Through Arctic Lapland by Cutcliffe Hyne — Read

The salmon fisheries of the Neiden River are jealously guarded assets. Some are held by riparian proprietors whose rights go to the imaginary line of mid-stream. These are Norwegians and Finns for the most part, though they might be Hebrews from the carefulness with which they strive not to be defrauded of a single fish. And the balance is State's land, rented out in the usual way. Nets are abundant, set out to stakes, with one end on shore; but rod-fishing is growing commoner. The local rod-fisherman, however, is but a crude production. His "pole" is comely enough, though heavy, but he persists in fishing a colossal fly of the "Jock Scott" order, ten times too big, and he uses it as though the water were a gong and the salmon could be attracted only by noise. Once hooked, the fish either breaks him or is jerked skyward like a silver bird. He would not play a whale; he does not know that such a process exists.

The Neiden fisherman goes out in a canoe, and his wife or a friend poles him in or about the rapids. The fish do not run big -- a twenty-pounder is rare -- but there are plenty of them, and the local artist annexes just as many as a very green amateur has any right to expect. Salmon-fishing to him has much the same interest as mowing swamp-grass for his cows, or cutting cord-wood for the winter: it is part of the daily labour, and it never occurs to him to look upon it as a sport. In fact the item of "sport" has been left out of his education; he looks with suspicion on any one who hankers after it; and, as a consequence, asks prices for using a rod on his bit of a stream which would be dear on the Namsen or any other crack salmon rivers of accessible Western Norway. It is not that he is averse to fingering the kroner note. On the contrary, he has a very great affection for money. But he has an exalted notion of the value of things, and, moreover, he is woodenly conservative.