246 SPORTING SKETCHES. 



islands, old decayed logs and debris lying: far out from their 

 shores. Idly basking in the sun sat a bull frog. 



" There ! said the boatman, " let him take your fly." 



" I'll hook him if you will take him off," I replied. 



"All right, if he does not take himself off, I will." 



I let the fly down to the frog, who indolently caught it and 

 into the boat I brought him. No sooner had he touched the 

 bottom of the boat than he was off the hook ; the barb of the 

 hook had evidently not penetrated the skin. Rowing along, we 

 soon sighted another and much larger. Wishing to put the 

 matter to a test I gave a sharp up stroke of the rod, landing him 

 in the boat. Mr. Frog deliberately sat upon his hindquarters 

 and commenced handling the hook like a human, and in a few 

 moments he had freed himself, to our astonishment and amuse- 

 ment. 



We now proceeded to the outlet, soon arriving there, our 

 delight was unbounded. Through the space between two large 

 rocks (you could jump from one to the other) flowed the snrplus 

 water of the lake, rushing, tearing, frothing into the ravine 

 below, following this outburst of water it quieted down to the 

 beautiful trout pool. Oh ! such a spot. The pool dark as 

 porter, save the irridescent bubbles, sporting round after each 

 other like mad. 



To cast our flies was necessarily a difficult task owing to the 

 close growth of the slender, graceful birch, surrounding you 

 with their silver trunks and bright colored foliage. The beauty 

 bevvitchingly lovely was soon lost to our thoughts. No sooner 

 had our flies touched the water than a rush was made at them ; 

 each of us had hooked a trout. Owing to the lightness of our 

 taokle and the surrounding impediments, the excitement was 

 great indeed ; we had killed two fine fish. Our sport continued, 

 and after cleaning out two pools, (always carefully returning the 

 small fish) we lined our basket with nice cool green ferns, 

 placing in the catch, completely filling it. 



We were welcomed back to Ottawa by our pleasant host, who 

 remarked that they were the finest lot of speckled trout he had 

 over seen brought into town. Twenty-seven, weighing thirty- 

 six pounds. 



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