FOREST, LAKE, AND RIVER 



butt too quickly, you perhaps tore the hook out 

 of his delicate mouth. Or, matching his agility 

 and strength against the endurance of your casting- 

 line or the pliability of your trusty rod, he has 

 made shipwreck alike of your tackle and your 

 happiness. Sometimes his leaps are made in such 

 rapid succession that you are fighting your fish 

 alternately in air and water. At others, if he be 

 a large fish, he goes down and sulks like a salmon 

 from the sea. His different methods of defence 

 would appear to indicate that he possesses the 

 combined finesse of the salmon and the bass. 

 When impaled upon the hook, he has not infre- 

 quently been known, in the course of hi§ prodi- 

 gious leaps, to alight in the bottom of the angler's 

 canoe. . . . Whatever the cause may be, there is 

 a vast amount of difference between the sport 

 afforded by different specimens of the fish, often 

 even when they are similar in size and taken out 

 of the same water. Occasionally, but not often, 

 unless it be a very small one, a ouananiche may be 

 hooked and landed without having leaped out of 

 the water at all. Others, again, and sometimes 

 heavy fish, content themselves with leaping and 

 struggling hard and valiantly, but without run- 

 ning out much, if any, line from the reel. These 

 are, of course, exceptional cases ; and the angler 



2JO 



