108 FISHERMAN'S LURES 



surprise to us. I have found in the right water 

 that rainbows far exceed in brilhant aggressiveness 

 either the ouananiche or bass; their movements 

 are more rapid and their leaps more frequent. 



I am perhaps unusually fortunate in fishing 

 water where, in the matter of leaping, the brown 

 trout is a good second to the rainbow, but there 

 are many who hold contrary opinions to this, 

 especially bass admirers, some of whom have 

 gone so far as to make positive assertions that 

 brown trout don't leap at all; that they are lazy, 

 fat, cannibalistic, ugly brutes — and so on. They 

 are w^elcome to that view. For many years up 

 to this day my experience has been that with 

 the brown trout I am well pleased to fight 

 any time — -and be assured I like the game of 

 fighting fish, and shall as long as I live. My habit 

 has been to make records of what each fish does 

 in the matter of gamy display, and the finest 

 record I have is of a brown trout of fifteen inches, 

 caught on a shad -fly the 13th of May, leaping 

 above the surface eleven times before being brought 

 to net. It is a common occurrence for them to 

 leap four and five times. I shall be pleased to have 

 any sceptical expert accompany me any time 

 the last week in May to this water and see for 



