38 THROUGH CANADA 



Bass are at present unsophisticated, and therefore 

 bold feeders ; but so were trout in our English waters 

 years ago. Meanwhile they have become educated, 

 and the greatest wiles have to be practised to lure 

 them. Nothing but the finest drawn gut is used on 

 many chalk streams, where once rough tackle made 

 heavy baskets, Bass can be educated too, and I 

 found lakes, where once they fed freely, which 

 barely yielded a brace per diem. It may be that 

 the stock is depleted. With the causes of that I 

 shall fully deal later on. 



In discoloured water on a dark day the nature of 

 the tackle is not of so much moment. But in 

 water crystal in its purity, with the bright Canadian 

 sun added, coarse tackle is likely to reduce the take. 



An ideal rod for black bass is a ten-feet split cane 

 fly pattern. This yields to all their movements, and 

 finer gut may be mounted. My outfit consisted of a 

 Hardy Brothers' " Houghton," and " Perfection " 

 reel. I lost only a small proportion of the fish 

 hooked, and had no smashes, although I used nothing 

 stronger than a refin trout gut. With this outfit 

 I believe I had the maximum amount of sport these 

 gamey fish afford. A pike, after a bold dash, cut the 

 gut, but that is a contingency likely to arise where 

 one does not use gimp. The take for the day, with 

 a quartette of rods, included thirty-nine black bass, 

 largest, 2^ lb. ; one rock bass, ^ lb. ; one sheep's head, 

 2^ lb. ; three wall-eyed pike, largest 4 lb. We 



