LEAVES FROM A CANADIAN PARADISE 



337 



approached the third. A fraction of a 

 second, in dee]) water, the strike came. I 

 was at the oars, my wife holding the rod. 

 Down the lake I pulled, down dee]) in the 

 water that fish pulled. He followed the tow, 

 of course, but he would not come up, 

 though all the possibly safe pressure was 

 brought to bear upon his majesty — the un- 

 known. Down and up that lake I rowed, 

 while that unknown sulked below until an 



was willi us for awhile this summer, was 

 making one of his long casts of one hundred 

 feet or more, when a strike came. 1 1 is pole 

 bent under. Quickly lie called: "Row, 

 Tony; row for deep water, I've got the 

 daddy of them all." And Tony rowed and 

 Charles dexterously handled that fish, 

 applying the give and take for five minutes. 

 Then up rose the fish, only a three-pound 

 pickerel; yet by no means was it always that 



TONY'S COTTAGE ON SPARROW LAKE 



hour passed by. Finally he swam to the 

 surface and was easily gaffed, a seven-pound 

 mascalonge. The secret was out as he lay 

 gasping in the boat — he was hooked from 

 the outside, so with closed mouth, swimming 

 as fast as a lunge can swim, he was almost 

 the victor and not the vanquished. 



Right here let me say that one of the 

 greatest charms of fishing in Sparrow Lake 

 is that it often happens that when a fish 

 strikes you do not know whether it is a 

 lunge, pickerel or bass. I recall a vivid 

 instance of the truth of that statement. A 

 close friend of mine, Mr. Charles A. Neid- 

 hart, of Pittsburgh (a very skillful angler, 

 by the way), who, accompanied by his wife, 



way, for Mr. Neidhart caught lunge of large 

 size while he w r as there. One day we 

 were all|down in McLean Bay. Mr. and 

 Mrs. Neidhart and Tony were in one boat, 

 my wife and I in the other. A little tug at 

 Mrs. Neidhart's line. "Something doing; 

 only a pick, I guess," she called, but out for 

 deep water rowed Tony. This time it was 

 a lunge and a big one. The reel came off, 

 but Mrs. Neidhart cleverly put it on again 

 while she handled the fish. Close he came 

 to the boat, and with a small gaff hook 

 Charles gaffed him in. The fish weighed 

 twelve pounds and was 34 inches in length 

 from the tip of nose to crotch of tail — the 

 way they have of measuring in Canada. We 



