70 FISHERIMAN'S LURES 



season, the anglers say fish are off feed; and they 

 never try. For generations they have been given 

 to understand that it is useless fishing a purging 

 lake, simply because their limit of enticing baits 

 begins and ends with worm or fly. I hope these 

 chapters will furnish many good remedies worth 

 trying. 

 In other lakes I have found that trout live en- 

 tirely on bottom creepers before they develop 

 into the adult insect state. These creepers are so 

 numerous in certain parts of the lake bottom, 

 that when in an advanced state of growth, finding 

 all food gone, they devour each other. Various 

 species of trout and landlocked salmon at times 

 find a glut of bottom food so numerous that they 

 can feed to suffocation without effort, especially 

 at certain periods when a change from the creeper 

 to winged insect occurs. Lake Champlain is a 

 case in point. Enormous and vast are the clouds 

 of green drakes (known in England as the May- 

 fly, but larger in size) flying over the water every 

 season about the first week in June. Here is the 

 important point: the bass for which the lake is 

 famed have never been known to feed on the glut 

 of surface insects. Doubtless they are gorged 

 with a full share of the creepers taken at the bed 



