rs is no drawing-room
work; great sport can be got, but the best is often only to be obtained
by a certain amount of "roughing it." The rivers are not always in right
condition, nor the weather always favourable--unfortunate facts peculiar
to every river in the world--and it is only when all things are
favourable that the best sport is obtained. To have plenty of time at
his disposal is the great thing for the fisherman, for it is only
natural that a man passing through the country and having only a couple
of weeks at the outside to spare may easily find nothing but
disappointments. No one must expect to get off the Canadian Pacific
express and find the rainbow trout eagerly expecting his arrival.

The district best known to me is that through which the Thompson River
runs, from the Shuswap Lake to its junction with the Fraser at Lytton.
The Canadian Pacific Railway follows the river in its whole length, and
thus renders it very accessible. Many other smaller streams and lakes
are part of the Thompson water system, and afford good fishing. The
river runs through the "dry belt," which is so called owing to the
smallness of the rainfall, which only averages about 8in. in the year.
It is from this cause that the banks of the rivers are very open and
free from brush, which makes them easy to fish and to travel along;
while, for the same reason, the country is generally open rolling hills,
covered with grass or scanty pines, affording a great contrast to the
moist country at the coast, where the rivers run through thick woods and
impenetrable bush, which render them very difficult to approach and fish
unless they are shallow enough for wading. The fishing to be obtained
along the Canadian Pacific Railway as it passes through the Rocky
Mountains is not very good, the guide-books notwithstanding. At Banff
there is a little fishing in the Bow River, but it is poor, and the fish
do not seem to take the fly. In Devil's Lake lake trout, a species of
char, can be got on the spoon by deep trolling up to a very large size;
but it is not a very high form of sport, and cannot be compared to the
rainbow trout fishing along the Thompson.

The South Thompson River has its source at the western end of the great
Shuswap Lake, near Shuswap station on the Canadian Pacific, and joins
the Fraser at Lytton; at Kamloops it is joined by the North Thompson,
and the combined stream flows into Kamloops Lake, about seven miles
below the town, running