30 ' Fly-rods and Fly-tackle. 



bone, betook myself to the pool. There, standing beside 

 the fire that the ready axe of my guide quickly made, 

 I began the last day's fishing of the year. A bitter 

 wind drew down the valley, and my hands, covered by 

 a pair of fingerless gloves now sopping wet, ached in 

 a manner that soon became intolerable. I had cast for 

 about five minutes in vain when I essayed to remove 

 them, my fly lying on the water and sinking below the 

 surface. Something told me to strike, I know not what, 

 for I saw nothing ; but strike I did, with a vigor accent- 

 ed by my personal discomfort, and proportioned to the 

 sunken line to be moved. Had I struck the dam itself 

 the resistance could not have been more stubborn and 

 unyielding. But, alas ! I held him but for the moment. 

 I cast till noon, then to camp, changed to dry clothes, 

 dined, and back, and hammered away at that pool till 

 dark, and never got a rise from a fish of over two pounds. 



I believed then, and I still believe, that with a prop- 

 erly constructed hook, barring accidents of a different 

 kind, he would have been mine. But I knew the hook 

 was one calculated to rake its way out of a fish's mouth 

 rather than to bury and hold. I took the risk and I paid 

 the penalty. Those who have been in a like position, 

 and after a day and a half's unremitting and unrewarded 

 labor, with a ducking in ice- water, ruin of fly-book, etc., 

 thrown in, alone know with what feelings I returned to 

 camp. It was the last day of that open season too. 



Within four weeks I have seen an angler of wide ex- 

 perience, though new to large trout, white to the lips as 

 he told how a few moments before he had lost a large 

 fish after ten minutes' play a trout, which his experi- 

 enced guide assured me he had seen plainly, and to 

 which he assigned a weight of not less than six pounds. 



