Three Days Ago We Packed The Little Wagon With Wraps And Other Things,
And Major And Mrs. Stokes, Faye, And I Started For A Two Days' Outing
At A Little Lake That Is Nestled Far Up On The Side Of A Mountain.
It
is about ten miles from here.
There is only a wagon trail leading to
it, and as you go on up and up, and see nothing but rocks and trees,
it would never occur to you that the steep slope of the mountain could
be broken, that a lake of good size could be hidden on its side. You
do not get a glimpse of it once, until you drive between the bushes
and boulders that border its banks, and then it is all before you in
amazing beauty. The reflections are wonderful, the high lights showing
with exquisite sharpness against the dark green and purple depths of
the clear, spring water.
The lake is fearfully deep - the Indians insist that in places it is
bottomless - and it is teeming with trout, the most delicious mountain
trout that can be caught any place, and which come up so cold one can
easily fancy there is an iceberg somewhere down below. Some of these
fish are fourteen or more inches long.
It was rather late in the afternoon when we reached the lake, so we
hurriedly got ourselves ready for fishing, for we were thinking of a
trout dinner. Four enlisted men had followed us with a wagon, in which
were our tents, bedding, and boxes of provisions, and these men busied
themselves at once by putting up the little tents and making
preparations for dinner, and we were anxious to get enough fish for
their dinner as well as our own. At a little landing we found two
row-boats, and getting in these we were soon out on the lake.
If one goes to Fish Lake just for sport, and can be contented with
taking in two or three fish during an all day's hard work, flies
should be used always, but if one gets up there when the shadows are
long and one's dinner is depending upon the fish caught, one might as
well begin at once with grasshoppers - at least, that is what I did. I
carried a box of fine yellow grasshoppers up with me, and I cast one
over before the boat had fairly settled in position. It was seized the
instant it had touched the water, and down, down went the trout, its
white sides glistening through the clear water. For some reason still
unaccountable I let it go, and yard after yard of line was reeled out.
Perhaps, after all, it was fascination that kept me from stopping the
plunge of the fish, that never stopped until the entire line was let
out. That brought me to my senses, and I reeled the fish up and got a
fine trout, but I also got at the same time an uncontrollable longing
for land.
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