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

by William Senior

When you read in your guide-book "The climate of the west coast is usually mild, being influenced by the Atlantic and the Gulf Stream, which impinges upon it," you will, having the ordinary experiences of this vale of tears, not omit the mackintoshes from your baggage. It may be, as is set forth a little farther down, that July and August are the best months for this part of Norway; but there is never any trusting that Atlantic and Gulf Stream. Yet here we are at the end of a solid week of rain, with every promise of more to follow. This morning the rushing sound which greeted my waking moments was, nevertheless, different from that of previous mornings. It was merely the steady but strong flow of the river, not fifty yards from my bedroom window, speeding from the wooden bridge to the mouth at the fiord, half a mile below. Previously there had been variations upon this unceasing monotone, and they were caused by the rain pattering upon the leaves of an old ash outside, upon the shrubs and trees of the little orchard, and at times upon the veranda and even window panes.

There is no mistake about rain in Norway when it is in earnest, and a week of it is more than enough. It is true the nights have not this time been so wet as the days, but what consolation is that when the effect is to keep the river in perpetual flood? No; there is a vast difference between three and seven days, on a salmon river. The lesser infliction moves the fish and improves sport. In the days that are left you may find ample compensation in superior bags. Now there have been seven days' downpour, the river getting worse every day, and leaving a tolerable certainty of three days' additional patience for running down and clearing. But that is not the worst. I have said that there was a difference this morning when I got up and looked out. The sandy paths were dry, showing that there had been no fresh rain in the night. Moreover, the hillsides were open to view, the silver rills that veined the rugged steeps were dwindling, there was a blue sky, and great ranges of wooded or desolate mountains were in clearly cut outline—the first time since the wet period set in. Over the shoulder of the huge pyramid to the east there was actual sunshine, and the fleecy clouds were high. So at last there was to be an end to our mourning; verily so, since the wind had at last veered from south to north-west. Yet at this very moment, and it is still an hour short of noon, a heavy storm is making uproar without, the rain is descending in torrents, and there is the added discomfort of a shiver-breeding atmosphere. At any rate, we are under cover, and need not issue forth unless we choose. This is better than what must have been the fate of poor S., who went to the fjelds just before the break of fine weather to shoot ryper. He has been literally up in the clouds, and the birds will have been lying so low as to give points to "'Brer rabbit." Condemned to the solitude of a rude saeter, a hut in the most primitive sense of the term, he must have furnished a capital example of the English gentleman who forsakes the seductions of a London season and the luxuries of a Piccadilly club for the sake of sport.

To be sure, in our case, this reverse is only part of fisherman's luck, and we may be—and no doubt are—thankful that there was a fair fortnight, to begin with, placed on the right side of the account. Sport was, for various reasons, not by any means up to par, but we can, on this miserable Sabbath day, in our comfortable hotel by the strong, highly coloured river, count up a total of a trifle over 500 lb. to our two rods in little more than a fortnight. These were mostly sea trout, but of a lower average weight than is usual at this period of the season, the run of heavy fish—anything from 6 lb. to 16 lb.—having apparently taken place in July instead of August. The rule on this river is first a run of big sea trout, then a run of smaller size, and, lastly, a small run of bull trout, with occasional salmon throughout. H. has had the best of the bag, but a few salmon and grilse on another river gives me 244 lb. as my share.

My prettiest experience in the wet week was interesting. The river was big and dirty, the rain most hearty. The prospects were so poor that H. stuck to Anthony Trollope in the veranda. A thin piece of water on the lower beat to my mind offered a remote chance for a sea trout, and I was rowed down in a particular direct rainfall to it. The boatman shook his head at the small Bulldog I put on; he would have preferred a darker fly, salmon size. In a rough tumble of water over small boulders, which were not a foot beneath the foam-headed waves, a fish fastened, and the spin of the reel was shrill above the tumult of the waters. The grilse rod was tested severely, as in truth were my arms for a few minutes. The fish rushed forty yards down stream at express speed, then dodged and fought right and left. By and by the clever boatman got the boat through every variety of strong water to a landing place, and in good time the fish came to the gaff, a splendid bull trout of 10 lb. I wish some of my friends who are not satisfied upon the bull trout question could have seen this dark, broadly-spotted, burly fish, as it lay side by side with a silvery four-pound sea trout that I had previously taken with the same fly. It was as a Clydesdale to a thoroughbred. Seeing must then have been believing.

For the present let us forget that wet week. We will return to the rain, perhaps, another day; suffice now to state that we had three weeks of it—three weeks and never a day without mackintoshes. Last night it must have snowed pretty hard up on the fjelds, for there are at this moment white mantles lower down on the mountains than have been seen for many a year at this period of the season. The only way by which I can temporarily forget the weather is to go back to the day when, in England, the sportsmen were "inaugurating" (there are worse words than that though it is not pure English) the grouse season. On August 12 we were on a visit to S., whose river is a few hours' steaming from the stream upon which I was established in headquarters. It was our fourth day there, and, as a relief from the salmon rod, which had found out the unused muscles of my arms and shoulders, I took a holiday so far as to go out for once with a trout rod. It was a whole-cane pattern of 10 ft. 6 in. As it was already put together in the rack at the back of the hotel, I borrowed it just to save the bother of fixing up my own greenheart. In the tidal portion of the river capital sport was sometimes to be found with the common trout. They are Salmo fario of the kind one often catches in Norway—silvery, marked with a galaxy of small black spots, with a red point here and there, and game to the death; and their favourite taking time in this river was when the tide was nearing low water.

On that particular date this happened pretty early, and I was on the pebbly strand by eight o'clock. Our friends who fish the river use small March browns, blue duns, and teal and reds for such light amusement; but I had with me a couple of patterns—to wit, the Killer (a sea-trout fly which in a previous visit to Norway the small trout had fancied very freely) and an adaptation of the Alexandra used on the Costa for grayling. Both have silver bodies, but the former is a study in yellow, the latter a harmony in peacock-blue; and these special dressings were on eyed hooks, say about the size of a medium sedge, though of more scanty material. One of each was put up on an untapered cast of the finest undrawn gut; but, in ordering the collars to go with the flies, I had begged that every strand should be of picked stuff, round and even from end to end, and that they should be in every detail sound and sure.

My temporary gillie D. was by nature taciturn but always willing. This morning he was willing enough, but mum as an oyster. Nay, he sat upon the great grey rock on the little island and watched me make ready with a wonderfully melancholy expression. It was only when a salmon on the other side splashed noisily that he smiled—the grim relaxation of features that means resignation tempered with pity, not encouragement, nor hope, nor approval. His entire demeanour said, "To think that I should have carried the gaff, and gillied good salmon fishermen for years, and be degraded into this mean tomfoolery." A little impressed with his attitude, and, I think I may add, half in sympathy, I advised him as well as I could to rest him tranquilly on the rock, and not worry till I demanded his assistance. Then, hitching up my wading stockings, I went in to less than knee-deep and angled for trout for a quarter of an hour to no purpose. The green, dark water of the regular current was an easy cast out, but the fish I sought were generally taken on its edge, or in about a foot depth of shallow, when the flies came down at the end of a line that had been allowed to sweep round with the stream. I got a couple of 9-in. fish, and knew that the half-pounders were not rising.

Next I moved in to above the knees, and pulled out a little more line; was looking up at the snow patches on the mountain tops, and the fir trees on the slope, when I was startled by a rude pluck and a whirring of the little reel. I receded to shore as quickly as I could with a bent rod and running fish to hold, and then became aware that my line could not be more than thirty yards in length. Down and down went the fish. Sometimes he paused and shook himself; now and again he even responded to my winching in, or even played about without rushing. Once he ran ten yards upstream, but for the most part I ran with him, and was mainly absorbed by a desire to keep as much line in hand as possible. D. had seen my position at once, and was soon at my rear, pocket gaff in hand, and all the sadness gone from his harsh visage. I think the fight lasted about ten minutes, but it was splendid battle every moment of the time, and D. finally gaffed out a silvery grilse, the smallest I had ever taken. I weighed him on the spot; he was 3 lb. He had taken the small edition of the Killer, and a few moments more would have given him liberty.

This was an encouraging beginning certainly, for I suppose no man complains if, going out to catch half-pound trout, he bags a grilse, small though it be. Now I regretted that I had no longer line, and that I had not stuck to the winch which I had replaced by one of my own—a small ebony and silver one, which five-and-twenty years ago formed part of a collection of goods composing the only prize I ever received. It happened that the biggest pike of the year at the Stanley Anglers, of which I was a member, had been caught by me without competing, or thinking of prizes; but I was proud to take the award when it was offered, and had the amount laid out in tackle. Here was the winch, after much service, accounting for a grilse in Norway! I now ran my fingers down the gut cast, tested the knots, and began again. D. did not go back to his rock, and while in the water, having delivered my cast, I was turning round to hand him my tobacco pouch, when a furious pluck nearly brought the rod-top to the water. But one manages these things by instinct, and the whole-cane was arched like a bow again, and, out of the water, now abreast, now below, now away in the stream, leaped a sea trout. He was the most restless of fishes; the grilse had gone through his campaign with severe dignity, but this fellow played endless pranks, and led me a merry dance down the pebbles, ending in the production of the spring balance, and a register of 2 1/2 lb. The sun was out strong now, and I feared that the fun was over. Never, however, leave off because of the sun with sea trout; no, nor with salmon either, though only half or quarter of a chance is left you. I have killed some salmon and plenty of sea trout, though after much apparently hopeless toil, against all the rules as to sun, wind, and cloud. I was recalling examples when the rod was made to quiver again, and this time it was a sea trout of over 1 1/2 lb. I would not degrade D. by allowing him to interfere, but walked back and hauled the fish up a sandy spit, extracted the hook, and weighed him myself, as I generally do. In the next quarter of an hour I got three sea trout of the smaller size, and weighed them en bloc, tied together, at 5 lb. the leash. Breakfast was now fairly earned, and in a fine state of perspiration and contentment I led the way home. In the afternoon I was bound to make a show with the big rod, but left the whole-cane trouter where I could pick it up for an evening trial on the scene of the morning's sport. We all got something that day, but the sun was too much for anything but casualties with salmon. With a small Bulldog I found, hooked, and strove with a fish that bored and jiggered most unconscionably. He worked like a fair salmon so long as he remained dogged; when once he moved up from the bottom, however, I estimated him for a sample that would at least not prove beyond the 10 lb. limit of my spring balance. And so it turned out. D. did me the honour of missing him twice in succession with the gaff, and he quite lost his nerve. He threw down the gaff, in his agitation, and, amidst roars of laughter from a couple of onlookers on the farther side, literally danced about amongst salmon, gaff, and line. Sternly I bade him get out of the way, and by a crowning mercy his gaff at the false strikes, and his feet during the pas deux (he and the salmon were actually waltzing together on the stones) had not touched the line, However, the fish was exhausted, and followed me with commendable docility as I retired in good order up the bank, hauling him bodily. D. now seemed stricken with remorse; he clattered into the water behind the fish, and with the ferocity of a very Viking kicked it ignominiously up to the grassy plateau to which I had moved. How much avoirdupois the worthy man had kicked out of that salmon I know not; what remained weighed 7 lb., and it was a singularly bright and handsomely shaped fish. There was this advantage in the application of the boot instead of the gaff—the fish was not disfigured by a gashed side.

The salmon was very welcome, but I was thinking all the while of the excitement of the morning and the brisk quivering of the trout rod. Somehow I found myself down there again in the early evening, D. accompanying me with another attack of depression. He was quite right from his point of view. His master had taught him—if, indeed, he had not inherited the doctrine—that salmon are the only things worth calling fish. Sea trout count for nothing; brown trout for less than that. Still, he pocketed his disapproval, and came along with lack lustre eye. S. came down, too, just as I was wading in, to see me start, and in a few minutes I announced that a good fish had risen short at the small Killer. This was a timely falsity, as I wanted just then the opportunity of filling my pipe—not an easy thing to do knee-deep in water. By putting your rod over your right arm, and fixing the butt into your pocket, it may, however, be done; the line takes care of itself, and the flies will be below you somewhere out of danger. There must have been down there a 10-in. sea trout at the very lap of the water on the stones—perhaps it had followed the fly in from the stream; anyhow, there it was on the Killer when I had lighted the pipe, and I gave it freedom, without including it in the bag of the day. After the brief interval I addressed myself to the false riser who had, without knowing it, accommodated me in the matter of the pipe. With the sense of obligation strong upon me, I gave him his opportunity with delicacy and deliberation; he came up like an Itchen patriarch at a Mayfly, and I had a full ten minutes' race down the bank, with heartfelt tussles at intervals that made the engagement gloriously alive. This fish was quite worthy of the gaff, being a beautiful sea trout of 5 lb.