The Michigan Grayling. 499 



attention is once drawn to the artificial line, it does not turn back, 

 as a trout does, on getting a sight of the angler, but in its eager- 

 ness disregards him entirely, and in running a river with the speed 

 of the current, or even if the boat is poled along down stream, it 

 frequently takes the fly within a few feet of the pole or the boat. 

 Its play is quite as vigorous as that of the trout, and it leaps 

 frequently above the surface of the water before it is sufficiently 

 exhausted to be drawn in. There is this difference, however, be- 

 tween the two. The trout, like a certain denomination of Christians, 

 seems to believe in "final perseverance," and will kick and struggle 

 to the last, even as it is lifted in ; while the grayling, after you have 

 sufficiently overcome its obstinate pluck to get its head above water, 

 is taken in with pendent tail, as much as to say, " It's all up" ; but as 

 soon as it touches the floor of the boat, its flapping and floundering 

 begin. If it takes a sheer across the current, with its large dorsal 

 fin, it offers greater resistance than the trout. Where they are so 

 numerous, one seldom uses the landing-net, for few escape by break- 

 ing away, and if they do, there are more to take hold at the next 

 cast. 



If in fishing with a whip of three flies the angler hooks a fish 

 on either of his droppers, the stretcher fly as it sails around beneath 

 is pretty sure of enticing another, and not unfrequently the disen- 

 gaged dropper hooks a third fish. Sometimes, as I have sat on 

 the cover of the live-box, I have looked down to see three of 

 these bright fish, after I had exhausted them, all in a row, their 

 dorsal fins erect and waving in the clear water like so many beau- 

 tiful leaves of the coleus. Nor is the grayling in taking a fly as 

 chary a fish as the trout. On a perfectly still water you may see 

 the latter rising and taking in the minute natural flies, when the 

 veriest artificial midge will not tempt it ; but let even a light breeze 

 spring up and a ripple appear on the surface, and then it cannot 

 distinguish the natural from the artificial, and will take hold. The 

 grayling, on the contrary, is the most eager, unsophisticated fish 

 imaginable. When it sees anything bearing the most remote sem- 

 blance of life, it " goes for it," even if the water is as smooth as a 

 mirror. 



The whole of Michigan south of the Straits of Mackinaw may 

 certainly be called flat country. The only rising grounds to be 



