A LARGE RIVER-TROUT. 7 



the adventure closely locked in my bosom (selfishness 

 again). About the hour that the sun began to dip 

 behind the giant pines, I had made up my mind to the 

 course I would pursue, which was to take my pet rod, 

 mount a cast of two flies, and carefully whip the pool from 

 end to end. As if it were but yesterday, I remember 

 distinctly the flies. The trail one was ginger-coloured 

 cock's hackle, with light corn-crake wing, tipped with 

 silver ; the dropper a large-sized moth. 



"For work at that hour," I hear some internally 

 mutter, " the moth did the business." No, it did not ; 

 cock's hackles of all shades may invariably be backed 

 against the field, and the cock's hackle on this occasion 

 kept up its reputation. Down on my knees in the bow of 

 the canoe, the camp-keeper holding her back by a pole in 

 the stern, slowly and cautiously I fished the throat, from 

 thence down into the less angry but wider-spread current, 

 when just as my flies passed over an eddy that divided the 

 downward flow from the back-water, there was a splash 

 rapidly responded to by a nervous quick movement of the 

 wrist, which planted the hook firmly home. I doubt if T 

 exaggerate, in fact I think I scarcely state enough, when I 

 say that thirty minutes elapsed before my trophy could 

 sufficiently endure the sight of a landing-net to have it 

 placed under him. Thus was taken the largest river trout 

 (Salmo fontinalis] I ever caught. But to my rod; it was 

 made out of cedar from butt to tip, did not exceed nine 

 ounces, and was the most lively, quick, light casting 

 treasure I ever used. Cedar fly-rods I have heard objected 

 to, because they are brittle ; doubtless you may find them 



