ith live minnows
or worms, with float tackle. There was a lower lake less encumbered
with snags and submerged timber, made by the club by building a
workmanlike dam at the lower end of the property, and the clear little
stream which once worked the mill keeps it clear and sweet, after, on
the way down the valley, between the two ponds, doing good service at
the club hatchery hidden in a lovely thicket of sylvan wildness, and
looked after for their brother members by the intelligent farmer, who
with his mother and wife takes charge of the clubhouse and fishery.
The fun we all had at eventide, sitting in the punts and catching or
missing the trout that dragged our floats under, was certainly
uproarious, and I am ashamed, now that I am writing in cold blood, to
say that I enjoyed it as much as any of the party.

But this was a bad example to friend A., who, as I have previously
stated, was "no fisherman." He blandly smiled as I begged him to
understand that it was nothing short of high treason to catch such
lovely trout with anything other than artificial fly. Just then his
float went off like a flash almost close to the punt, and as he fought
his fish with bended rod he murmured that, meanwhile, minnow or worm
was quite good enough for him. The way in which a fifth member of the
party, a youth who had brought us a bucket of minnows (so-called),
hurled out half-pounders high in the air, and sent them spinning behind
him, was provocative of screams of laughter. In the morning I was
anxious to try this lower lake with the fly rod, though warned by the
farmer that it was of little use. For the good of A.'s piscatorial
soul I, nevertheless, insisted, and the capture of two quarter-pounders
with a red palmer, and several short rises, rewarded my efforts in his
interests. If he has not received my counsel, and laid it to heart, it
will not be because he did not have ocular demonstration of the virtues
of fly-fishing. I was not surprised to hear that these club fish were
not free risers at the fly, for both ponds were swarming with half-inch
and one-inch fry, as tempting as our own minnows, and the trout simply
lived in an atmosphere of them. Our Canadian brother anglers here, as
elsewhere, are of the real good stamp, sportsmen to the core,
pisciculturists, botanists, naturalists, racy conversationalists, and
big-hearted to a man. Please fortune I shall shake hands with them
another day.

CHAPTER XIX

HASTY VI