CHAPTER II. 



FOURTH OR MILTIMORE LAKE. MY FIRST CATFISH. 



Fourth or Miltimore Lake, located half a mile south 

 of Sand Lake Hotel, is undoubtedly the best fishing 

 lake of any in the Fox Lake region. It is practically two 

 lakes divided by a spit of land with a narrow channel 

 joining them. During a dry spell this channel dries up 

 and the upper and lower portions of Fourth Lake really 

 become two separate pieces of water without any 

 connecting waterway. 



Fourth Lake, from its location and diversified sur- 

 roundings, offers finer fishing water for the angler 

 and better facilities for success during those un- 

 favorable times when fish are off feed than can be 

 found in any other sheet of water with which I am 

 acquainted. It is rare, indeed, for the man who fishes 

 Fourth Lake during those months comprised in the 

 ordinary fishing season to have an entirely blank day; 

 patient research invariably will reveal some pocket 

 or corner at one end or another of the lake which will 

 yield a few bass or pickerel. 



The surroundings of Fourth Lake are such as to 

 permit of a lee shore, no matter in which direction the 

 wind may blow. At the lower end of the lake a 

 chilly wind may cool the water and roughen its sur- 

 face with heavy waves, sending the fish into the 

 deeper portions far away from the angler's reach, 

 yet the water at the upper or north end will be found 

 to have experienced no change of temperature, owing 

 to the protecting influence of the wooded ground sur- 

 rounding it. In fact, it may be generally said of Fourth 

 Lake that if the fish are not feeding in one portion 

 they are pretty sure to do so in another. 



The two finest pickerel grounds in the lake are those 



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