WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 15 



used to be, and no wonder. What with steam yachts and 

 fishing boats, 'thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks 

 in Vallombrosa/ and net and spear and indiscriminate slaugh- 

 ter, in season and out of season, by thousands of experts 

 and amateur idlers, it is a marvel that the whole species was 

 not long ago exterminated. And the weight of the fish has 

 fallen off in even greater proportion at that point. The 

 capture of a five-pound bass to-day is something to talk 

 about ; forty years ago bass of that weight uniformly made 

 up one-fourth of my catch. The truth is, the fish haven't 

 time to grow with so many to beguile them, they are caught 

 as soon as they can snap at a hook or rise to a fly. But there 

 are still pleasant and prolific places in the St. Lawrence I 

 will name some of them to any of you in a whisper where 

 I never fail to take them as abundantly and of as great 

 weight, with my eight-ounce rod and tiny fly, as I did forty 

 years ago with my mammoth hoop-pole and ponderous tack- 

 ling." 



"But you do not now confine yourself to the St. Law- 

 rence in your search for bass?" was the next query, not be- 

 cause we did not know, but simply to start him off on his 

 favorite hobby and hear him expatiate upon the pleasant 

 places to which he is beguiled during the season when it is 

 right to go a-fishing. 



"By no means," was his reply. "I find it true in angling as 

 in everything else 'variety's the very spice of life. ' With my 

 love of the pastime has grown my love for, and apprecia- 

 tion of, the grand and beautiful in nature, and I have fished 

 for bass in all waters, from the unbroken wilds of Canada 

 to the primitive forests of Northern Michigan. The lakes 

 where they mos!: abound, wherever found, are invariably 

 gems of transparent purity, and are almost as inviting to 

 the appreciative eye because of their picturesque surround- 

 ings as because of what they hold for the angler. Wherever 

 I have gone, whether to the remote North or to the far West, 1 

 have never failed to find what I went for, plenty fish, good 

 sport, magnificent scenery, mental repose and physical re- 

 cuperation. It is a pastime th..t gave moral fibre to tiie 



