THE GAME EISHES OF THE WOELD 



cast a rise. The method is to row slowly along and troll with a 

 live minnow on a fly, or with a fly, or cast when doing the latter. 

 We drift slowly along shore, forty or fifty feet from it, casting 

 with one fly in shore into the little bays, and especially over 

 rocks just submerged. The boatman rows very slowly. Suddenly 

 the line straightens out, you strike on the instant, the tip 

 of the rod bends a second, and up into the air in the centre of a 

 miniature maelstrom rises the game. He stands on his tail and 

 dances a wild rigadoon, throws open mouth and gills, and at- 

 tempts to toss the hook and bunch of feathers into the air, fails, 

 drops with a smash and makes a clean rush for some point of 

 vantage, jerking at the line again and again. Then, as he is 

 forced to the surface, he goes into the air once more, and again, 

 to repeat the performance. If the water is cool and there is 

 current enough to give this bass exercise : in other words, if the 

 bass is in good condition, he continues to fight, and there is no 

 evidence of giving up or surrender, he is simply out-fought by 

 the resilient rod, and slowly comes to the net — ^in the language of 

 the boatman is ' taken in out of the wet.' 



If the bass are not taking a fly, we use live bait, a golden-hued 

 minnow which is hooked through the lips and trolled fifty or more 

 feet astern — ^a deadly process. 



Some of the most delightful bass fishing I have had was in 

 the Canadian lakes, hanging in the lulls from one to two thousand 

 feet above the river, where the surroundings are exquisite, and 

 the bass big and difficult to take. At beautiful, Lac Perchaud, 

 my canoeman looked with wonder at my patience, casting all one 

 moriung, trying different flies, with no rises. It was merely 

 that I had not told him, that I enjoyed casting in such a beautiful 

 spot as well as landing fish. Every time I cast I placed my fly 

 in the vermilion reflections of the autumnal foUage, a blaze of 

 colour in the deep green of the spruce, that grew to the water's 

 edge. I often found the bass feeding in the tules, an impossible 

 place to cast ; and they took many flies before I landed a three 

 and a half pounder. 

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