ght easily, and the
big ones are left for the person who can outwit them.

After we were ready, we reconnoitered. We sat down and studied to see
where we'd prefer to be if we were a big trout. A big trout usually
doesn't prowl about much. He gets a lair, in a hole or under a bank, and
stays close, eating whatever comes his way, and chasing out all the
smaller trout. Sometimes he swims into the ripples, to feed; but back he
goes to his lair again.

So we studied the situation. There was no use in wading about, or
shaking the banks, and scaring trout, unless we had a plan. It looked to
me that if I were a big trout I'd be in a shady spot over across, where
the water swept around a low place of the dam and made a black eddy
under the branches of a spruce. Jed Smith said all right, I could try
that, and he would try where the bank on our side stuck out over the
water a little.

I figured that my hole would be fished by about everybody from the
water. Most persons would wade across, and cast up-stream to the edge of
it; and if a trout was still there he would be watching out for that. So
the way to surprise him would be to sneak on him from a new direction. I
went down below, and crossed (over my boot-tops) to the other side, and
followed up through the timber.

I had to crawl under the spruce--and I was mighty careful not to shake
the ground or to make any noise, for we needed fish. Nobody had been to
the hole from this direction; it was too hard work. By reaching out with
my pole I could just flip the hopper into the water. I tried twice; and
the second time I landed him right in the swirl. He hadn't floated an
inch when a yellowish thing calmly rose under him and he was gone!

I jerked up with the willow, and the line tightened and began to tug. I
knew by the color and the way he swallowed the hopper without any fuss
that he was a king trout, and if I didn't haul him right in he'd break
the pole or tear loose. I shortened pole like lightning and grabbed the
line; but it got tangled in the branches of the spruce, and the trout
was hung up with just his nose out of water.

Jiminy! but he was making the spray fly. He looked as big as a beaver,
and the hook was caught in the very edge of his lip. That made me hurry.
In a moment he'd be away. I suppose I leaned out too far, to grab the
line again, or to get him by the gills, for I slipped and dived
headfirst into the hole.

Whew, but the water was cold! It took my brea