CHAPTER XI 



"T~"\ID it never occur to you," said the winter 

 1 ) angler, one warm January day at the 

 Tuna Club, " that there is about as much delight 

 in ' winter trout' fishing, as in summer? In 

 fact, I do not know but that there is a little more. 

 The trout are bigger, the salmon seem to leap 

 higher, and under the beneficent influence of 

 a rousing fire, all fish are larger, better, and 

 harder fighters. Just how this happens I do 

 not know, but I fancy I obtain almost as much 

 sport out of fishing in talking it over a year 

 later, as I do at the time. It is this feature of 

 it that causes the layman to look upon the an- 

 gling guild with indulgent suspicion. They 

 think we are harmless, and so we are, to all ex- 

 cept the big trout that rises to the fly beneath 

 some low-lying, caressing willow or some sedgy 

 bank where wild flowers nod, and bending over 

 the rim, eye their beauties like Narcissus. 



" Speaking of flies, reminds me of an experi- 

 ence. I was fishing in Canada on a preserve I 

 have, not far from Three Rivers, and casting in 

 a beautiful lake with three flies. I do not be- 



176 



