In many of the larger inland lakes of Michigan lake-trout may be found, and summer visitors vary the sport of bass fishing with excursions after trout. Early in the season these fish are found in shallow water, along the shore, and may be taken by ordinary trolling; but as the weather grows warm the trout retreat to the deepest part of the lake, where they can be captured only by some unusual means. The method employed does not appeal strongly to a true sportsman, but he can afford to try it, once, at least, for the sake of the novelty. At the foot of Elk Lake lived an old man who was a past-master in the art of taking these deep-lying trout, and to him the visitor turned when he grew satiated with bass fishing and sighed for new worlds to conquer. The old fisherman has a big, heavy boat, in the back end of which he has fixed a windlass holding a thousand feet of fine, copper wire. The trout are lying in about three hundred feet of water, and no ordinary line will allow the trolling spoon to sink deep enough to reach those dim recesses. With all the copper wire paid out, the old man rows slowly over the deepest parts of the lake, while the tourist sits holding the handle of the windlass, ready to begin turning at the least suspicion of a strike. Now and then there is a false alarm, and the excited fisherman cranks in a thousand feet of wire only to find a piece of wood or weed fastened to the spoon-hook. When, by chance, a trout is hooked, the sensation differs little from that experienced in winding up a bucket of water from a deep well. The fish has not travelled far in his involuntary journey through the water before he loses all ambition, fills with water and becomes no more obstreperous than any other inanimate object would be when fastened to sixty rods of line. These trout are delicious eating, and run as high as twenty-five pounds, or even more in weight. Other trout, the real, speckled brook-trout, are found in the streams flowing into the lake, and more than one delightful day was spent in pursuit of them. After all, there is no other fishing quite like that. It is not altogether because brook-trout are the cleanliest, handsomest of fish, or that they are so gamey and so toothsome that this sport is easily the prime favourite with fishermen. The brook itself is a joy. Just to company with it makes life worth while. It chatters to you, laughs at you, plays hide-and-go-seek with you, and never gets to be an old story. Sitting on an old root, just where a log fallen across the stream makes a good hiding-place for the shy fish, it doesn’t matter very much whether you catch anything or not. The checkers of sunlight are dancing all about you, a red squirrel is scolding at you from a neighbouring tree, a mink may go stealing by if you are quiet, and over all is a great peace which steals into the heart, filling it with profound contentment.