22 THE AMERICAN TROUT. 



other than sea trout, I have ever seen or before that 

 heard of. In my opinion, they were lake trout, caught, 

 perhaps, from a small pond, and bright colored. It was 

 claimed they were taken with the fly, which lake trout 

 will not ordinarily touch ; but, unfortunately, it w^as 

 also said, that two weighing about five pounds each 

 were caught and landed on one cast, and that this was 

 done twice. Now confidence in our neighbors' truth 

 is the framework of society, but there is a limit to 

 human credulity, and catching two five pound trout at 

 one cast, is at the very verge of that limit. ISTo one, 

 except by the most incredible good fortune, could kill 

 two such fish on any ordinary fly-tackle, with any ordi- 

 nary fly-rod. The hooks would almost certainly tear 

 out, and no strain could possibly be kept on the lower 

 fish, which, by slacking up his line and then darting 

 away, would probably go free. But great luck alone 

 could enable a person to land two such fish ; the lower 

 one would never drown, being at perfect liberty by the 

 by, trout never die in the water, they always save 

 enough life for one final rush and when the upper fish 

 was landed or gaifed, the lower would go off in a jiffy. 

 When a person claims to do this twice in a day, he must 

 be pronounced a lucky man indeed. 



We caught our big trout in the Marshpee, and we 

 will tell you how we did it, though the words make us 

 blush as we write them. We were young then, and it 

 is to be hoped innocent ; and having gone to Sandwich, 

 on Cape Cod, in search of untried fields, discovered a 

 jolly, corpulent landlord, named Teasedale, who, with 

 his friend, Johnny Trout, so named jocosely, were the 



