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long and several in width. The boat 
being stationed to suit the veteran 
cisco angler, Mr. A. S Alfred, who ac- 
companied us, he put his hand into a 
large cigar case and took from it sev- 
eral handfuls of the June flies, which, 
though alive, were inert, and cast them 
out at more or less distances from the 
boat. In about three minutes the 
water was alive with rising and feeding 
ciscoes, and yet not a fish could be seen 
before our ‘‘ bread was cast upon the 
waters.". We now saw the ciscoes 
everywhere, and could plainly see them 
many feet below the surface, as when 
they rose their pearly sides were burn- 
ished by the gleam and glint of the 
rays of the afternoon sun. 
We were all ready with our tackle, 
and soon engaged in lifting this beauty 
fish into the boat, and during the hour 
we fished the strife of emulation was 
fast and furious, and we caught about 
too of them. Among the forty boats, 
which contained not more than sev- 
enty-five fishermen, the score aggre- 
gated 3,200 ciscoes, or eighty to a boat, 
forty-three to each rod, and the fishing 
is generally done only in the afternoon 
hours. Not a fish in this case was 
wasted. The citizens of Lake Geneva 
yearn for this delicate food, and cheer- 
fully pay from 50 cents to $1 per pound 
for it, the price being regulated by the 
supply; it is an expensive dish, as the 
ciscoes will, we think, average only 
about six to the pound, and if you get 
a taste of one—which, to our tongue, 
seemed like the delicate oyster flavor 
of the renowned pompano—you will not 
halt in eating less than a full pound. 
Again, many of the freshly-caught fish 
are sent to fishing friends in Chicago 
and other adjacent cities, where they 
are much prized, owing to their scarcity, 
arising from erratic habits in feeding. 
The American Angler 
Mr. Alfred used a light Japanese 
cane rod, about thirteen feet long, and 
no reel; a light line the same length 
as the rod, no leader and a hook, if we 
mistake not, about the size of a No. 8 
Sproat, baited with one or more live 
flies. This was regulation cisco tackle, 
and he would cast the length of the 
line from the boat, skimming the sur- 
face with the flies, soon quickly taken 
by a fish, which was lifted gently but 
speedily into the boat, into which five 
out of six of the ciscoes would fall, un- 
hooking themselves. This extreme 
delicacy of the mouth caused the loss of 
many fish, and we noticed that the 
most experienced of the cisco anglers 
lifted the fish from the water with 
great gentleness, and so directed the 
course of the hooked quarry that it 
would strike the fishermen in the breast 
or body, and then fall from its own 
weight off the hook and into the boat, 
thereby saving the fish and time of un- 
hooking them, should they chance to 
be fastened in the nose or front of upper 
lip, in which case we noted that they 
were invariably safely hooked. 
We used our 334 ounce, 8% feet 
Nichols’ rod, which we prize beyond 
all others we have, because of its ex- 
cellence and of our friend, the genial 
maker, B. F. Nichols, long since out of 
business, and we thought the delicate 
spring of this rod was much more effi- 
cacious in saving the fragile-mouthed 
ciscoes than the Japanese rods in use, 
although our score was much less than 
that of Mr. Alfred, owing to our inex- 
perience in catching this particular fish. 
In order to test the tenderness of the 
mouth, and the assertion of the native 
fishermen that the cisco would take the 
natural better than the artificial fly, and 
that they could not be played and killed, 
like other salmonoids on light tackle, 
