Dec. 24, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
1031 
was a very slender, half-starved looking trout, 
almost as long as. the 6pVpounder, but weigh¬ 
ing probably only half as much. It had in its 
jaw an old royal coachman fly with a hook about 
size No. 1. This had no doubt prevented its 
getting proper and sufficient food. 
On the next afternoon my wife and I with 
the two guides started out for an afternoon’s 
fishing in the pool right at our camp. She 
had a shiner for bait, while I was using a No. 1 
Parmacheene Belle salmon fly. Up to this time 
neither of us had hooked a trout of unusual 
size, although we had all the fish we wanted to 
eat, but while the big fellows are there, they are 
not caught every hour of the day. The guides 
anchored our boat in five or six feet of water 
which was quite rapid, my wife fishing from one 
side, while I cast my fly to the other side. In 
a few minutes I saw a large mottled back near 
my fly, and I called everybody’s attention to the 
fact that I had really seen one of the big trout. 
Zip, and once more the belle went over the water 
and landed a little above its former resting 
While I was anxious about my tackle I put 
the rod to the test, my wife insisting that I was 
surely going to break it, for she thought no rod 
could stand the kind of treatment I was giving 
it. I told her that an occasion of that kind was 
what good rods were for, and that if it would 
not respond in the right way, I had better know 
it then than later. 
The trout was finally brought to net thoroughly 
exhausted. The fight had lasted one hour and 
thirty-nine minutes. The fish measured twenty- 
three inches. 
On Saturday, after supper, I went out alone 
with the guides. Using live bait I had a heavy 
strike and landed another large trout. Of this 
trout I had a single mount made, measuring 
twenty-two inches. It was a most beautiful trout, 
more highly colored, I think, than any I saw 
while on the river. I had a number of other 
strikes from large fish, but evidently was less 
careful with them, and I got but the two large 
ones during my stay. I was not, however, really 
anxious to catch more of the big trout than I 
Christmas Angling. 
“The angler at home (in the Christmas sea¬ 
son) in the retirement of his • sanctum sees a 
good deal of sport in the pipe puffs as they curl, 
ascend and dissipate,” says Red Spinner. “No 
figures dancing in the fire into which the maiden 
dreamer, with all the world before her, sweetly 
looks, are more absorbing than those which he 
watches. They may be more evanescent, but for 
the moment they are quite as real. Sometimes 
they recall the past with its much attempted, its 
little done; often they are mighty with future 
possibilities never to be realized. As the private 
soldier of France was said to carry the mar¬ 
shal’s baton in his knapsack, so the angler’s 
smoke entwines and garnishes that giant salmon 
which time cannot lessen.” 
In the lengthening nights of autumn, when the 
“nightly winds that sweep the skirt of some far- 
spreading wood of ancient growth, make music 
not unlike the dash of ocean on his winding 
shore, and lull the spirit while they fill the mind,” 
MR. INK WITH A BROOK TROUT. 
MR. INK’S 23-INCH NIPIGON TROUT. 
place. Hardly had it alighted when, for the first 
time in my life, I knew how it felt to have a 
really big fish at the end of a fly line in swift 
water. The moment I set the hook and felt no 
yielding response, I told the folks there was 
going to be a fight, and the proper thing to do 
was to time it; it was just 3:34 p. m. 
My wife had her bait out with seventy-five 
feet of line, and in one of the rushes my trout 
became entangled in her line, and for a time it 
looked as if we might have serious trouble. For¬ 
tunately, however, we were able to untangle her 
line, and she took it into the boat to avoid fur¬ 
ther trouble. It seems these large Nipigon trout 
hang right to the bottom and are inclined to sulk 
more or less, and in a general way that was what 
this fish seemed to want to do. This does not 
mean that he was not moving about, but he kept 
close to the bottom most of the time. He made 
rushes back and forth across the current, going 
down stream, getting the butt and again heading 
up stream. I was using a light six-foot leader 
and a light snell, so that I was not over-confident 
of the strength of my tackle. 
A dozen times he came close enough so that 
we could see considerable of the leader, but 
every time he took alarm and ran out the line as 
far and as fast as suited his pleasure, because I 
could do very little in the way of stopping him. 
wanted to have mounted, and I really cannot 
understand the spirit of any alleged sportsman 
who would go after them with the idea of being 
able only to say how many of these great fish 
he had slaughtered. 
Ordinarily the guides do no work on Sunday 
other than cook, etc. As we did not intend mov¬ 
ing our camp above Camp Cincinnati, Mr. Bain 
said, however, that if we wished they would be 
glad to get a canoe across the portage and above 
Hamilton’s Pool on Sunday and take us up to 
and above Virgin Falls and at the foot of Lake 
Nipigon. This was done, and it enabled us to 
see the entire length of the river and the most 
beautiful of all the falls and rapids. We re¬ 
turned to camp the same' evening. 
I had intended putting in a pretty solid day's 
fishing on Monday at the Camp Cincinnati Pool, 
which seems to me the best pool on the river in 
the fall, but rain forced us to return to camp, 
and we did not again go out in the canoe, al¬ 
though Philip and I fished from the bank and 
got enough fish for eating. 
We started on the return trip Tuesday morn¬ 
ing. 
All in all this was the most enjoyable trip we 
had ever taken. The Nipigon is a wonderful 
river, but you can get nearer to the North Branch 
and really love it. H. H. Ink. 
the ardent angler with glowing pipe and gar¬ 
nished hearth will seek the angler’s “treasure, 
silence and indulge the dreams of fancy, tranquil 
and secure,” and between the odoriferous puffs 
take to himself with all-becoming modesty the 
compliment of the shepherd. “Ay, sir, in your 
younger days you maun hae been a verra deevil. 
What creelfu’s you maun hae killed?” 
Although there be a scud of snow on that 
mossy bank which was your throne when the 
summer sun quickened your blood and the mur¬ 
muring waters lulled you, and though perchance 
the pool itself has begun to don its coat of ice, 
yet between the pipe puffs we can turn back the 
clock and enjoy again the golden summer day. 
If when pent up within the sordid city limits 
you have heard the voices calling, calling, and 
been fortunate like “him who, imprisoned long 
in some unwholesome dungeon, and a prey to 
sallow sickness, escapes at last to liberty and 
light. His cheek recovers soon its healthful hue; 
his eye relumines its extinguish’d fires; he 
walks, he leaps, he runs — is winged with joy 
and riots in the sweet of every breeze,” if so, I 
say, you are indeed to be congratulated as one 
who was sickening unto death and found the 
sovereign remedy. 
All this is because of my having laid my hand 
on a late Forest and Stream and read again an 
