LAKE SUPERIOR. 107 



the lake, and towards evening the river near its 

 mouth was alive with them, breaking in every di- 

 rection ; yet, strange to say, although we cast our 

 flies frequently directly over them, and kept on fish- 

 ing till it was night, not a trout did we take. In 

 all our experience such a thing had never happened, 

 and where they were so numerous, a dozen often 

 being visible at the same instant, so voracious and 

 unaccustomed to the presence of man, it was extra- 

 ordinary. Fish will frequently, although breaking 

 freely, refuse the fly, but generally a few will be 

 misled, and occasionally one will be caught ; but 

 here in the Agavva, a hundred miles from civiliza- 

 tion, we saw ten thousand trout in the space of five 

 hundred yards, and after expending skill and pa- 

 tience, failed to take a single one. 



No explanation of this phenomenon presented 

 itself; there was nothing in the air, water, or time 

 of day to explain it, and although it was followed 

 during the night by a great change of temperature, 

 there would appear to be no connection between 

 the two events. The fish seemed to be playing 

 rather than feeding like salmon running in from 

 the sea ; and, anticipating cooler weather, may have 

 been preparing to ascend the river. And it is 

 proper to mention here that two gentlemen, who 

 fished tiie river a few weeks afterwards, had remark- 

 ably fine sport. 



Fishing having proved itself vanity and flies a niis- 

 conceptiQn, we returned to the tent and superin- 

 tended the payment of the guides, by impressing 



