I have always sympathised with the author of the lines known as “The Angler’s Prayer,” lines which are not so well known as they deserve to be:
Lord, suffer me to catch a fish-- So large that _even I_ When talking of it afterwards May have no need to lie.
In the spring of 1921 came the tragedy of my life as a fisherman. I had five days’ fishing in the famous river Wye. The river was dead low and my chances of success very small, but I kept steadily at work during the time at my disposal, and on the fourth day had the good fortune, by means of the attractions of a Mar Lodge (size 4/0), to hook a salmon which was not only the largest salmon I had ever seen, but also the largest seen in that year on the beat I was fishing--a most exciting struggle of over an hour terminating in a wild rush of over 100 yards, the wildest rush I, or the keen fisherman I had with me, have ever seen, a grand leap high up into the air of this splendid clean-run fish, and the line came slowly back, the cast having broken a foot from the end. Elsewhere (pp. 12-22, _supra_) I have told of how this splendid fish, no doubt exhausted by the struggle, was shortly afterwards killed by a far greater fisherman than any mere mortal man--an otter. Its estimated weight, as far as could be judged from its remains, was about 40 lb. The day was Friday, April 1, an appropriate day and date for such a catastrophe. In the early part of the following year I received an invitation from the same kindly host to try my luck again in April on the same river, but on another and more famous beat. I gratefully accepted the invitation, and set forth in high hopes and, curiously enough, with a strong sense of expectation, I might almost say the assurance, of great events.
For several days after my arrival the river was so high that fishing was hopeless, but on the morning of April 18, though still high and coloured, it had run down to such an extent as to be in fair condition.