HASTINGS LAKE. 53 



wading, for if a deep hole is inadvertently stepped into 

 and the waders fill (which in nine cases out of ten they 

 will do), the buoyancy of the collar will keep the head 

 above the water until a foothold can be reached. 



After rigging up iny rod I found I had left my spoon 

 at home. This was a poser. There I was, on the most 

 magnificent stretch of water that ever greeted an 

 angler's vision, without the means of fishing it. How- 

 ever, I concluded to try something; so rigging up a 

 large pickerel gang of four treble hooks mounted on 

 a twisted snell of salmon gut, each treble about two 

 inches apart, I selected the biggest of the rainbow 

 trout from my creel a fish weighing nearly a pound 

 and rigged it with the pickerel gang in just the same 

 manner as though I was about to spin for pickerel 

 with a small minnow. 



When all was ready I cautiously waded into the 

 pool almost to the top of my waders, and swaying the 

 heavy bait made so long a cast that, instead of entering 

 the water, it lodged 011 a ledge of rock a little above the 

 surface on the opposite side. I allowed it to remain 

 there a few moments and then gently pulled it off into 

 the water, which it entered in a quiet, noiseless man- 

 ner with scarcely a splash to mark its submersion. I 

 commenced to reel in gently, and almost before I had 

 made half a dozen turns of the reel handle a long 

 brownish object appeared to rise from the bottom 

 like a lightning flash and seize it, tightening the line 

 and bending my rod nearly double. Almost simultane- 

 ously with this happening, the brownish object sud- 

 denly ceased its pull, and before I could sufficiently 

 collect my thoughts it shot across the pool toward me 

 and came full tilt against my legs, knocking me head 

 over heels into the watei. 



I was next aware of a sharp prick in the calf of my 

 leg, of something hanging thereon and frantically 

 struggling to detach itself, and when I recovered a 

 precarious foothold at the end of the pool to which I 

 had been swept by the rapid rush of water, I looked 



