ANGLING FOB OUANANICHE 77 



Almost at the first cast I had hooked and subsequently 

 landed, after ten minutes' good sport and with a fairly 

 stiff eight-ounce lancewood rod made in Canada, a 

 light five-pounder, when the same fly, the dropper a 

 Silver Doctor tied upon a No. 3 hook was again seized 

 by an exceedingly combative fish in heavy water, 

 which ran out promptly such a length of line in the 

 direction of an overhanging tree that he was promptly 

 given the butt, when the line came back with a dis- 

 appointing jerk that plainly told of a break. The 

 fish had been too violently checked, and the cast (a 

 new one) had parted just above the fastening of the 

 dropper fly. " C'est un gros, gros /" cried out Paul 

 Savard the guide and one of the Indians in unison. 

 " Oui, quatre ou cinq livres je suppose" I muttered, 

 disgusted with my luck and ashamed of the thought- 

 less impetuosity which had lost me what I believed 

 to be even a bigger fish than I had said. " Sacre, 

 dest un huit ou dix livres" put in the guides, and I 

 was in no mood to question their estimate of the 

 weight of the freed fish. Accepting it, I could say 

 that I had, at least, met and fought a monster ouan- 

 aniche, even if I had come off second best in the en- 

 counter. After all, the guides were more experienced 

 in guessing the size of the fish in the water than I was, 

 especially of those that got away, and, besides, there 

 was less discredit in being defeated and having my line 

 smashed up by an eight or ten pound ouananiche than 

 by one of four or five pounds only. Paul had tied 

 another " Doctor " on to my cast, and I was wonder- 

 ing whether that pool (we were fishing off the rocks 

 half-way down the mainland portage) contained any 



