Gd HN 

tThe last ra. i d to play on 
Doane last rays of the setting sun had ceased to play 

TROUT FISHING IN THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. 521 
é 
be to a willow leaf. I stopped fishing, and observed them 
for nearly an hour from my concealment. They were con- 
stantly rising to the surface for something floating on the 
water, though not with the dash and vim of an eastern trout, 
but with a staid and dignified pace which seemed to say they 
Were quite indifferent whether they caught their victims or 
not. It was clear then that with a proper fly and the laziest 
possible mode of handling it would persuade them. I now 
resorted to the angle-worms.* I fished in deep water and 
in shallow, in the rapids and in the eddies, with every mode 
and motion I had ever found successful with trout. It was 
of no use. Sometimes one would approach in a sluggish 
way and smell of the bait, but would never touch it. I then 
tried them as if fishing for black bass, but with no better 
Success, t and in that deep gorge hemmed in by vertical walls 
four thousand feet high, it already seemed as if night was 
upon me. Still as the Indians often take them in the night 
with the same bait, I thought I would try another mode. I 
Went at them now as if I were fishing for black pike in the 
Illinois or Fox River. I threw the bait into the swift 
current well above me and allowed it to float till it grounded 
as far down the stream as the line would allow. Here it 
was allowed to remain for perhaps five seconds, and then 
with a moderate but steady motion it was brought up stream 
and towards the surface. The secret was solved. It had 
hot been raised from the bottom more than a foot, when it 
Was met by a trout about twelve inches long, but I did not 
make sufficient allowance for his sluggish habits, and struck 
before he had well taken the hook, and he fell back into 
the water close by the bank. Several succeeding casts were 
unsuccessful. Soon, however, a stranger came along, and 
m deceived by my unprofessional practices, and took the 
Vait as it was rising from the bottom in a way that seemed 
*With whi i i eee 
ch a juvenile “ Lo.” had supplied me for a the smooth face of South 

AMER. NATURALIST, VOL. III. 66 
