left my side, and I staggered out, backed on to a mossy patch, and sank to ground exhausted and panting. That capture stands out as my most thrilling episode in Norway.

The more frequent occurrence is a foreshore of shingle, much or little according to the volume of water, and here wading trousers are indispensable, and I dare venture to say they are to the majority of anglers wholly delightful. In waders somehow you feel very good. The opportunities for wading on many of the large rivers are, however, limited, the boat being a necessity for both salmon and sea trout. It is the only way of casting over the fish. The boats are often too skittish for comfort, though they are never so slight as the Canadian canoe. You step ashore to finish conclusions with your fish, and when your gaffsman is a village worthy who leaves his ordinary occupations to gillie the stranger, accidents are not uncommon. Does one ever forget the swiping at the cast instead of at the salmon by the honest fellow who so much tries to please you, or the losses caused by sheer inexperience or natural stupidity?

The finest sea trout of my life ought to have been lost to me by this sort of blundering. I had, as I thought, drilled the worthy cobbler at least into the duty of keeping cool and combining vigour with deliberation. I was casting from a grassy bank overhung with alders, and the fish was well hooked on a Bulldog salmon fly. He ran hard and far down-stream, but was checked in time and reeled slowly up. After a quarter of an hour's play he was under the rod point, Johan all the while dancing with the excitement of the keen sportsman. I kept him off till the fish was spent and feebly gyrating at my feet. Then I gave the sign, and he swooped at him with a ferocious stroke, falling backward in the rebound. Just one word I uttered (spell it with three, not four, letters), and implored him to be calm. Then he hit the fish on the head with the back of the gaff. In the silence of despair I resigned myself as he smote again; he actually now gaffed the fish, but seemed too paralysed to lift him up the low bank. However, I dropped the rod and snatched the gaff out of his hands, to discover that the strangest thing in my experience had happened. The fish was gaffed clean through the upper lip. The point of the gaff lay side by side with my fly, the only difference being that the former was clean through and the latter nicely embedded in the mouth. It was a sea trout a fraction over 13 lb.

An unkind fate declines to give me the month of August in its entirety for a holiday; and the best I can do is to catch the steamer on Saturday night, August 19. Salmon, so late as this, are not always to be reckoned upon, and the best part of the sea trout run might be over before I reach my destination. Certain data with the talisman "Brevkort Gra Norge" had come to hand during that tropical fortnight under which London experienced a wondrous spell of melting moments. They were cheery messages of good sport and rosy prospects upon the salmon and sea trout rivers of Norway, all sound material for hopeful musing in the pleasant run from Hull to the Norwegian coast.

The visit on which I invite the reader to share my introduction to the country was very memorable. Five days to reach your fishing ground, as I said before, represent a fair price, in labour and time, for, at the outside, ten clear fishing days. We leave Hull at ten o'clock on Saturday night. After a sweltering day the sky is wonderfully brilliant with stars, the air undisturbed by even the faintest zephyr. The minutest of the myriad lights that glow where there are wharves and shipping are abnormally clear: and the dingy docks, in that atmosphere, under the lamps of the streets and houses, give somewhat Venetian effects. Outside is a summer sea, and the whole passage, in a ship which, if not large, is wholesome and comfortable, and officered by people who are never weary of ministering to your wishes, is pleasant.

On Monday morning at breakfast time you are passing through the three hundred and odd rocks, each having its own name, bestudding the entrance to Stavanger. Two hours' discharge of cargo gives the opportunity of running ashore, laying in a stock of Norwegian coins, and seeing the cathedral and the few other sights of the place. In the afternoon, when the Domino is fairly on her northern course, and when the fiord landscapes should be a delight, we are in a gale, with incessant rain. At eleven o'clock on Monday night we quietly come alongside at the Bergen wharfage, but the rain keeps on. At eight on Tuesday morning we are on board one of the smaller type of fiord steamers, with three rod boxes amongst the luggage, some battens piled on deck, and a moderate complement of passengers.

Here, then, is our introduction to famous Norway, which seems not to be in too kindly a mood. After the heat of London the gale blows very cold, and the rain seems too effectually iced. The weather is, it seems, phenomenally bad even for the time of year, and all this day, and all the next alas! the voyage, in and out of the fiords, with sundry stoppages in bays where the patient farmer makes patches of green on a stubborn soil, and the hardy, sober-sided fishermen toil for scant living, is done at disadvantage for those who would fain have the masses of rocky borderings clear against the sky. The mountains are shrouded in mist and capped with clouds, and during Tuesday night the gale howls, and the storms of rain volley against the windows of the cosy little smoke house on deck. Wednesday is an improvement in that the gale has blown itself out. But the rain it rains on, though now in a soft drizzle instead of driving sheets. The sides of precipitous mountain crags are silvered with cascades, and as we penetrate further into the fiord the scenery develops grandly, and the old snow patches on the dark and lofty summits and picturesque saddles look startlingly white.

Voyaging up the coast and on the Norwegian fiords is delightful indeed in fair weather. As a rule there is neither pitching nor rolling, but it would be rash, nevertheless, to suppose that it is always like boating on a river. Our little steamer for the best part of one day and night, as a matter of fact, pitches and rolls enough to save some of the passengers the expenses of the table. As the ticket only means passage money, and the traveller is charged, as in an hotel, for what he eats and drinks, he, at any rate, is not tormented by the thought that he has paid for that which he has not received. Still, it is not often that the fiords are in a ferment of waves under a heavy gale, and the worst that happens is a temporary deviation from the general smoothness when the course lies where there is open sea on one side. The voyage northwards from Stavanger, where the Hull boats first touch, is mostly between islands, and in continuous shelter. Sometimes the narrows are not wider than the Thames at Oxford; then you steam out into what seems to be a land-locked expanse of water, with precipitous mountain rocks ahead. By and by you swerve to right or left, and a totally different picture is presented. And so it is, hour after hour, and day after day. For many a league north of Bergen the mountains and island rocks are bare of vegetation—gloomy masses of grey and brown that frown upon the waters in cloud, and cannot be glad even in sunshine. Some of them are like gigantic wildernesses of upheaved pudding stone. Then, as the voyage progresses, the hillsides put on greenery, sombre when it is pine, cheerful when the hangings are supplied by the silver birch, and bright ever when the emerald patches bear testimony to the industry of the farmer, winning his scanty harvests against heavy odds. The calling places are numerous, but often consist of some half a dozen houses of the usual weatherboard, red and white pattern.

The hour is nevertheless welcome when you espy the sun-browned face of a brother angler, surmounted by a cap in which the flies cast upon the pools during the day are regaining a dry plumage, turned towards the vessel bearing you to the homely wharfage of the fiord station which for the time being is your destination. The rod box is no unfamiliar item of luggage in this country, and it is borne ashore by men who understand what it is, and who like to handle it. Norwegians have a deep respect for the English gentleman who fishes their salmon rivers, and when he has arrived at the same place many years in succession he is most heartily welcomed by natives of both sexes, who while he remains will devote themselves to his interests, in their own way—which has to be understood, no doubt, but which is on the whole of a character that makes the respect mutual. After five days' travel by land, sea, and fiord, the Norwegian hotel seems a veritable home, and you are quite ready to be predisposed in favour of bed and board. It is not true that first impressions are lasting, but they certainly go a long way; and that first tête-à-tête dinner with your host must needs be a merry one. He probably is not so full of fishing as you are, however keen he may be, for his rods have been for weeks on the pegs under the little roof built for them on the side of the house. Any wayfarer might take them, but they are safe enough, with reels and lines attached, in this country, where the honesty of the people is proverbial.