With Gun ^ Rod in Canada 



Surreptitiously rifling my tackle-box, I unearthed a 

 large silver minnow with a single fish-hook, two and a 

 half inches long, through its tail, I also found a couple 

 of old wollopers of swivelled spoons, each armed with a 

 gang of hooks and a feather duster. The guy that made 

 these ostensible weapons of offence against finny sports 

 either had an optimistic imagination, or had in mind 

 some such fish as those I was going after. Down in the 

 boat-house I found a piece of braided copper wire, left 

 by some sportsman who had been doing deep trolling 

 for the big August trout. Tying a piece of salmon line 

 on to four or five feet of this copper leader, I looped 

 it around my foot, wrapped a bit of the line around a 

 hammer handle, and pulled. The line broke about six 

 inches from where it was tied in the loop of the copper. 

 I should judge that I pulled some thirty-five or forty 

 pounds before the line parted. I was satisfied that if 

 I could hook one of the big fish, I could hold him with 

 the help of a drifting boat. 



The next afternoon I sneaked off in a little sixteen- 

 foot power launch. Arriving on the scene of the adven- 

 ture of the previous night, I rigged up the short, power- 

 ful steel rod, tied the copper leader to my salmon line, 

 tied the silver minnow and giant hook on to that, then 

 hooked on a six-inch speckled trout for bait. Just before 

 sunset I made the first cast standing up in the stern of 

 the motor-boat. 



The bait struck the water some eighty feet away. 

 I let it sink below the surface and then reeled slowly in. 

 When it was about forty feet from the boat one of the 

 big fish took it under water. I set the hook with a 

 sharp jerk and the fish started straight down the channel. 

 For all I know he is going yet. When the line was all off 

 the reel it broke, luckily near the fish. The boat had 

 no time to accumulate any headway, and I could not put 



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