76 ANGLING FOE OUANANICHE 



from the lake, and the site of the only hotel in the 

 neighborhood. Here guides and canoes may be ob- 

 tained, and in the adjacent waters may be had the 

 earliest spring fishing of the Decharge and the latest 

 in the autumn. When the ouananiche will not rise 

 here, during the season, to the fly, they may almost 

 always be lured by bait and a spoon. But with the 

 latter, one is apt also, at any time, to hook the im- 

 mense pike (Esox lucius) with which Lake St. John 

 abounds, and which in the vicinity of the Island House 

 are frequently taken from ten to twenty pounds in 

 weight. In other parts of the lake, and in some of 

 its tributaries, they have been caught up to fifty 

 pounds. The ouananiche taken in the extreme upper 

 waters of the Decharge do not usually afford the most 

 desirable sport in the killing, even when taken upon 

 the fly. The strongest fighters must be sought in the 

 vicinity of heavier and swifter water, such as that to 

 be found in the rapids and below the grande chute. 



This last is a heavy, perpendicular waterfall some 

 fifteen to twenty feet high in the spring of the year, 

 and reaching directly across the Grande Decharge, 

 some two to three mils distant from the margin of 

 Lake St. John. No matter upon which side the de- 

 scent of the rapids be made, the grande chute must of 

 course be portaged around, and so, except in low 

 water, must a portion of the dangerous rapids above 

 it. But from the rocks along the portage on the north 

 shore good fly-fishing may often be had in a number 

 of attractive pools among the rapids. Here it was 

 my good luck, on the llth of June, 1893, to have the 

 first fly-fishing of the season at the Grande Decharge. 



