There, he 's going to jump again. Drop your tip.
Stop him, quick! he 's going down the rapid!"
Of course the man who is playing the salmon does not like this. If
he is quick-tempered, sooner or later he tells his counsellor to
shut up. But if he is a gentle, early-Christian kind of a man, wise
as a serpent and harmless as a dove, he follows the advice that is
given to him, promptly and exactly. Then, when it is all ended, and
he has seen the big fish, with the line over his shoulder, poised
for an instant on the crest of the first billow of the rapid, and
has felt the leader stretch and give and SNAP!--then he can have the
satisfaction, while he reels in his slack line, of saying to his
friend, "Well, old man, I did everything just as you told me. But I
think if I had pushed that fish a little harder at the beginning, AS
I WANTED TO, I might have saved him."
But really, of course, the chances were all against it. In such a
pool, most of the larger fish get away. Their weight gives them a
tremendous pull. The fish that are stopped from going into the
rapid, and dragged back from the curling wave, are usually the
smaller ones. Here they are,--twelve pounds, eight pounds, six
pounds, five pounds and a half, FOUR POUNDS! Is not this the
smallest salmon that you ever saw? Not a grilse, you understand,
but a real salmon, of brightest silver, hall-marked with St.
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