that lake, and in summer the big fish are always lazy and hard to
catch. I was trout hungry most of the time, for the fish that I
caught were small, and few and far between. Several times,
however, when casting from the shore at the inlet for small
fish, I had seen swirls in a great eddy near the farther shore,
which told me plainly of big fish beneath; and one day, when a
huge trout rolled half his length out of water behind my fly,
small fry lost all their interest and I promised myself the joy
of feeling my rod bend and tingle beneath the rush of that big
trout if it took all summer.

Flies were no use. I offered him a bookful, every variety of
shape and color, at dawn and dusk, without tempting him. I tried
grubs, which bass like, and a frog's leg, which no pickerel can
resist, and little frogs, such as big trout hunt among the lily
pads in the twilight,--all without pleasing him. And then
waterbeetles, and a red squirrel's tail-tip, which makes the best
hackle in the world, and kicking grasshoppers, and a silver spoon
with a wicked "gang" of hooks, which I detest and which, I am
thankful to remember, the trout detested also. They lay there in
their big cool eddy, lazily taking what food the stream brought
down to them, giving no heed to frauds of any kind.

Then I caught a red-fin in the stream above, hooked it securely,
laid it on a big chip, coiled my line upon it, and set it
floating down stream, the line uncoiling gently behind it as it
went. When it reached the eddy I raised my rod tip; the line
straightened; the red-fin plunged overboard, and a two-pound
trout, thinking, no doubt, that the little fellow had been hiding
under the chip, rose for him and took him in. That was the only