TROUT-FISHING IN THE RANGELEY LAKES. 



By EDWARD SEYMOUR. 



MOOSELUCMAGUNTIC, Molechunkemunk, Welokeneba- 

 cook, Cupsuptuc, and Rangeley are the names carried by 

 the individual members of a group of lakes which are yet 

 destined to be as familiar in the literature of the American sports- 

 man as the salmon rivers of Canada or the trout streams of the 

 Adirondacks. These lakes lie in the western part of Maine, near 

 the New Hampshire boundary line. The White Mountains are 

 some thirty miles distant, a little to the west of south, and Moose- 

 head Lake is about sixty or seventy miles to the north-east. It 

 may be absolute incredulity as to the fish stories which are told 

 of these lakes, — it is hard for one who has not seen a speckled 

 trout weighing ten, eight, or even six pounds to have faith in the 

 existence of a fish of this size and species, — or it may be de- 

 spair of defining his destination when the sportsman reads the unpro- 

 nounceable names which these lakes bear ; but whatever the cause, 

 the number of visitors to this region has thus far been comparatively 

 small. Thoreau, to be sure, described it in a general way years ago, 

 and so did Theodore Winthrop; but their accounts made it appear 

 like a terra incognita, full of difficulties when it was once reached. 



Maine is so profusely dotted over with lakes as to suggest the 

 thought that the State has not yet been well drained, or that a slight 

 tilting of the continent might depress the general level of this region 

 so as to submerge it in the Atlantic. But the fact is that the lakes 

 which have just been named are between fourteen and fifteen hun- 

 dred feet above the sea-level, and are embosomed in mountains, 

 some of which reach a height of two, three, and even four thousand 



