100 REPORT OF ONTARIO GAME No. 53 



the weather becomes cold, the fish, aK a rule, seeks deep waters and 

 hibernates either in the mud or under sunken logs or rocks. 



As a sporting fish the large-mouthed black bass ranks high, even 

 though it is not, as a rule, quite so vigorous a fighter as the small- 

 mouthed bass. The introduction of bait-casting as a means of angling 

 has greatly enhanced its value in this regard, for the very places in which 

 it is most usually to be found are those which it would be most difficult, 

 or even impossible, to fish by ordinary still fishing or trolling methods. 

 It cannot be denied that this class of angling is most fascinating, the 

 skill required to cast the bait from 30 to 100 feet exactly into the desired 

 spot over a hole in the weeds or alongside some sunken tree-stump or log 

 being equally high as that exacted in the art of fly fishing, while the 

 nature of the surroundings very frequently adds greatly to the difficulties 

 of landing the fish after it has been hooked. Perhaps the best fishing 

 grounds for this purpose in the Province occur in the drowned lands to 

 be found along the Rideau Lake system, and it would be hard, indeed, 

 to discover waters more admirably adapted to the requirements alike of 

 the fish and the bait-caster. 



The large-mouthed bass is, of course, to be caught by other means 

 than bait-casting. It will at times rise freely to a fly, and in many 

 localities, where the surroundings permit of it, still fishing with the 

 angle-worm, frog or minnow is productive of good results, while it is 

 also to be captured on occasions by trolling, either in those running 

 waters in which it occurs or in the vicinity of its habitual retreat among 

 the tree-stumps or weeds. It is a powerful fish and when hooked fights 

 much in the same way as the small-mouthed bass, making a series of 

 desperate rushes and occasionally, but not so frequently, breaking water, 

 but, as before noted, it is apt to be a trifie faint-hearted and to give up 

 the struggle more readily than would ever its small-mouthed relative. 

 It is an excellent table fish and in this Province runs in weight up to () 

 or 7 lbs., though such large fish are not often to be secured. 



The Brook Trout. 



In the days prior to the advent of civilization the brook, or as it is 

 frequently styled the speckled, trout, abounded in most of the streams 

 and rivers of the Province flowing into the great lakes and St. Lawrence 

 River, and occurred also in the waters of many of the lesser lakes. The 

 fish, however, which is not, strictly speaking, a brook trout, but a close 

 relative of, if not identical with, the celebrated char of North Britain 

 and the European continent, requires both cool, clear waters and an 

 abundance of shade in order to thrive, and the opening up of the coun- 

 try has, in consequence, very considerably affected its distribution. It 

 is a well-known fact that the removal of the forest Avill inevitably effect 

 material changes in the nature of the Avaters of a district, and this fact is 

 well illustrated by the streams of southern Ontario, for many of those 



