STEVE SPYING, SANDY POND
CAMP, WEST END SANDY POND
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CHAPTER V
TO KOSKĀCODDE
September 5th was a lovely morning, not a breath of wind and a cloudless sky, so different from yesterday. Getting away at 9.30 we made a good four miles an hour, reaching our camping ground at the west end of the lake at 11.30. Steve, Joe and I were in the big canoe and John, a fine boatman, in the small canoe which skirted the shores of the lake. We disturbed a small stag which was feeding along the shore and which at once disappeared in the woods. The camp was simply perfect, fairly open yet with sufficient shelter from the surrounding woods. Behind it rose a hill about 100 feet high, a fine look-out over the entire country. The tents were pitched on a spur of land just where the Baie du Nord River, or rather its head-waters, left the lake in a tumbling torrent with intervening deep pools, an ideal salmon river to look at, but unfortunately no salmon can pass Smoky Falls, many miles away to the south of Lake Meddonagonax.
I had caught two trout crossing the lake, but could not resist the first really good fly-fishing water I had come to, so a few minutes after arrival I was on the bank of the river fishing an ideal pool. There was about a quarter of a mile of fishing water, after which was a small lake and then more rapids below. In an hour I had landed twelve trout and char, weighing 10½ lb. The trout were all onannaniche and played like sea trout—more often out of the water than in. The largest was 2¼ lb., and the two largest char weighed 2¾ lb. In the heavy rapid water they gave grand sport. What an ideal camp it was! The best of fishing at the door of the tent, a glorious view over the lake, with its many wood-clad islands to the south, while across the lake the ground was open and sloped gradually upwards, and here Steve said he had more than once seen good stags. The whole ground could be spied from the rocky hill behind the camp, from which, too, we could look over all the woodland marshes to north and west and could see the river winding away to distant Koskācodde, and in the further distance Kepskaig Hill and the country we were to hunt later on.
After lunch, about 3 o'clock, Steve and I started for the look-outs. There were three in all, behind and to the north of our camp. We decided to go straight to the one farthest north, a mile away, and from which we could command all the open ground near the lake and the numerous glades and marshes lying around us. Our only chance was to see a stag coming out to feed about sunset.