"Come up," I commanded, and I rapped hard on my rod with my jack-knife.
"Stop that," he yelled in anguish.
"Then come up and make like a fish," I said.
He sank deeper instead, to show me who was boss. "Look, let's talk this over," he suggested. "You seem a mite smarter than the other yokels who hooked me. I've cussed out a lot of fishermen in my day, but how come you can understand my lingo?"
Well, I wasn't going to be tricked into tipping him off about the fish-spotter. His contemptuous tone and calm decision to reduce a magnificent battle to a cheap dicker infuriated me.
I pointed out, "You aren't in a position to ask questions and bargain. You are the largest piece of fish-flesh I have ever tied into, and I'm here to fish, not bicker. If you want free, get to work. You'll never get hung up on lighter fishing gear than this." I knocked on the rod some more.
He came up a little with each knock, yelling, "NO, NO! Stop! So okay, it's a light rod. Why knock off the varnish?"
"I'm here for sport, not arguments," I repeated.
"Sport!" he sneered. "You call murder sport?"
Non-fishermen have advanced this point before to no avail, but the steelhead made it sound strangely convincing. "What chance," I demanded defensively, "did you give all those little trout that you ate? Was that sporting?"
"Small fry," he scoffed. "Not worth mentioning." I rapped hard, and he boiled about the surface for a moment, then he sank to the depths again muttering to himself, "Slow down, big boy. Don't be a fool! That's what he wants you to do."
I kept on rapping on the rod, and he finally yelled at me with furious candor. "You're driving me nuts!"
"Looks like you can't take it," I taunted. He eased up to the surface slowlying trying to take the strain off and cussing me every quart of the way.
Darned if he didn't surface, but just beyond my net. Then he swam off a bit and doubled back on me, which forced me to drop my knife and take in line in a hurry to keep from giving him dangerous slack. He moved up almost within reach of my net again, and I didn't like the way he was hooked through the lip. His scarred jaws showed where other hopefuls had snagged him. One good shake of his
