78 ANGLING FOE OUANANICHE 



more ten - pounders, when there was a splash on the 

 surface of the water, and whirr-r went the reel again. 

 There was no undue checking this time, but there 

 were fifteen minutes of delightful sport, and an ex- 

 clamation of surprise from Paul as he lifted a hand- 

 some four-and-a-half-pound fish from' the landing-net, 

 for stuclc in his mouth was my recently lost dropper and 

 the missing portion of my cast ! There is worli upon tlie 

 imagination of many an angler and many a guide for 

 the official inspector of weights and measures ! My 

 old guide, Johnny Morel, took an eight-pound ouana- 

 niche that day with bait, fishing from the same rock 

 below the grande chute where Dr. Webb, of New 

 York, late in the preceding summer, had taken one 

 of similar weight which required over an hour to 

 kill, and which had risen to a fly tied upon a No. 

 8 hoolf. We Avent down there the next day. Mr. 

 Wallace killed a number of splendid fish, but had his 

 grandest sport with a five-pounder which gave him 

 forty minutes of steady play. Its leaps were simply 

 beautiful, and at one time it ran out with fully eighty 

 feet of line. And Mr. Floyd had good reason to think 

 that he had hooked a whale. His fly was seized be- 

 low the surface of the water by a fish that fought so 

 much like a heavy salmon that it seemed as if he had 

 hooked an exceptionally large oualianiche. For an 

 hour and twenty minutes Mr. Floyd played that fish 

 as hard as he dared to risk his taokle, before it was 

 brought to the net, when it proved to be a five-and- 

 a-half-pound ouananiche that was hooked foul. Had 

 that fish got off near the close of the fight it would 

 undoubtedly have passed for a ten or twelve pounder. 



