A FISHERMAN'S PARADISE 21 



fish, five, six or possibly seven pounds, keeps your 

 expectations aroused and your interest lively; but if 

 anything much over three pounds takes your fly it 

 may be considered unusual. These big fellows are 

 there, sure enough, but they do not care to come to 

 the surface, or perhaps the smaller and more active 

 fish get ahead of them. This lake, like all the others, 

 swarms with minnows, and with big black leeches, 

 evidently much favored by the trout, as those I took 

 here have often been so full of leeches as to spill 

 two or three from their mouths into the canoe. 



The Sans Bout river, outlet of this lake, is a big 

 stream, alternating rapids that one must portage 

 around with stretches that are navigable, with a 

 twenty foot fall about half way to Sorcier. Fish 

 abound through its whole course, but the big pools 

 a little before reaching the great lake are the choice 

 spots. Drop the fly on their eddies along toward 

 evening and you are certain to experience a shock, 

 pleasurable but startling, and this is true on through 

 the season. Trout in the lakes, as the hot weather 

 comes on, go down into the depths, seek out spring- 

 holes, and rise only sparely and that very early or 

 very late in the day. As September brings greater 

 coolness to air and water they become more active, 

 and sometimes seem almost as hungry and eager as 

 in the halcyon days of June. But in the river, 

 whether it is that the moving and highly oxygenated 

 water produces greater activity, or for some other 

 unknown cause, appetites do not fail nor nerves and 



