It will be enough to say that we made the regulation trip and were quite orthodox in the matter of admiration. The moments of enthusiasm over the scenery were interspersed with periods of deep reflection; for somewhere along the course of the steamer we had decided to stop off for a stay of some weeks. Where should it be? We had started with a notion that the choice would lie between Pantanguishene and Parry Sound; but the former place failed to make a strong appeal, and at Parry Sound there were too many people and too few fish. On our way down we had touched at Manitowaning. When and where had we heard of this place? Carefully overhauling the odds and ends stowed away in the chambers of memory, we came at last upon a glowing account, given us some years before by a fisherman friend, of a vacation spent at Manitowaning. Much of what he said had been forgotten, but not his praise of the fishing. When the captain of the steamer assured us that there was a comfortable hotel in the little village, the matter was settled, and Manitowaning it was. It may be just as well to exhibit the “fly in the ointment” at once, and have done with it. The hotel had a bar, and the drinking and the drunkenness went far towards marring our enjoyment of this otherwise most delightful spot. Manitou Lake, three miles from the village, swarms with little-mouth bass. One can hire a rig for a dollar and a half for the day, and many were the hours spent in close and delightful intercourse with the inhabitants of this beautiful body of water. Bass are freaky fish, and one never knows just when they will take a notion to scorn all efforts at their capture. One day Sue and the writer drove over to the lake, and those bass took everything that was offered. In a little sandy bay, where the water was not over four feet deep, we anchored and began fishing with minnows. So eager were the fish that both of us were kept busy hauling in the victims and putting on fresh bait. The Senior decided to try a gaudy, artificial fly, and the bass grabbed it with utter disregard of the fact that it resembled nothing which they had ever seen before. The fishing went forward so fast and furiously that it was finally agreed to throw back every bass that was not clearly of three pounds in weight, or more. Urged on by the sport of that day, the whole family started bright and early the next morning to duplicate the delightful experience. Alas! some mysterious change had come over the “spirit of their dream” in fishdom. Not a bass could be found in the little sandy bay where they had thronged only a short twenty-four hours before and, after a day of arduous toil, the net results were five bass, not one over two pounds.