THE SALMON AND THE KODAK

We had waited with exemplary patience for the dropping of the water. There had been a fairly heavy flood during the last week in February, but there would be no trouble with floating ice; that, at least, was a comfort when one remembered the cruel sufferings from exposure of the previous year. The Rowan Tree Pool is, in the early part of the spring season, a sure find for a fish if you can but catch it in the humour. The humour, however, does not last long, and you require to know that pool with the intimacy of personal experience to hit it at the right time; you have to study its countenance, and then, sooner or later, the afternoon will arrive when you say “Thank the stars; she will be in order to-morrow.” This year the to-morrow when it did dawn admirably suited the purpose of two friends of mine who were in temporary possession of the Rowan Pool. Cold weather one takes as a matter of course, grumbling not if the wind be moderate and mackintoshes remain unstrapped.

The two points of congratulation were (1) that the pool was in perfect height and colour; and (2) that the light was good. The first condition was satisfactory for Grey, the angler, the second for Brown, the kodakeer. And herein lurks a necessity for explanation. Grey had one evening, at the Fly Fishers’ Club, been much impressed with a violent tirade from a member about the generally incorrect way in which the ordinary black and white artist illustrates the fisherman in action, and had listened attentively as a group round the fire argued themselves into the conclusion that there was much more to be done with the photographic snapshot in angling than had ever yet been attempted. He looked about for a man of leisure who was an enthusiast with the camera, and skilful enough to get his living with it, should fate ever drive him to earning his bread and cheese. Such an amateur he at length discovered in Brown, and these were the two who, by nine o’clock in the morning, were at the head of the Rowan Pool; their plans prearranged in every detail; both men in excellent form, head, body, and spirit; and Burdock, the keeper, resigned to the innovation of photography which he sniffingly flouted as a piece of downright tomfoolery.

There was another character in the comedy of the day, a salmon fisher of some repute for skill, but disliked for his selfishness, cynicism, and overbearing assumption of mastership in the theory and practice of fishing. As he was ever laying down the highest standards of sport much was forgiven him. The men who used phantom, prawn, and worm, however much and often they were made to writhe under his sneers, felt that in maintaining the artificial fly as the only lure with which the noble salmon should be tempted, he was on a lofty plane, and, if not unassailable, had better be left there in his vain glory. They loved him none the more, of course, and spun, prawned, and wormed as before, honestly envying just a little the purist whose fly undoubtedly often justified his claims. His beat was a mile higher up the river than the Rowan Pool, and he is here introduced because on this morning Grey and Brown gave him a lift in their wagonette, and dropped him at the larch plantation so that he might, by the short cut of a woodland path, attain the hut in the middle of his beat. Before climbing over the stile he exhibited the big fly which he had selected as the likely killer for the day, and offered Grey one if he preferred it. Grey, however, had his own fancies, and declined with thanks; there was a mutual chanting of “So long; tight lines,” and the purist went off to his hut and the rod which he kept there.

Brown, with his compact paraphernalia, was put across from the lower end of the pool to the right bank. This was necessary for his share of the day’s work, which was to take snapshots of his friend operating from the left shore. The fishing part of the Rowan Pool was directly under a rocky cliff opposite, and the position for the kodakeer was a clump of bushes on a small natural platform half-way down. From this elevation he could look into the deep water where the salmon was generally found, and could command the entire pool with his apparatus. Grey’s side was an easily-sloping shingle with firm foothold out of the force of the stream, an assuring advantage to a man who had to wade within a foot of his armpits.

“Are you there?” by and by shouted Grey, looking across to the bushy ledge of the cliff. “Yes, and all ready,” replied Brown, so well concealed that the angler had to look twice to discover him. It was a full water, and every cast that would send the fly to its place must be close upon thirty yards. Whatever may be pretended to the contrary, this is mighty fine throwing when it is done time after time; and Grey, having fruitlessly fished his pool down twice with different flies, waded ashore.

Had Brown seen sign of a fish? No, he had not. The fly had worked beautifully over the best part of the pool, and fished every inch of the run known to be the lie of the fish. Had Brown taken any good shots? Yes; he had been snapping Grey ever since he entered the water. “Then,” said Grey, “I’ll fish the pool below, and give you an hour’s spell. If you move, do it as quietly as you can.” “All right,” said the kodakeer; “it is not very cold; I’ll have a smoke and a read, and won’t move at all unless I get cramped or frozen.”

Brown enjoyed his book, suffering no sort of discomfort; he lazily smoked his pipe and thought how much better it was to be listening to the twitter of the birds, watching the clouds of rooks wheeling over the distant wood, and resting in peace, than slaving with an 18-ft. rod and straining every muscle in the effort to dispatch the unheeded fly across the big water to the core of the pool (for fishing purposes) under the cliff. Then, down out of sight went his meerschaum, for beyond the stile appeared the face of the great purist, who looked cautiously around, stepped stealthily over, laid down his rod, walked a little down stream to a point whence he could see the half-visible figure of Grey very clear in the noonday light in the water of the next pool. Then he returned and waded in to fish the Rowan.

“Here’s a chance for the Kodak,” muttered the witness, shrinking into cover, and scarcely breathing lest his hiding-place should be revealed.

The purist was too intent upon his design of fishing another man’s pool once down, without loss of time, to look about him carefully. The coast was so obviously clear. Brown therefore took snapshots, a round dozen, of what followed: (1) A fisherman armed with a 12-ft. spinning rod, wading into the water at the precise bit of shingle previously trodden by Grey; (2) a guilty-looking man, looking up and down stream before making the first cast of a full-sized blue phantom; (3) the act of casting, well done, and dropping the bait in the exact place required; (4) the steady winding in of the line with the rod-point kept low; (5) the phantom and its triangles dangling a yard from the rod-point in mid-air, in pause for a fresh cast; (6) the bend of the rod as a hooked fish set the winch a-scream; (7) the figure of a dripping salmon curved in a fine leap out of water; (8) the retreat of the purist to dry shingle, playing the fish the while with a cool, strong hand; (9) the tailing out of the fish (with a backward view of the fisherman); (10) the slaying of the salmon with a blow from a pebble on the back of the head; (11) attention to tackle and removal of phantom, fish lying in background; (12) disappearance of the purist over the stile, dead fish suspended by the right hand, hanging for a moment on near side as fisherman clambered down the off side of stile.

The three men met later at the rendezvous for the wagonette. Grey and Brown were waiting in a state of suppressed hilarity as the other emerged from the plantation, placidly carrying his salmon by a piece of looped cord.

“Any sport?” he asked. Grey explained that he had had none not a rise all day. Yet he had fished the Rowan Pool carefully twice down, and the other pool also.

“What did he take?” asked Brown, pointing to the bright little 10-pounder. The purist did not trouble to reply in words; he merely pointed to the fly left in the mouth of the fish.

“My fingers were numbed,” he said presently in a casual sort of way; “and, as the gut broke off at the head, I just left it there.”

There was a touch of suspicion, not to say alarm, in the look of amazement with which the purist received the shrieks of laughter which simultaneously burst from the other two.

“Pardon me,” at length spluttered Brown, “but it is so dashed funny.” Then Grey exploded again, and the purist looked from one to the other.

“Well, well, come along,” Brown said at last. There was not a word spoken during the drive. The echoes were awakened once, on the brow of the last hill, by the kodakeer, who, without any apparent cause, exploded with laughter and held his sides. “Pardon me,” he remarked, “but it really is Oh, lord, hold me!” (Explosion renewed.)

Before alighting at the porch of the hotel, Brown called a halt as the other two rose to step down from the wagonette. “Let me take a last shot, please! Do you mind holding the fish up for a moment?” asked he. Snap! and the thing was done.

“Thanks awfully,” said the operator. “That’s my thirteenth shot. Oh, lord, but it is so funny.” And the welkin rang with what seemed to be the mirth of a lunatic. Then Brown wiped the moisture from his eyes and recovered his breath.

“Shall we wet your salmon inside?” asked Grey, very quietly, and with a seriousness not obviously germane to a festive occasion.

“Certainly, why not?” answered its captor, much puzzled.

The three men, the door being shut by Grey, after the maid had left the room, drank to each other. “You’ll take that fly out before you send the salmon away,” said Grey suavely.

“Why should I?” curtly answered the culprit, by this time white-faced enough.

“Well,” was the reply, “I’ll say nothing about your sneaking down and fishing my pool when my back was turned, nor even about your poaching my fish with a big phantom; but we can’t have you make it the text of a discourse on the virtues of fly fishing.”

“The fact is,” added Brown, “I have thirteen snapshots of the whole business, and if they develop as I expect they will, they will make an admirable series under the general title of ’Spinning for Salmon in the Rowan Pool.’ I began with you as you waded in, and finished with you holding up the poached fish with the fly in its mouth. As Grey says, we’ll forgive you the rest, but can’t stand the fly. That means hypocrisy as well as lying.”

The purist was wise enough to say never a word. He jerked out and retained the fly, left the salmon on the floor, walked softly out, and had vanished by next day.