54: TROLLING FOB TROUT. 



speckled trout of the streams and rivers. They had none 

 of the golden specks of the latter, are of a darker hue, and 

 much larger. They are dotted with brown spots, like 

 freckles upon the face of a fair-skinned girl. They are 

 shorter too, in proportion to their weight than the speckled 

 trout. They are caught in these lakes, weighing from three 

 to fifteen pounds, and instances have been known of their 

 attaining to the weight of five and twenty. It is an excit- 

 ing sport to take one of these large fellows on a line of two 

 hundred and fifty or three hundred feet in length. They 

 play beautifully when hooked, and it requires a good deal 

 of coolness and skill to land them safely in your boat. A 

 trolling rod for these large fish should be much stiffer, and 

 stronger than those used for the fly, on the* rivers and 

 streams ; and the reel should be stronger and higher geared 

 than the common fly reel. Three hundred feet of line are 

 necessary, for the fish, if he is a large one, will sometimes 

 determine upon a long flight, and it will not do to exhaust 

 your line in his career. In that case, he will snap it like a 

 pack-thread. An English bass rod is the best, and with 

 such, and a large triple action reel, the largest fish of these 

 lakes may be secured. 



Smith had trolled scarcely a quarter of a mile, when his 

 hook was struck by a trout, and then commenced a strug- 

 gle that was pleasant to witness. No sooner had the fish 

 discovered that the hook was in his jaw, than away he 

 dashed towards the middle of the lake. The rod was bent 

 into- a semicircle, but the game was fast ; with the butt 



