150 I GO A-FISHING. 



hole. No trout moved while it went down ; but the in- 

 stant it was drawn up the water boiled as a good fish 

 struck it, and then John took three more, making twelve 

 that we had from that one hole, and all good fish. 



A little farther down the river, in the afternoon, as I 

 was slowly going down the middle of the stream, casting 

 some thirty feet of line before me, I saw a sudden com- 

 motion a hundred feet ahead, and three or four small fish, 

 red-fins or shiners, springing into the air. This on river 

 or lake is very fair evidence that a large trout is chasing 

 them. I plunged rapidly forward ; and, as the brush for- 

 tunately opened just here so as to give me a longer back 

 cast, I rapidly increased my length of line until, at sixty 

 or seventy feet distance, my tail fly fell exactly where the 

 shiners had gone out of water. I was by no means sure 

 that a trout who was feeding on fish would rise to a fly ; 

 but this fellow was making a large dinner, and mixed his 

 dishes. The second or third cast brought him up. What 

 a magnificent roll and plunge that was, as he turned his 

 peach-and-gold side up to my satisfied vision. Satisfied, 

 because at the same instant I felt his heavy stroke on the 

 Montreal fly, and knew by the short, sharp click which 

 I felt, but can not describe, that he was firmly hooked. 

 He seemed to know it also, for he went down stream at a 

 tearing rate. The sound of the reel was whizzing instead 

 of whirring. I had but fifty yards of line on my reel, 

 and this fellow had taken forty, and I was floundering 

 down among rocks and rapids after him, when he turned 

 and came up stream. I never use a multiplying reel for 

 trout. The occasion does not happen once a year with 

 me when I desire one, and the rapidity with which it takes 

 in line has, by reason of knots and snarls, cost me so 

 many broken tips that I have long abandoned its use, ex- 



