With Gun ? Rod in Canada 



These trout were such sporty, husky, lungeing fellows 

 that I couldn't give up my desire to continue the game, 

 and so, breaking off the barbs of my three flies, I tried 

 my luck this way, and succeeded in dipping a number, 

 only to toss them back into the stream. Tom seemed 

 to think it strange that my enthusiasm was so aroused, 

 and nonchalantly informed me that such an experience 

 was not uncommon in Rossignol waters and in streams 

 tributary thereto. 



On the other hand, I was constantly comparing the 

 size of these Nova Scotia trout with those I had caught 

 but a few months before in a little Rocky Mountain 

 torrent, called by the Mormons Ashley Creek. There 

 my Mormon " pardner " and I had waded in the swift 

 water, or crept and clambered along the rocky banks 

 (meanwhile keeping a keen lookout for rattlesnakes, with 

 which the valley was infested), and had been well satis- 

 fied if we caught a dozen or fifteen speckled beauties, 

 the largest of which would be perhaps seven inches long. 

 Our fishing outfit consisted of cowboy riding-boots with 

 high heels (poor things for wading), a flour-sack partially 

 ripped up on both sides and with ends tied around the 

 neck for a creel, a dollar-and-a-half rod, and a tin reel. 

 The lines, leaders, and flies were strong, and when we 

 hooked a trout we just naturally pulled him in and put 

 him in the sack. 



Travelling on horseback through this Rocky Mountain 

 country, which was something over a hundred miles 

 from the railroad, with a pack-outfit was the usual mode 

 of locomotion. We always carried our little rods with 

 us, and the rest of the paraphernalia in our pockets. 

 The placid, still-water brooks in the mountain " parks," 

 as the Mormons call the upland meadows, were also 

 fine places for these diminutive but delicious trout. 

 To fish successfully these waters it was our practice 



10 



