Trout- Fishing East versus West 



to sneak up on all fours near enough to the edge of the 

 brook to enable us to drop the fly into the water, and, 

 if a fish took hold, to flip him back over our heads into 

 the grass. If a fisherman showed himself on the bank, 

 the trout would hide under the overhang and sulk. 



In the very high altitudes we now and then struck 

 a mountain pool full of trout. They were usually 

 ravenous and would bite anything thrown into the water. 

 Although marked about the same as an Eastern brook- 

 trout, these fish were lean and weak, and would not 

 put up much of a fight after being hooked. It was a 

 local tradition that the fish stayed there all winter 

 frozen in, and, as normal food was scarce, cannibalized 

 to a great extent. 



As the swift-running mountain brooks were usually 

 lined with bushes, fishing was quite a chore. It was 

 almost impossible to cast, and one had to wriggle and 

 scramble among these bushes and rocks, dropping the 

 fly as best he could in the likely-looking pools and rills. 

 Leaving this sort of fishing in the fall, and early in the 

 spring being fortunate enough to get the very best 

 of Nova Scotia trout-fishing, I was amazed at the differ- 

 ence in the fish. The way those big, meaty, powerful 

 Eastern fellows took the fly was a caution ! When I saw 

 the first splash and felt the first yank on the rod, I woke 

 right up. That trout weighed in the neighbourhood 

 of a pound. From the way he took hold I thought he 

 weighed ten. 



Then again, sitting comfortably in a canoe on a broad, 

 breezy river with lots of room to cast was " some " 

 luxury after our sweaty, rough, and entangling alliances 

 with the Rocky Mountain fish. Although the Utah 

 blackflies have nothing on the Nova Scotia brand when 

 it comes to lunching off " sports," the wide, windy stream 

 was quite free from the pests. For some reason Nova 



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