84 ANGLING FOR OUANANICHE 



A. Nelson Cheney, one of my angling companions 

 of August, 1894, at the Grande Decharge, so admira- 

 bly described it, " The thick foam is a natural trap 

 for weak -winged insects, where the ouananiche have 

 only to go and take the contents." They are as fort- 

 unate as a spider that can raid a well -stocked cob- 

 web spun by another. 'No wonder that they sail 

 about slowly and contentedly amid such a supply of 

 ready - captured insect food. Sometimes the most 

 tempting cast may be drawn several times through 

 the foam, almost touching the backs or tails of half a 

 dozen ouananiche without attracting the notice of any 

 of them. But usually, under the conditions described, 

 a well-directed cast will not fail of a rise, and occa- 

 sionally there will be a couple. If the canoe men 

 know their business and avoid paddling through the 

 scum, but rather assist the angler in towing his fish 

 where he can fight it without disturbing the water in 

 which it was hooked, some dozens of them may be 

 taken out of the same pool in a single day. But one 

 may count without his host, and on very fine tackle 

 it is not always easy to lead a fresh-hooked ouananiche 

 where he does not wish to follow not, at all events, 

 without having recourse to a very great deal of per- 

 suasion with the butt-end of the rod. In these waters, 

 in the month of June, the ouananiche is about at his 

 best in point of gameness. There are wilder waters 

 and just as heavy fish in the Isle Maligne Rapids, but 

 these cannot be reached at all in the spring of the 

 year; and I have had grand fights with large fish both 

 at the Fifth Falls of the Mistassini and below the 

 Devil's Falls of the Peribonca, but always nearer 



