FISHING IN MUSKOKA, ETC. 237 



although placid in outward mien, I felt inwardly 

 a little nervous. 



" Swinging around a little point, with some 

 twenty yards of line astern, before fishing a great 

 while I felt a sudden movement at the spoon 

 that was more like a crunch than a bite. It took 

 only a second to give the rod a turn that fixed 

 the hooks, and another second to discover that 

 I had hung something. Scarcely had I tightened 

 the line when the fish started. I do not know 

 that I wanted to stop him, but I felt the line 

 slip rapidly from the reel as though attached to 

 a submarine torpedo. The first run was a long 

 one, but the line was longer, and the fish stopped 

 before the line was bare. This was my oppor- 

 tunity, and I bade the boatman swing his craft 

 across the course, and reeling in the slack line, 

 I turned his head toward the deeper water. 

 Forty-five minutes of as pretty a fight as one 

 could wish to see left my acquaintance alongside 

 the boat, and before he recovered his surprise 

 the gaff was in his gills and the boatman lifted 

 him on board. 



"He weighed 14 Ibs. on the steelyards and 

 was my heaviest fish. There were other en- 

 counters of a similar character, but none quite 



