192 DAYS IN THE OPEN 



a big, heavy boat, in the back end of which he has 

 fixed a windlass holding a thousand feet of fine, 

 copper wire. The trout are lying in about three 

 hundred feet of water, and no ordinary line will 

 allow the trolling spoon to sink deep enough to 

 reach those dim recesses. With all the copper wire 

 paid out, the old man rows slowly over the deepest 

 parts of the lake, while the tourist sits holding the 

 handle of the windlass, ready to begin turning at 

 the least suspicion of a strike. Now and then there 

 is a false alarm, and the excited fisherman cranks in 

 a thousand feet of wire only to find a piece of wood 

 or weed fastened to the spoon-hook. When, by 

 chance, a trout is hooked, the sensation differs little 

 from that experienced in winding up a bucket of 

 water from a deep well. The fish has not travelled 

 far in his involuntary journey through the water 

 before he loses all ambition, fills with water and 

 becomes no more obstreperous than any other in- 

 animate object would be when fastened to sixty 

 rods of line. These trout are delicious eating, and 

 run as high as twenty-five pounds, or even more 

 in weight. 



Other trout, the real, speckled brook-trout, are 

 found in the streams flowing into the lake, and 

 more than one delightful day was spent in pursuit 

 of them. After all, there is no other fishing quite 

 like that. It is not altogether because brook-trout 

 are the cleanliest, handsomest of fish, or that they 

 are so gamey and so toothsome that this sport is 



