18 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 
though I gave him both line and time to pouch what had 
not been intended for a bait, on taking a pull the chub came 
away, and I was free from the larger antagonist. Having 
caught sufficient small fry. I went home, brooding over my 
misfortune, but keeping the adventure closely locked in my 
bosom (selfishness again). About the hour that the sun 
began to dip behind the giant pines, I had made up my 
mind to the course I would pursue, which was to take my 
pet rod, mount a cast of two flies, and carefully whip the 
pool from end to end. As if it were but yesterday, I re- 
member distinctly the flies. The trail one was ginger-col- 
ored cock’s hackle, with light corn-crake wing, tipped with 
silver; the dropper a large-sized, moth. 
“For work at that hour,” I hear some internally mutter, 
“the moth did the business.” No, it did not; cock’s hackles 
of all shades may invariably be backed against the field, and 
the cock’s hackle on this occasion kept up its reputation. 
Down on my knees in the bow of the canoe, the camp-keep- 
er holding her back by a pole in the stern, slowly and cau- 
tiously I fished the throat, from thence down into the less 
angry but wider-spread current, when just as my flies 
passed over an eddy that divided the downward flow from 
the backwater there was a splash, rapidly responded to by 
a nervous quick movement of the wrist, which planted the 
hook firmly home. I doubt if I exaggerate, in fact I think 
I scarcely state enough, when I say that thirty minutes 
elapsed before my trophy could sufficiently endure the sight 
of a landing-net to have it placed under him. Thus was 
taken the largest river trout (Salmo fontinalis) I ever 
caught. But to my rod: it was made out of cedar from 
butt to tip, did not exceed nine ounces, and was the most 
lively, quick, light casting treasure I ever used. Cedar fly- 
rods I have heard objected to, because they are brittle; 
doubtless you may find them so, and your casting-line also, 
