FISHING AT BUOYS. 329 



The spot on the Saranac from which the echo is best 

 heard is near Cory's buoy. You must know that in 

 every lake on which is a single settler there are one or 

 more buoys. Earlier and later in the season than this, 

 when they fish with drop lines in deep water for the 

 large lake-trout, they fish entirely around buoys. These 

 are simply billets of wood, anchored by a bark rope to a 

 stone. Around these they will cast quantities of chop- 

 ped minnows and small fish, and thus make a feeding- 

 ground for the trout. After some days, the fisherman 

 goes out with his lines, and hitching his boat to the 

 buoy, drops out his bait upon the crowd fifty feet below. 

 • The accounts of the quantities sometimes taken in this 

 way would seem fabulous. A friend of mine, with his 

 guide, once took sixty pounds in a little more than an 

 hour, and left them biting as voraciously as at the first. 



A settler at the further end of the carrying-place 

 keeps a horse and wagon to draw over the boats of 

 sportsmen who take this route. While this was being 



(j one) -p a nd I shouldered our rifles, and striking 



through the woods, soon came to Ampersand Pond, as 

 the beautiful lakelet is called on which we were to 

 launch our boats. There we met a party on their re- 

 turn route, whose appearance certainly was not calcu- 



