246 LINES IN PLEASANT PLACES 



preserved the skin and brought it home as a specimen, 

 so long and gaunt was it, so different from our deep- 

 bodied English pike, to which it otherwise bore, of 

 course, a close family resemblance. This conclusion I 

 arrived at by the aid of a suggestion from A. when it 

 was too late ; and some day I must try and catch a 

 still finer specimen. 



Captain Campbell, of the Lake Ontario (Beaver Line), 

 informs me that he once brought over in a whisky cask 

 the head of a maskinong6 from the St. Lawrence that 

 was said to weigh 140 lb., and it would really seem 

 that these fish do occasionally run to weights far into 

 the fifties and sixties. I never heard of anyone trying 

 for 'lunge with live baits, or spinning with dead fish 

 and the flights such as we use at home for pike. The 

 use of the big spoon is universal. And I may add 

 that a month later (say October) those fish would not 

 have been quite so much like herrings in their insides. 



Green bass and speckled trout are Canadian names, 

 signifying the large-mouthed variety of the black bass 

 for the one part, and our old friend fontinalis for the 

 other. It will be remembered that under the circum- 

 stances of brief opportunity and far-distant waters 

 which I have duly explained, my expectations were 

 modest, and hope would have been satisfied with a 

 simple sample each of the black bass, immortalised 

 by Dr. Henshall, and the maskinong6 of the lakes. 

 How I caught my first 'lunge has been already told, 

 and the story was, like the fish itself, a pretty long one. 

 I may confess at once, with deep regret, that I have 

 no excuse for length as to black bass, since I did 

 not get even one. I had been warned that only 

 in the early part of the season the month of June 

 is there any chance with the fly in lakes, and very little 

 in the rivers. They were, however, to be obtained by 



