Dec. 27, 1913. 
FOREST AND STREAM 
815 
has to work across a riffle and make a team to 
shuffle back. 
I mentioned that Baldy was on the job upon 
our arrival. But he quit it right then and there 
and devoted his time to our entertainment, leav¬ 
ing Mrs. Sisson to run the hotel, for Baldy is 
an old friend of Bill and M. 
A most interesting trip was made up in the 
timber to the head of South Jack Creek, where 
we expected to catch some fine Rocky Mountain 
black-spotted and eastern speckled trout. We 
caught some of each kind, but they were small. 
Two willow grouse completed the bag for a 65- 
mile trip, much of it over an almost impassable 
trail. For this run we hired a local car of high 
pan clearance. 
Young chickens have white flesh and are 
delicious eating, but I like to catch rainbow trout, 
which also have white flesh, better than I do to 
eat them. We caught rainbows from the river 
up to 16V2 inches and eastern brooks to 13 or 14 
inches. 
A red-letter afternoon was when we accepted 
an invitation of a ranchman and shot 22 chickens. 
We could have had double the number if we had 
not stopped. Another was to the Hopkins sheep 
W E are in camp on Mons. “Webaire’s” pre¬ 
serve on Lac Croche. We call it camp, 
but the big log cabin with its fragrant 
bunks and log windows, each forming the frame 
of a woodland scene, its radiant lake reflecting 
the mountains, where you can play a trout in the 
tree-tops, is altogether too luxurious for a mere 
camp. Yet it is camp number one in a game or 
fish preserve of about seventy square miles; a 
region bounded on the north by the Mattawin 
River, on the east by long, attenuated Lac Anti- 
Kiagamak, and containing more beautiful lakes 
than you have ever dreamed of in all your angling 
philosophy; more lakes, I fancy, than could be 
discovered and fished in an ordinary lifetime. 
The ones we did know were Lac Croche, 
Lac Marcotte, Lac La Belette, Lac Pruden, Lac 
Clair, Lac Virt, Lac Brule, Lac La Brecque, Lac 
Gros-Ours, Lac Petite Ours. 
In all this vast area there were no poachers, 
no invaders. It might have been ten thousand 
miles away from civilization, and as we swung 
into the long carry between Lac Croche and Lac 
Marcotte one morning we knew the field was 
ours, and were sorry for the rest of the honest 
anglers. We were well up, as altitude goes in 
the Laurentians; high above “Sans Souci,” and 
the forest was filled with lakes of various sizes. 
You merely had to express your wish and take 
your choice, and the Lord of the manor had 
indicated La Belette. 
The Lac Marcotte carry was a delight, lead¬ 
ing up through an open forest through little 
glades and by forests of fern and brake, then 
out suddenly to the shore of Lac Marcotte, which 
must have been at least five miles long and half 
a mile wide at parts, really a noble stretch of 
water. We stopped at a forest of silver birches 
on the left side, visited an old camp and at mid¬ 
day reached the upper end and so into Lac 
Brecque. 
To reach this, we entered a little river which 
seemed to connect two parts of upper Marcotte, 
which for reasons good and sufficient, I mentally 
named the Lake of a Thousand Trout. 
All the forenoon we had not stopped to fish; 
ranch of 82,000 acres on a fishing trip, some dis¬ 
tance down the Platte. 
Sheep sure enough are desert makers. They 
crop so closely that there is not enough grass 
left to reseed. Then come the occasional cloud¬ 
bursts of summer and the driving winds of win¬ 
ter to carry off the soil and complete the destruc¬ 
tion. 
Where it is possible near the mountains to 
irrigate, and where it has been done, the returns 
have been most gratifying in the raising of al¬ 
falfa as feed for cattle and horses, which are 
more profitable than sheep. 
We found our 20-gauge guns loaded with % 
oz. of Nos. 7% or 8 chilled shot just right, pref¬ 
erably using the 2%-inch Leader shell, with 2V2 
dr. of powder. The Royal Coachman fly tied on 
a No. 8 hook seems to have a clear lead. Other 
good flies for these waters are Silver Doctor, 
Jockscot, Red Ant and Grizzly King. Some pre¬ 
fer them tied with Jungle cock feathers. The 
fly fishing averaged fine. 
With a high appreciation of the courtesies 
shown us by the residents, my friends and I 
parted after two weeks, they going on into Idaho 
and I back to business. 
T. H. Grant. 
Red Bank, N. J., Nov. 27, 1913. 
now we were paddling along three canoes abreast, 
enjoying the fine service, the lofty cliffs or the 
low tree-covered shore, or the long reaches of 
green; or with canoes on back, we swung down 
some long arbored trail attuned to the gods in 
color, tone and charm. We had not thought of 
fishing, but soon our host stopped his canoe and 
at a certain point made a cast. 
If that brook trout had been under heavy 
bonds to be at that exact spot on that very sec¬ 
ond, the result could not have been more star¬ 
tling, as it went into the air with a leap that 
augured well for the day, and a few moments 
later four resilient split bamboo rods were wav¬ 
ing, bending, threatening to buckle in the merry 
dance of the rod. 
There must have been a convention of trout 
at this place, as rarely did a fly reach the surface 
but a pound or a pound and a half brook trout 
rushed to greet it and went into the air. They 
seemed to be lying in a long, clear, deep pool 
and afforded the very choicest expression of 
trout fishing, as they were in fighting condition. 
They were so innocent of guile, so free from the 
knowledge of the world possessed by the average 
trout, that they would take a fly within five feet 
of the boat; in fact, I fancy they thought the 
canoes, logs and were completely deceived. 
But the moment they were hooked they gave 
exhibition of fighting qualities rarely seen in the 
civilized trout of the lower country. We had a 
large party to provision and ’were living on the 
country, and if I am not mistaken we took forty 
brook trout on flies in less than an hour, all 
ranging from half a pound to a pound and a half, 
and some running up to two pounds, and used 
them all. 
We left Lac Brecque and entered Lac Coteau, 
then landed and began a wild carry to a little 
lake in the chain of Lac La Bellette. Some of us 
overshot the trail in the deep forest and suddenly 
found ourselves lost, and in a country piled with 
rocks and fallen trees. We found the lake shore 
after a while, coming out on the edge of a thick 
forest, through the brush of which I crawled to 
reach the water, where we soon heard the shouts 
of the canoemen. We had missed the trail about 
a mile over a hard walking country, so the canoes 
came down and picked us up, and we were soon 
on a little island near the center of Lac Bellette, 
where stood a good log cabin, the last stand of 
our host in this direction. A more beautiful 
spot for a camp one could hardly imagine, as the 
island was a bit of the forest, unspoiled, uncon¬ 
taminated, about an acre of trees, and a forest 
of blueberry bushes all about the cabin, and that 
the bears and moose swam over to enjoy it, there 
was evident proof in the sharp hoofs and imprints 
near which we pulled the canoes in. 
This camp was the central point for new de¬ 
parture to Lac Pruden and beyond. The follow¬ 
ing day we again ravaged the lake of a Thousand 
CHARLES F. HOLDER 
Trout, and I had a strike at the head of Lac 
Marcotte that told of a big and heavy lake fish. 
Crossing Marcotte, opposite the new log cabin 
of our host, we found the beavers at work, and 
the bottom covered with gnawed twigs. This was 
to be a little adventure in search of lakes sup¬ 
posed to lie somewhere to the north, connecting 
Lac Marcotte with Lac Pruden. We landed at 
the Beaver Point, ar.J, shouldering the three 
canoes, the men struck into the fine woods over 
an old overgrown trail, and after a mile of travel¬ 
ling we stumbled upon a lake, crossed this, and 
pushed in through a fine forest of big pines, 
birches and beeches, and came suddenly upon a 
beautiful little lake surrounded by big pines and 
as isolated as Little Lac Grenier. 
I soon found that it was very deep, in point 
of fact I could not reach bottom. I trolled with 
a spoon across deeps and shallows to discover the 
game, if any; but I did not have a strike, nor 
did I obtain a rise in a circuit of the lake in 
the shadows of the tall pines. I had about con¬ 
cluded that the little lake was gameless, when I 
The Lake of a Thousand Trout 
By CHAS. FREDERICK HOLDER, Author of “The Game Fishes of the World ” 
