NIPIGON TROUT, KNIGHT TO CLARK 1938

NIPIGON TROUT,  KNIGHT TO CLARK 1938

Letter from the Nipigon Museum Archives:

From John Alden Knight of Orange New Jersey

To: Gregory Clark, Toronto Star,  August 5, 1938

Dear Greg;

While chatting with you in your library this summer, I was interested in looking over a copy of a letter from Edward R. Hewitt, wherein he declines, with the usual Hewitt abruptness, an invitation to fish the Nipigon.  In that letter he mentions quite casually the taking of some large trout at the top of the Virgin Falls in that river.

Now you have seen the Virgin Falls and you can understand what would happen to a man who might have the ill fortune to be carried over them. He treats the taking of those monster trout quite casually in his letter.  I have heard him tell the story several times at the Anglers’ Club luncheon table and I thought you would like to have it as I remember it.

The trout referred to were easily to be seen lying with their tails almost at the lip of the falls, completely out of casting range from the shore.  Using very heavy tackle, so that the fish could be held from going over the falls when hooked, Hewitt had himself maneuvered into the centre of the pool above the falls by means of fastening two long ropes to the prow of a canoe.  The ropes were then snubbed around trees by Indain Guides, one on each bank.  I believe that he used as a lure a piece of trout belly with the fin attached.  And there, hanging on the brink of eternity, he hooked and landed several of those huge fish.

Truly, he is an amazing old man.

Yours,

John Alden Knight