I therefore put on a large Silver Doctor, and began steadily
fishing down the ash-tree cast. What if I should wipe Dick's eye, I
thought, when, just where the rough and smooth water meet, there boiled
up a head and shoulders such as I had never seen on any fish. My heart
leaped and stood still, but there came no sensation from the rod, and I
finished the cast, my knees actually trembling beneath me. Then I gently
lifted the line, and very elaborately tested every link of the powerful
casting-line. Then I gave him ten minutes by my watch; next, with
unspeakable emotion, I stepped into the stream and repeated the cast.
Just at the same spot he came up again; the huge rod bent like a switch,
and the salmon rushed straight down the pool, as if he meant to make for
the sea. I staggered on to dry land to follow him the easier, and
dragged at my watch to time the fish; a quarter to eight. But the slim
chain had broken, and the watch, as I hastily thrust it back, missed my
pocket and fell into the water. There was no time to stoop for it; the
fish started afresh, tore up the pool as fast as he had gone down it,
and, rushing behind the torrent, into the eddy at the top, leaped clean
out of the water. He was 70 lbs. if he was an ounce. Here he slackened
a little, dropping back, and I got in some line.
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