LAKE AND STREAM 199 



beginning of this book, the trout, hke the 

 salmon or the pike, seizes your minnow 

 because it seems to be a minnow wounded 

 or in trouble. Like the salmon and the 

 pike, the trout, taking not the slightest 

 notice of whole shoals of minnows sound 

 in wind and fin, will greedily, or cruelly, 

 or obeying some law of nature, probably 

 the one directed against the survival of 

 the unfit, rush at a minnow which appears 

 to be suffering in some way. Well, then, 

 is it not extremely probable that the fish 

 which takes your trolled lure has rushed 

 at it laterally, from a good distance 

 off? I imagine so, and the incidents I 

 have mentioned support the surmise ; and 

 if I am not wrong our serpentine boat- 

 man is strategic in sinuous error. One 

 would fare just as well if he pursued the 

 straight course. 



Nevertheless, even if we have to 

 abandon the belief that it is really the 

 gillie, by virtue of his wariness, that is 

 the sportsman in trolling, there is still 

 much scope in minnow-fishing both for 



