216 PLEASURES OF ANGLING. 



fished they ever so expertly. I, of course, did my 

 best to comfort them, and assured them of good 

 sport if they had the patience to wait for it, but 

 that they might as well expect to find full-blown 

 lilies upon the surface of a frozen lake as brook- 

 trout in the rising mood while the streams were 

 roiled by the fast-flowing snow-water. 



A few sunny days after the 25th accomplished 

 what was needful. Fish may be caught in the 

 lakes, by trolling, as soon as the ice disappears, but 

 even lake-trout are lazy, or " hug the bottom," 

 until they are quickened into life or lured to the 

 surface by sunshine and warm weather. As I am 

 writing, I notice a very pleasant letter in the 

 Journal of Commerce, from a venerable angler, in 

 which he plaintively refers to his ill-luck early in 

 May. And his experience was the experience of 

 every one. It was, this year, the 25th before there 

 was good fishing. All who came in earlier were 

 disappointed ; and those who took their departure 

 before the 30th, doubtless did so with the false im- 

 pression that here as elswhere, trout fishing was 

 " played out." If so, they were simply mistaken. 

 The present generation of anglers will be " played 

 out " long before trout fishing in the Adirondacks. 

 To be sure, the scamps who placed pickerel in Long 

 Lake, and the Fish Commissioners who planted 

 black bass in the Eaquette did what they could to 



