g-grounds of the rainbow are the eddies and the back-washes in
the swift-running rivers, into which flies, grasshoppers, and other food
are carried by the current. A very favourite haunt is at the mouth of
creeks and streams running into a lake, or where a large river runs into
or out of a large lake. Food is naturally plentiful at such places, and
at certain times the fish gather there in great numbers, splashing about
and chasing the small fry. They will then take a silver-bodied fly most
greedily.

In many of the smaller mountain lakes where fly seems to be at certain
seasons the rainbow's sole food, no other lure will attract it, but with
the fly great numbers may be caught. The fly-fisher also scores among
fish gathered at the mouths of creeks swollen by summer floods. The
minnow, also, both natural and artificial, is useful in these
conditions, and it will account for much larger fish, up to 10lb. and
even over; these monsters have probably forsaken a fly diet and taken to
small fry. But there is no doubt that the rainbow is, quite as much as
our own trout, a fly-feeder, and that it takes the artificial as readily
and, owing to want of education, and, perhaps, also to natural boldness,
with even greater freedom and less regard to the nature of the lure or
the skill of the fisherman who throws it.

So far as strength and gameness go the rainbow is fully the equal of the
brown trout, and, in my opinion, its superior, though, as its play is
often aided by the very strong water it frequents, its strength may
sometimes appear greater than it would in our smaller streams. For this
reason fishing for rainbows in British Columbia has always seemed to me
to resemble sea-trout fishing more than the fishing for brown trout;
perhaps less skill is necessary, but there is a stronger fight.

The rivers and lakes of British Columbia are at present an angler's
paradise, and will probably long continue to be so. And it promises the
additional interest that the fisherman is not treading a beaten and
well-known path. There is pioneer work for him to do. There are many
problems for him to solve and discoveries for him to make. In the
numberless lakes and rivers stretching far up through northern British
Columbia to the Arctic, it is not unlikely that several new species of
the Salmonidae await description.

The big-game hunter has shown what secrets may lie hid in so wide a
land, for since these northern regions have been explored