268 
at what he appeared to consider the fellow’s 
agility, and apparently proud of his cleverness 
in not upsetting the boat. With George and my¬ 
self who knew something about a boat the feel¬ 
ing was vastly different, we were in the mid¬ 
dle of a lake, half a mile from the nearest point 
of land, a strong wind blowing and quite a 
choppy sea on and we knew that neither the boy 
nor his father could swim. Suggestion, then 
recommendation, and finally command that he 
sit down were met with impolite refusal, and 
as the next day and probably every day of our 
stay promised to be a repetition of the first, 
George and I took the canoe, a seventeen foot 
birch bark in which I had to paddle and cast. 
And if there is anything that would tend to 
cure one of a love for trout fishing more ef¬ 
fectually than paddling a light birch bark canoe 
on choppy water drifting before a stiff breeze, 
having to drop the paddle and sieze the rod to 
make an occasional cast, then drop the rod and 
take the paddle to keep the canoe up in the 
wind, and all this seated down in the bottom of 
the canoe 1 have never experienced it. But this 
was our predicament for the first two weeks, 
while the awful boy and his father were being 
comfortably rowed over the lake by the guide. 
Then George decided to leave, and the boy’s 
father, seeing that things had reached a crisis, 
concluded that the boy might stay in camp and 
have a rest, where Frank, the cook might be 
able to provide him some entertainment, and 
where, as it happened he entertained himself by 
making bonfires on the chip yard in front of the 
house, and throughout the whole day loading up 
and firing off all the guns and rifles in the camp, 
keeping up a steady fusilade. But here, at the 
end of the first two weeks of our month began 
my real fishing, and such fishing! While strug¬ 
gling with th'e canoe I had explored the lake and 
its effluent and found its best fishing places. We 
proceeded to the lower end of the lake, where 
the rocks were, and began to cast. I had on a 
Parmacheene Bell with a Red Ibis for a dropper 
and the moment the flies touched the water I 
had a rise to each. A quick snap at the right 
moment set the hooks and two big trout dashed 
off, making the reel sing the song that delights 
the ear of the trout fisher. While this was go¬ 
ing on George and Pluff were busy on the other 
side of the boat, one of them with a double like 
myself. Two or three times while playing my 
catch the fish would leap clear of the water and 
I concluded that I had a couple of three pound¬ 
ers but when brought to the net I raised my 
estimate of their weight, and when weighed at 
the camp they turned the scale at four pounds 
one ounce and four pounds eight ounces, re¬ 
spectively. The trout were so plentiful and rose 
to the fly so greadily that it was rarely that 
more than two casts were required in order to 
get a rise; the water appeared to be alive with 
them, they were fat and well nourished and had 
attained their growth rapidly as was to be seen 
by the proportionate smallness of their heads, 
and we naturally speculated on what they fed 
upon. A small lake like this supporting and 
feeding what would appear to be millions of trout 
must provide something more than insects and 
water snails, but it was not until sundown that 
we had this question settled. About four o’clock 
in the afternoon the surface of the water over 
large areas began to glitter and sparkle with 
FOREST AND STREAM 
shoals of small fish racing with all speed toward 
the upper end of the lake, and following the 
procession we discovered those to be shiners 
rushing for their lives to the protection offered 
them by the shallow water and vegetation at the 
upper end of the lake, being pursued by multi¬ 
tudes of hungry trout whose feeding hour this 
seemed to be. As the fugitives approached the 
upper end of the lake their numbers increased 
until the surface of the water over large areas 
was covered with their dancing silvery bodies. 
Many of the little fish in their anxiety to es¬ 
cape their hungry pursuers leaped high out of 
the water. These small fish we found to be 
what are locally known as shiners, a fresh water 
fish closely resembling the smelt and from four 
to nine inches in length. To our surprise they 
occasionally rose to the fly. This settled the 
question of the food supply and we no longer 
wondered how our big five pound trout were fed. 
We continued our fishing at the rocks until we 
had all that we could use in camp with a hun¬ 
dredweight or so to send to friends in New York. 
These we packed in boxes with ice and moss, 
the latter, which we found in abundance growing 
on the trees made an excellent non-conductor of 
heat. The boxes sent by express marked “FISH” 
reached New York with astonishing promptness 
and in such good condition that when delivered 
the ice had hardly begun to melt. 
Our camp was sixteen miles from the village 
where the railway train had left us, but the 
proprietor of the hotel sent a man with a buck- 
boafd drawn by a stout French-Canadian pony 
twice a week to bring us anything that we might 
require and take away our fish, which he dis¬ 
patched by express to New York. 
We found splendid fishing in the river that 
formed the outlet of the lake. For a mile or 
two the water was still, with no perceptible cur¬ 
rent and in reality a part of the lake itself. 
Along its edges there was a wide fringe of water 
lilies and in the shadow of this lay trout of large 
size and in numbers sufficient to keep the land¬ 
ing nets in constant use. In other parts of the 
lake we got three, four and five pounders, one 
of five pounds and two ounces being the largest 
that we caught. Along the upper end of the 
lake, and among the lily pads in the bay near 
our camp the trout were so plentiful that the 
catching of them ceased to be sport here; how¬ 
ever they were of smaller size although of 
strange uniformity in this respect, being all about 
ten inches long. Where the younger ones and 
fry kept themselves we did not find out. We 
had many one pound fish, but appreciating the 
playing and landing of four and five pounders 
we confined our activities principally to the 
rocks and the outlet. While I fished with a 
Parmacheene Bell and a Red Ibis, Pluff was do¬ 
ing as well with a silver doctor and a Seth Green. 
Three of my Parmacheene Bells had become 
worn to a frazel by the trout’s teeth and I sub¬ 
stituted a Coachman. It seemed to make no 
difference what fly was used the result was the 
same, a rise with nearly every cast and usually 
a double, and on some occasions when I hooked 
one and he dashed off another would seize the 
disengaged fly, one fish catching another. A 
stranger thing happened when Pluff, a clumsy 
caster who had never fished trout before, in 
making a cast and switching his flies behind 
him so far as to touch the water, had a strike 
and actually hooked a big one. The indifference 
with which those trout took one fly or another 
was a strange revelation to me and in order to 
see how far it would go I put on a nondescript 
that I had busked myself but had found to be 
useless in other waters, and it proved to be as 
acceptable as any that I had used. I then did 
something as a joke which I almost hesitate to 
tell of for fear of laying myself open to the 
charge of untruthfulness but, fortified by its 
truth I tell it. I dressed a bare hook with a 
small piece of red flannel and took my trout on 
that as well as I did with my Coachman silver 
Doctor or Red Ibis. 
Things were going on merrily when our guide 
suddenly rose up in the boat and swinging his 
arms excitedly, shouted in his French-Canadian 
English that the house was on fire. Sure enough 
it was enveloped in smoke and we made for 
camp as fast as our excited guide could row the 
boat. On landing we could see nothing of the 
house for smoke. On getting nearer we met 
Frank the cook coming down with two pails to 
get water, and at the housf, the boy, enjoying 
the excitement of the burning chip-yard which, 
ignited by his bonfires had extended so close to 
the walls of the log house as to threaten its de¬ 
struction. Not feeling safe in going out with a 
smouldering fire and such a dangerous pest at 
the camp we were obliged to give up fishing for 
the remainder of the day, and having seen bear 
tracks in the neighborhood of the camp I started 
the building of a trap. 
Although, owing to the cause already given I 
had only two weeks of trout fishing out of what 
should have been a month it was well worth 
the time and cost. It exceeded not only my ex¬ 
pectations but what would have been my belief 
if I had had it described to me as it proved to 
be, although it has not entirely spoiled me for 
fishing anywhere else, believing half a loaf to 
be better than no bread. 
OWNERSHIP OF WILD BEASTS. 
The Supreme Court of Wisconsin has de¬ 
livered an opinion that will be of great interest 
to hunters, trappers and boy scouts, remarks 
the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The action was 
brought to recover the body of a wolf. Said wolf 
had been mortally wounded by one hunter, but 
was sneaking off in spite of said wound. Hunter 
No. 2 appeared and gave said wolf its quietus, 
then claiming the body as his property. But the 
court held that “when a wild animal is brought 
under the control of a person, so that actual 
possession is practically inevitable, a vested prop¬ 
erty interest accrues which cannot be divested 
by another intervening and killing it.” In other 
words, hunter No. I was the legal owner of the 
wolf. So, if a too enthusiastic hunter happens 
to catch hold of a bear by the tail, “so that 
actual possession is practically inevitable,” his 
envious companion should forbear killing said 
bear. To do so will not give him possession un¬ 
der the law. The man holding on to the tail 
owns the bear, if, as the Scotchman said, “the 
tail do not break.” 
HOUSE BOATS AND HOUSEBOATING—Albert 
Bradlee Hunt. A sumptuous volume telling how to 
build and furnish a houseboat. Describes houseboat 
life, its possibilities, gives descriptions of well-known 
English and American Houseboats. Enters into the 
question of cost and equipment, motive power, etc. 
Discusses types, and gives directions and plans for 
houseboat construction, etc. Buckram, heavy laid 
paper, richly illustrated. Postpaid, $3.00. 
