CAGE'S SPRING-HOLE. MY "ma TROUT." 249 



mother kisses her sleeping infant. Instantly a half-pounder 

 sprang liercely at the Hies. I nervously struck so hard 

 that, alas! my rod broke. Fish, Hies, leader and line went 

 whizzing away. Seizing the slender fragment of my rod 

 in ono hand, and manipulating the line with the other, I 

 succeeded in landing the lish. The rod was a new one, 

 hitherto untried, and a poor butt had succumbed. Untan- 

 gling the snarl, ! speedily took and rigged my old rod, tried 

 in many a tussle with bass as well as trout, a rod that once 

 took twelve ba^s in |jve casts, and was ready again. 



Quietly landing upon Hi" point between the streams, with 

 open ground behind me. again I launched the leader and 

 line out over the water; and as the (lies settled down, up 

 leaped the ti-Miii, two and three at a time. Nearly every 

 cast tor a few exciting moments, they might have been 

 many or few so I'ar as my ol-er\ ai ion recorded them 

 brought to ha-ket one or two tish. Finally, tiring of qu.-ir 

 ter and half-pounders, 1 put in practice somebody's old 

 precept that " for big tish use larire Hies." 



Seai-cliinu in my fly -book. 1 found an outrageously large 

 red and -while winged, purple bodied and tinsel-wound 

 bass llv. and attached it to the end of my leader, and cast. 

 Julius < '.-e<ai ! What a rise! I couldn't help it, I knew 

 well enough it wasn't "good fishing," but I struck as 

 if 1 had been shot, and sent the lly forty feet behind me 

 in a Hash. (Jently. jcnlly 1 " said I to m\ heating heart 

 and tingling nerves; and then, with trembling expectancy 

 but with all my skill, laid the big fly right amidst the bub- 

 bles left by the mad leap and roll. Again the open jaws 



