There was no more to be said or done, except to hunt for another fly in the trout fly-book.  Here there was no such thing, but a local spectator offered me a huge fly, more like a gaff, and equipped with a large iron eye for attaching the gut to.  Withal I suspect this weapon was meant, not for fair fishing, but for “sniggling.”  Now “sniggling” is a form of cold-blooded poaching.  In the open water, on the Ettrick, you may see half a dozen snigglers busy.  They all wear high wading trousers; they are all armed with stiff salmon-rods and huge flies.  They push the line and the top joints of the rod deep into the water, drag it along, and then bring the hook out with a jerk.  Often it sticks in the side of a salmon, and in this most unfair and unsportsmanlike way the free sport of honest people is ruined, and fish are diminished in number.  Now, the big fly may have been an honest character, but he was sadly like a rake-hook in disguise.  He did not look as if an fish could fancy him.  I, therefore, sent a messenger across the river to beg, buy, or borrow a fly at “The Nest.”  But this pretty cottage is no longer the home of the famous angling club, which has gone a mile or two up the water and builded for itself a new dwelling.  My messenger came back with one small fatigued-looking fly, a Popham, I think, which had been lent by some one at a farmhouse.  The water was so heavy that the small fly seemed useless; however, we fastened it on as a dropper, using the sniggler as the trail fly; so exhausted were our resources, that I had to cut a piece of gut off a minnow tackle and attach the small fly to that.  The tiny gut loop of the fly was dreadfully frayed, and with a heavy heart I began fishing again.  My friend on the opposite side called out that big fish were rising in the bend of the stream, so thither I went, stumbling over rocks, and casting with much difficulty, as the high overgrown banks permit no backward sweep of the line.  You are obliged to cast by a kind of forward thrust of the arms, a knack not to be acquired in a moment.  I splashed away awkwardly, but at last managed to make a straight, clean cast.  There was a slight pull, such as a trout gives in mid-stream under water.  I raised the point, and again the reel sang aloud and gleefully as the salmon rushed down the stream farther and faster than the first.  It is a very pleasant thing to hook a salmon when you are all alone, as I was then—­alone with yourself and the Goddess of Fishing.  This salmon, just like the other, now came back, and instantly began the old tactics of heavy plunging tugs.  But I knew the gut was sound this time, and as I fancied he had risen to the sniggler, I had no anxiety about the tackle holding.  One more plunge, and back came the line as before.  He was off.  One could have sat down and gnawed the reel.  What had gone wrong?  Why, the brute had taken the old fly from the farmhouse and had snapped the loop that attaches the gut.  The little loop was still on the fragment of minnow tackle which fastened it to the cast.