THE MISTASSINI RIVER AND ITS FIFTH FALLS 225 



word-painting of fish and fishing will be interested in 

 the following extracts from Mr. E. J. Myers's article 

 on " La Cinquieme Chute " in the American Field of 

 May 26, 1894 : 



" Only in the waters of the Great Falls does one learn the unend- 

 ing pleasure of killing the ouananiche, and the many ways which 

 must be resorted to to tempt this wary antagonist to take up the gage 

 of battle. Standing on a ledge of rocks rising out in the river, and 

 drawing your flies with short cast in the eddies which form around 

 the points, as if the flies were swimming against the stream, one will 

 plainly see the swift rush of the ouauaniche to seize the fly, and, on- 

 ward flashing, take the tip of the rod under the surface ere the sting 

 of the barb makes him madly flash in the air. Or casting forty to 

 fifty feet far out in the current, the dip, dip of the rod makes the fly 

 swim to one's feet, and the strike of the ouananiche in taking the 

 fly down the stream attested by a savage tug smites the nerves 

 like an electric shock. 



" Or getting into the canoe upon a cushion of fragrant boughs the 

 angler goes out on the flood, the birchen craft dancing on the waves 

 like a cockle-shell, and casts the dainty flies upon the huge patches 

 of white foam that often rise two feet thick, making them flutter, 

 skitter, and leap as though they were living ; and then comes the 

 quick, intense rush of blood and quickening of nerves and muscles, 

 as the ouananiche, likea flash of light, cleaves the foam and seizes the 

 fly, often taking it with one mad leap upward into the air, as the 

 glittering mass of feathers flutters above the foam. 



" Unto no one combination of feather or color is he wedded ; for 

 one season they have risen unto all changes of yellow, and another 

 season unto all variations of dark gray and black ; and then have 

 I lamented to find them rising to green tints when I had only two 

 or three in my entire collection. So have I angled all day, with 

 changes to all that fancy could suggest, without success, until, when 

 I was thoroughly discouraged at dusk, they rose at the Parmachenee 

 Belle and white-winged Admiral with an appetite, and fought in the 

 twilight with a mad ferocity, that more than compensated for the 

 disappointments of the day. 



" I know no fish that will rise to the fly or take the troll, whether 

 it be phantom minnow or whirling spoon, like the ouananiche. It 



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