Freaks on the Fells by Robert Michael Ballantyne (best books to read in your 20s .TXT) 📕

the thought occurred that I might play it myself, by running the line through my fingers when he should pull, and hauling in when he should stop. I tried this successfully. In half a minute more I drew him to within a yard of my side, gaffed him near the tail, and carried him up the gravel-bank under my arm.

He was not a large fish after all--only thirteen pounds. Nevertheless, had he been fresh, it would have been scarcely possible for me to hold his strong slippery body. Even when exhausted he gave me some trouble. Gaining the shallowest part of the bank I fell on my knees, crammed the fingers of my left hand into his mouth and gills, and held him down while I terminated his career with a stone. Thereafter I fixed the hook more securely in his jaw, and, launching him into the rapid, left Anders to haul him out, while I made the best of my way to the shore.

This is about the roughest experience I have yet had of salmon-fishing in Norway.

The season this year bids fair to be a pretty good one. I have had about twelve days' fishing, and have caught sixteen fish, weighing together two hundred and seventy-six pounds, two of them being twenty-eight-pounders.

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Publication Date: 07-06-2010

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