seize it. I remember hearing a critic say, “I can't think how Claude gets all those fish. He throws his line across the river; it goes round all in a heap, and when it straightens there is a fish at the end." Claude knew what he was about.

Norway is not always a good school for anglers. A novice will often learn much more by taking a rod on a well-fished river at home, where he will probably be able to watch first-rate performers, and where his gillie will be an expert. Here he may have to puzzle out many problems for himself. Often he will get little information from the ignorant or uncommunicative Norwegian, and there is the barrier of an unknown tongue.

But to the angler who has learnt his craft, and is not in a hurry, this is an unmitigated advantage. He will be his own master, and not the mere creature of a tyrannical servant. The tendency of all sport is to exalt the influence of the professional; but in this unsophisticated country we may still select our own flies, and fish them when and where we think best.

CHAPTER XII

NORWEGIAN FISHING, OLD AND NEW

"We were the first that ever burst

Into that silent sea."

-COLERIDGE, The Ancient Mariner.

THE fisherman who is also bookish (and since the time of Izaak Walton your angler has ever been held to have at least a nodding acquaintance with Literature), will turn with interest to those books which give any account of the adventures of the early pioneers of salmon fishing in Norway. The printed records of their sport are few; and it would interest many of the present generation if the owners of any old fishing diaries would publish the pith of them in the Field or elsewhere.

The first English anglers of whom there is any record visited Norway seventy or eighty years ago. These early adventurers must have had something of the Elizabethan heroes in their blood. An expedition nowadays to fish the great African lakes would be a less arduous

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undertaking than was then a journey to the Namsen, their Mecca. We read of occasional merchant ships sailing for Norwegian ports; but the more certain route was by modious and powerful steam packets to Hamburg"; whence the traveller had before him a long and toilsome journey by road or coasting steamer through Denmark and Sweden to Christiania and thence to Trondhjem.

The earliest book with which I am acquainted, in which may be found any considerable account of salmon fishing in Norway is Belton's "Two Summers in Norway" (London, 1840). In 1837 the author reached Mediaa on the Namsen on the 14th July. According to his account, the river had been unknown to anglers, "until about seven or eight years ago, a couple of Irishmen, who had heard of the fame of the Namsen, penetrated to Fiskum Fos; of which they brought back such a report, that many have been induced to follow their steps. But in 1837, until his arrival, not a single angler had been heard of. He gives an interesting account of the river, and regrets that such a big water can only be fished by harling. "This is doubtless a very killing

method; for if the boat be well managed, the fly can be presented in the most tempting manner to almost every salmon in the river. But on the other hand, it reduces the inexperienced Tyro, and the accomplished Angler, nearly to the same level . . . the hooking a fish depends at least as much upon the boatmen, as the fisherman. This is the great defect of the Namsen, as an angling river." Fishing thirty-one days, he caught 106 salmon and grilse, which together weighed 1558 pounds.

In 1839 Belton returned to Norway. He crossed the Fille-fjeld to Laerdalsören, and unsuccessfully tried the Laerdal River. In the light of the reputation that river has deservedly acquired, it is delightful to read his verdict: "I saw enough to convince me there never can be good angling here, as the bed is too shallow, and the stream too rapid, for salmon to remain long in any of the lower pools." On his arrival at the Namsen he was distressed to find that he was not to have the river to himself, but was obliged to share it with three other English anglers. Also he was annoyed by native "interlopers," many of the peasants having taken to the sport. He had an erroneous idea that

fishing was perfectly unrestricted throughout Norway, and that if he gave half the fish killed to the riparian owners, he was doing a gracious act; and he seems to have been astonished at the rapacity of some of the landowners who did not welcome him on these terms. Little did he foresee the conditions under which his successors fish to-day. This year in thirtythree days fishing he killed 147 salmon and grilse, and nine white trout, together amounting to 1772 pounds.

On leaving the Namsen, Belton visited some of the rivers south of Trondhjem: but it was now September, and his judgment on the Orkla (one of the best rivers in Norway to-day), that it "is not worthy of retaining an angler for even a day from better streams" was given on insufficient grounds. In the Rauma he killed a fish of 21 lb. He describes the river as much netted and full of traps. His remarks on other rivers are mostly at second-hand, and of no great importance, but his book generally is of interest and value as a picture of sport and travel in Norway sixty-five years

ago.

In 1842 Mr. John Milford published "Norway,