236 PLEASURES OF ANGLING. 



and there is where the expert looks for and finds 

 them. It would be just as useless to look for trout 

 in his spring haunts in August as to look for him 

 in his summer haunts in May. Intermediately, 

 from the middle of June to the middle of July, 

 they are on the move. It is their transition period, 

 when they are everywhere in small numbers, 

 but abundant nowhere. And during this period 

 there are probably more visitors in the woods than 

 during any other thirty days of the year. If they 

 have any hankering for fish or any taste for angling, 

 they could not select, through the whole season, 

 any period less propitious. Hence it is no uncom- 

 mon thing for parties in the woods at this time to 

 find it absolutely impossible to catch fish enough 

 for use. But this is not surprising. Experts are 

 too wise to go fishing during these thirty days, 

 and only experts could lure any considerable num- 

 ber of fish, by any process, while they are thus 

 passing from the swift waters to the quiet spring 

 holes. 



It was my fortune upon one occasion, when 

 homeward bound, far on in June, to fall in with a 

 party of six or eight who were camped where a 

 fortnight before the trout were so abundant that I 

 could catch a day's supply for a dozen men in a 

 couple of hours. But I found this party literally 

 fishless, and the most profoundly disgusted group 



