112 I GO A -FISHING. 



safest rule is therefore to seek for the main inlet, and, 

 if the water is here found shoal, to wade out far enough 

 to get a cast over deeper water. Beginning on this rule, 

 I had a long hunt for the inlet, and it was after sunset 

 before I found it. It happened fortunately that there 

 was an accumulation here of old drift-wood, well packed 

 together, which supported me, and I had a good clear 

 back cast. For ten or fifteen minutes it was all vain 

 work. Nothing broke the surface which had life. The 

 gloom began to settle on the lake. It grew cold withal, 

 and the wind was sharp. I frankly confess that by this 

 time I wanted fish because I was hungry. If supper 

 were to be confined to three or four pieces of hard bread, 

 it was not to be regarded with any earnest longings and 

 joyous anticipations. If, on the other hand, I could look 

 to the rich salmon-colored meat of a trout as waiting me 

 in the old log house, it was something worth thinking 

 about. 



And as I thought about it, he rose with a heavy rush, 

 and slashed the tail-fly with his own broad tail and went 

 down again. Cast after cast, and he would not rise again. 

 So I fell back at last on the old white moth, and, taking 

 off all the other flies, cast this alone, in the twilight which 

 was now almost darkness. He came up at it at the first 

 cast, and took it, head on, following the fly from behind. 

 It is not often on still water that a trout takes a fly with 

 his mouth before striking it with his tail ; but they some- 

 times do it on a white fly in the evening, and from this 

 fact it seems likely that they regard it as an animal mov- 

 ing in the water and not as a fly at all. 



He took it and turned down, then, as he felt the hook, 

 swayed off with a long, steady surge, and circled half 

 around me. Supper was tolerably certain now, and my 



