FISHING IN THE AMERICAN LAKES. 461 



Those who are contented with trout of more ordinary 

 size will find plenty of splendid fishing in North Ame- 

 rica. Speaking of the fishing at Sault St. Marie, Mr. 

 Lanman says, " We have known two fishermen to spend 

 an entire day at one anchorage and capture more than 

 a cartload of the spotted beauties, varying in weight 

 from half a pound to three or four pounds." * The 

 spoon fishing in Lake Superior is also splendid at times. 



"Large fish abound in this great Lake (Lake Superior) and 

 the largest trout are caught by it (the spoon). The size to 

 which the fish grow in that inland sea is likewise remarkable. 

 Mr. Mackenzie, the officer in charge of the Hudson Bay 

 Company's post at Fort William, took a trout in a net at the 

 close of the fishing season of 1858, which weighed eighty 

 pounds, and a French half-breed caught one of nearly the 

 same dimensions." f 



An idea of the splendid fishing to be had here may 

 be gathered from the report of the fishery overseer for 

 the district of Lakes Huron and Superior for 1859, 

 from which it appears that in September 1858 John 

 Finlayson, a subordinate officer at Fort William, with 

 a common spoon caught, in two and a half hours 

 while paddling four miles along the coast between 

 Pigeon River and Big Trout Bay, seventy-four trout 

 averaging five pounds each, till he was tired of pull- 

 ing them in, and said he could have filled his canoe 

 two or three times over; and on September 2yth 1859, 

 on the shoals between Horse and Yeo Islands, Joseph 

 Tondeaux with a common spoon and a railway spike 

 for a sinker, caught while sailing, one hundred and 

 fifty -two trout in six hours. They averaged eight pounds 



* Adventtires in the Wilds of North America, by Charles Lanman, 

 1854, p. 251. 



\ See Professor H. G. Hind's Travels in Labrador, 1863, Vol. i., p. 267. 



