Part 5

It is astonishing how a stag will sometimes acknowledge himself beaten without any fight at all. I remember when stalking at Fealar that I had been trying without success for nearly two hours to get a shot at a big black stag which was in pursuit of a large number of hinds and was constantly on the move, skirmishing with smaller stags and driving them away. Suddenly we heard the sound of great roaring and saw coming from the direction of Mar Forest a huge red stag which evidently had for its objective the hinds who were in charge of the black stag. The newcomer kept running for a short distance and then stopped to roar and grunt. We thought that by running hard we might reach a point near enough to get a shot at him. We accordingly ran as fast as we could in order to try to cut him off, but in vain. Before we could get within shot of him he had passed this point we were making for. As soon as he got within sixty to seventy yards of the black stag, who was waiting and every now and then roaring defiantly in answer to his challenge, the latter seemed suddenly to realize that the contest would be hopeless and turned tail and bolted ignominiously, being pursued only for a short distance by his adversary, who then rounded up the hinds and drove them off.

But to return to my story. We tried to stalk the victorious stag, which seemed to be the best beast in the herd, but found it extraordinarily difficult to get within shot of him. There always seemed to be several hinds in the way, and, as it was now getting towards two o’clock, we decided to have luncheon, in the hope that in the meantime the deer would settle down, and that we should then have a chance at the stag we were after. We did not waste any time over lunch and very soon again had the deer in view. They were still on the move and we followed them for some time. The stag which we were after, which we made out to be a nine-pointer, was evidently much troubled by two other stags only a little smaller than himself, and presently, after chasing away first one and then the other, these three stags were between us and the herd. Now at last it seemed there was some chance of getting a shot at the nine-pointer, but before we could get up to him he began again to chase off the other stags, and then turned, and at a good pace followed the herd which was moving away from us. The other stags then also turned and followed in the same direction, though at a respectful distance from the nine-pointer. Maclennan and I, by running and crawling quickly, gradually diminished the distance between ourselves and the deer, and at last, after a quick run when out of their sight, crawled up a small hill and saw the three stags, the nine-pointer watching the other two. The nine-pointer was nearly 200 yards from us when he suddenly stopped and turned, standing for a moment about three-quarters on. I saw that this was my only chance, as the stags were just on the brow of the hill, and in a few moments would almost certainly be out of sight. I therefore decided to take the chance and fired.

“You have him, sir,” said Maclennan, as the stag, evidently hard hit, disappeared over the brow of the hill. We made our way as fast as we could over the hill, but saw no sign of the stag.

The ground was rocky and very broken, and I felt sure that he could not have gone far, and was lying down hiding himself. We began to search, when suddenly the stag jumped up from under a rock about some eighty yards from us, and after running for about 500 yards farther lay down behind a rock, showing only the point of his horns. I had not shot at him again, as he was end on, and was evidently in such a condition that he could not go very far. We followed up, keeping well out of sight, but found it impossible to get a chance of shooting, so cleverly had he concealed himself. Whilst hesitating as to what would be the best course to take, the stag suddenly got up again and bolted, but this time he gave me a fair chance of a shot, and I killed him before he had gone more than a few yards. On getting up to him, we found that my first shot was not sufficiently forward, but was a raking shot through the body, and the stag could not in any case have gone very far. He was a good beast with a strong horn, and later turned the scale at 16 stone 9 lb. clean. After gralloching the stag, one of the gillies went off to signal to the ponyman; and Maclennan, the other gillie, and I proceeded to work our way back to the lodge, hoping to get another shot on the way home. We soon spied a good stag with a number of hinds, and, after a long stalk, I got a good chance of taking a quick shot at a little over 100 yards and fired. The stag disappeared. Maclennan thought I had hit him, but I was very uncertain, and think I must have shot over him. A long and careful search on the ground, which was very broken, showed nothing. There was no sign of the stag, nor were there any marks of blood to be seen, and I felt satisfied that I must have missed him, though Maclennan and the gillie had thought otherwise.

We again started to work our way back, and had not gone very far before Maclennan suddenly stopped and brought his glass to bear on the face of a hill about half a mile away. He then said there was a stag with a fine wide head lying down, and that we ought to be able to get close to him without difficulty, as the ground was very broken. I proceeded to stalk this stag, and got without great difficulty within about 180 yards of him, when I saw that he was up and looking very suspicious, and that I should have to take my shot as soon as I could. We quickly got the rifle out of the cover, and crawled to another hillock about 100 yards from where the stag was. Arrived there, I pushed the barrels of my rifle over the top of the hillock and slowly raised my head. The stag was standing nearly broadside on, looking straight at me. I fired. There was a thud as the bullet struck him, and he turned and galloped off, disappearing round a corner of the hill. I felt confident that the bullet had gone home; and we found the stag, who had been, as I thought, shot through the heart, lying dead about sixty yards from the place where he had been standing when I fired at him. He was a ten-pointer, and had a fine wide head with a good horn, and when we got him home we found, curiously enough, that his weight was exactly the same as that of the first stag that I had shot--15 stone clean.

Leaving the gillie to gralloch the stag, Maclennan and I now proceeded homewards, keeping a sharp look-out, and presently we saw a considerable number of stags, which were moving across the valley from one hill to another. We saw that if they were not disturbed they would probably cross a little hill not far from us, at a point from which we could, if we moved quickly, get to within shooting distance. So, running and walking quickly, we reached a spot about 140 to 150 yards from the point at which we expected the stags to pass, and arrived just in time. The stags were moving slowly almost broadside to us in single file, and were passing over a little knoll, at which point I had a fine chance of a shot.

“Take the second one, sir,” said Maclennan, who had his glass on them. I was just about to fire when he said: “No, not that one, but the third; he’s better.” Again I was on the point of shooting when Maclennan said: “Wait, sir, wait; take the fifth, he’s the best.” Directly the stag topped the knoll I fired, and he ran a few yards and fell down. On coming up to him I found it necessary to give him another bullet through the neck. We found that this stag was by far the best we had seen that day. He was a royal, in splendid condition, and weighed 17 stone 6 lb. clean. He had a magnificent head, with very thick black horns, and long points with white tips. After gralloching him, and tying a handkerchief to his horns to scare the eagles and foxes, we made our way back to the lodge. I had several good days in the forest subsequently, with one or other of the regular stalkers, but none more enjoyable than this one, in which, without the assistance of a regular stalker, I had the good fortune to kill four stags averaging over 16 stone clean, without heart or liver.

VI

A STALKER’S PERIL

The accident to the head stalker which I mentioned in the preceding article shows that stalking, like almost every other sport, has its dangers, and every one acquainted with the pursuit of deer knows the necessity of exercising great care in approaching them after they have been shot.

A serious accident is, however, very rare, but sometimes even the most experienced stalkers, as in the instance referred to above, incur risks which they ought not to take.

Far more serious than the accident which I have described was one which occurred several years ago, recorded by a former neighbour of mine in the north, the owner of a well-known deer forest. I give the story in his own words, as well as I can remember. “It was late one day in the forest of Fannich, where I was stalking as the guest of one of my relatives who was at that time a tenant of the forest. After a long and difficult stalk, I had succeeded in getting up to the stag and shot it. The stalker, Duncan, an excellent man of long experience, approached the animal to give it the _coup de grâce_, and, with his open knife in his right hand, seized one of the stag’s forelegs with his left. Instantly the stag gave a tremendous plunge and threw Duncan back. The knife went into Duncan’s thigh, and he bled profusely. Both of us made frantic efforts to stop the bleeding, but without avail. The gillie, who was behind, came up, and we did all we could, but having no medical training, or even a knowledge of first aid, were unable to render useful assistance. Duncan got weaker and fainter, and was apparently bleeding to death. He was, however, perfectly cool and collected, said there was no one to blame but himself, that he was awfully careless, and ought never to have taken hold of the stag in the way he did.

“He appeared to be rapidly getting weaker, and said quite quietly that he thought he was dying, and asked me to take some messages for him to his wife and children, and then seemed to be losing consciousness. It was getting dusk, and the gillie urged me not to wait any longer, as I could do no good, and unless I started for the lodge at once I should not be able to find my way. So with a heavy heart I said good-bye to poor Duncan and started homewards. From time to time I turned to look back at the two men, and at last, when I reached the top of the last hill I had to cross before losing sight of them, I turned to take one final glance. When I looked round, however, I was startled to see, close to the place where Duncan had been lying, the figures of two men walking slowly. There was no mistake about it--they were Duncan and the gillie. I ran back again, and found that soon after I left them the bleeding had stopped quite unaccountably, and Duncan, though still very weak, had gradually revived and finally insisted on trying to walk. We persuaded him to rest, and, leaving the gillie beside him, I went back to the lodge as quickly as I could and sent up a pony. Duncan got safely home, and when the doctor saw him he said it was a marvellous escape, for if the knife had gone into Duncan’s thigh two inches from the spot where it entered, nothing could have saved his life.”

VII

THE LUCK OF SALMON FISHING

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.

My host was most kind in wishing to give me every possible chance of getting a good fish, and had arranged that I should take with me his butler, C., a first-rate hand at gaffing salmon, who had been with me in the preceding year when I was so unfortunate, and was very keen to help me to kill a big fish. My host sent me to try, first of all, a pool which had a great reputation. This pool is about a mile long, and has to be fished from a boat, trees and bushes running throughout its entire length along both sides of the bank. My host had the fishing on one side of the river only, and on reaching the head of the pool we found some one fishing from the other side. After waiting until this rod had fished some way down the pool, we began operations. I fished the whole morning with the fly, but with no success, and about half-past one, as the river was still so high, we decided to try the minnow, a much more favourite lure than the fly on this particular river in the spring. At my third cast I got a pull, and was fast in what was obviously a heavy salmon. I never had a more lively fish to deal with. It jumped fourteen times clean out of the water, and, making a constant series of wild rushes, took me at a great pace down the river. Some ladies of our party arrived at the head of the pool about half an hour after I had hooked the fish, and inquired of the fisherman on the other bank whether he had seen anything of me. The reply was, “I saw him fast in a big fish about half an hour ago going round the bend of the river on his way to Hereford.” Though I did not get to Hereford, which was nearly thirty miles distant, the fish took me about three-quarters of a mile down the river before I succeeded in killing it, after over an hour’s battle. It was a beautiful clean-run hen-fish of 21½ lb. By this time it was nearly three o’clock, and after a hasty luncheon we decided to fish down the lower part of the pool. On our way we had to pass a point where C. had seen a fish rising as we came up in the morning. I fished this place with great care, and about my second cast as the minnow swung round I got a pull and hooked the fish. I had a good deal more of my own way with this fish than with the one I had previously killed, and in about twenty minutes it was in the boat. It proved to be another clean-run hen-fish, and weighed 18½ lb. The question now was whether we should fish another pool lower down the river or try the head of the same pool again. I decided in favour of the latter course, and we accordingly rowed up to the top of the pool. It was by this time half-past six. My third cast I was into another fish, which did not show itself for a long time. It took me down the river like the fish I had hooked in the morning, but was not nearly so lively in its movements. It kept low down in the water and adopted boring tactics. After rounding the corner, as my fellow-angler would have said, bound once more for Hereford, the fish made a violent rush and plunge, showing itself to be a very big fish and looking not unlike the fish I had parted company with a year ago. We continued to go steadily down the river, the fish making strong rushes, but keeping down and moving about in a stately, heavy fashion. We gradually reached the spot where we had gaffed the 21½-pounder in the morning, our movements being watched by the ladies of our party from the opposite bank. The fish showed little sign of giving in, and about 8 P.M. the spectators on the bank, seeing no likelihood of the battle being ended at present, went home. About ten minutes later the fish began to show unmistakable signs of exhaustion. After it had turned on its side two or three times, I managed to bring it near the boat, which C. had moored near the bank. Just before the fish came within reach of the gaff it made another short rush, and once more turned on its side. Again I coaxed the great fish towards the boat. Nearer and nearer he came, and then in a moment C. had the gaff in him, and with a mighty effort lifted him into the boat. The fish was a cock-fish, and weighed 38½ lb. After examining him we came to the conclusion that he was about the same size as the one I had lost in the preceding year, but probably longer. He had evidently been wounded in his side by a seal a fortnight previously, and though this wound had healed, it must have caused the fish to lose several pounds’ weight. When hung up beside the other fish of 21½ lb. and 18½ lb. he looked huge, and had the advantage of some inches over my little grandson, who was nearly five years old. His length was 50½ inches and girth 24 inches, and had it not been for the wound inflicted by the seal he would, no doubt, have turned the scale well over 40 lb. So ended what was for me a day never to be forgotten. I had six more days’ fishing, and killed five more fish, two of them with the fly. The other five fish weighed 22½ lb., 17½ lb., 17½ lb., 16½ lb., and 15½ lb. respectively.

Strange that I should have had such good luck. Strange, surely, that though others far more skilful and experienced than I am should have fished the same beats in that river and fished many more days than I did in each year, such a great fish should have come my way in two successive Aprils, on each occasion by far the largest seen or heard of in the season on the beat in question. An old friend of mine, who has fished the same river for many years, and is an angler of great experience and success, told me that he has never killed any fish in that river or anywhere else larger than 25 lb. Surely, indeed, I was the spoilt child of the fishing deities.

At the close of this red-letter day two thoughts crossed my mind--first, whether the fact that so many of my kind friends had earnestly wished that I might on this occasion kill a fish as large as the one I had lost a year ago had really been a factor in my good luck. Who can tell? The other thought which crossed my mind last year also when the great fish parted company with me was that every fisherman must surely be “a man that fortune’s buffets and rewards has ta’en with equal thanks.” Yet, as one of the keenest fishermen and gillies I have ever known, and who has now gone to his long home, used to say, “It’s easy talking and no easy doing.”

A few days later my host added still more to my indebtedness to him by giving one of my daughters, who had never killed a salmon, though a very successful angler for big trout, the chance of trying the river.

On her first and second days she drew a blank, but on the third day killed three fish weighing 20 lb., 19 lb., and 15 lb., all on the same fly, a silver doctor. Who says there is nothing in luck? The day I killed my big fish was the third day in the third week of the third month of the fishing season; he was the third fish killed on that day, and I hooked him at my third cast. My daughter killed her three fish on the third day she was fishing. Well might Falstaff (_Merry Wives of Windsor_, Act V., Sc. 1) say: “This is the third time--I hope luck lies in odd numbers.” My daughter’s performance was far more satisfactory in every way than mine, for fishing with the fly is, of course, incomparably superior to fishing with the minnow--at least, nearly every angler I have met says so. I venture to think, however, that my friend, Arthur Chaytor, K.C., one of the most accomplished and skilful of salmon fishers, in his delightful book, _Letters to a Salmon-Fisher’s Sons_, is altogether too severe in his castigation of minnow-fishing. “Avoid minnow-fishing for salmon,” he says (page 89), “as a canker that will eat into some of the very best days of your fly-fishing.” But need it do so? “It is a dangerous thing for you to begin its use.”

Then in a most entertaining passage he describes how “the river has cleared and has become perfect for the fly. It ought to be a tip-top day, but you are tempted of the devil to try just for an hour the phantom minnow ... and then you go on with the minnow all the day long ... dragging out the fish ... and at the end of the day feeling that you have been rather a butcher than a fisherman and that you might almost as well have used a net.” This means, of course, that success in minnow-fishing is simply a matter of luck, and does not depend on the fisherman’s skill. In a later passage he describes in most forcible and amusing language “the relapse to minnow, when after a good day minnowing you find next morning that the water is right for the fly and you resolve to make it a day of fly only. You put on your best fly and you begin, full of hope. For an hour or two you cover much water without a single rise, and you begin to doubt whether the fish mean to take at all to-day. Soon, just to see whether they will move at all, you put up the spinning-rod just merely to have one try down the pool. A fish takes the accursed thing and you are lost. Abandoning all sense of decency, you pursue the horrible craft, and at dusk you stagger back to the fishing-hut with half a dozen great fish upon your back and with your conscience hanging about the neck of your heart, which keeps on protesting in vain that this was really no day for the fly.”

Even Chaytor, however, admits that “in a cold, wet season, when the river is in flood for weeks together, with only odd days when fishing is possible, the minnow can be really and legitimately useful.” On the other hand, in contrast to the above warnings and diatribes, Mr. J. Arthur Hutton, who is so well known, particularly in connection with the Wye, and is, of course, a most experienced and successful salmon fisher, as well as one of the most learned in the life-history of the salmon, describes spinning for salmon as “a form of fishing requiring a very large amount of skill and experience which may provide one with sport on those many occasions when the fly is useless ... a fine art which requires much practice and long experience, far more so than fly-fishing.” “For every good hand with the spinning-rod,” he says, “you may find twenty who are excellent fly-fishermen.”