BASS-FISHING IN SUNGAHNEETUK 109 



ing of a mid-May day, I begin my fishing. The 

 river has drawn itself from the narrow environ- 

 ment of hills, and winds among intervales ankle- 

 deep with young grass, where newly turned-out 

 kine are feeding greedily and new-come bobolinks 

 are loudly rejoicing. By a thicket of alders, 

 broadly margining and overhanging quiet waters, 

 where foam-bells moulded in the last rapids swing 

 in the slow eddies, I put my rod together. It is of 

 hardback, hop hornbeam, ironwood, lever-wood 

 — well, Ostrya Virginica, a wood which I have long 

 believed the best of oiu* native trees for rod-mak- 

 ing — and I have had it made for me by a cunning 

 workman. It is in three pieces and of unorthodox 

 length — fiifteen feet. The books say eight feet is 

 the proper length for a bass-rod; but how could 

 one reach over these alders or the thickets of wil- 

 lows lower downstream with such a stick? The 

 slender line is rove through the guides, the hook 

 with its gut snell bent on, and Monsieur Ruisseau, 

 sometime since of Canada, comes forward with 

 the bait-kettle — "minny-pail," we call it. He 

 dives therein halfway to his elbows more than once 

 to no purpose, for lively minnows are slippery cus- 

 tomers, but at last brings out a chub, a three-inch 

 ingot, half of silver, half of brown dross, as tri- 

 umphantly as if he had landed a salmon, remark- 

 ing, as he hands it over, "Dar! I'ms got de coss. 

 He's nice leetly feller, don't it?" 



