536 Sea -Trout Fishing. 



remains to make an ample load, and cast one longing, lingering fly 

 behind before pushing into the current. The catch is always very 

 good on the way down in point of numbers, but is apt to reduce the 

 score as to average of weight. It is not always possible to fish or 

 even to pause. Two seasons ago, the river was very full on entering 

 it, and after a week's difficult fishing, it rose steadily, with heavy 

 showers, till its olive surface turned cafe-au-lait color, and rolled 

 bank-full, effacing rocks and rapids alike. Down the middle, it 

 tossed in waves over the sunken bowlders. A canoe would quickly 

 have foundered there, and we were forced to drift along the margin, 

 with the aid of branches, fairly washed out of the valley by the 

 torrent. The kingfisher screams along the sands as we pass ; per- 

 haps a beaver pokes his nose cautiously out among alder roots ; or a 

 disturbed owl floats silently off into the woods. At length, after 

 leisurely and regretfully dropping down for hours, the chaloupes thin 

 mast points above the next turn, and the quickened paddles cut the 

 tide-water, driving the canoes alongside to take possession if she is 

 found all right. 



She may be found in quite a different condition. Some seasons 

 ago, the men had left her the previous night hauled out into a little 

 bay, and anchored on so bad a bottom that when she grounded with 

 the falling tide a rock started one of the planks below her quarter, 

 and she lay stern under, half full of water, when we boarded her. 

 Fishing out her cargo, and drying on the rocks what remained 

 unspoiled, was a tedious waste of time ; but when lightened and 

 pumped out, her planking sprang into place and was easily secured. 

 The voyage back oftenest consumes two days and nights against a 

 down-stream wind, sometimes strong enough to raise an uncomfort- 

 able sea in making the port tack while the tide ebbs, and to drive 

 us to some anchorage till it turns. Good and honest fellows as the 

 guides are, there is, perhaps, the slightest possible disposition on the 

 skipper's part to lengthen the cruise' for his chartered craft by a half 

 day or more, so that it is usually early morning when she works 

 slowly up with sweeps against the edges of the powerful Saguenay 

 current and rounds the point into Tadousac Bay. The summer 

 birds have flown from the cottages and hotel, — the house seems 

 only waiting our return to put out the fire in its hospitable stove 

 and close its doors for the season. The steamer leaves L'Anse a 



