The Winter Angler 177 



lieve, and I say this advisedly, that those trout 

 had ever seen an artificial fly before, and what 

 they thought they were, no one knows. This 

 made no difference, as the moment they touched 

 the water it seemed to me, from the boiling of 

 the water, that a hundred trout jumped at them, 

 and before I knew it I had a trout on each hook, 

 each a two-pounder at least, bounding into the 

 air in a mad triangular duel. After a long 

 play I brought them to the boat ; but it was mani- 

 festly impossible to net them all at once, as they 

 were so widely separated, so I told my boatman 

 to carefully take off the trout highest up, or on 

 the upper fly, which he finally did, and took him 

 in, a fine two-pounder at least. The remaining 

 fish made a combined rush that was irresistible 

 and took forty or fifty feet of line before I could 

 stop them. I was astonished at the fight they 

 made, but in time I reeled them in. 



" To my amazement and that of my man, there 

 was a three-pound trout on the upper fly. He 

 had seen it trailing, taken it, and hooked him- 

 self without my knowing it. There was nothing 

 to do but repeat the manoeuvre, and again my 

 boatman, a good man from the Tadousac coun- 

 try, took not only the second, but the third trout 

 from the hook, by hand, then picked up his net 

 and prepared to net the other as I slowly reeled 

 in. 



" How that trout played! I can feel him yet; 



