Forgotten Treasures # 24: ETCHINGS ON A SALMON STREAM

dammit all!!! I mean, we've got neffian nefariousness, international
apoplexy and intrigue, diagnostic and prescriptive dilemmas, impudence,
ad hominems, and downright, outright spelling seizures taking place
here...and you return with this stuff??? jeez...

but...thanks, good to have you back. g

jeff (um...i trust you haven't been off in some kind of electro-shock
therapy of any kind.)

Wolfgang wrote:
ETCHINGS ON A SALMON STREAM*

By CHARLES HALLOCK

____________________________________

I suppose that all that can be instructively written of the salmon has
already been said. The processes of natural and artificial propagation have
become familiar to all who desire to learn; the secrets of their periodical
migrations--their advents and their absences--have been fathomed from the
depths of ocean; their form and beauty have been lined by the artist's
brush, and their flavor (in cans) is known to all the world where commerce
spreads her wings. And yet, the subject always carries with it a perennial
freshness and piquancy, which is renewed with each recurring spring, and
enlivened by every utterance which attempts to make it vocal; just as the
heavenly choirs repeat the anthem of the constructed universe intoned to the
music of the assenting spheres! The enthusiasm which constantly invests it
like a halo has not been dissipated or abated by the persistent pursuit of
many centuries, albeit the sentiments of to-day are but the rehearsal of the
original inspiration, and present knowledge the hereditary outcome of
ancient germs.

All down the ages echo has answered echo, and the resounding rocks have
transmitted orally the accented annals wherever the lordly salmon swims.

Now, hold rhapsody, and let us look to the river! Do you mark the regal
presence in yonder glinting pool, upon which the sun flashes with an
intensity which reveals the smallest pebble on the bottom? Nay? You cannot
see that salmon, just there at the curl of the rapid? Nor his knightly
retinue drawn up there abreast just behind him in supporting position?
Then, my friend, you are indeed a novice on the river, and the refraction of
the solar rays upon its surface blinds your unaccustomed eyes. Well, they
do certainly look but shadows in the quiet pool, so motionless and
inanimate, or but counterfeiting the swaying of the pensile rock-weeks of
the middle stream. What comfortable satisfaction of foreboding premonitions
do you imagine possess the noble lord while he is taking his recuperative
rest in the middle chamber, after passing from his matriculation in the sea?
Faith! you can almost read his emotions in the slow pulsations of his
pectoral fins, and the inflection of his throbbing tail! Perhaps he shrinks
from the barricade of rock and foam before him; or hesitates to essay the
royal arch above the gorge, which reflects in prismatic hues of emblematic
glory the mist and mysteries of the unattempted passage.

And his doughty squires around him; do they share his misgivings, or are
they all royal bloods together, sans peur sans reproche, in armature of blue
and silver, eager to attain the land of promise and the ultimate degree of
revelation? Ah! the way is indeed beset with difficulties and crucial
tests, but its end is joy and the fulness of knowledge: and "knowledge is
the beginning of life."

Let us go nearer, and with caution. Ha! what flash was that across the
pool, so swift and sudden that it seemed to begin and end at once? It sped
like a silver arrow across the line of sight, but it was not a silver arrow;
only the salmon on his route up stream, at the rate of 90 miles per hour.
Were it not for the obstructions of the cascades and the long rapids, and
perchance the wicked set-nets of the fishermen, it would not take him long
to accomplish his journey to the head of the stream, and there prepare for
the spawning-beds. But were the way to procreation made thus easy, and
should all the salmon of a season's hatching survive, they would stock their
native rivers so full in a couple of years that there would be no room for
them. So the sacrifice of life is necessary that life may continue.
Strange the paradox!

I love to see the salmon leap in the sunlight on the first flood of "June
rise," and I love to hear his splash in the darkness of the still night,
when the place where he jumped can be determined only by the sound, unless
perchance his break in the water disturbed the reflection of a star. I have
stood on heights afar off at the opening of the season, ere my unconsecrated
rod had chance to exercise its magic, or my lips and feet to kiss the river,
and with the combined exhilaration of impatience, desire, and joy, watched
the incessant spurts of silvery spray until my chained and chafed spirit
almost broke at the strain, and I have lain on my couch at midnight
sleepless and kept awake by the constant splash of the salmon leaps. More
interesting, if not so stimulating, is the leap of the salmon at obstructing
falls, with the air filled with dozens of darting, tumbling, and falling
fish--the foam dashing and sparkling in the sun, the air resonant with roar,
damp with the ever-tossing spray. Nay, mo I have seen a fall whose
breast was an unbroken sheet thirty feet perpendicular, inclosed by lateral
abutments of shelving crags which had been honey-combed by the churning of
the water in time of flood; and over these crags the side-flow of the falls
ran in struggling rivulets, filling up the holes and providing little
reservoirs of temporary rest, and refreshment for the running salmon, and I
have actually seen and caught with my hands a twelve-pound salmo which had
worked its way nearly to the counterscarp of the topmost ledge in its almost
successful effort to surmount a barrier so insuperable! Surely, the example
of such consummate pertinacity should teach men to laugh at average
obstacles which stand in the pathway of their ambition!

I always become enthusiastic over the rugged grandeur of some Canadian
rivers with which I am familiar.

We have no such rivers in our own domain, except on the Pacific slope; and
except in parts of Scotland and Norway, the streams of Europe must be tame
in comparison. It is because so few of our own anglers have the experience
to enable them to draw contrasts, that they do not more appreciate the charm
of salmon fishing. Even a vivid description fails to enforce the reality
upon their comprehension, and they remain listless and content with smaller
game. Beyond the circumscribed horizon of grass-meadows and the mountain
trout streams of New England and the Blue Ridge their vision does not reach.
There is a higher plane both of eminence and art.

Opportunely for man's periodical proclivities, nature has given to salmon
and green peas a vernal flavor and adaptation to each other, as well as to
his desires, so that, when the spring comes around they act directly on his
liver, expelling all the effete accumulations of winter, stimulating the
action of the nerves and brain, and imparting an irresistible desire to go
a-fishing. They oil the hinges of the tongue and keep it wagging until
June. When that auspicious, leafy month arrives, not all the cares of State
will hold a President, Vice-President, or even Vice-Regent, from taking his
annual outing on the salmon streams. Representatives of royalty and
representatives of republicanism join sympathies and hands. The
Governor-General of Canada sails to his favorite river in a government
vessel with her officers in full panoply of brass buttons and navy-blue.
The President of the United States abandons the well-worn star routes for
more congenial by-paths. Wealthy Americans in private yachts steam away to
the tributaries of the St. Lawrence, and clubs cross lines in their
exclusive casting grounds. The humbler citizen, with more limited purse,
betakes his solitary way to the rehabilitated streams of Maine, enjoys fair
sport, and while he fishes, thanks the indefatigable Fish commissioners of
the state for the good work which they have accomplished.

So everybody is happy, and nobody is left out; and therefore so long as the
season lasts--Hurrah for salmon and Green Peas, and vive la Salmo Salar!


END, ETCHINGS ON A SALMON STREAM.

Wolfgang
_____________________________________
*From "Fishing With The Fly: Sketches of the Art, with Illustrations of
Standard Flies, Collected by Charles F. Orvis & A. Nelson Chaney,"
H.R. Nims & Company, 1885.

This work is in the public domain. To the best of my knowledge, its
inclusion here violates no U. S. or other copyright laws.

On 11-Aug-2008, Jeff wrote:

ammit all!!! I mean, we've got neffian nefariousness, international
apoplexy and intrigue, diagnostic and prescriptive dilemmas, impudence,
ad hominems, and downright, outright spelling seizures taking place
here...and you return with this stuff??? jeez...


You forgot the " rockin' pneumonia and the boogie woogie too"

"Jeff" wrote in message
m...
dammit all!!! I mean, we've got neffian nefariousness, international
apoplexy and intrigue, diagnostic and prescriptive dilemmas, impudence, ad
hominems, and downright, outright spelling seizures taking place
here...and you return with this stuff??? jeez...

Yeah, it's pretty much exemplary of typcial of self-inflated, florid,
nineteenth century fly-fishing elitist crap but hey, I've never been one to
impose my own tastes on the reading public.

but...thanks, good to have you back. g

Um.......I was gone?

jeff (um...i trust you haven't been off in some kind of electro-shock
therapy of any kind.)

Uh oh.

Wolfgang
who begins to think that reading before signing may not be such a bad idea
after all.