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diff --git a/37856.txt b/37856.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..426c54c --- /dev/null +++ b/37856.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5605 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Determined Angler and the Brook Trout, by +Charles Bradford + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Determined Angler and the Brook Trout + an anthological volume of trout fishing, trout histories, + trout lore, trout resorts, and trout tackle + +Author: Charles Bradford + +Release Date: October 26, 2011 [EBook #37856] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DETERMINED ANGLER AND *** + + + + +Produced by Christian Boissonnas and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +=By Charles Bradford= + + + =The Determined Angler= + + "Most sensible volume of its kind."--Grover + Cleveland. 12º. illustrated. + By mail, $1.10. $1.00 + + + =The Angler's Secret= + + "A modern 'Compleat Angler.'"--N. + Y. Times. 16mo illustrated. By + mail, $1.10 $1.00 + + + =The Angler's Guide= + + "A valuable volume of reference for + the Angler."--Dr. Jas. A. Henshall. + 200 pgs. By mail, 80 cts. .75 + + + =The Wildfowlers= + + A volume of duck shooting. "A + classic."--N. Y. World. 16mo illustrated. + By mail, $1.10 $1.00 + + + =Frank Forester= + + Life and Writings of the Father of + American Fishing and Field Sports. + By mail, $1.10 $1.00 + + [Illustration: A MORNING'S CATCH OF TROUT NEAR SPOKANE, WASHINGTON + + "Three times too many for one rod."--_William T. Hornaday_ + An object lesson on the too-liberal fish laws. _See page 38_] + + + + + The Determined Angler + and the + Brook Trout + + An Anthological Volume of Trout Fishing. + Trout Histories, Trout Lore, Trout + Resorts, and Trout Tackle + + By + + Charles Bradford + + Author of "The Wildfowlers," "The Angler's Secret." + "The Angler's Guide," "Frank Forester," etc. + + [Illustration] + + _Second Edition, Greatly Enlarged_ + + _Illustrated_ + + G. P. Putnam's Sons + New York London + The Knickerbocker Press + 1916 + + + COPYRIGHT, 1916 + BY + CHARLES BRADFORD + + The Knickerbocker Press, New York + + +To + +J. CHARLES DAVIS + +THESE LITTLE YARNS ARE DEDICATED IN REMEMBRANCE OF SOME DELIGHTFUL +OUTINGS PASSED IN HIS SOCIETY. + + + + +THE BROOK TROUT'S HOME + + + "I am _Salmo fontinalis_. + To the sparkling fountain born; + And my home is where oxalis. + Heather bell and rose adorn + The crystal basin in the dell + (Undine the wood-nymph knows it well): + That is where I love to dwell. + + There was I baptized and christened, + 'Neath the somber aisles of oak; + Mute the cascade paused and listened. + Never a word the brooklet spoke; + Bobolink was witness then. + Likewise grosbeak, linnet, wren-- + And all the fairies joined "amen!" + + Thus as _Salmo fontinalis_ + Recognized the wide world o'er. + In my limpid crystal palace. + Content withal, I ask no more. + Leaping through the rainbow spray. + Snatching flies the livelong day. + Naught to do but eat and play." + + CHARLES HALLOCK. + + + + +BROOK TROUT ANGLING + + +"... it carries us into the most wild and beautiful scenery of +nature; amongst the mountain lakes, and the clear and lovely streams +that gush from the higher ranges of elevated hills, or that make their +way through the cavities of calcareous strata. How delightful in the +early spring, after the dull and tedious time of winter, when the +frosts disappear and the sunshine warms the earth and waters, to +wander forth by some clear stream, to see the leaf bursting from the +purple bud, to scent the odors of the bank perfumed by the violet, and +enameled, as it were, with the primrose and the daisy; to wander upon +the fresh turf below the shade of trees, whose bright blossoms are +filled with the music of the bee; and on the surface of the waters to +view the gaudy flies sparkling like animated gems in the sunbeams, +whilst the bright and beautiful trout is watching them from below; to +hear the twittering of the water-birds, who, alarmed at your approach, +rapidly hide themselves beneath the flowers and leaves of the +water-lily; and as the season advances, to find all these objects +changed for others of the same kind, but better and brighter, till the +swallow and the trout contend as it were for the gaudy May fly, and +till in pursuing your amusement in the calm and balmy evening, you are +serenaded by the songs of the cheerful thrush ... performing the +offices of paternal love, in thickets ornamented with the rose and +woodbine."--_Days of Fly Fishing, 1828._ + +"Gentlemen, let not prejudice prepossess you. I confess my discourse +is like to prove suitable to my recreation, calm and quiet.... And so +much for the prologue of what I mean to say-" + + Izaak Walton + +[Illustration] + + + + +PREFACE + +"Don't give up if you don't catch fish; the unsuccessful trip should +whet your appetite to try again."--GROVER CLEVELAND. + + +A preface is either an excuse or an explanation, or both. The Brook +Trout needs no excuse, and it is fully explained in the general text +of this volume. Nor does the Angler, be he Determined or otherwise, +need any excuse, because "our Saviour chose simple fishermen ... St. +Peter, St. John, St. Andrew, and St. James, whom he inspired, and He +never reproved these for their employment or calling" (Izaak Walton, +_The Compleat Angler_, 1653). And the Angler--the man--needs no +explanation, though it seems ever necessary to define the word. + +Webster, himself a profound Angler, must have been unconscious of his +gentle bearing, for his definition of "angle" is simply: "to fish," +and every Angler knows that merely to fish--to go forth indifferent of +correct (humane) tackle, the legal season, and ethical methods in the +pursuit--is not the way of the Angler. + +I like the explanation of the word by Genio C. Scott: "Angling, a +special kind of fishing." + +The inspired landscape genius and the kalsominer who shellacs the +artist's studio are both painters; so, the gentle Angler with perfect +tackle and the mere hand-line fish taker are both fishermen. + +The Angler is the highest order of fisherman, and while all Anglers +are fishermen there are many fishermen who are not Anglers. + +"Anglo-Saxon," writing in the New York _Press_. October 14, 1915, uses +the term "gentleman Anglers." He should have said "gentleman +fishermen" (Anglers), because all Anglers are gentlemen, regardless of +their business calling, appearance, personality, companionship, etc. +When a man, fisherman or no fisherman, develops into an Angler he must +first become gentle in order to be of the gentle art. "Angling is the +gentle art" (Walton). "The gentle art of angling" (Cotton). + +"If true Anglers," says Genio C. Scott, "you are sure to be gentle." + +Peter Flint (New York _Press_, Oct. 15, 1915): "Our most successful +Anglers, amateurs as well as professionals." + +All Anglers are amateurs, brother Peter. There are no professional +Anglers, though there are both amateur and professional fishermen, and +those fishermen who are amateurs are Anglers. The word "amateur" seems +to be adrift upon the same bewildering tideway as the words "angler" +and "angling." "Amateur" hasn't the definition commonly attributed to +it--it doesn't signify inefficiency, inexperience, unpracticality, +etc., as do the words "beginner," "neophyte," "tyro," etc. An amateur +in fishing, or farming, or any other pastime or pursuit, may be far +more practical, more experienced, more proficient, and better equipped +in tools and paraphernalia than a professional, and he usually is so; +he is certainly always so in angling. + +Watch your word. + +"It is the belief of Acker that hand-line fishing is as good [as], if +not better than, the rod and reel kind." (Wandering Angler, New York +_Press_, Aug. 17, 1915.) + +Hand-line fishing, as fishing,--though the Tuna Angling Club, of Santa +Catalina Island, California, is bound to the use of light rods and +fine reels and tells us hand-lines are unsportsmanlike and detrimental +to the public interest,--is good (Christ and His disciples sanctioned +it), but to say it is as good as or better than rod and reel angling +is not convincing. The indifferent fisher can't condemn angling in +praising common fishing with any more reason than he might proclaim +against cricket playing in favoring carpentry, or _vice versa_. One +might as correctly say hand-line fishing is as good as riding, or +driving, or golf, or baseball, or canoeing (of course it is), for +fishing without rod and reel and fishing with proper tackle are +pursuits as distinct in character as riding a plain horse bareback +with a rough halter, and straddling a gallant charger with neat bridle +and saddle; or as mere boating upon a refuse creek, and skimming the +green billows in a trim yacht. + +That the fisher's hand-line and the fisherman's net will take _more_ +fish than the Angler's tackle is not of moment, because a stick of +dynamite or a cannon filled with leaden pellets or a boy with a market +basket will take still more fish than the net and hand-line. Quantity +makes fishing "good" with the fisherman; quality delights the Angler. +There is no objection to the mere fish-getter filling his boat with +fishes with or without tackle, but as the jockey is separated from the +sportsman rider and the sailor from the yachtsman so should the +quantity fisher and the quality Angler be considered in contrasting +spheres. "What a man brings home in his heart after fishing is of +more account than what he brings in his basket," says W. J. Long. +"Anglers encourage the adoption of angling methods," says Dr. Van +Dyke, "which make the wholesale slaughter of fishes impossible and +increase the sport of taking a fair number in a fair way." + +As chivalric single-missile bow-and-arrow exercise dignifies archery +above bunch-arrow work in war, so the gentle use of refined tackle +dignifies angling above mere fish getting. Trap shooting is +delightful, and more birds are killed than the gunner would bag in +marsh and meadow, but is trap shooting therefore more "good" than +game-shooting in the glorious fields and forests? No, sir; and though +the hand-line fisherman may honestly take half the ocean's yield, +still his pursuit and his catch cannot equal and cannot be +legitimately compared to the code and the creel of the competent +Angler. + + =C. B.= + + RICHMOND HILL, + LONG ISLAND, N. Y., + _March, 1916_. + + + + + +AUTHOR'S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS + + +The article "Fly Fishing for Trout," I contributed in its original +form to _Sports Afield_, Mr. Claude King's Western journal. + +The article "Trout and Trouting," as I originally prepared it, was +entitled "Near-by Trout Streams," and was written for and published in +_Outing_, when I was field editor of that delightful magazine. + +"Trouting in Canadensis Valley" is rewritten from a little story of +mine penned at the suggestion of the noted angler and ichthyologist, +the late William C. Harris, and published by him in his _The American +Angler_ when I became his managing editor. + +"Trout Flies, Artificial and Natural" and "The Brook Trout Incognito" +are elaborations of studies I composed for _Forest and Stream_. + +And many of the items in "Little Casts," etc., are from a collection +of paragraphs I have contributed to the New York _Herald_, the New +York _Press_, and various sporting periodicals in past years. + +The extracts from the article by Willis Boyd Allen are reprinted by +permission of _Scribner's Magazine_. + +For the little pen-and-ink sketches I am indebted to our jovial +artist, Leppert. + +The picture, "Taking the Fly," is a reproduction from an etching in my +possession, presented to me by Mr. William M. Carey, whose etchings +and paintings in oil are well known to American sportsmen. + +"The Fly Rod's Victim" is reproduced from a photograph framed in +birch bark and presented to me by the poet, Isaac McLellan. + +"The Brook Trout" illustration is from a photograph of a captive +specimen in an aquarium, the engraving being loaned me by the late +John P. Burkhard. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I.--THE HOLY ANGLERS 1 + + II.--HISTORIES OF THE TROUTS--HOW + THE ANGLER TAKES THEM 7 + + III.--THE ANGLER AND THE FISHERMAN 15 + + IV.--FLY-FISHING 21 + + V.--WALTON'S WAY 33 + + VI.--THE WANTON WAY 38 + + VII.--FLY-FISHING FOR TROUT 41 + + VIII.--THE ANGLER'S PRAYER--SAVE THE + WOODS AND WATERS 52 + + IX.--TROUT AND TROUTING 56 + + X.--TROUTING IN CANADENSIS VALLEY 64 + + XI.--THE TROUTER'S OUTFIT 68 + + XII.--TROUT FLIES, ARTIFICIAL AND + NATURAL 71 + + XIII.--THE BROOK TROUT'S RIVAL 84 + + XIV.--TROUT ON BARBLESS HOOKS 87 + + XV.--THE BROOK TROUT INCOGNITO 92 + + XVI.--HOOKING THE TROUT 102 + + XVII.--DOCTOR NATURE 104 + + XVIII.--THE BROOK TROUT 106 + + XIX.--THE ANGLER 112 + + XX.--ANGLING 119 + + XXI.--TROUT FLIES 133 + + XXII.--CASTING THE FLY 138 + + XXIII.--TACKLE TALKS 142 + + XXIV.--THE ANGLER'S KITCHEN 149 + + XXV.--CARE AND BREEDING OF TROUT 151 + + XXVI.--THE ANGLER'S CLOTHING AND + FOOTWEAR 153 + + XXVII.--LITTLE CASTS 155 + + XVIII.--BORROWED LINES 157 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + PAGE + + A MORNING'S CATCH OF TROUT NEAR SPOKANE. + WASHINGTON _Frontispiece_ + + BROOK TROUT 8 + + MALMA (DOLLY VARDEN) TROUT 8 + + LAKE (MACKINAW) TROUT 8 + + OQUASSA (BLUE-BACK) TROUT 10 + + BROWN TROUT 10 + + YELLOWSTONE TROUT 10 + + SAIBLING TROUT (LONG-FIN CHARR) 10 + + RAINBOW TROUT 12 + + LAKE TAHOE TROUT 12 + + STEEL-HEAD TROUT 12 + + AN UNUSUAL WAY OF TAKING THE FLY 46 + + THE TROUT BROOK 66 + + + + +The Determined Angler + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE HOLY ANGLERS + + "The greater number of them [Christ's disciples] were found + together, fishing, by Jesus, after His Resurrection."--IZAAK + WALTON. + + "... certain poor fishermen coming in very weary after a night of + toil (and one of them very wet after swimming ashore) found their + Master standing on the bank of the lake waiting for them. But it + seems that He must have been busy in their behalf while he was + waiting; for there was a bright fire of coals on the shore, and a + goodly fish broiling thereon, and bread to eat with it. And when + the Master had asked them about their fishing he said: 'Come, now, + and get your breakfast.' So they sat down around the fire, and + with His own hands he served them with the bread and the + fish."--HENRY VAN DYKE. + + "The first men that our Saviour dear + Did choose to wait upon Him here. + Blest fishers were...." + W. BASSE. + + "I would ... fish in the sky whose bottom is pebbly with + stars."--THOREAU. + + +The principal fishes of the Sea of Galilee to-day are the same as they +were two thousand years ago--bream and chub. These were taken in +olden times by both net and hook and line. + +The fishermen whom Christ chose as His disciples--Peter. Andrew, +James, and John--were professional net fishermen, but hook and line +fishing was a favorite pastime of the well-to-do Egyptians as well as +the poor people who could not afford a net. + +Weirs not unlike the modern article were used in the Holy Land in +Bible time, excepting on Lake Gennesaret, where the law of the land +forbade them. + +The bream and the chub were eaten alike by rich and poor people. +Wayfarers roasted them over chip fires in the groves and on the lake +shores, housewives boiled and broiled them, and the wealthy man served +them at his banquets. "Moses, the friend of God," writes Izaak Walton, +in his immortal _Compleat Angler_, quoting from Lev. xi., 9, Deut., +xiv., 9, "appointed fish to be the chief diet for the best +commonwealth that ever yet was. The mightiest feasts have been of +fish." + +Our Saviour "fed the people on fish when they were hungry." The +species is not alluded to in the Biblical paragraph, but no doubt the +fish feasts of the Lord were mostly of chub and bream. Jesus loved +fishermen and was in their society most of His time. No other class of +men were so well favored by Him. He inspired St. Peter, St. John, St. +Andrew, and St. James, poor fishermen, who drew their nets for the +people, and these four fishermen, declares Father Izaak, "He never +reproved for their employment or calling, as he did scribes and money +changers." + +The Lord's favorite places of labor and repose--the places He most +frequented--were near the fishes and fisherman. "He began to teach by +the seaside. His pulpit was a fishing boat or the shore of a lake. He +was in the stern of the boat, asleep. He was always near the water to +cheer and comfort those who followed it." And Walton tells us that +"when God intended to reveal high notions to His prophets He carried +them to the shore, that He might settle their mind in a quiet repose." + +Bream and chub are not monster fishes--they do not average the great +weights of the tarpon and the tuna; they are of the small and +medium-size species; so, if the apostles were pleased with "ye gods +and little fishes," we mortals of to-day should be satisfied with our +catch, be it ever so small. + + + + +APPELLATIONS OF THE TROUTS + + + Trout, Bear: _See_ Lake Trout + Trout, Beardslee: _See_ Crescent Lake Blue-Back + Trout, Black-spotted Salmon + Trout, Blue-Back: _See_ Oquassa Trout + Trout, Brook + Trout, Brown + Trout, Canada: _See_ Greenland Trout + Trout, Canada Sea: _See_ Brook Trout and Greenland Trout + Trout, Colorado River: _See_ Black-Spotted + Trout, Columbia River: _See_ Black-Spotted + Trout, Cousin: _See_ Roach + Trout, Crescent Lake Blue-Back + Trout, Crescent Lake Long-Headed + Trout, Crescent Lake Speckled + Trout, Dolly Varden: _See_ Malma Trout + Trout, Dublin Pond + Trout, European Brown + Trout, Fresh-Water Cod: _See_ Lake Trout + Trout, Golden: _See_ Rainbow Salmon Trout and Sunapee + Trout, Great Lakes: _See_ Mackinaw + Trout, Green: _See_ Black Bass + Trout, Green-Back + Trout, Greenland + Trout, Hard-Head: _See_ Steel-Head Salmon Trout + Trout, Jordan + Trout, Kansas River: _See_ Kansas River Salmon Trout + Trout, Kern River: _See_ Rainbow + Trout, Lac de Marbre + Trout, Lake + Trout, Lake Salmon: _See_ Lake Trout + Trout, Lake Southerland Salmon + Trout, Lake Southerland Spotted: _See_ Jordan's Trout + Trout, Lake Tahoe: _See_ Lake Tahoe Salmon Trout + Trout, Lewis: _See_ Yellowstone Trout + Trout, Loch Leven + Trout, Lunge: _See_ Lake Trout + Trout, Mackinaw: _See_ Mackinaw Lake Trout + Trout, Mackinaw Lake + Trout, Malma + Trout, Marston: _See_ Lac de Marbre Trout + Trout, Mountain: _See_ Brook Trout, Small-Mouth Black Bass, + and Rainbow Salmon Trout + Trout, Mt. Whitney: _See_ Rainbow + Trout, Mucqua Lake: _See_ Lake Trout + Trout, Namaycush: _See_ Lake Trout + Trout, Namaycush Lake + Trout, Nissuee: _See_ Rainbow + Trout, Noshee: _See_ Rainbow + Trout, Oquassa + Trout, Pickerel: _See_ Long Island Pickerel + Trout, Pickerel: _See_ Long Island Pickerel + Trout, Pike: _See_ Long Island Pickerel + Trout, Pike: _See_ Long Island Pickerel + Trout, Rainbow: _See_ Rainbow Salmon Trout + Trout, Rainbow Lake: _See_ Rainbow Salmon Trout + Trout, Red: _See_ Lac de Marbre Trout + Trout, Red-Spotted: _See_ Malma Trout + Trout, Rio Grande: _See_ Rio Grande Salmon Trout + Trout, Rio Grande Salmon + Trout, Saibling + Trout, Salmon + Trout, Sea: _See_ Greenland Trout and Brook Trout + Trout, Silver: _See_ Black-Spotted Salmon Trout and Lake Tahoe + Salmon Trout + Trout, Siskawitz: _See_ Lake Trout + Trout, Siscowet: _See_ Lake Trout + Trout, Stone's: _See_ Rainbow + Trout, Sunapee + Trout, Tahoe + Trout, Togue: _See_ Lake Trout + Trout, Truckee: _See_ Lake Tahoe + Trout, Tuladi: _See_ Lake Trout + Trout, Utah + Trout, Waha Lake: _See_ Waha Lake Salmon Trout + Trout, Waha Lake Salmon + Trout, Western Oregon Brook: _See_ Rainbow + Trout, White: _See_ Sunapee + Trout, Winipiseogee: _See_ Lake Trout + Trout, Yellow-Fin + Trout, Yellowstone + + + + +CHAPTER II + +HISTORIES OF THE TROUTS--HOW THE ANGLER TAKES THEM + + +=Trout, Brook= (Speckled Trout, Mountain Trout. Fontinalis, Speckled +Beauty, Spotted Trout, etc.): Caught in the spring and summer in clear +streams, lakes, and ponds, on the artificial fly. Favors eddies, +riffles, pools, and deep spots under the banks of the stream and near +rocks and fallen trees. Feeds on small fish, flies, and worms. Breeds +in the autumn. Weighs up to ten pounds in large waters. There is a +record of one weighing eleven pounds. This specimen was taken in +northwestern Maine. Averages three quarters of a pound to one pound +and a half in the streams, and one pound to three pounds in the lakes +and ponds. Occurs between latitude 32-1/2 deg. and 55 deg., in the lakes and +streams of the Atlantic watershed, near the sources of a few rivers +flowing into the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico, and some of the +southern affluents of Hudson Bay, its range being limited by the +western foothills of the Alleghanies, extending about three hundred +miles from the coast, except about the Great Lakes, in the northern +tributaries of which it abounds. It also inhabits the headwaters of +the Chattahoochee, in the southern spurs of the Georgia Alleghanies +and tributaries of the Catawba in North Carolina, and clear waters of +the great islands of the Gulf of St. Lawrence--Anticosti, Cape +Breton. Prince Edward, and Newfoundland; and abounds in New York, +Michigan, Connecticut, Pennsylvania. Maine, Long Island, Canada, +Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. For the larger specimens +use a six-ounce fly rod; for the tiny mountain specimens, a four-ounce +fly rod. Leaders: Single, fine, and long. Reel: Small click. Flies: 6 +to 14 on the streams and 4 to 6 on the lakes and ponds. Patterns: +Quaker, Oak, Coachman, Dark Stone, Red Hackle. Blue Bottle, Bradford, +Wren, Cahil, Brown Drake. Brandreth, Canada, Page, Professor, Codun, +Dark Coachman, and the Palmers--green, gray, red, and brown. Use dark +colors on bright days and early in the season; lighter shades on dark +days, in the evening, and as the season grows warmer. + +=Trout, Crescent Lake Blue-Back= (_Salmo beardsleei_): Beardslee +Trout, etc. A deep-water fish weighing up to fourteen pounds, found +only in Crescent Lake. Washington, and taken during April, May, June, +and October, chiefly on the troll. Leaps from the water when hooked. +Color: Upper, deep blue ultramarine; lower, white. + +=Trout, Crescent Lake Long-Headed= (_Salmo bathaecetor_): Closely +related to the Steel-Head Trout. A deep-water fish of Lake Crescent, +Washington, caught only on set lines within a foot of the bottom. Will +not come to the surface; will not take the fly or trolling spoon. +Somewhat resembles the speckled trout of Crescent Lake, though more +slender and of lighter color. + +=Trout, Crescent Lake Speckled= (_Salmo crescentis_): Closely +resembles the Steel-Head. Weighs up to ten pounds. Found in +Crescent Lake, Washington. An excellent game fish. + +[Illustration: _Brook Trout._] + +[Illustration: _Malma (Dolly Varden) Trout._] + +[Illustration: _Lake (Mackinaw) Trout._] + +=Trout, Dublin Pond= (_Salvelinus agassizii_): Inhabitant of Center +and Dublin Pond and Lake Monadnock, etc., New Hampshire. Differs from +the Brook Trout in being pale gray in color and more slender. Reaches +a length of eight inches. Brook Trout tackle. + +=Trout, Green-Back= (_Salmo stomias_): A small black-spotted species, +inhabiting the head waters of the Arkansas and Platte rivers; abundant +in brooks, streams, and shallow parts of lakes. Common in the waters +near Leadville and in Twin Lakes, Colorado, in company with the +Yellow-Fin Trout, which see. Weighs up to one pound. + +=Trout, Greenland= (_Canada Sea Trout_): Caught in midsummer on medium +Brook Trout tackle in Labrador, the rivers of considerable size in +Canada, and the lakes of Greenland. Rivals the Atlantic Salmon in +size, and is a fine sporting species. Averages two pounds in weight. +It frequents the sandy pits that are uncovered at half-tide. Higher up +the rivers it is found in the pools. + +=Trout, Jordan's= (_Salmo jardani_): Lake Southerland Spotted Trout, +etc. Inhabits Lake Southerland, west of Puget Sound. Caught on the +artificial fly as late as October, and is a great leaper. Is +black-spotted. Resembles the Utah Trout in color and the Steel-head +Trout in shape. + +=Trout, Kamloops= (_Salmo kamloops_): Stit-tse, etc. A form of the +Steel-Head. Abounds in Okanogan, Kamloops, Kootenai lakes, and other +waters tributary to the Frazer and upper Columbia rivers. Taken +chiefly on the troll. A large, gamy, graceful, slender fish. Color: +Dark olive above, bright silvery below. + +=Trout, Lac de Marbre= (_Salvelinus marstoni_): Marston Trout, etc. +Found in Lac de Marbre, near Ottawa, the lakes of the Lake St. John +district, Lac a Cassette in Rimouski county, and Lake Soccacomi and +the Red Lakes in Maskinonge County, Canada. Takes the fly readily. +Color: Upper, dark brown; below, whitish pink unspotted. Reaches a +length of one foot. + +=Trout, Lake= (Togue, Fresh-Water Cod, Tuladi. Lunge, etc.): Caught on +medium tackle with the troll and minnow bait in deep water, and, early +in the season, near the surface, the young rising to artificial trout +flies in rapid water. Occurs in all the great lakes of New Brunswick +and in many similar waters in Maine. Attains a weight of twenty-one +pounds. Haunts deep water as a rule, though often steals to the shoals +and shores in search of food, small fish, early in the morning and at +twilight. + +=Trout, Lake= (Siscowet, Siskawitz): Caught on medium tackle and +small-fish bait along the north shores of Lake Superior. Haunts deep +water and feeds upon a species of sculpin. Attains a weight of thirty +pounds; averages four pounds. Its habits closely resemble those of the +Mackinaw Lake Trout. + +=Trout, Lake= (Mucqua, Bear Trout, etc.): Caught in deep water on +medium tackle and small-fish bait on the south shore of Lake Superior. +Closely resembles the Siscowet Lake Trout of the same lake, if it +is not, as many think, merely a local variety of the same form. + +[Illustration: _Oquassa (Blue-back) Trout._] + +[Illustration: _Brown Trout._] + +[Illustration: _Yellowstone Trout._] + +[Illustration: _Saibling Trout (Long-fin Charr)._] + +=Trout, Lake= (Winipiseogee Trout): Caught on medium tackle and +small-fish bait in Lake Winipiseogee and supposedly in Lake George. + +=Trout, Lake= (Mackinaw Trout, Namaycush, Lake Salmon, Salmon Trout, +etc.): Caught with medium tackle on the troll and with minnow bait in +deep water in the chain of Great Lakes from Superior to Ontario, also +in Lake Champlain, New York, and other lakes of the United States and +British America, occurring also to the northeastward, in Mackinaw +River and in the Knowall River, Alaska. Is known as Mackinaw Trout in +Lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior, and as Lake Salmon and Salmon +Trout in the lakes of northern New York. Is said to attain a weight of +ninety pounds and a length of six feet. + +=Trout, Malma= (Dolly Varden Trout, Bull Trout. Speckled Trout, Lake +Trout, Red-Spotted Trout. Salmon Trout, Chewagh, etc.): Caught on +Brook Trout tackle in fresh water and Black Bass tackle in the ocean. +Occurs in northern California, west of the Cascade Range, throughout +the Aleutian Islands, and northward to Colville River in Alaska, and +is not unknown at Behring Island, and Plover Bay, Siberia. Taken in +the sea it is called Salmon Trout; in the lakes it is called by all +the names parenthesized above. In salt water it feeds upon shrimp, +smelt, young trout, sand lance, anchovy, herring, etc.; in fresh +water small fish, worms, etc. Weighs up to fourteen pounds in the +ocean; averages smaller in the lakes. + +=Trout, Oquassa= (Blue-Back Trout): Caught on Brook Trout tackle in +the lakes of western Maine. New York, and New Hampshire. Attains a +length of ten inches. + +=Trout, Saibling:= Caught on Brook Trout tackle in Massachusetts, New +York, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin. A native of northwestern Europe, +introduced in American Brook Trout waters. + +=Trout, Sunapee= (_Salvelinus aureolus_): American Saibling, White +Trout, Golden Trout, Charr, etc. A native of Sunapee Lake, N. H., and +Flood Pond. Ellsworth, Maine, now being introduced in other lakes. +Favors deep water; takes live bait. Weighs up to twelve pounds. + +=Trout, Utah= (_Salmo virginalis_): Abounds in the streams and lakes +of Utah west of the Wasatch Mountains--in Utah Lake and the Sevier, +Jordan, Bear, and Provo rivers. Weighs up to twelve pounds. + +=Trout, Yellow-Fin= (_Salmo macdonaldi_): Found in Twin Lakes, +Colorado, in company with the Green-Back Trout, from which it is +distinct in color, habits, and size. Weighs up to nine pounds. Is +caught on the artificial fly and with the troll. Favors gravel bottom +in deep water. + +=Trout, Yellowstone= (_Salmo lewisi_): Abundant in Yellowstone Lake, +Wyoming, and throughout the Snake River Basin above Shoshone Falls, +and the headwaters of the Missouri. + +[Illustration: _Rainbow Trout._] + +[Illustration: _Lake Tahoe Trout._] + +[Illustration: _Steel-head Trout._] + +=Salmon Trout, Black-Spotted= (Silver Trout, Black Trout, +Black-Spotted Trout, Preestl, etc.): Caught on the artificial fly in +the Rocky Mountain region, the lakes of New Mexico, Utah, Western +Colorado, Wyoming. Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. The young +are abundant in Puget Sound, and are occasionally taken along the +California coast. Weighs up to thirty pounds. + +=Salmon Trout, Brown= (Brown Trout, etc.): Caught on the artificial +fly practically the same as Brook Trout are taken. Same rods, tackle, +and flies. Introduced in this country from Europe. Weighs up to twenty +pounds. + +=Salmon Trout, Kansas River:= Caught on Brook Trout tackle from the +Kansas River to the upper Missouri. Reaches twenty-four inches in +length. + +=Salmon Trout, Lake Southerland= (_Salmo declivifrons_): Found only in +Lake Southerland. Reaches a length of ten inches; is very gamy; takes +the fly, and leaps. + +=Salmon Trout, Lake Tahoe= (Lake Tahoe Trout, Silver Trout, Black +Trout, etc.): Caught in Lake Tahoe. Pyramid Lake, and the streams of +the Sierra Nevada on Brook Trout tackle. Weighs up to twenty pounds. + +=Salmon Trout, Loch Leven= (Loch Leven Trout, etc.): Introduced to +this country from Europe, in streams in Michigan, Maine, and other +States. Is taken on the artificial fly the same as Brook Trout. + +=Salmon Trout, Rainbow= (Rainbow Trout, Golden Trout, Golden Salmon, +Brook Trout, Speckled Trout. Mountain Trout, etc.): Caught with the +artificial fly in fresh streams and salt rivers. Occurs from near the +Mexican line to Oregon and has been successfully introduced in the +Eastern and Northern States, where it is taken upon ordinary Brook +Trout tackle--light fly rod, fine leader, click reel, etc. Flies, same +as those flailed for Brook Trout. Season: Same as Brook Trout. Weighs +up to six pounds. + +=Salmon Trout, Rio Grande:= Abundant in the headwaters of the Rio +Grande, Rio Colorado, and their tributaries; occurs in Bear River and +the streams of Utah. + +=Salmon Trout, Steel-Head= (Hard-Head, Steel-Head Trout, etc.): Caught +mostly in nets. Reaches a weight of twenty-two pounds. Found along the +Pacific coast from the Sacramento River northward to Alaska. Abundant +in the Columbia and Frazer rivers in the spring. Inhabits +river-mouths. + +=Salmon Trout, Waha Lake= (Waha Lake Trout, etc.): Caught on Brook +Trout tackle. A local form of the Black-Spotted Salmon Trout, found in +Waha Lake, a landlocked mountain tarn in Washington. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE ANGLER AND THE FISHERMAN + + +One profound proof of the soundness in the philosophy that teaches +against wantonly wasteful slaughter in the chase is the disinclination +on the part of certain so-called sportsmen--a vulgar gentry that +resort to the woods and waters solely because it is fashionable to do +so--and their guides to honorably dispose of their game after the +killing. These greedy snobs are viciously adverse to losing a single +bird or fish in the pursuit, but they think little of letting the game +rot in the sun after the play. With this fact easily provable any day +in the year, it may be said that outside of market fishing and camp +fishing for the pot the one real object in fishing and angling is the +pursuit itself and not the quarry. + +In baseball, it's the game, not the bases; in archery, it's the +straightest shooting, not the target. True, we play cards for prizes, +but surely as much for the game itself, not altogether for the prizes, +because it is possible to buy the prizes or their equivalent outright +or take the prizes by force. + +My bayman develops fits bordering closely upon incurable hysteria if I +lose a single bluefish in the play, but he worries not when he goes +ashore with a sloopful of hand-liners and half a hundred fish he +cannot make good use of. + +"Pull it in! you'll lose it!" "We could catch a hundred if you +wouldn't fool!" "The other boats'll beat us badly!" "There's a million +right 'round the boat!" + +These are a few of his excitable expressions. But, when I say to him, +"What's the difference, Captain, in losing one or two fish here and +wasting half a hundred on shore?" he calms down for a minute or two. +Only for a minute or two, however, for he's in the game solely for +fish, not the fishing. It's all numbers and size with him, and he's +encouraged in this greed by nine out of every ten men he takes aboard +his boat. + +"We caught fifty," says Tom. + +"We caught a hundred and ten," says Dick. + +"We caught two hundred and sixty," says Harry. + +And so the bayman brags, too, because it's purely business with him. + +I have always found the greatest pleasure in fishing is the fishing +and not the blood and bones associated with the pursuit. I would +rather take five fair fish on fine tackle correctly manipulated than +fill the hold with a hundred horrid monsters mastered by mere +strength, as in hand-line trolling for bluefish in the ocean and for +muskellonge, etc., in fresh water. + +"But," says Captain Getemanyway, "I can catch more fish with a +hand-line than you can with your fine rod and reel." + +"Of course you can," I reply, "and you could catch more if you used a +net, a stick of dynamite, or a shotgun." + +If it's the fish alone that is the object of the Angler's eye, why +resort to any sort of tackle when there's a fish stall in every +bailiwick? + +There is great need of enlightenment in the common ethics of angling. +Many persons are under the impression that quantity rather than +quality makes the Angler's day. + +According to their view of the pursuit, fishing is judged by figures, +as in finance--glory to the man with the biggest balance. This is not +so, because with this view accepted, Rockefeller would shine above +Christ, Shakespeare, and Lincoln. + +The mere catch--the number of fish taken--is only one little detail; +it is not all of angling. If it were, the superior fisherman would be +the man who got his fish in any manner. + +Some of our greatest Anglers purposely never excel in the matter of +numbers. The Angler's true qualities are based on the application of +correct tackle, correct methods in fishing, and a correct appreciation +of the pursuit, the game, the day, and the craft. + +'Tis the day and the play, not the heads and hides that count. + +An ancient writer says of the royal hounds: "The hunter loves to see +the hounds pursue the hare, and he is glad if the hare escapes." So it +is in angling; we do not wish to catch all the fish we can take in any +fashion. We want to take some of them in a proper manner with +appropriate implements. + +"I can catch more trout with the angleworm and more bass with the +trolling spoon than you can with the artificial fly," says Robert. + +"Of course you can, Robert," say I, "and you could catch still more if +you spread a screen across the tiny stream or set a trap, or if you +used a set line with a hundred hooks, just as the target shooter might +more readily puncture the circle with a charge of shot than with the +single bullet, or just as the greedyman with a blunderbuss might excel +in number the wing shot by potting quail bunched on the ground instead +of chivalrously bagging single birds on the wing with a pertinent arm." + +The neophyte always confounds the angler with the indiscriminate +fisherman and so implicates the angler in the cruelty and wastefulness +associated with mere chance fishing, when in fact the Angler is the +real propagator and protector of the fishes, and is in no sense cruel +or wasteful. + +The laws that prohibit greedy catches, and protect the mother fish in +breeding time, are made by, enforced by, and supported financially by +the Angler. + +The rearing of the fishes that are placed in depleted waters was +originated by, is conducted by, and is paid for by the Angler. + +No other class has earnestly bothered its head, honestly lifted its +hands, or liberally opened its purse in these matters, and the nearest +association man in general has with the preservation of both wild fish +and fowl is in uttering a cowardly, false accusation against the one +who really deserves sole credit for the work, the sportsman, the +genuine field sportsman, not the vicious sporting man of the race +track, cockpit, and gambling den--two distinct species of animal, as +vastly separated in character as the deerhound and the dragon. + +And why this charge against the innocent? Simply because the guilty +wish to shield and profit themselves, as the thief cries fire that he +may pick your pocket in the panic that ensues. + +But then there is a well meaning but wholly unenlightened element, +that, influenced by the cry of the methodical spoiler, ignorantly +condemns the honest man--the really humane men and women who are +sincere in their condemnation but totally ignorant of their subject. + +One of this sort, an estimable woman in public life, loudly preaches +against the chase and is all the time drawing dividends that provide +her with the means to indulge in the vulgarest and cruelest of +fashionable extravagances--among them the wool of the unborn lamb, +furs from the backs of fast-disappearing quadrupeds, and feathers of +the farmers' most valuable insect-destroying song birds--and these +wicked dividends derived from several acid factories, a gas house, a +power plant, and a dye works that have not only killed off the +trillions of fishes in several rivers but destroyed forever the very +habitat of the species! + +Another of this sort is well exemplified in the character of an old +gentleman in Pennsylvania who loudly proclaims against trout fishing, +but who utterly ruins nearly eight miles of trout water, once the home +of thousands of lordly fish, by permitting his mill hands to run off +sawdust in the streams. + +This poor, ignorant soul objects to you and me chivalrously taking +half a dozen specimens on the fly--catching the cunning trout with an +imitation of the living thing itself destroys by the thousands for +food and play--while he mercilessly slaughters the entire immediate +supply, and prevents further propagation of the whole species with the +refuse of his forest-devastating, money-making machine. + +True, the Angler like all fishermen, and like the fishes themselves, +kills his specimens, but this killing is ordained by nature +herself--at least it has better grounds for excuse, if excuse it +needs, than that ten-fold more destructive killing _by_ the fishes +that not only slay for food, but actually mutilate millions upon +millions of their kind for the mere play afforded them in this +practice--and though the Angler may be in the wrong when he humanely +dispatches a few of the batch he breeds, he is not as hopeless as the +wanton fisher, or as brutal as the unenlightened "reformers," the +so-called humane lady with the fashionable furs and feathers of +fast-disappearing species she never turns a hair to replenish or +protect, and the old gentleman hypocrite with his murderous sawmill. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +FLY-FISHING + + +"Of all sports, commend me to angling; it is the wisest, virtuousest, +best."--THOMAS HOOD. + +When I go fishing, it is for the purpose of catching fish; when I go +angling--fly-fishing--it is the soul I seek to replenish, not the +creel. + +"One of the charms of angling," says Pritt, "is that it presents an +endless field for argument, speculation, and experiment." + +True, but Anglers have no argument in the first feature of their +pastime--the object of it. Fishermen and men who do not go fishing or +angling argue that the object sought by the Angler is the fish, but +Anglers all agree that the game is but one of the trillion of pleasant +things that attract them to the pursuit of it. + +They argue and speculate and experiment in the matter of rods and +tackle, and they argue as to the virtues of the various species, the +qualities of the waters, the conditions of the weather, but they have +ever been and ever will be calmly agreed as to the object of it +all--the love of studying rather than destroying the game, the love of +the pursuit itself. + +They angle because of its healthfulness, and the consequent +exhilaration of mind and body that attends the gentle practice, not +merely for the fishes it may procure them, or for the sake of killing +something, as the unenlightened person charges, for the death of an +animal, to the Angler, is the saddest incident of his day. + +All things animate, man included, were made to kill and to be killed. +The only crimes in killing are in killing our own kind, and in killing +any kind inhumanly. + +And, of all creatures, the Angler is the least offender in these +crimes. The very game he seeks, though beautiful and gentle to the +eye, and, at times, noble in deed and purpose, is the most brutal +killer of all the races--the lovely trout in its attacks upon gaudy +flies, the valiant bass and pike in devouring their smaller brethren, +and the multitudinous sea-fishes, not alone in their feeding upon one +another, but in their wanton murder of the millions upon millions of +victims of their pure love of slaughter. + +But, of fly-fishing for brook trout: + +"Fly-fishing," says Dr. Henshall, "is the poetry of angling"; and "the +genuine Angler," says Frederick Pond, "is invariably a poet." + +Fly-fishing, the highest order of angling, is indulged in in several +forms--in fresh water for salmon, trout, black bass, grayling, perch, +pike-perch, pickerel (Long Island brook pickerel), sunfish, roach, +dace, shad, herring (branch), etc.; in brackish water for shad, trout, +white perch, etc.; and in salt water for bluefish (young), herring +(common), mackerel, and--doubt not, kind sir, for I am prepared to +prove it--squeteague (weakfish), plaice (fluke, summer flounder), and +other species of both bottom and surface habitats--another "endless +field for argument, speculation, and experiment." + +As there are many forms of fly-fishing, so are there many ways of +fly-fishing for trout, and many kinds of trout, the various forms of +brook trout, lake trout, and sea trout. + +Volumes would be required to discourse intelligently upon all these +forms of trout and fly-fishing for them; so I purpose in this +particular instance to confine myself to one species and one form of +trout and one order of fly-fishing. + +The trout referred to is the true brook trout, scientifically alluded +to as _Salvelinus fontinalis_ and commonly called, besides brook trout +(its most popular name), speckled trout, mountain trout, speckled +beauty, spotted trout, etc. + +The fly-fishing treated of is that popular form that is most indulged +in by the Eastern trout fly-fisherman--small-stream fishing in the +mountains and wooded level lands that "carries us," as Davy wrote as +far away as 1828, "into the most wild and beautiful scenery of nature +to the clear and lovely streams that gush from the high ranges of +elevated hills." + +Above all other styles of fly-fishing, it calls for the most delicate +tackle and the very daintiest hand. + +"How delightful," says the author of _Salmonia_, "in the early spring, +after the dull and tedious time of winter, when the frosts disappear +and the sunshine warms the earth and waters, to wander forth by some +clear stream, to see the leaf bursting from the purple bud, to scent +the odors of the bank perfumed by the violet, and enameled, as it +were, with the primrose and the daisy; to wander upon the fresh turf +below the shade of trees, whose bright blossoms are filled with the +music of the bee; and on the surface of the waters to view the gaudy +flies sparkling like animated gems in the sunbeams, whilst the bright +and beautiful trout is watching them from below; to hear the +twittering of the water-birds, who, alarmed at your approach, rapidly +hide themselves beneath the flowers and leaves of the water-lily; and, +as the season advances, to find all these objects changed for others +of the same kind, but better and brighter, till the swallow and the +trout contend as it were for the May fly, and till in pursuing your +amusement in the calm and balmy evening you are serenaded by the songs +of the cheerful thrush, performing the offices of paternal love in +thickets ornamented with the rose and woodbine." + +The other forms of fly-fishing for trout, the pursuit of larger +specimens of the same species in larger waters, the lakes and ponds +and rivers--all equally inviting by their gentle requirements and the +"beautiful scenery of nature"--deserve special treatment, because, as +in fly-fishing for salmon (_salmo salar_), the very top notch of all +forms of angling, the play, the player, the scenes, and the +accessories are sufficiently different to confound the reader I am +mainly endeavoring to amuse with these particular lines. + +Small stream fly-fishing for brook trout belongs in a class just +between fly-fishing for the brook trout of broader waters, the lakes +and ponds, and fly-fishing for salmon in the lordly rivers of Maine +and Canada. + +The brook trout is angled for in the spring and summer, principally +with the artificial fly, and by the chivalric Angler only with the +artificial fly, though many greedy fishermen of trifling experience +and wholly deprived of the true spirit of angling--in that they fish +for the fish alone and judge their day and play solely by the size of +their catch--contrive to convince us that the live lure is equally +honorable, notwithstanding that the cruel, clumsy, uncleanly, unfair, +wasteful practice of live-bait trout fishing is condemned by every +truly gentle disciple and practical authority. + +Most advocates of live-bait trout fishing, who would have us believe +that their method is entitled to recognition in the same category with +fly-fishing, proudly proclaim that this should be because they "can +catch more fish with the worm or minnow than the Angler can catch with +his fly." + +If this reasoning is to settle the debate, if killing and quantity +compose the Angler's axiom, why not resort to still more productive +means--dynamite, or net the stream instead of gently fishing it? + +No, the trout fly-fisherman abhors trout bait-fishing for the same +reason the wing shot prefers his appropriate arm to a cannon; the +yachtsman, his gentle craft to a man-o'-war; the horseman, his trained +mount to a locomotive; the archer, his arrow instead of a harpoon; and +so I might go on in similes that would burlesque every form of +recreative amusement in the world. + +The brook trout breeds in the autumn, favors eddies, riffles, pools, +and deep spots under the banks of the stream, and near rocks and +fallen trees, and feeds on flies, small fish, worms, and other small +life forms. + +Its shape, weight, size, and color are influenced by its food, its +age, its activity, its habitat, and its habits. Its color corresponds +to the color of the water bottom and will change as the water bottom +changes. If removed to a new water, where the bottom color is +different from the bottom color of its first abode--lighter or darker, +as the case may be,--it will gradually grow to a corresponding shade, +blending with its new habitat just as its colors suited the stones +and grasses and earthy materials of its native domain. + +In weight, the brook trout ranges up to ten pounds in large waters. +There is a record of one weighing eleven pounds. This specimen was +taken in Northwestern Maine. The species averages threequarters of a +pound to one pound and a half in the streams, and one pound to three +pounds in the lakes and ponds. It occurs between latitude 32-1/2 deg. and +55 deg., in the lakes and streams of the Atlantic watershed, near the +sources of a few rivers flowing into the Mississippi and the Gulf of +Mexico, and some of the southern affluents of Hudson Bay, its range +being limited by the western foothills of the Alleghanies, extending +about three hundred miles from the coast, except about the Great +Lakes, in the northern tributaries of which it abounds. It also +inhabits the headwaters of the Chattahoochee, in the southern spurs of +the Georgia Alleghanies, and tributaries of the Catawba in North +Carolina and clear waters of the great islands of the Gulf of St. +Lawrence--Anticosti, Cape Breton, Prince Edward, and Newfoundland; and +abounds in New York, Michigan, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maine. Long +Island, Canada, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. + +My favorite rod for stream trout fishing is a cork-handled, +all-lancewood rod of three or four ounces in weight and eight feet in +length, or a rod of similar length weighing four or five ounces and +made of split bamboo--the best split bamboo of the best workmanship. +The cheap, so-called split bamboo of the dry-goods store bargain (?) +counter, retailed for a price that would not pay for the mere wrapping +of the correct article, is a flimsy, decorative thing, and would +collapse, or, worse still, bend one way and stay that way, if used on +the stream. The fly-rod material must be springy and resiliently so, +and the rod must be constructed so as to permit of this condition. + +The reel I favor is a small, narrow, light, all-rubber or narrow +aluminum common-click reel, holding twenty-five yards of the +thinnest-calibered silk, waterproof-enameled line. + +My leader is a brown-stained one of silk gut, twelve feet in length. +The leader should be fresh and firm, flexible and fine, not a +dried-up, brittle, unyielding, snappy snarl of the salesman's +discarded sample box that breaks at the mere touch, or releases the +flies at the first cast or parts at the first strike--if by some +miraculous mischance you get this far with it. The leaders, a +half-dozen of them, should be carried, when not in actual use, in a +flat, aluminum, pocket-fitting box between two dampened flannel mats +(though not preserved this way in close season), so as to have them +thoroughly limp from being water soaked, that you may more readily and +more safely adjust them, for break they surely will if handled in a +dry state. + +The willow creel, in which the spoil of the day is deposited, should +be, I think, about the size of a small hand-satchel. To this is +fastened a leather strap, with a broad, shoulder-protecting band of +stout canvas. This I sling over the right shoulder, allowing the creel +to hang above the back part of the left hip where it will least +interfere with me during the fight with _fontinalis_. + +The landing net I use is a little one of egg shape, made of cane with +no metal whatsoever, and it has a linen mesh about ten inches in width +and eighteen inches in length. The handle is a trifle over one foot +in length. To this I tie one end of a stout but light-weight flexible +and small-calibered cord, or a stretch of small rubber tube, and the +other end of this I tie to a button on my coat under my chin, throwing +the net over my left shoulder to lie on my back until called into +service. + +The clothing should be of dark-gray wool of light weight. I wear a +lightly woven gray sweater under my coat when the weather is cool. + +I have plenty of pockets in my trouting coat, and I make it a practice +to tie a string to nearly everything I carry in them--shears, +hook-file, knife, match-box, tobacco-pouch, pipe, purse, +field-glasses, fly-book, etc.--so that I will not mislay them +ordinarily, or drop them in the rushing current during some exciting +moment. + +The headgear I like is a gray, soft felt hat of medium brim to protect +my eyes in the sun and to sit upon in the shade. + +The footwear may consist of waterproof ankle shoes attached to rubber +or canvas trousers, or of a pair of light, close-fitting hip rubber +boots. Some Anglers wear rubber waterproof combined trousers and +stockings and any sort of well-soled shoes. In warm weather, I affect +nothing beyond a pair of old shoes with holes cut in both sides to let +the water run freely in and out, the holes not big enough to admit +sand and pebbles. + +The artificial flies are of many hundreds of patterns. I have a +thousand or two, but half a hundred, of sizes four to six for the +lakes and ponds, and six to fourteen for the small streams, are enough +to select from during a season; two dozen are sufficient for a single +trip, half a dozen will do to carry to the stream for a day,--if you +don't lose many by whipping them off or getting them caught in a +tree,--and two are all I use for the cast, though a cast of three +flies is the favorite of many fishermen. I amuse myself by presuming +to have a special list for each month, week, day, and hour, but the +extravagantly erratic notions of the trout forbid my recommending it +to brother rodmen. Trout that show a preference for certain flies one +day may the next day favor entirely different patterns. Sometimes they +will take an imitation of the natural fly upon the water and at other +times, being gorged with the natural insect, will only strike at some +oddly colored concoction of no resemblance to any living thing in +nature; this in play, or in anger, and at other times out of pure +curiosity. An Angler doesn't need a great number of flies--if he knows +just what fly the game is taking. You can't very well determine this +half a hundred miles from the fishing; so you take a variety with you +and experiment. The flies should be of the best make and freshest +quality, tied by a practical hand--some honest maker who is himself an +Angler--not the cheap, dried-up, wall-decorative, bastard butterflies +of the ladies' dry-goods shop, that hybrid mess of gaudy waste +ribbon-silk and barnyard feather, the swindling output of the +catch-penny shopman whose sweat help do not know--upon my word--the +name or the purpose of the thing they make. + +Any six of the following list will kill well enough for a single day's +pleasant fishing in any water at any time during the legal season: +Dark Coachman, Gray and Green Palmer, Ginger Palmer, Alder, Scarlet +Ibis, Abbey, Imbrie, Professor, Conroy, Reuben Wood, March Brown, +Orvis, White Miller, Coachman. Royal Coachman, Codun, Brown and Red +Palmer, Brown Hen, Queen of the Water, King of the Water. Squires, +Black Gnat, Grizzly King, Quaker. + +I use, as a rule, dark colors in clear water, and on bright days and +early in the season; lighter shades in dull water and on dark days, in +the evening, and as the season grows warmer; but many Anglers +philosophize just the reverse--use light colors for early season +fishing and somber hues for midsummer play--hence the endless +arguments and experiments described as one of the charms of the craft. + +I prefer, as I have said, two flies on the leader, and my favorite of +favorites for all times and all places is a cast made up of gnat-size +pattern of dark-gray wing and pale-blue body, and another of a +peculiar drab-cream shade. + +In throwing or casting the fly I never "whip" or "flail" the rod, and +I never cast with a long line when a short one will answer the +purpose. Distance alone may count in a fly-casting contest, but in the +wild stream a careful short cast is more effective than a clumsy long +one. + +I angle with my shadow behind me, and in casting the flies endeavor to +allow only the flies to touch the water. The line frightens the game, +and if a trout should take a fly on a loose, wavy line, he will not +hook himself and he will blow the fly from his mouth before the Angler +is able to hook him. + +In learning to cast the fly, the young Angler should start with the +leader alone, as I believe all fly-fishing is begun by old and young, +and as he lifts the flies from the water after the forward cast to +make the backward motion he should simultaneously draw from the reel a +half-yard of line and allow time for the flies to complete the whole +circuit back of him. In fly-fishing the cast is not made from the +reel as in bait-casting; the line is drawn from the reel a half-yard +at a time with the left hand. The line must fully straighten itself +behind the Angler ere it can be sent out straight before him. The +flies and at most only a little part of the leader should fall lightly +upon the surface--as we imagine two insects, entangled in a delicate +cobweb, might fall from a tree branch--and be drawn smartly but gently +in little jerks a second or two in imitation of two tiny live-winged +bugs fluttering in the water; and then, as the Angler steps slowly, +firmly, but silently and softly in the current downstream, he should +repeat the lifting of the flies, the drawing off of more line from the +reel, and the circling backward cast that takes up the slack and gives +the line its forward force. Thus he should continue, deftly placing +the lure in every likely spot ahead of him in the center of the brook +and along its moss-lined, flower-decked, rock-bound or grass-fringed +banks. + +The Angler is careful not to let the trout see him, see his shadow, or +see the rod, and not to let this wisest, most watchful species of all +the finny tribes hear him or feel the vibration of his body. + +In hooking the trout the Angler strikes the second the fish +strikes--not by a violent arm movement, but by a mere instantaneous +nervous backward twist of the wrist, as one would instinctively draw +up his hand from the pierce of a needle point. Many trout are hooked +the instant the leader is lifted for a new cast, and many hook +themselves without the slightest effort on the part of the Angler. + +When the fish is hooked he should not be flaunted in the air, as the +boy fisher yanks his pond perch. The prize should be handled as if he +were but slightly secured, his head should be kept under water, the +line kept gently taut, and the fish softly led out of noisy water and +away from stones, long grass, submerged tree branches or logs. + +If the catch is heavy enough to draw the line from the reel it is +allowed to do so, but the line should be kept taut and reeled in the +second he hesitates. There need be no hurry. + +After a little while the game's rushes will cease; then it should be +reeled in, care being taken not to arouse it again by the contact of a +weed or stone. + +The tip of the rod is now raised over the head and back of the Angler +until the butt points downward; then, if the fish has been reeled in +near enough, it is secured in the landing net, tail first, and +carefully slid into the creel through the little square opening for +this purpose in the lid. + +If you, reader mine, should some day get as far as this glorious part +of the play, and the fish should be a small one, be satisfied; the +true Angler is ever of a contented heart; if the fish should be too +small, set it free--the true Angler is always humane and generous; if +it should prove fit to feed upon, do not subject it to unnecessary +suffering--skillfully kill it outright at once; the true Angler is +manly and merciful. + +And, and--good luck to you, brother. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +WALTON'S WAY + +"More than half the intense enjoyment of fly-fishing is derived from +the beautiful surroundings."--CHARLES F. ORVIS. + + +A clause in a recent tariff bill prohibited the importation of some of +the favorite artificial flies of the Angler and likewise prohibited +the importation of the materials used in making these flies, +particularly feathers and skins of the valuable song birds whose +insect-eating prevents the destruction of the trees and other foliage +absolutely necessary to the preservation of the planet upon which man +lives. + +This clause was fathered by the wise and welcome bird-protecting +institutions known as the Audubon Societies, and was intended to stop +the infamous traffic in wild birds for millinery purposes, which, if +not reformed, means the utter extermination of the world's feathered +friends. + +The feathers and skins imported annually for artificial flies were to +come under the same prohibition as millinery feathers. + +England has a law prohibiting the importation of certain plumage, but +specific exception is made for the materials used in fly-making. + +There was a foolish opposition to this clause on the part of a few +professional fly tiers, some of the fly dealers, and a lot of +fishermen, and these men and women were loud in their declaration that +the Angler is also opposed to the clause, which, if allowed, they +think would injure the business of the professional fly maker, fly +dealer, _et al._ + +Now the truth is: No Angler was opposed to the clause, and the claim +that the protection of valuable tree-saving birds would hurt trade of +any sort is absurd. The same sort of foolish objection was made to the +introduction of the sewing-machine--it was said it would prevent a lot +of hand-sewing workmen from making a living. In a few years man will +laugh at this silly and selfish individual cry against bird-protection +with the same ridiculous spirit with which he now laughs at the old +idiotic objection to the sewing-machine. + +A writer in the New York _Sun_ says: "The first effect of prohibiting +the importation of the feathers for flies will be to drive many back +to bait-fishing. An Angler using bait should take ten trout for every +one he could kill with a fly. The Government, the States, and clubs +are spending large sums for the stocking of streams with trout. The +expenditure would scarcely be justified if there is to be bait-fishing +in these streams--they would soon be fished out. Thousands who +formerly used bait have taken up fly-fishing because it is better +sport." + +What does this writer mean by the word "many"--the "many" he thinks +that will be driven back to bait fishing as the effect of the +prohibition of the importation of the feathers for flies? Many what? +Not Anglers, by any means, because the Angler would rather merely try +to catch his trout with an artificial fly made from a feather duster +than to be assured of catching the game with a worm or minnow or +salmon egg. The "many" refers to fishermen, or professional fly tiers, +not Anglers. + +The Angler and the ordinary fisherman are as far separated in +character and nature as the hummingbird and the buzzard are separated +in life and lesson. + +The real opposer to bird-protection in this objection to the clause +prohibiting the importation of bird feathers and skins is the +commercial fellow, and there is no commercial side to angling. + +The Angler is a student as well as a lover of nature, and he knows +that without the insect-eating birds there can be no trees, that +without trees there can be no waters, that without waters there can be +no fishes, and that without fishes there can be no fishing. The stupid +fisherman can't surmount this, and the commercial fly tier, whose +business alone teaches him enough of the angling art to be able to +figure this natural science, thinks too much of his money creel to +admit it. This pretended ignorance is called good business instinct, +and the Angler doesn't object to men minding their own business, but +when business instinct runs wild and evokes the effrontery to imply +that the Angler, a non-commercial being, is opposed to the prohibition +of earth-valuable bird extermination, business instinct is going a +little too far with its money-mad method. + +The Angler does not condemn the use of correct tackle; he's a believer +in it, and just as he is sincere in his advocacy of proper tackle and +in his immaculate use of proper tackle, so is he sincere in his +profound belief in correct methods in fishing. + +The fisherman--the fellow who judges his day by the number of fishes +he kills in any manner regardless of season and size--may resort to +dynamite, and he may not be in sympathy with any of the chivalric +means, manners, and methods of any of the worldly matters, but the +Angler is not of this stamp. + +Izaak Walton, the father of fishing, never posed for his portrait with +half a hundred dead fishes tied to his body. Ferns, feathered friends, +flowers, fair skies, fine fishing tackle, _and_ fishes embellished his +pictures. + +The fish, to the Angler, is only one feature--no doubt the main +feature--of his favorite pastime, and the killing of the fish is not a +pleasant part of his pursuit; the death of the game is, to the Angler, +a sad incident, however happy the fisherman may be over the slaughter +of his greedy mess, and the Angler, therefore, could not possibly +derive the delights of his angling at the sacrifice of the lordly +winged creatures he so repeatedly thanks his Master for. + +Who ever read an Angler's story without the song birds in it? The +expression "gentle art" is applied to angling and the Angler. Who ever +heard of the gentle art of fishing! And angling is a _gentle_ art; so, +to practice it, one must be gentle. + +The Angler will not resort to fishing with live bait if the few +European artificial flies are excluded from his lures, because he can +catch all the fishes his _gentle_ art _entitles_ him to with the flies +of home make. + +The artificial flies of England, Scotland, and Ireland are lovely +creations of practical as well as beautiful design, and the Angler +adores them, but, since his _gentle_ creel can be filled without them, +he'll not insist on their importation if it tends in the slightest +manner toward the extermination of the very things that make possible +the gentle art of angling--the birds and the trees, without which the +fishes themselves could not survive. + +The world is not composed entirely of fishermen--the earth itself +should not be sacrificed for a few against the multitude--and the +Angler, the fisherman of quality, is wise enough to appreciate this; +his individual pastime is not as important as the general welfare of +the masses, and it will be said that the fisherman, who estimates +quantity over quality, is far less entitled to consideration. + +Angling is a pastime of a craft; the birds, the trees, and the waters +are necessities of a planet and its people. + +Fishing for the market--a distinct method from that of the Angler and +the common fisherman who fishes for the mere sake of killing and +counting--is not concerned in this argument, and may be dismissed with +a brief word of commendation. Legitimately practiced, discriminately +carried on according to the law of man and nature, it is even more +admirable than angling and far more honorable than the wasteful +pursuit of the vulgar amateur fisherman. Our Saviour sanctioned net +fishing; chose simple fishermen for his disciples--St. Andrew, St. +Peter, St. James, and St. John. + +The expression, "fly fisherman," may refer to the fisherman or the +Angler, for there are lots of fly fishermen as well as mere fishermen +who are not Anglers, for the reason that fly-fishing, indulged in by a +greedy hand, can permit of ungentle fish-catching the same as +bait-fishing. Both methods are equally destructive if not followed +with strict rules of angling, and all that need be said to properly +define angling is that it is the poetry--the art and refinement--of +fishing. The common fisherman is simply a fish-basket filler; the +Angler fills his soul, not the creel. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE WANTON WAY + +"There's an Angler's law, and a court or legal law. The fisherman who +adheres to the Angler's law can't break the court law."--SETH +FIELDING. + + +Gentility in the limit of the catch and giving the fish its sporting +chance on light tackle constitute the ethical soul of angling. The +fisherman who stops fishing when he has a few specimens is angling; +he's an Angler. The fisherman who fishes with no limit in his catch is +merely fishing; he's a fisherman, not an Angler. + +Any picture of a few fishes may illustrate the catch of the Angler, +and the photograph on Frontispiece shows the catch of the worst type +of fisherman--the wanton fish exterminator who, ignoring the Angler's +gentle law, takes his greedy mess because it is according to the +so-called legal law. + +Dr. William T. Hornaday, author of _Wild Life Conservation_, _The +American Natural History_, _Our Vanishing Wild Life_, etc., and +director of the New York Zooelogical Park, has sent me the photograph +of the greedyman's catch--made near Spokane, Washington--with the +following notes: + +"The great trouble [in the matter of wasteful fish-catching] is not so +much with the people who catch fish as with the brutally destructive +laws that permit fishermen to catch four or five times as many fish as +they should. There are a great many sportsmen who sincerely believe +that it is all right to take all the fish and game of all kinds that +the law allows. Whenever any destruction is waged on that basis I +always charge it to the abominably liberal laws that in many cases +seemed framed to promote destruction. Ninety-nine per cent. of the +streams of this country very soon will be so nearly destitute of fish +that fishing will become a lost art. In the Rocky Mountains the +overfishing abuse is particularly vicious and destructive because in +those cold streams the fish mature slowly, their food is very scarce +and dear, and the fish are so hungry that they are easily caught. It +is an easy matter to completely fish out a mountain stream in the +Rocky Mountain region or in the Pacific States. In the State of +Wyoming some very aggravated cases of wanton fish destruction by +indifferent rod and line fishermen have lately been brought to my +attention." + +Dr. Hornaday is an Angler, and his views and practices are endorsed by +all Anglers. His great book on wild life conservation is brimful of +practical detail and should be in the library of all who are +interested in the preservation of our fishes, birds, and quadruped +game. Here is a sample of the Doctor's vigorous style in his admirable +campaign against the exterminator: + +"A few years ago, certain interests in Pennsylvania raised a great +public outcry against the alleged awful destruction of fish in the +streams of Pennsylvania by herons.... A little later on, however, the +game commissioners found that the herons remaining in Pennsylvania +were far too few to constitute a pest to fish life, and furthermore, +the millinery interests appeared to be behind the movement. Under the +new law the milliners were enabled to reopen in Pennsylvania the sale +of aigrettes, because those feathers came from members of the +unprotected Heron Family! It required a tremendous State campaign to +restore protection to the herons and bar out the aigrettes; but it was +accomplished in 1912. Hereafter, let no man for one moment be deceived +by the claim that the very few-and-far-between herons, bitterns, and +kingfishers that now remain in the United States, anywhere, are such a +menace to fish life that those birds are a pest and deserve to be +shot. The inland streams of the United States and Canada lack fishes +because they have been outrageously overfished,--wastefully, wickedly +depleted, without sense or reason, by men who scorn the idea of +conservation. In Orleans County, New York, a case was reported to me +of a farmer who dynamited the waters of his own creek, in spawning +time!" + +The Angler angles according to his own humanely conservative law. The +greedy fisherman fishes according to court or so-called legal law, +good or bad, and he always breaks the Angler's law and very often the +court's law. + +In viewing Dr. Hornaday's Spokane photograph note the bait-casting +reel on the fly-casting rod--the rig of a clumsy as well as greedy +fisherman. The mess of trout shown is one that no Angler would ever +make and one that any gentleman would be ashamed of--"three times too +many fish for one rod," as Dr. Hornaday says, "another line of +extermination according to law." Of course, the Doctor means the +fisherman's law or the court's law, not the Angler's law. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +FLY-FISHING FOR TROUT + +"The variety of rivers require different ways of angling."--IZAAK +WALTON, _The Compleat Angler_. + + +The art of catching fish with artificial lures in imitation of natural +insects is the most chivalric of all methods of angling. + +Fish, particularly trout, often hook themselves when they seize the +fly of a fisherman using a pliant rod that will yield and spring +freely. As the game strikes, the Angler strikes, hooking the fish +swiftly but delicately by a simple turn of the wrist. The trout is not +flaunted up in the air by force, as some coarse perch fishermen lift +their catch. The trout fisher does not use his arm at all in hooking a +trout beyond aiding the hand in holding the rod for the wrist to do +the work. A practiced troutman can secure his fish by moving his hand +five inches--a little backward nervous twist of the wrist. + +Trout often snap a fly and spit it out so quickly that the tyro does +not have a chance to strike and hook the prize. At other times they +take hold more slowly, and afford the beginner more opportunity to +hook them, and, as I have said, they very often hook themselves. + +The beginner will have some trouble in overcoming the excitement or +"trout fever" that always accompanies the trout's rise and strike, but +experience will gradually make him more calm and active at this +important moment. The tyro trout fisher is often more frightened at +the rise of the trout than he would be at the flush of a noisy grouse +or the springing of a surprised deer. + +When you have hooked the fish, always handle him as if he were but +lightly secured. Do not attempt to lift him out or yank him up to you. +Keep the line gently taut, and softly lead the prize out of rough +water or away from stones, grasses, logs, or tree branches. Do not let +him come to the surface until he is pretty well exhausted and you are +about to put him in the landing-net. If he is a large fish, tow him +ashore if the water edge will permit. Where there are overhanging +banks this cannot be done. Do not be in a hurry to get him out of the +water. Be calm and work carefully. + +If the fish is large enough to overcome the reel click and run off the +line, let him do so, but check him and guide him according to any +obstruction there may be. + +When he has rushed here and there for some little time with his mouth +open and with a constant check--the line should always be taut--he +will become tired, and when he is tired he will not rush. Then softly +reel him in, being careful not to let him come in contact with a stone +or weed, which is sure to arouse him again. Reel him up quickly, +without making a splashing swoop, and he will soon grace your creel. + +Several persons have expressed an objection to a list of flies I once +named, saying a good Angler might kill just as many trout on quarter +the number. + +Any Angler can take even less than one quarter of the enumerated list +and catch fully as many brook trout as one who might use all of the +flies mentioned--if he can pick out the ones the trout are rising to +without trying them all until he discovers the killing ones. A chef +might please his master with one or two of the forty courses billed, +if he knew what the man wanted. + +Sometimes an Angler can judge the appropriate fly to use by observing +nature in seeing trout rise to the live fly; but, there are times when +trout are not rising, times when they are tired of the fly upon the +water, and times when the real fly is not on the wing. Then the Angler +is expected to take matters in his own hands and whip about quietly +until he discovers the proper patterns. It is better to try for the +right flies with a list of twenty-nine than whip over a list of a +thousand or more. I have learned from experience that trout, like +human beings, are in love with a variety of foods at different times. +Their tastes change with the months, the weeks, the days, the hours, +and, under certain conditions which I will presently explain, the +minutes. + +"... fish will not bite constantly, nor every day. They have +peculiar, unexplainable moods that continuing favoring conditions of +water, wind, and weather cannot control" (Eugene McCarthy, _Familiar +Fish_). + +When I mention twenty-nine different patterns as being seasonable at a +stated period, I do not mean to say that the trout will rise to them +all and at any time and under all conditions. In the first place, the +person using them might be a tyro unfamiliar with the gentle art, the +streams might be dried up, there might be an earthquake, the flies +might be too large, too coarse, and for that matter a thousand other +conditions might interfere. I fish dozens of streams in different +localities several times every month during the legal season, and I +have been a fond Angler--if not a skillful one--since my tenth +birthday. Experience on the streams, a true love for nature, and a +careful attention to my notebook enable me to separate the artificial +flies into monthly lists. No man can class them into weekly or daily +lots. + +"When a fly is said to be in season it does not follow that it is +abroad on every day of its existence" (Alfred Ronalds). + +The Eastern gentleman who said if he could have but one fly he would +take a yellow one, is probably a good Angler, for a yellow fly is a +fair choice. If I could have but one fly I should take a--ah! I cannot +name its color; 'tis the quaker, a cream, buff, grayish, honey-yellow +shade. + +Beaverkill, Seth Green, Ashey Montreal, Dun. Wickham's Fancy, August +Brown are killing patterns in the Pennsylvania streams. + +Trout change in their tastes by the month, week, day, hour, and +minute. There are flies among the list given for this or that month +that they will not rise to to-day or perhaps to-morrow, but surely +there are some among the list that will please them, and you have to +discover those particular flies, and so, as I have said before, 'tis +better to search among twenty-nine than twenty-nine hundred. + +In July of a certain season I waded a stream in Pennsylvania and had +these flies with me: Quaker. Oak, Codun, Reuben Wood, White Miller, +Yellow Sallie, Hare's Ear, Iron Dun, Brown Palmer, Cahill, and a few +others. The first day I killed eighteen trout in fishing fifty yards +in a small stream running partly through a large open field and partly +through bushes, fishing from the left bank. Twelve were taken on a +brown palmer, four on a dark-gray midge, and two on a tiny +yellow-gold-brown fly. I fished three hours, in which time I received +exactly two hundred and fifteen strikes; eighteen, as I have said, +proved killing. I fished stealthily up and down the stream, hiding +here and there and making the most difficult of casts at all times. I +went up and down the little stream a half dozen times, never going +into the wood, but merely fishing from where the stream came out of +the wood to where it hid itself again beyond the field. Part of the +water I fished, as I say, was in underbush, but I did not leave the +field. + +Now I am going to show you how the tastes of trout varied by minutes, +in two instances at least, and I desire you to know every little +detail. To well convince you that the casts I made were difficult, I +will say that my line became fastened in twigs, leaves, and bushes +every other toss. I had to put the flies through little openings no +larger than the creel head and take chances of getting the leader +caught while on the way, and after it was there and on its return. I +sometimes whipped twenty times at a little pool before I reached it. +There were logs, branches, mosses, cresses, leaves, and grasses to +avoid. The water in parts was swift and still, narrow, shallow, and +deep, sometimes being four feet wide and three feet deep, and then ten +feet wide and three inches deep; sometimes running smartly over bright +grasses or pebbles and light in color, and in other places lying dark +and still in pools made by logs and deep holes. + +A tyro would have fished the ground in ten minutes and caught +nothing; some Anglers would have gone over it once in twenty-five +minutes and taken a half-dozen fish. I had the day to myself; I had +nowhere else to go; I was out for sport, recreation, and study,--not +fish, for I am a lover of nature in general,--and so I took three +hours at the play, and fished and observed inch by inch like a mink, +the king of trouters. + +I say I had two hundred and fifteen strikes, out of which I killed +eighteen trout, and you are surprised. You think you could have done +better, much better, but I know you could not--you could not have done +as well as I did and I wish that I could put you to a test. I have +seen a _fontinalis_ rise to a small coachman twenty-six times, +snapping apparently at the feather each time, but never allowing +himself to be hooked nor hooking himself. He was playing. He was a +young trout, but an educated one, and well knew there was no danger if +he kept his wits about him. I have witnesses to this performance who +will substantiate my story, and I can easily further prove the +truthfulness of the statement by taking you to a stream where a +similar performance may be enacted. And I have seen an uneducated +trout rise and snap at a fly without taking it. The first one rose in +play, this one in curiosity--and there are trout that will rise in +anger. All of them may know the bait is not food. It is a mistake to +think that all brook trout will spurt from a fly the very second they +discover it is not real food, as it is an error to believe that all +brook trout will take the fly when they know it is the living thing. +All trout are not alike; they vary in their tastes and antics as they +do in color and size. Mind you, I speak only of one species here--the +true brook trout, _Salvelinus fontinalis_, and thus the material +should be interesting. + +[Illustration: AN UNUSUAL WAY OF TAKING THE FLY] + +The day I took my creel of eighteen was a fair one; we had rain the +day before; the water was clear and the stream was in ordinary +condition. The brown hackle which killed twelve of the eighteen was on +a No. 8 hook; the other two flies were tied on No. 16, as the hackle +should have been, for the fish were small and the stream was in a +small-fly condition and quite right for the daintiest leaders and the +finest midges. But the hackle seemed to please the trout; all sizes +appeared to jump at it. I hooked many that were not over three inches +long! Several times when taking my flies from the water for a new +cast, I lifted a poor little trout up in the air back of me, like the +scurvy fisherman who makes a practice of landing all his fish by +yanking them out. So you see it pays to be patient on the stream and +try all sorts of gentle tricks with _fontinalis_. You must not hurry; +you must not be coarse; you must not be careless and untidy with your +fly-book. Take your time, fish slowly, surely, and delicately. Be not +weary of the play: banish the thought of discouragement, keep at the +sport for sport alone, and study as you angle. + +A little trout will rise to a fly he has missed one or more times; a +large trout will seldom do so. When you miss a big trout do not give +him back the fly for ten minutes, and then if you miss him again, +change the pattern, wait a little while, and he is once more ready for +the rise--if the new fly suits him. + +I never raised a trout on the scarlet ibis fly. I believe it is a poor +color on the well-fished waters, just as I believe that all flies are +killing on wild streams. New trout will take old flies; old trout love +new ones and many old ones. Personally I like the sober colors in +flies for all seasons on all water, though I well appreciate the old +rule: "When the day is bright and where the water is clear, small +flies and plain colors; in deep and dull waters and on dark days and +in the evening the brighter and larger ones." Trout do not in all +cases show their liking to flies in accordance with any condition of +weather or water, though as a rule it is advisable to use lighter +colors when the day and water are dull, which is not saying, however, +that fish will not rise to loud flies on bright days or sober flies in +dull weather, for the tastes of trout vary like the tastes of other +living things, and nothing can equal them in erraticness when +fly-feeding. + +You must give _fontinalis_ sport, for he very often strikes for play +more than food, and, like every other living thing, loves a choice of +variety. + +There is an old story that if the Angler's book has a pattern of fly +in exact imitation of the real fly upon the trout water, he has but to +join it as the stretcher to fill his creel. Ogden tells us in so many +words: "Give not the trout an exact imitation of the real fly upon the +water, for your artificial fly will then be one in a thousand. +Something startling will please them better--loud gold body, +strange-colored wings--and an odd fellow may take it for sport if +nothing else." + +While this is a good bit of advice, it does not seem right to me to +send it forth in such a sweeping manner. The question of whether we +should imitate nature in general fly building has long been in vogue. +Some say we should do so, and others that it does not matter. Both are +correct--there are times when we should copy the living flies, and +times when we should use those artificial things that have no +resemblance to nature's insects. I have come upon a water where the +trout were rising to the small dusky miller, and have, by putting on +the artificial fly of this order, taken a dozen beauties in good play. +It was because I arrived just in time; the trout were not tired of +their course. Perhaps twenty minutes later they would not have done +more than eyed my cast. In that case, even if the water were covered +with a species of the real fly, it would have been better to have +offered something different. Copy nature if the fish be devouring--not +alone because the fly is on the water; they may be tired of it. +Sometimes there are flies being taken that are not seen by the Angler, +for trout can snap a fly upon the wing. Fly-fishing is not an easy +pursuit; 'tis a real science. Rules are good, but we must not fail to +suit the rules to conditions. + +No; you are not supposed to use the entire list, for to-day the trout +may not favor over two or three of them; to-morrow he may take six of +them--all different from those he may show a liking for to-day. It is +all very well for an Angler to take but three dozen coachmen and brown +and gray hackle for the Western trout, or any trout that is not +educated up to the standard of the trout that is fished for +incessantly, but I should not like to make a month's trouting trip and +take along only three kinds of flies, even if I had dozens of each of +the three and if my favorite quaker were one of the trio, no matter +where the stream--East. West, North, or South. + +Some days after my catch of eighteen I visited the field again and +fished from the point where the stream entered the wood down to a +beautiful little waterfall. I took twenty-one of fair size--one on a +yellow Sallie, one on an oak fly, four on an Esquimaux dun, five on a +hare's ear, and nine on the quaker. This day I had ninety-three +rises--not as many as on the day I took the eighteen and had two +hundred and fifteen rises. The day was dark, the water very clear and +shallow, and there had been no rain for ten days. + +This was the occasion of learning more about striking the Eastern +brook trout than I had ever before enjoyed. The old rule is to strike +on the second of the rise, and, while I do not think this electric +quickness should be practiced in all cases and under all conditions. I +found it was the rule this day, especially in the one deep pool I +found. In other places--one in particular, where I saw six of my catch +make every move in taking the flies--I found it necessary to depart +from the old rule and strike not upon the second of the rise. I very +often gave wrist too quickly. It all goes to prove that rules are not +to be exercised at all times and under all conditions. We must make +allowances. I came upon one quiet piece of water that was as clear and +still as glass; I could see every detail of the pebbles at the bottom. +Eight pretty trout were in this bed of silent water, resting without a +perceptible movement--not even that delicate wave of the tail so +common with the trout in his balancing in running water. They did not +see me; a bush hid my form. When my slender rod tip moved over the +water and the leader with the flies went down gently upon the surface, +the trout thought (all animals think) the wind had stirred the frail +branch of an adjacent tree and swept into the water upon a cobweb +three insects for their feeding. Four rushed for the deceit and two +were hooked quietly and quickly. I landed them and went away to return +to the same spot a half-hour later. Seven trout were there this time. +I flailed gently over them, but received no rushing rise; one little +fellow came up deliberately, broke water two inches behind the little +dun, and then returned to his old position. Then two others did +precisely the same as their companion had done, excepting one that +chose the oak fly for his inspection. Then they sank themselves, and a +fourth gamester spurted up to the dun and took it in his mouth much as +a sunfish would suck in a bit of worm. I struck him, and he made a +splash that nearly drove a near-by-perched catbird into hysterics, and +sent the other trout up, down, and across the stream like so many +black streaks of lightning. Now, had I cast at these fish from above +or below and not just over them, where I saw every move they made, I +should have given them wrist on the second of their rise--as I did in +the case of the first two that made the first rush--and lost any +chance of success. + +No, I say, we must not always follow rules regardless of conditions. +We must not judge all trout alike, even if they be of one species. +Men, though of one race, are not all alike in their habits any more +than they are in their sizes and colors. + +I found in some parts of the stream that as long as I changed the +flies I had rises; in other parts no trout took the fly, no matter how +I worked it. Perhaps there were no fish hereabout; perhaps they saw +me; perhaps they were not hungry, and perhaps there were hundreds and +thousands of other reasons why they were not to be taken in these +certain places. + +No man can strictly follow rules in all cases and take trout upon +every occasion of his trials. Conditions govern, and must be +studied--conditions, conditions. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE ANGLER'S PRAYER--SAVE THE WOODS AND WATERS + +"Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business is only to be +sustained by perpetual neglect of other things. And it is not by any +means certain that a man's business is the most important thing he has +to do." + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +Commerce or civilization or whatever you like to call modern man's +accumulation of money wealth at the sacrifice of nature is perpetrated +with no greater force than in the wanton waste of our forests--the +trees given by God to the people and stolen from the people by +individuals. It seems all right for man to prudently use our forests +in the making of homes and other practical things of actual necessity, +but it is a downright shame that the people allow greedy men to +destroy the trees for the mere sake of adding dollars to the +destroyers' already well-filled purses. And these selfish men even +deprive the people of their breathing-air, drinking-water, and fish +food. Springs, ponds, and brooks are dried up by the loss of +sheltering foliage. Lakes and rivers are ruined by the commercial +gentry's waste acid, dye, oil, gas, etc., and the very air we breathe +is poisoned by the fumes of the money-makers' chimneys. + +The railroads cut down the people's trees to make ties, and they burn +the old ties instead of consuming them for steam power or giving them +back to the people for fuel or fence posts, etc. The mill owner burns +as rubbish the sawdust and slabs instead of burying the sawdust and +allowing it to turn into loam that would enrich the soil and thereby +propagate vegetable food matter and the very tree life the millman +wastes. He is not only destroying the material on hand but he is doing +his best to prevent the growth of future material. Slabs should not be +burned as waste matter; they are good fuel and good material for the +farmer, _et al._ + +Nothing should be burned as waste matter; nature tells us to bury, not +burn. Fire destroys not alone the valuable ingredient it consumes to +make itself, but burns up the earth's vital moisture--the life-giving +oxygen we breathe, without which no animate thing could survive. + +Before fresh timber is cut for market-cornering purposes, the millmen +should be compelled to use up the vast rafts of trees they have +allowed to float upon river banks, there to rot while the choppers +continue their attack on new trees, half of which will go to waste +with the lumberman's already-decaying market-cornering mess in the +flooded valley. + +Anyone may personally witness this wanton waste if so inclined: Take a +ride on the railroad between Portland, Oregon, and Tacoma, Washington, +and note the conditions _en route_; or glance out of the car window as +you ride through the timberland district in the Southern +states--Alabama, Georgia, etc. + +Oregon and Washington are bragging about what the native biped +conceitedly calls enterprise, western spirit, progress, prosperity, +etc. Poor fools! They imagine the so-called prosperity is due to the +enterprise or spirit of themselves, while any nature student could +tell them that the business success of any territory is directly due +to that territory's material that is marketed, and that as soon as the +marketable material is used up the so-called enterprise, energy, +spirit, etc., of the ego-marketman go up with it. + +In Michigan (Bay City) thirty-five years ago the wasters used to boast +that Bay City was going to outrival New York City in size, intellect, +money wealth, social standing, etc., in a few years. All this on a +little timber they were cutting and selling. It was remarked by a +nature student that the success of their ambition depended upon the +pine trees they were gradually consuming--ruthlessly cutting down to +extermination--and a practical man suggested that they plant and +propagate as well as cut and consume. Also it was hinted that the +lumber they made out of the trees was the only thing they had to make +possible the social downfall of New York. + +"Oh, by no means," they said; "we have enterprise and spirit; that's +what counts." + +But, the count was a failure--the trees giving out. Northern Michigan +was turned into a sugar-beet farm, and most of the unfortunates who +counted on making Bay City outrival New York are now of the very dust +that nurtures the present-day material that their offspring exists +upon. + +The Michigan enterprise, spirit, etc., is now transferred to the few +other timberland States, and the natives of to-day, the early day of +plenty, are just like the old conceited Michiganders--they foolishly +imagine the financial success of their territory is due to so-called +personal energy, pride, enterprise, progress, etc., on the part of +themselves, when any naturalist knows that their prosperity is +directly due to God's bountifulness--the abundance of marketable +material--not man's effort or egotism. + +When Oregon and Washington have lumbered all their timber the +"enterprising" natives will not have rivaled New York socially or +financially any more than the Michigander has accomplished this end; +Oregon and Washington, without timber, like Michigan, will stay just +where they are--if lucky enough not to go lower down in the social and +financial standard--when their marketable material is exhausted. + +Climate is a mere matter of pure air. What's the good in climate if +it's smoked and burned? Any clean climate, hot or cold, is better than +any soiled climate, hot or cold. + +Marketable material, pure air, and pure water are the three big +concerns of life; man isn't worthy of being included in the list of +important things because he destroys these three mighty essentials. +Material makes man more than man makes material. + +Man's energy and egotism couldn't get a footing without marketable +material. What the world needs is less of vain man and more plain +market stuff. + +Save the woods and waters. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +TROUT AND TROUTING + + "A day with not too bright a beam; + A warm, but not a scorching, sun." + --CHARLES COTTON. + + +Where can I enjoy trout fishing amid good scenery and good cheer +without its necessitating a lengthy absence from the city? That is a +question which frequently rises in the mind of the toilers in the busy +centers of the East, and it is one becoming daily more difficult to +answer. Yet there are still nearby trout streams where a creel of from +fifteen to fifty, or even more, in favorable weather, might be made. +One such locality, which for years local sportsmen have proven, lies +within a four hours' ride of either Philadelphia or New York. All that +is necessary is to take the railroad, which conveys you to Cresco, in +Monroe County, Pa., and a ride or drive of five miles through the +Pocono Mountains will land you in the little village of Canadensis, in +the valley of the Brodhead; and within the radius of a few miles on +either side fully a dozen other unposted streams ripple along in their +natural state, not boarded, bridged, dammed, or fenced by the hand of +man, thanks to the naturally uncultivatable condition of the greater +part of this paradise for trout fishers. The villagers of Canadensis +do their trading and receive their mail at Cresco, and it is an easy +matter to obtain excellent food and lodgings for a dollar a day at one +of the many farmhouses dotting here and there the valleys, and a seat +when needful in one of the several private conveyances running every +day between the two villages. + +The open season for trout in Pennsylvania is from April 15th until +July 15th, and there appears to be no particularly favored period +during these three months, for the trout here afford sport equally +well at all times, though they greatly vary in their tastes for the +fly. + +If the angler goes there in the early part of the open season, when +the weather is cold, he should engage a room and take his meals at the +farmhouse selected; but if the trip is made in the early part of June +or any time after that, during the open season, camp life may be +enjoyed with great comfort. + +Two favorite waters within walking distance from any of the farmhouses +in Canadensis are Stony Run and the Buckhill. The great Brodhead, a +famous old water in the days of Thaddeus Norris, and noted then and +now for its big trout, flows in the valley proper, within a stone's +throw of the farmhouse at which I engaged quarters. Spruce Cabin Run, +a mile distant, is a charming stream, but the trout here are not very +large beyond the deep pools at the foot of Spruce Falls and in the +water flowing through Turner's fields and woods above the falls. + +Any of these streams will afford plenty of sport, but if one wishes to +visit a still more wild, romantic, and beautiful trout water, he has +only to walk a little farther or take a buckboard wagon and ride to +the mighty Bushkill, a stream that must not be confounded with the +Buckhill, which lies in an opposite direction from Canadensis. + +The Bushkill is the wildest stream in the region, and is fished less +than any of the others named, one reason being that there are plenty +of trout in the waters of Canadensis which can be fished without the +Angler going so far. For those who like to camp, the Bushkill is the +proper locality. I spent a day there with friends one season, and we +caught in less than two hours, in the liveliest possible manner, all +the trout five of us could eat throughout the day, and four dozen +extra large ones which we took home to send to friends in the city. + +"The trout in the Bushkill," remarked one of my companions, "are so +wild that they're tame"--an expression based upon the greediness and +utter disregard of the enemy with which _fontinalis_, in his +unfamiliarity with man, took the fly. I remember having a number of +rises within two feet of my legs as I was taking in my line for a +front toss. + +I know men who have many times traveled a thousand miles from New York +on an angling trip to different famous waters who have not found +either the sport or the scenery to be enjoyed on the Bushkill. + +The lower Brodhead below the point at which this stream and Spruce +Cabin Run come together is very beautiful. It is owned by a farmer who +lives on its banks, and who has never been known to refuse Anglers +permission to fish there when they asked for the privilege. + +There are four natural features in the scenery about Canadensis that +are especially prized by the countrymen there--the Sand Spring, +Buckhill Falls, Spruce Cabin Falls, and the Bushkill Falls. + +The Sand Spring is so called because grains of brilliant sand spring +up with the water. This sand resembles a mixture of gold and silver +dust; it forms in little clouds just under the water's bubble and then +settles down to form and rise again and again. This effect, with the +rich colors of wild pink roses, tiny yellow watercups, blue lilies, +and three shades of green in the cresses and deer tongue that grow all +about, produces a pretty picture. The spring is not over a foot in +diameter, but the sand edges and the pool cover several feet. In +drinking the water, strange to say, one does not take any sand with +it. + +Being located at one side of the old road between Cresco and +Canadensis every visitor has an opportunity of seeing it without going +more than a few feet out of his direct way. Some of the stories told +about the old Sand Spring are worth hearing, and no one can tell them +better or with more special pleasure than the farmers living +thereabout. One man affirms that "more 'an a hundred b'ar and as many +deer have been killed while drinking the crystal water of the spring." + +Each of the falls is a picture of true wild scenery. Though some miles +apart they may be here described in the same paragraph. + +Great trees have fallen over the water from the banks and lodged on +huge projecting moss-covered rocks; they are additional obstacles to +the rushing, roaring, down-pouring water, which flows through and over +them like melted silver. This against the dark background of the +mountain woods, the blue and snow-white of the heavens, the green of +the rhododendron-lined banks, and the streams' bottoms of all-colored +stones creates a series of charming and ever-varying views. + +A half dozen trout, weighing from one to two pounds and a half, may +always be seen about the huge rock at the point where the lower +Brodhead and the Spruce Cabin Run come together, and hundreds may be +seen in the stream below the Buckhill Falls. I do not know that fish +may be actually seen in any other parts of the waters of Canadensis, +but at these points the water is calm and the bottom smooth, and the +specimens are plainly in view. + +Do not waste time on the "flock" lying about the big rock at Brodhead +Point. The trout there will deceive you. I played with them a half +day, and before I began work on them I felt certain I would have them +in my creel in a half-hour's time. They are a pack of pampered idlers +who do not have to move a fin to feed. All the trout food comes +rushing down both streams from behind these big rocks into the silent +water and floats right up to the very noses of these gentlemen of +leisure. If you have any practicing to do with the rod and fly do it +here. These trout are very obliging; they will lie there all day and +enjoy your casting all sorts of things at them. This is a good place +to prove to yourself whether you are a patient fisherman or not. + +And now a few words about the proper tackle for mountain streams. Most +anglers use rods that are too heavy and too long. During my first +visit I used a rod of eight feet, four ounces, and I soon found that, +while it was a nice weight, it was too long for real convenience, +although there were rods used there nine and ten feet long. My rod was +the lightest and one of the shortest ever seen in the valley. There +are only a few open spots where long casts are necessary, and a long, +ordinary-weight trout rod is of very little service compared with one +of seven, seven and a half, or eight feet, four or three ounces, that +can be handled well along the narrow, bush-lined, tree-branch-covered +streams. + +The greater part of the fishing is done by sneaking along under cover +of the rocks, logs, bushes, and the low-hanging branches, as casts are +made in every little pool and eddy. I use a lancewood rod, but of +course the higher-priced popular split bamboo is just as good. I shall +not claim my rod's material is the better of the two, as some men do +when speaking of their tackle, but I am quite sure I shall never say +the split bamboo is more than its equal. I do not advise as to the +material; I speak only of the weight and length. Let every man use his +choice, but I seriously advise him to avoid the cheap-priced split +bamboo rod. + +If split bamboo is the choice, let it be the work of a practical +rod-maker. Any ordinary wood rod is better than the four-dollar split +bamboo affair. + +The leader should be of single gut, but the length should be a trifle +more than is commonly used. Twelve feet is my favorite amount. The +reel should be the lightest common click reel; the creel, a willow one +that sells for a dollar in the stores; and the flies--here's the +rub--must be the smallest and finest in the market. Large, cheap, +coarse flies will never do for Eastern waters, and you must not fail +to secure your list of the proper kind, as well as all your outfit, +before you start on your trip. The only decent thing on sale in the +village stores is tobacco. + +When you buy your flies buy lots of them, for, be you a tyro or +practical Angler, you will lose them easier on these streams than you +imagine. Yes, you must be very careful about the selection of your +flies. They must be small and finely made, high-priced goods. I wish +I might tell you who to have make them, but I dare not, lest I be +charged with advertising a particular house. Regarding the patterns to +use, I will say that none are more killing than the general list, if +they are the best made and used according to the old rule all are +familiar with--dark colors on cold days and bright ones on warm days. +The later the season the louder the fly--that is, when the season +closes during hot weather, as it does in Canadensis. My favorite time +here is from June 15th to July 15th, the closing day, but any time +after the first two weeks of the open season is very charming. I avoid +the first week or two because the weather is then cold and the trout +are more fond of natural bait than the artificial fly. Men take +hundreds of fish early in the season with worms and minnows. + +I never wear rubber boots to wade in. An old pair of heavy-soled shoes +with spikes in their bottoms, and small slits cut in the sides to let +the water in and out, and a pair of heavy woolen socks comprise my +wading footwear. The slits must not be large enough to let in coarse +sand and pebbles, but I find it absolutely necessary to have a slight +opening, for if there be no means for the water to run freely in and +out, the shoes fill from the tops and become heavy. Rubber boots are +too hot for my feet and legs, while the water is never too cold. I +have often had wet feet all day, and have never yet experienced any +ill effects from it. + +I never use a staff in wading, but I should, for here in some places +it is very hard to wade. I have often fallen down in water up to my +waist, overbalanced by the heavy current, where the bottoms were +rough, with sharp, slimy stones. If you carry a staff, follow the +custom of the old Anglers and tie it to your body with a string to +keep it out of the way and allow your hands to be as free as possible +for a strike. Your landing-net should be a small one, minus any metal, +with a foot and a half handle, and a string tied to a front button on +your garment should allow it to be slung over your shoulder onto your +back when not in use. + +Of course, these little points about the use of different things are +all familiar to the Angler with but the slightest experience, and will +appear to him neither instructive nor interesting, but we must, as +gentle Anglers, give a thought or two to the earnest tyro, for we were +young once ourselves. + +I always carry two fly-books with me; one big fellow with the general +fly stock in, which is kept at the farmhouse, and a little one holding +two dozen flies and a dozen leaders, which I carry on the stream. A +string tied to this, too, will prevent the unpleasantness of having it +fall in the water and glide away from you. I even tie a string to my +pipe and knife. The outing hat is an important thing to me. Mine is +always a soft brown or gray felt, and I use it to sit on in damp and +hard places fifty times a day. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +TROUTING IN CANADENSIS VALLEY + + +The Canadensis Valley in Monroe County, Pennsylvania, is a +_fontinalis_ paradise. With my friend George Blake I creeled the +little heroes by the dozen every day for a week. We each could have +easily caught fifty in an afternoon had we cared to do so, but there +were other rural pleasures to attend to, and we were not dealing in +fish, and saw more beauty in just enough to eat than in wasteful +quantity. Fishermen are generally known as exaggerators, and I do not +deny that they do sometimes resort to an innocent little fib when a +yarn may amuse many and injure no one, but I must say that this +region's beauties are too numerous to overpraise by all the +exaggeration of all the fabricators in the world. No word of mouth or +pen could do justice to nature in these mountains. And I need not +elaborate on the fish; the truth is bold enough. + +Brook trout weighing a quarter of a pound to a pound and a half are +taken every day by Anglers, who more than fill their creels. Two +gentlemen took in one day sixty-five beauties on the stream known as +Stony Run, and two Philadelphia Anglers took half a hundred the day +before above the Buckhill Falls. Another great stream in this region +is the Bushkill, and still another is Brodhead's Creek. The latter +flows past our camp, and is famous for big trout. My favorite is +Spruce Cabin Stream, above and below the beautiful Spruce Cabin Falls. +There are big trout in this water, especially at the bottom of the +falls, and I can--if I will--take fifty trout in an afternoon, and +they'll weigh from a quarter of a pound to one pound and a half. I +like something besides fish about a stream, and this is why I am fond +of the Spruce Cabin water. + +There are not many Anglers in love with the place. Though beautiful, +it is very hard to fish. I have to creep under great trees that have +fallen over the water and then wade up to my waist to gain certain +points in order to get along down the stream. The banks are lined with +trees and shrubbery, and my line is ever getting tangled. One does not +need to be a fly-casting tournament Angler to fish any of the +Canadensis waters. Distance in the cast is not required as much as +accuracy at more than one or two places on each stream. The rest of +the fishing is done by short, low casts, and by creeping under +branches and letting the line float with the ripples into the eddies. +Every step or two there are little falls, and in the white, bubbling +water at their bottom a trout may be taken. Under the big fall, and in +the still waters above and below, the big trout hide. + +Artificial flies are the popular bait with the gentle Angler, though +all sizes of trout will take worms, and the big, educated trout like +minnows. Both small, medium, and large trout like flies if the flies +are the right kind. We have had great trouble in getting good flies. I +brought four dozen with me, and not over a half dozen of them are +worth the snell tied to them; they are too clumsy in size, of coarse +material, and bad in color. The six decent ones are the work of an +artist. I could give his name, but it might look like an advertisement +and spoil my story. Trout like choice food just as much as human +beings favor savory dishes. You may stick an oyster shell on a reed, +and decoy a summer yellowleg, but you can't hook a trout on any kind +of a fly. They know a thing or two. + +Tyros who angle in a trout country without success go home and say +there are no trout. They don't think about conditions of water and +weather; about their line lighting in the water before their bait; +about their coarse line and poor flies. + +Trout are philosophers, not only the educated ones, those which have +been hooked and seen others hooked, but trout in general. They're born +that way. A young man came up here the other day with an old cane +pole, weighing fully three pounds, and a big salt water sinker, and he +went away saying there were few trout in these waters. I think he had +a float with him, too, but am not sure. + +A word or two about appropriate tackle for mountain streams, and I'll +put up the pen and joint the rod again. In the city a few weeks ago I +proudly displayed a four-ounce, nine-foot lancewood rod, and my +friends laughed at me, saying it was too frail for any service. Now, I +find this rod, shortened two feet, just the thing for this country +where trout run small and where there's no long casting. I frequently +run across good Anglers here with five-ounce rods, and have seen two +four-ounce rods. There is no use for a rod above four ounces in weight +and seven feet in length. When I come again I shall use a three-ounce +rod. The reel should be the lightest and smallest common click, and +the line the finest enameled silk,tapered if you like. The +flies--here's the main thing--should be the best, and of the smallest +brook trout pattern. Next year, when I make up my supply, I'll pack +fully two hundred, and they'll be the dearest-priced flies, for they +are none too good. + +[Illustration: THE TROUT BROOK] + +Oh, I must say a word about cooking and eating trout before I close. +I've tried them in all styles, and the best way, I think, is when +they're roasted over a camp fire on a little crotch stick, one prong +in the head and the other in the tail. And the worst way, I think, is +when they're fried in a pan with bad butter or poor lard. + +Blake and I are in our glory. Our only displeasure is in knowing that +our perspiring city friends are not as comfortable. The days here are +warm and bright--not hot and close--and the nights cool and clear, so +that we live merrily all the time. + +I went a few hundred yards down the stream in front of the camp to two +great bowlders, one morning, and there, during a little sun shower, +took a _Salvelinus fontinalis_ that weighed just a little over two +pounds and a quarter. He rose to a pinkish, cream-colored fly, with +little brown spots on the wings. I forget its name, but it's one of +the six really good ones I referred to. I decided to keep the large +captive alive, so I took off one of the cords tied about my trousers +at the bottoms (I never wear wading boots in warm weather), put it +through his gill, and tied the other end to a submerged tree-root. +Later, Mr. Trout was lodged in a small box, with bars tacked over the +top, and placed under a spout running from an old mill race. He was a +big specimen--large enough to saddle and ride to town, the cook said. +And pretty--as pretty as a gathering of lilacs and giant ferns decked +with wintergreen berries. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE TROUTER'S OUTFIT + + +The rod for stream fishing should weigh from three to six ounces and +measure in length from seven to nine feet. Split bamboo and lancewood +are two of the best rod materials. If you cannot afford a good split +bamboo do not buy a cheap one; choose a lancewood. + +The line should be a small-sized waterproofed silk one. The reel, a +small common light rubber click, holding twenty-five or thirty-five +yards. + +The landing net, used to take the fish from the water after being +hooked, should be made of cane with linen netting, and have no metal +about it. The handle should be about a foot long. Tie a string to the +handle, tie the string to a button on your coat under your chin, and +then toss the net over your back out of the way. + +The creel, or fish basket, should be a willow one about the size of a +small hand satchel. This should have a leather strap, to be slung over +the right shoulder, allowing the creel to rest on the left hip. + +The hat should be a soft brown or gray felt with two-inch brim. This +may be used as a cushion to sit down upon on rocks or in damp places. + +The footwear may be either rubber boots, leather shoes, or rubber +wading trousers. If the water is warm, wear leather shoes, and have +nails put in the thick soles to keep your feet from slipping in swift +water and on slimy stones. If you choose rubber boots see that they +are of the light, thin, thigh-fitting sort and not the clumsy affairs +with straps attached. + +The fly-book for use on the stream should have room for not more than +a dozen flies, with pockets for leaders, silk cord, small shears, and +other tools. A larger book for your general stock of flies and leaders +may be left at your rural lodgings with your tackle box and other +traps. + +The leader, to which are attached the flies in use, should be of the +finest quality of single silk gut, and in length three feet. Two of +these attached make a cast, though I prefer a longer cast of leader. + +The coat and general clothing should be of a dead-grass, gray, or +light brown color. Have plenty of pockets, and tie a string to nearly +everything you carry in them, so you cannot lose them if they fall +from your hands. + +The flies--every known variety of trout fly, providing you order these +of the finest make. + +Do not undertake to go trouting stintingly equipped, which is not +saying that you are to dress and act like a circus clown. But you must +be properly outfitted. Good carpenters make good houses, but their +work is better and more pleasant if they have good tools. + +The tyro who is not fortunate enough to have the friendship of a +practical fisherman to whom he may apply for advice should read the +works on angling and ichthyology by Izaak Walton, Henry William +Herbert ("Frank Forester"), Seth Green, Charles Hallock. Wm. C. +Harris, Thaddeus Norris, Genio C. Scott. Frederick Mather, Robert +Roosevelt, G. Brown Goode, Kit Clarke, Dr. Jas. A. Henshall, Charles +Zibeon Southard, Dr. Edward Breck, Emlyn M. Gill. George M. L. +LaBranche, Louis Rhead, Eugene McCarthy, Dr. Henry van Dyke, David +Starr Jordan. Dr. Evermann, Prof. Baird, Tarlton H. Bean, Richard +Marston, Frederick E. Pond ("Will Wildwood"). Mary Orvis Marbury, A. +Nelson Cheney, Charles F. Orvis, Dr. Charles Frederick Holder, Perry +D. Frazer. Emerson Hough, Rowland E. Robinson, Isaac McLellan. Francis +Endicott, Dean Sage, Wm. C. Prime. Henry P. Wells, Judge Northrup, +John Harrington Keene, _et al._, and make a study of the catalogues of +the better class of sporting-goods houses. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +TROUT FLIES, ARTIFICIAL AND NATURAL + + +"The wide range of difference between the wet fly and the dry fly lies +in the fact that the wet fly is an imitation of no special thing +active and living, while the dry fly purports to be an imitation of +the natural fly. It is generally a well-known fact that any of our +well-known American wet flies can be converted into exceptionally good +dry flies by giving them an ablution of oil."--Robert Page Lincoln, +_Outdoor Life_. September, 1915. + +Then the wet fly resembles the dry fly, and therefore the wet fly is +an imitation of the living fly. Of course it is. Is not the artificial +black gnat imitative of the live black gnat? And is not the white +miller artificial fly patterned after the living white miller fly? +Certainly. Mary Orvis Marbury, author of _Favorite Flies_, and +daughter of Charles F. Orvis, one of America's greatest fly-makers, +says so. So says William C. Harris, Seth Green, Frank Forester, Louis +Rhead, A. Nelson Cheney, Frederick Mather, Dr. Henshall, Charles +Hallock, Dean Sage, William C. Prime, Charles Z. Southard, Dr. van +Dyke, Edward Breck, _et al._ + +All angling writers in discoursing upon artificial flies use the +expressions "in season," "seasonable flies," etc. Now, how could this +or that artificial fly be in season if it were not copied from the +living fly? Of course, there are some artificial flies that are not +copied from nature, but the artificial fly in general is a duplicate +of the living thing. "When a fly is said to be in season," says Alfred +Ronalds, "it does not follow that it is abroad on every day of its +existence." But, our opinions must not be harshly expressed--rather +set forth "in pleasant discourse," as Walton says--for, as Pritt tells +us, "one of the charms of angling is that it presents an endless field +for argument, speculation, and experiment." + +After the foregoing excerpt and my comment upon it appeared in the New +York _Press_ (Sept. 11, 1915). I wrote several of the authorities +mentioned, asking their views on the subject, and following will be +found their replies. + +Henry van Dyke, author of _Little Rivers_, _Days Off_, _Fisherman's +Luck_, etc.: + + For flies as "wet," or flies as "dry." + I do not care a whit--not I! + The natural fly is dry, no doubt. + While through the air he flits about; + But, lighting on the stream, you bet + He very often gets quite wet. + This fact is known to all the fish; + They take their flies just as they wish. + Upon the surface or below. + Precisely _why_ we do not know. + The honest Angler should not be + A man of rigid theory. + But use the most alluring fly. + And sometimes "wet," and sometimes "dry." + +Louis Rhead, author of _The Book of Fish and Fishing_: "After +thirty-two years' active fishing for trout, beginning with a worm as a +bait, I have developed through various stages to know fish with +nothing but my own nature flies. I have made careful color pictures of +all the most abundant insects and produced flies tied to exactly +imitate them. Many insects do not and cannot float, yet an imitation +can be made of them to fish wet. The English dry fly is not of +necessity a copy of the natural insect. Halford has many fancy dry +flies that are not copies of insects. Nearly all American commercial +trout flies are fancy flies, and do not imitate insects. To be exact, +in fishing with a floating fly it is only right to use copies of +insects that will float, mostly drakes. The average Angler has been +sadly fooled by this so-called dry-fly fishing, and books have been +written (mostly culled from British sources), making Anglers more +bewildered than ever." + +Charles Zibeon Southard, author of _Trout Fly-Fishing in America_: "In +reply to your question about trout flies, 'Am I right?' I would say +that unquestionably you are. From the earliest days of trout +fly-fishing it has been the intention of Anglers to have their flies +resemble as far as possible the natural ones found upon their trout +waters. One has only to read dear old Izaak Walton and the many noted +fly-fishing authorities that have followed to the present day to be +convinced of your view. Of course the art of fly-tying has advanced +with mighty strides during the past fifteen years and more especially +during the past ten years, and to the makers of 'dry' flies for the +wonderful development of the artificial fly too much credit, in my +judgment, cannot be given. That wet flies are not such remarkable +imitations of the natural flies as are the dry flies goes almost +without saying. As a matter of fact it is not the question which fly +is the better imitation, but that both the wet fly and the dry fly are +patterned, in most cases, after the natural flies. From the time of +Walton and before that, wet flies have been patterned after natural +flies. In many instances nowadays wet flies are not designed to +represent natural flies, but such flies are freaks, are short-lived, +and are seldom used by real trout fly-fishermen. There is no doubt in +my mind that taken as a whole wet flies have been intended to +represent natural flies, but quite often in the past and in the +present day have not been and are not good imitations. As the art of +fly-tying has advanced, more nearly do the artificial represent the +natural flies, and this advancement is due, in a great measure, to the +makers of dry flies. Speaking from a practical standpoint, the +so-called dry flies are the very best wet flies obtainable, and on +most American trout waters more trout will be caught on them when +fished wet than when fished dry, especially the _fontinalis_." + +Dr. James A. Henshall, author of _The Book of the Black Bass_: +"Regarding the 'Trout Flies' clipping sent me for comment I think the +mention of my name in it is sufficient without adding anything more." + +Dr. Edward Breck, author of _The Way of the Woods_, etc.: "I suppose +that I may subscribe to your paragraph in answer to Mr. Lincoln. We +old chaps all know that laying down any hard and fast rules for trout +is a futile undertaking; there are so many exceptions, and _les +extremes se touchent_ so very often. Many wet flies are certainly not +imitations of natural flies nor are they meant to be; as, for example, +the Parmachenee belle, which they say Wells fashioned to imitate the +belly-fin of a trout, always known to be a killing lure. +'Non-university' trout grab anything that looks like food, whether it +has the appearance of an insect or something else. The more educated +fish of the more southern waters may make finer distinctions. It is a +vast subject, and as many authorities may be found for almost any +statement as for the several pronunciations of the word 'Byzantine.' +You remember the scoffing English Angler who dyed his dry flies blue +and red and took a lot of fish with them, to the scandal of the +purists! The charm of the whole thing is precisely that there are no +rules. It is like style in writing English. Every man makes his own. +Whether it is more pleasing in the sight of Saint Izaak to wait for a +fish to begin feeding before casting over him, or for a man to sally +forth, and, by dint of knowledge and patience and skill, actually make +the trout rise to his lure, what arrogant mortal shall judge?" + +Robert Page Lincoln: "Perhaps I should have said _some_ wet flies are +an imitation of no special object connected with living things. In the +list of wet flies there are experimentations galore that will serve as +well as any of the standard regulation flies. I can sit down and +construct offhand a fly to be used as wet or submerged that I feel +sure I can use with as much success as with the miller, gnat, or any +other fly that is no doubt much on the order of an imitation of the +natural. Perhaps in writing the article I was thinking too deeply of +the eccentric nondescripts that do not imitate nature. Yet these +nondescripts (flies tied anyway to suit the fancy), yet having hackle +wings, etc., will get the fish; they are drawn in the water gently +back and forth, thus purporting to be some insect drowning; yet I +doubt very much if the fish can tell what sort of a fly, living fly, +it should be. I do not care; it is the motion, the apparent endeavor +of the fly to get out of that watery prison that arouses the fish's +blood. However, Halford says: 'The modern theory is that these +patterns (the wet flies) are taken by the fish for the nymphae or +pupae--these being the scientific names of the immature insects at the +stage immediately preceding the winged form.... Candidly, however, the +presence of the wings in the sunk fly pattern has puzzled me, because +in my experience I have never seen the winged insects submerged by the +action of the stream. Sedges do at times descend to oviposit and so do +certain spinners, but the appearance under this condition, with an air +bubble between their wings, resembles nothing so much as a globe of +mercury--an appearance which bears no resemblance to the ordinary sunk +fly patterns.' I have been strictly a devotee to the wet-fly form, and +always hold that it is the better fly for our swift Western streams; +in the wet form certainly it is the better fly two thirds of the time. +Still, glassy pools, even smooth waters, come few and far between, +but, where they are, there the dry fly is a valuable addition to the +Angler's outfit. You might change my article (in the paragraph in +question) to read thus: 'The wide range of difference between some wet +flies and the dry fly lies in the fact that a good number of wet flies +are an imitation of no special thing active and living, while the +majority of the dry flies purport to be an imitation of natural +flies.' This would exclude the wet flies that make good dry flies, +namely the suggested millers, gnats, etc. It would be interesting to +know the number of captures made with wet flies as they fall lightly +to water and for a moment ride the brim. Captures have been made +wherein two thirds of the time the wet fly has lain on the surface +but a scant moment before it was seized. In my great number of +articles printed in the universal outdoor press I have always +suggested that the fly be cast easily to water, expecting, first, a +rise as it lies on the surface; second, failing at this, then the fly +submerges and is drawn in the water, to assure the opening and closing +of hackles, thus purporting to imitate the drowning, struggling +insect." + +Charles Hallock, author of _The Sportsman's Gazetteer_, _The Salmon +Fisher_, etc.: "I have nothing more to say. I hung up my trout rod +last summer at Chesterfield. Mass., in my eighty-second year. So, my +fly-book is closed. Let younger Anglers do the talking and discuss _ad +infinitum_. Flies are not on my line. Good-bye." + + "To frame the little animal + Let nature guide thee." + --GAY. + + + +TROUT TAKING THE FLY + +"You will observe when casting the wet fly ... that trout seldom rise +to the fly when it first strikes the water ... after years of +experience I am prepared to state as my opinion that such a thing does +not happen once in thirty casts."--Charles Zibeon Southard, _Trout +Fly-Fishing in America_. + +This has not been my experience with _fontinalis_ in the streams and +ponds of Long Island, N. Y., and the mountain brooks of Pennsylvania, +where many of my trout took the fly almost before it touched the +water. I have seen trout catch large live flies in the air a few +inches over the surface. I think large trout in clear, still ponds +easily see the cast fly before it alights. The trout in rapid streams +may not be so alert, but I have certainly caught many a specimen on +the fly the instant the lure touched the water. + +Mr. William M. Carey, who is responsible for the frontispiece in this +volume, is positive trout often jump out of the water in taking the +fly. I, too, have seen trout do so. It is not a regular practice of +the species, but I easily recall many instances of the trout leaping +clear of the surface and taking the fly in the descent. Trout of all +sizes will often strike both living and artificial flies with their +tails, this either in play or to disable the insect. A writer in +_Forest and Stream_ (January 9, 1901) says: "In fishing a trout stream +in northern Michigan I was using a cast of a Parmachenee belle and a +brown hackle. I was wading downstream, and I came to a place where a +tree had fallen into the stream, and after several casts I noticed +some small trout following my flies. I cast again, and while my flies +were five or six inches from the water a trout four or five inches +long jumped clear out of the water, grabbed my Parmachenee belle and +immediately dove with it in its mouth. I believe the same trout did +the same thing several times while I was fishing there. These were +brook trout and they were not jumping except when they jumped at my +flies." + +The foregoing comments were submitted to Mr. Southard, and he writes +me: + +"What you say about catching trout in Long Island waters and the +mountain brooks of Pennsylvania is entirely true. During the early +spring season I have caught, at times, many small trout on such waters +in precisely the same way, and in addition there have been days on +many different waters where occasionally during the whole of the open +season I have caught trout when they rose the moment the fly alighted +upon the water. These experiences of ours alone, however, do not +establish as a fact nor as a general proposition that trout rise to a +fly more often when it first alights upon the water than after the fly +has been fished or played by the Angler; nor that my statement as a +general proposition is not a correct one. + +"The statement was perhaps poorly worded and thus misleading, and I +should have said that on _an average_ trout do not rise to a fly once +in thirty casts when it first alights upon the water. My opinion was +based, _first_, upon trout fly-fishing on all kinds of fishable waters +wherever found; _second_, upon all sizes of trout from the minimum of +six inches to the maximum of thirty inches whether or not they were +indigenous or planted fish; _third_, upon my own experience of over +twenty-five years as well as the opinion of many Anglers and guides +with an experience covering a longer period than my own; _fourth_, +upon my knowledge of the habits and habitats of trout under the many +varying conditions which govern their lives and actions. + +"Unfortunately most Anglers have given almost no thought to studying +and analyzing 'the art of fly-fishing' to the end that they may become +better and more successful fishermen and thus enjoy to a greater +extent the pleasures of the clean, dignified, and delightful sport of +angling. It is not surprising then that an Angler upon first thought, +even an experienced one, might think that trout rise to flies when +they first alight upon the water more often than once in thirty casts +because he remembers only the rises and his successes, but pays very +little attention to the lack of either. How many Anglers know +approximately the number of casts they make in an hour? How many know +the number of rises they have and when? How many know the number of +trout that rise and strike and are hooked and landed? The answer is +'Few indeed'; and those who hazard a guess are usually far from the +facts. + +"The average fly-fishing Angler casts his fly or flies, _on most +waters_, from five to seven times a minute and the less experienced +Angler from seven to ten times. With the more experienced Angler this +means that he casts from 300 to 420 times in an hour and in five hours +from 1500 to 2100 times. Let us take the lesser number as a basis of +reasoning; in one hour, if once in thirty casts a trout rose, struck, +and was hooked when the fly first alighted upon the water, the +Angler's creel would be richer by ten fish and in five hours by fifty +fish. Then to this number should be added the trout that rise, strike, +and are hooked _after_ the fly has alighted upon the water and has +been fished or played by the Angler. Would it not be a fair +proposition to say that at least as many trout would be caught under +the latter circumstances as the former? To my mind it would. The +Angler then would have creeled one hundred fish in five hours. As some +trout, even with the most expert of Anglers, are bound to be lost let +us be liberal and place the loss at fifty per cent., thus making the +Angler's net catch fifty instead of one hundred fish. Think this over +and think over what your experience has been, day after day and season +after season, and ask yourself if a catch of this size is not very +unusual on the best of trout fishing waters. So far as my own +experience goes it certainly is most unusual, and I fish on many fine +waters each year and for at least one hundred days. + +"There are some places, especially in the State of Maine, and notably +'The Meadow Grounds' of 'The Seven Ponds,' Franklin County, where at +times large numbers of small trout, running from five to seven or +eight inches, can be caught in a fishing day of five hours and I have +known of Anglers catching, though not killing, from three hundred to +seven hundred trout and most of them rose to the flies when they first +alighted upon the water. At 'Tim Pond,' Maine, the only place I know +where more trout can be caught on the fly than by bait, one hundred to +two hundred trout have been caught in one day on the fly, but in most +instances these trout take the fly _not_ when it alights upon the +water but _after_ it has been played. Such occurrences as these, +however, take place where countless numbers of small trout are found +in the shallow waters of remarkable and wonderful natural breeding and +propagating sections. Instances of this kind prove nothing because +they are the great exception and the art of fly-fishing is not brought +into play, for one fly is as good as another and the small boy with +his fifty-cent pole can catch just as many trout as the man of +experience with his thirty-dollar rod of split bamboo. Yet in +expressing my opinion about trout rising to a fly when it first +alights upon the water I took into consideration just such instances +as I have cited. + +"'For your own satisfaction and education,' to quote from my book, +'when the opportunity offers, keep an account of the number of rises +you get when your fly first strikes the water and the number you get +after you have begun to fish the fly, and so prove for yourself what +the real facts are on this subject.' + +"It is unquestionably true that all trout both large and small, when +in clear, still water that is shallow, easily see a cast fly before it +alights upon the surface. + +"At times, under certain conditions both on streams and lakes, trout +will leap into the air and take small as well as large flies in the +air. But seldom will large or very large trout rise above the surface +for any kind of fly either real or artificial. + +"In order that there may be no misunderstanding I would say that I +classify the size of trout as follows: + +"Small trout, 8 inches and under. + +"Medium sized trout, 9 to 13 inches. + +"Large trout, 14 to 18 inches. + +"Very large trout, 19 inches and over. + +"Trout found in rapid streams are more alert than trout found +elsewhere; they in most cases represent the perfection of trout life +in all its different phases. Trout in rapid streams are snappy risers +to both the real and artificial fly but owing to the current they +frequently 'fall short' and fail to strike and take the fly. Such +trout when they do take the fly are the easiest to hook because they +often hook or help to hook themselves owing to the current. + +"Your experience can hardly be said to differ materially from my own +in the instances you mention, but I cannot help thinking that you have +failed to take into account the many times when you have returned with +an empty or very nearly empty creel or to consider the number of times +you have actually cast your fly on the days when the creel was full to +overflowing. + +"If you have cited your usual experience then I heartily congratulate +you upon your skill and upon your good fortune in knowing such +remarkable fishing waters wherein there dwells 'the most beautiful +fish that swims.'" + +I fully agree with Mr. Southard, and I, too, should have worded my +comment differently, though I didn't declare, fortunately, that most +of my trout were taken the instant the fly touched the water. I used +the word "many" in both instances where I spoke of the trout taking +the fly. I think I should have considered more deeply Mr. Southard's +line "once in thirty casts"; then we'd have understood each other. +However, no crime has been committed; far from it, for look you, +reader, what you have gained--all this delightful extra practical +reading; and remember ye, "one of the charms of angling," as Pritt +says, "is that it presents an endless field for argument, speculation, +and experiment." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE BROOK TROUT'S RIVAL + + +When the German brown trout was introduced in the brook trout streams +of Pennsylvania some years ago fly-fishermen condemned the act because +they believed the brook trout (_S. fontinalis_) was superior to the +brown trout as a game fish. Deforestation, rendering the streams too +warm for the brook trout, has changed the fly-fisherman's feeling in +the matter. The brown trout can thrive in warm water, and with the +brook trout's gradual extermination the brown trout is being welcomed +as the next best thing. A correspondent at Reading, Pa., signing +himself "Mourner"--he mourns the passing of the true brook +trout--declares the brown trout strikes harder than the brook trout +and after being hooked, unlike the brook trout, makes two or three +leaps out of the water, but is not so gamey and cunning as the brook +trout and tires out much quicker. The German species has been popular +because it attains a larger size quickly and destroys almost every +fish in the streams, including the brook trout. "The fly-fishermen who +for years have matched their skill, cunning, artifice, and prowess +against the genuine brook trout that since creation dawned have +inhabited the mountain brooks that flow down every ravine," says +Mourner, "have had forced on them, as never before, the sad truth +that, like the deer, bear, quail, woodcock, and grouse, brook trout +are slowly but surely passing. There never was a fish so gamy, +elusive, and eccentric, so beautiful and so hard to deceive and +capture by scientific methods as the native brook trout. No orator has +yet risen to fully sound its praises; no poet to sing its merits as +they deserve; no painter to produce its varied hues. The brook trout +was planted in the crystal waters by the Creator 'when the morning +stars sang together' and _fontinalis_ was undisturbed, save as some +elk, deer, bear, panther, or wildcat forded the shallows of his abode, +or some Indian or mink needed him for food. In this environment the +brook trout grew and thrived. Much warfare made him shy and suspicious +until he became crafty to a degree. The brook trout successfully +combated man's inventive genius in the shape of agile rods, artificial +flies and other bait calculated to fool the most wary, and automatic +reels, landing nets, and other paraphernalia designed to rob a game +fish of 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' But it was not +until the tanner and acid factory despoiler turned poisoned refuse +into the streams and the dynamiter came upon the scene and the +sheltering trees were cut away by the lumberman, letting in the sun +and warming the water to a nauseous tepidity, that the brave trout +faltered, hesitated, and then quit the uneven conquest. Carp and bass +were planted in the streams to further endanger the brook trout's +existence. Next the California trout and the German brown trout, who +prey upon the true brook trout's progeny, followed, till finally, +beaten, baffled, dismayed, poisoned, routed, and overwhelmed by the +superior numbers and size of a cannibalistic race, he gradually began +his retreat. It is good-bye to the brook trout now. With him it was +either cool pools, solitude, and freedom, or extermination. The waters +that pour down into larger streams are sad memories now of his school +playgrounds. No more will the sportsman's honest hunger be appeased by +the brook trout's fine-grained flesh from hardening waters of nearby +mountain brooks. But memory of the brook trout cannot be wrested from +those who knew him at his best, and braved personal danger from +rattler, bear, and wildcat to win him from the crystal waters. The +brook trout has been butchered to make a carp's holiday. Gone he may +be now, but he will live forever in the dreams of all true fishermen +as the real aristocrat of the mountain streams. The like of him will +not soon be seen again." The Fish Commission has mastered the science +of the artificial propagation of the brook trout--millions are now +produced with little trouble and expense--and the stocking of waters +is a common practice, but the Fish Commission can't propagate forests +and woodland streams. Mourner must know that the brook trout itself is +not hard to save; it is the preservation of its wild habitat that is +the great puzzle. If the United States Forestry Department will +protect the trout streams from the greedy lumberman, the factoryman, +and acid maker, the Fish Commission will have no trouble in saving the +brook trout. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +TROUT ON BARBLESS HOOKS + + +Most women who indulge in fishing are, like children, mere fish +takers, not Anglers, but the craft is honored by the association of +many fine female devotees who study and practice the gentle art in its +fullest meaning--a devotion to the poetic, artistic, healthful, and +humane elements in piscatorial pursuits. Dame Juliana Berners, who +wrote the earliest volume on gentle fishing (1500), was the first +celebrated example of the artful and merciful woman fisher, and +Cleopatra the first female to make notorious the coarse and ungodly +method in fishing for pastime. Sweet Dame Berners believed in +angling--the desire of fair treatment to the quarry, correct tackle, a +love of the pursuit superior to greed for number in the catch, and a +heavenly admiration of the general beauties of nature in the day as +well as in the play; and brutal Cleopatra believed in mere fishing, +the killing of the greatest number, regardless of means, mercy, or +method. + +Our modern Dame Bernerses and Cleopatras in the fishing fold are many. +The wife who aids the net fisherman--the marine farmer whose calling +emulates the professional duties of Jesus' disciples, Peter. Andrew, +James, and John--does not count. Her part in fishing, while by no +means angling, is as honest as the work of the upland farmer's +helpmate, and God Himself will not condemn little children, male or +female, who fish indiscriminately, "because they do not know." Fishing +for the modern market is just as honorable as market fishing was in +the ancient days when Jesus praised the net fishermen and made them +His nearest and dearest friends, and angling--merciful ungreedy +fishing with humane tackle and a clear conscience--is even more +righteous than net fishing, because, while the main result of the +Angler's pursuit is the same as the marketman's--fish taking--the +Angler's method of capture is far less cruel, and his creel of fish is +far less in number than the boatful of the marketman. + +The distinction in angling and fishing is made by the modes employed +in the taking, the killing, and the disposing of the fishes. Any +fisherman who uses tackle appropriate to the various species, who is +not greedy in his catch, who plays his game with mercy, who dispatches +it with the least suffering, who disposes of it without wanton waste, +and who is thankful to the Maker for the ways and means for all these +conditions, is an Angler. And cannot woman be as artful and gentle in +pursuits and as appreciative in feeling as man? Surely. England and +Scotland and Ireland are famous for their women Anglers, and Maine, +the Adirondacks, California, and Canada boast of the finest female +fly-casters in the world. There are more women Anglers in these +last-named territories than there are men Anglers in all other parts +of the United States. A woman, Mary Orris Marbury, wrote the best +volume scientifically descriptive of trout, bass, and salmon flies of +modern times, and Cornelia Crosby, a daughter of the Maine wilderness, +is the fly-fishing enthusiast of America. + +Great minds, male and female, have gentle hearts. Izaak Walton handled +a frog as if he loved him. Cowper would not unnecessarily hurt a worm. +Lincoln upset his White House Cabinet to rescue a mother pig from a +mire. Webster neglected the Supreme Court to replace a baby robin that +had fallen from its nest. Moses, John the Divine, Washington, Thoreau. +Audubon, Wilson, and even Napoleon and Caesar the mighty mankillers +were all of tender hearts, and all of these were--Anglers. Christ was +only a fisher of men, but He loved and associated with the fishers of +fishes. Walton, the father of fishers and fishing, angled for the +habits of fishes more than for their hides. The capture of a fish was +insignificantly incidental to the main notion of his hours abroad--his +divine love of the waters, the fields, the meadows, the skies, the +trees, and God's beautiful things that inhabit these. 'Tis the soul we +seek to replenish, not the creel. So a Long Island dairyman's daughter +views the theme, and she handles the mother and baby trout as if she +loved them. _Salvelinus fontinalis_, little salmon of the streams, the +Angler's dearly beloved brook trout--this is the dairymaid's special +delight. She breeds these rainbow-hued beauties and broods over them, +she feeds and fondles them, and they are to her what David's holy, +fleecy flock were to him--his blessed charge by heavenly day and +cardinal care at night. They feed from her hand, and play like kittens +with her fingers. Cleopatra cleaved her fishes with a murderous hand +and hook. Audrey cuddles her trout with a magnanimous mind and heart. + +The trout, with all its famous beauty of color, grace, and outline, +all its army of admirers, all the glory of its aqua-fairyland habitat, +all its seeming gentility of breeding and character, is none the less +a little villain at the killing game, like the less admired feline and +canine and serpentine species, for he will devour the daintiest and +gaudiest butterfly that ever poet sang of. Fledgling robins and +bluebirds, orioles and wrens are meat and drink to him. Young +chipmunks and squirrels that lose their balance in the storm fall into +his ready maw. The bat, the bee, the beetle and ladybug are rich +morsels to his gastric eye, and the golden lizard, the umber ant, the +silvery eel, the crawling angleworm, the chirping cricket, creeping +spider, the grasshopper, the hopping frog, and e'en the heavenly +hummingbird are but mealtime mites to him. Perhaps the knowledge of +this life-destroying trait in all the fishes made Cleopatra +indifferent to the gentler mode of fishing, just as it had a softer +influence over Audrey, for she, though loving both the fishes and +their victims, was induced to angle and thus punish, but never kill, +her finny favorites. She had heard of the artificial dry fly Anglers +of Europe using the barbless hook that held the trout without pain or +injury, and this she made herself, tying up dozens of somber-hued and +lustrous patterns on the bent bit of bronze that formed the snare. The +ruly trout who gently waver in the deep pool, satisfied with the food +supplied by their fair mistress, and who behave themselves when they +swim abroad in the general ponds and streams, are not molested, but +the rebellious urchins who, disdaining the bits of liver and worm fed +to them in plenty, go forth to slay the happy ladybug and butterfly, +are made the game of the barbless hook. + +Audrey has five or six thousand trout in the pond and the stream +flowing into it. The surrounding country is wildly beautiful, the +water being surrounded by great trees of elm, hickory, maple, beech, +chestnut, walnut, and dogwood, under which is spread a rich green +lawn, with here and there patches of wild shrubs, vines, and ground +flowers. Rustic benches circle the water-edge oaks, and sleek deer, as +tame as Belgian hares, browse on the rich grass and eat dainty morsels +from the palms of their human friends. Cleopatra's marble perch basin +was cold and deadly in its artificial atmosphere. Audrey's woodland +trout preserve is warm and lifelike in its natural loveliness. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE BROOK TROUT INCOGNITO + +(_The "Sea Trout"_) + + "I am the wiser in respect to all knowledge and the better + qualified for all fortunes for knowing that there is a minnow in + that brook."--THOREAU. + + +There is still considerable argument about the identification and +classification of the sea trout. Some authorities still claim the sea +trout is a distinct species; others declare it to be the brook trout, +_Salvelinus fontinalis_, that goes to sea from the fresh water ponds +and streams. + +The squeteague (_vulgo_ weakfish, wheatfish, sea bass, white sea bass, +carvina, checutts, shecutts, yellowfin, drummer, bluefish, squit, +suckermang, succoteague, squitee, chickwit, gray trout, sun trout, +salmon, salmon trout, shad trout, sea trout, salt-water trout, spotted +trout, etc.) is not a trout of any sort; so this species need not be +considered in this sea trout discussion. + +My personal theory concerning the sea trout is that any trout that +goes to sea is a sea trout, and that more than one species of trout go +to sea--whenever they have the opportunity. + +The small-stream trout that visit the ocean do so mainly in search of +a change in food; the sea-going trout of large rivers are impelled to +leave their fresh water retreats for the ocean waters also to satisfy +a desire for new varieties of food, but more so because of an instinct +that warns them of the danger of remaining in the fresh-water rivers +during certain periods of the year--the coldest seasons when the +waters freeze to the river bottom, and in the melting time, when the +ice thaws into huge sharp-edge chunks, and the mass of ice, +swift-running water, and rocks turn the rivers into raging, roaring +floods that would cut and bruise the trout unmercifully. + +Nature makes these large-river brook trout in the calm periods of +spring, summer, and autumn, and sea trout in severe winter weather and +during dangerous flood time. + +The broad streams of the west coast of Newfoundland--Fishels River, +Crabs River, Big and Little Codroy Rivers, Big and Little Barachois +Rivers, and Robinson's River--afford the best evidence of trout +migrating to the sea to escape the fury of the flood, and any of the +little trout streams in any part of the world where the streams flow +into salt water will afford the student means of observing the trout's +fondness for marine excursions in search of a change of diet. + +Just as the different species of trout are widely contrasting in +colors, shapes, sizes, traits, etc., while in their natural +habitat--fresh water--so are they confoundingly different in these +matters while sojourning in salt water. + +The true brook trout (_Salvelinus fontinalis_) is of various shades, +shapes and sizes, these depending upon the character of the water he +inhabits. In shallow, swift streams of a light color pebble bottom +the specimens in general are likely to be thin, narrow, and of a +bright gray hue, though, of course, there are individual specimens in +this condition of water that are exceptions to the rule--a few old +specimens who have sheltered themselves for years in dark, deep, +steady spots under the protruding bank of the stream, or along the +side of a sunken tree stump, etc. This autocrat of the eddy is fat, +stocky, and dark in color, just the opposite of his younger relatives +of the swift-running part of the stream. + +The brook trout of deep, still dark-bottom ponds are fatter, darker, +broader, of duller color and of slower motion than their brothers of +the rapid waters. The trout's shape, weight, size, and color are +influenced by its food, its age, its activity, its habitat, and its +habits. Its color corresponds to the color of the water bottom, and +will change as the water bottom changes. If removed to a new water, +where the bottom color is different from the bottom color of its first +abode--lighter or darker, as the case may be--it will gradually grow +to a corresponding shade, blending with its new habitat just as its +colors suited the stones and grasses and earthy materials of its +native domain. + +The landlocked trout, if imprisoned in a deep, dark, muddy-bottom, +shaded woodland pool, will be dull in color, stocky in shape, and of +sluggish habits. The trout confined to a bubbling fountain pool, with +a bottom of golden sand, at the foot of a waterfall, in the full glare +of the sun, will be of albino character. + +Perhaps no other fish offers specimens of its own kind so deeply in +contrast as _fontinalis_. This is scientifically and interestingly +illustrated in many ways--color, size, shape, form, action, +environment, etc. For example, consider the big, fat, long, strong, +copper-color brook trout that, having access to salt water, +gormandizes upon the multitudinous food of the sea--shrimp, killifish, +spearing, spawn, crab, etc.--and the tiny, active, silvery albinolike +brook trout that is locked in a small foamy basin under a dashing +waterfall, feeding only upon minute crustacea and the insect life that +is carried to its watery prison. These two specimens are not freakish +individuals of their species--like the blunt-nose specimen and the +various other deformities--but are quite common contrasting +representatives of their tribe. + +If we were to display in a group side by side one of each of the +shape-and-color-differing specimens--one large copper-shade, sea-going +brook trout, one tiny silvery, fountain-locked brook trout, one +ordinary-environed brook trout, one blunt-nose brook trout, etc.--the +fact of their being of an identical species would be correctly +appreciated by the scientific man only. + +I am not resorting to poetic license or theorizing or delving into +ancient precedents to carry my point of natural history, for I once +captured one of the big, sea-going specimens, and my friend, James +Cornell, angling in an adjacent stream the same day, brought to creel +a little silvery beauty of the foamy waterfall. Shape, form, tint, +weight--every mood and trait--were of astounding contrast in these two +specimens, yet both were of the same species, the true brook trout; my +dark, strenuous three-pounder taken in the open, brackish creek as I +cast from the salt meadowland sod banks, and Cornell's albinolike +gamester succumbing to the fly in the foamy fountain of a deep +woodland brook; both specimens widely separated in appearance, habits, +and habitat, but still both legitimate brothers of the family +_fontinalis_--little salmon of the streams. + +Trout in the sea feed on shrimp, the spawn of herring, and on the +entrails of cod and other species of fishes thrown away by market +fishermen. + +If the sea-going trout did not eat the spawn of the herring, herring +would be too plentiful for Nature's even-distribution arrangement. The +sea trout is gorged with herring spawn, which lies in heaps like so +much sawdust on the shores and shallow places of the ocean. Cod spawn +and milt float on the water's surface; the spawn of the herring sinks. + +The sea trout fresh from the streams is plump, has bright red spots, +and is in ordinary color when it goes to sea; when it returns to the +streams, though bigger (longer) and stronger, it is comparatively +thin, and is of white or silver-sheened shade. + +Prof. George Brown Goode (_American Fishes_): "The identity of the +Canadian sea trout and the brook trout is still denied by many, though +the decision of competent authorities has settled the question beyond +doubt." + +Eugene McCarthy (_Familiar Fish_): "Many Anglers are now turning their +attention to catching sea trout, either on account of the novelty of +the sport or because they believe that they are taking a new variety +of fish. That there is novelty in such fishing cannot be denied, but +that the fish is new in any way certainly can be.... There is no doubt +that the sea trout and the brook trout are one and the same fish. It +is broadly claimed that any of the trout can live as well in salt +water as they can in fresh water, and everything seems to prove the +claim to be correct. All trout grow to a larger size in salt water +than in the brooks or rivers, and they lose their spots in the sea, +becoming pale and silvery in color. Brook trout were originally found +at a distance not greater than three hundred miles back from the ocean +in waters tributary to it. Where conditions of temperature were +favorable, they invariably sought salt water. When transplanted to, or +found in, inland waters, they have adapted themselves to fresh-water +conditions as well. All members of the trout family require cold water +for their habitat, averaging about 68 degrees or less. Therefore, they +must either seek the cold water of the ocean, or, if barred from that +by long stretches of warm-river waters, they must seek the cold, small +tributaries high up in the hills. While trout are found in the +highland streams south of New York as far as South Carolina, they are +not able to seek the sea on account of the warm, intervening waters. +In Long Island (N. Y.) streams all trout are sea-going. From that +point along the coast northward sea trout are rarely, if ever, found +until the northern shores of Maine and New Brunswick are reached. All +rivers flowing into the St. Lawrence as far west as Quebec, as well as +those entering the Saguenay and those of the Labrador coast, are +especially noted for most excellent sea trout fishing, and are the +favorite resorts of Anglers.... In all ways the sea trout corresponds +with the brook trout when taken in fresh water. If taken in salt +water, there will only be the variation of coloring. ... ouananiche +... and sea trout ... with the exception of salmon ... afford the +greatest sport that the Angler can find.... Exactly the same tackle is +used (for sea trout) as for ouananiche, trout, or bass, and the same +flies, both in kind and size.... When the fish begin to leave the sea +and ascend the rivers, the bright colorings not only return, but +actually appear to be more beautiful than those of the trout that +always remain in fresh water.... But little attention, comparatively +speaking, has been given to sea trout, principally because their +nature was not understood, and, in fact, but little has been said or +written in regard to them to arouse interest. The lessees of the sea +trout streams on Long Island are very enthusiastic over the fishing +they secure, as are those sportsmen who have sought it in Canada. The +Canadian rivers are now more quickly and easily reached than formerly, +and as the fish are rapidly acquiring fame they are bound to become +much sought after by Anglers. However, sea trout fishing is but +fishing for brook trout under different conditions, and amid varied +surroundings. They offer, however, two extra inducements--they are +more plentiful and usually average larger." + +Charles Hallock (_Sportsman's Gazetteer_) refers to the common theory +that sea trout (Canada) are merely a clan or detachment of the brook +trout which have temporarily left their fresh-water haunts for the +sea; then Mr. Hallock asks: "But, if we must accept this as a +postulate, we must be permitted to ask why the same peculiarities do +not attach to the trout of Maine. Cape Cod, and Long Island? Why do we +not discover here this periodical midsummer advent and 'run' of six +weeks' duration; and why are only isolated individuals taken in the +salt-water pound nets and fykes of Long Island, etc., instead of +thousands, as in Canada? Moreover, the Canadian sea trout are never +taken in the small streams, but only in rivers of considerable size, +and the same trout uniformly return to the same river, just as salmon +do--at least, we infer so from the fact that six-pounders are +invariably found in the Nouvelle, and varying sizes elsewhere. +Besides, we must be able to answer why a portion only of the trout in +a given stream should periodically visit the sea at a specified time, +while an equal or greater number elect to remain behind in fresh +water; for we may suppose that, having equal opportunities, all have +the same instincts and desires." + +But, trout of different localities do not have equal opportunities; +therefore, they have not the same instincts and desires. Local +conditions of Nature everywhere guide the instincts and govern the +desires of every living thing. So, the trout of Maine, the trout of +Cape Cod, the trout of Long Island--influenced by local +conditions--are all vastly different in opportunities, instincts, +desires, etc. The Eskimo biped, the African biped--the bipeds of all +countries--are all species of the animal man, but who dare suggest +that they all have equal (similar) opportunities and the same +instincts and desires? + +Even individuals of the trout of one community are profoundly +separated in character from their immediate brothers and sisters. +Trout vary in their tastes and antics as they vary in color, shape, +and size. There are hundreds of natural trout flies and hundreds of +artificial trout flies, imitations of the living insects, used as +lures in fishing. Why so many patterns? Because the trout, like man, +is in love with a variety of foods at different times, and both man +and trout change in their tastes by the month, the week, the day, the +hour, and the minute. + +The Angler does not have to use the hundreds of fly patterns at one +fishing, but he does experiment with a variety of the lures to find +the particular patterns the fish is responsive to at the moment. One +or two patterns would suffice--if the Angler could select the +particular species the trout are rising to without trying all the +patterns until he discovers the killing patterns. A chef might please +his master with one or two of the forty courses billed if he knew what +the man wanted. Sometimes the Angler can judge the appropriate fly to +use by observing Nature in seeing trout rise to the live fly; but +there are times when trout are not rising, times when they are tired +of the fly upon the water, and times when the real fly is not on the +wing. + +General rules are of no service without a deep regard for general +conditions, local and otherwise. All trout must not be judged alike +even if they be of one species and in one little pool. Individuals of +man, though of one race and in one district, are not all alike in +their habits any more than they are in their shades, shapes, and +sizes. + +The conditions of the large rivers of Newfoundland are different from +the conditions of the small streams of Maine, Long Island, and Cape +Cod; hence the differing desires of the trout in these differing +waters. There is no similarity in the quiet, tiny trout brooks of Long +Island and the broad torrential rivers of Newfoundland, and it is only +natural that the fishes of these deeply contrasting waters should be +widely separated in character--instinct, desires, color, shape, size, +etc. So I do not hesitate to express a belief that the sea trout, no +matter where we find it, is just our own fond _fontinalis_ incognito. + +Between Halifax and Sydney, Nova Scotia, there are many wild sea trout +rivers where the fish have never seen a human being. Angle from the +middle of June to the end of August. In June large sea trout are +caught in salt water at the mouth of rivers on the artificial fly and +minnow bait. The best east shore sea trout streams are St. Mary's, +Muscadoboit. Tangier, Cole Harbor, Petpeswick, Quoddy, Sheet Harbor, +Moser's River, Half-way Brook, Smith Brook, Ecwon Secum, Isaac's +Harbor, and about Guysboro. + +Southwest of Halifax great sea trout fishing may be had at Ingram +River, Nine Mile River, Hubley's. Indian River, and about Liverpool, +Chester, and the salmon country about Medway. + +In New Brunswick beautiful and prolific sea trout waters may be +reached from the towns of New Castle (Miramichi River and +branches--May and June). Chatham (Miramichi River, Tabusintac River, +Bartibog River, Eskeldoc River), Bathhurst (Nipisguit River, +Tetagouche River, Caroquet River, Pockmouche River), and Campbellton, +in the Baie de Chaleur River, Restigouche River, and the Cascapedia. +Metapedia, Upsalquitch, Nouvelle, Escuminac rivers. + +My choice of sea trout flies includes: Brown Hackle. Claret, Cinamon, +Codun, Jenny Lind, Parmachenee Belle, Montreal, Grouse, Silver Doctor. +Use sober-hued patterns in fresh water; bright patterns in salt water. +Hooks: Nos. 7 to 12. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +HOOKING THE TROUT + +"Give plenty of time for the fish to swallow the hook," says O. W. +Smith, in _Outdoor Life_ (December, 1914), addressing the croppie +(strawberry bass) Angler. + + +It is not un-anglerlike to catch any fish hooked beyond the lips? +Angling has its gentle qualities as well as its practical ends. It's +different in mere fishing. I don't believe any Angler would purposely +hook his game otherwise than in the lip--a nerveless center where +there is no pain--though the plain fisherman may resort to any method +in his pursuit. + +I remember some years ago when two fishermen caught the same fish (a +large fluke), one hook being in the fish's mouth and the other hook on +the inside of the fish's stomach, it was decided after a long +discussion that the fish really belonged to the man whose hook held to +the mouth; the swallowed hook was judged as illegitimate. + +Fishes hooked in the mouth do not suffer any pain. I've recaught many +a once-lost specimen with my snell in its lip; these in both fresh +water and salt water. Incidents of this character furnish one of the +many proofs that mouth-hooking the fish is perfectly humane. Two +friends witnessed my catch (July 11, 1915) of a Long Island +two-and-one-quarter-pound brook trout that had a fly and leader (my +first cast) dangling from its mouth, the gear he broke away with a few +minutes before his actual capture. + +There is no need of subjecting fishes to any pain in angling. Hook +them in the lips, and kill them the very second they are taken from +the water. Letting them die slowly not only pains the captured fishes, +but injures them as food. + +Be a sportsman in angling as well as in hunting. The chivalric gunner, +unlike the market shooter, does not pot his quail huddled stationary +on the ground; he gallantly takes it on the wing--gives it a fair +chance. So the Angler, unlike the trade fisher, gives his game fair +play. I catch quite my share of many species of fishes, but I only +rarely suffer them to swallow the bait, and this by accident. Even +pickerel and fluke (plaice) can be abundantly taken by being hooked in +the lips. I never allow the pickerel or the black bass to swallow the +bait; I hook them in the lip as I hook my trout--on the wing, as it +were. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +DOCTOR NATURE + + "The wise for cure on exercise depend; + God never made His work for man to mend." + + "He that takes no holiday hastens a long rest." + + +Game is not the only thing sought for by many men and women who go +angling and shooting. Wise Lord Russell used to ride to the hounds +until he bagged an appetite, then turn suddenly and ride as hard as +possible to the nearest farmhouse and eat a hearty meal. Audubon and +Wilson went afield to study ornithology; Gray and Thoreau for the +study of general natural history, and thousands upon thousands of men +and women less famous have gone afield with rod and gun for still +another quarry--health. + +Lord Russell's appetite hunting reminds me of the case of a young +invalid whom I once took on a trout fishing trip. The young man had +been ill all his life. Nobody seemed to know what his complaint was, +but everybody he came in contact with agreed that he was ill. He +looked it, and often said he was born that way. I defined his case the +first day I met him--the city complaint, a complication of general +under-the-weather-ness that is brought about by foul air, improper +exercise, steady indoor work, irregularity, cigarettes, and incorrect +food incorrectly eaten. He's well now. He went out in the woods for +two weeks every three months for six years, and at present he's as +fat and solid as a Delaware shad. I shall never forget his expression +when he hooked his first breath of fresh air and creeled a genuine +outdoor appetite. A woods appetite is very different from the hunger +that once in a while comes to the always-in-the-city man. It strikes +suddenly, one's knees begin to shake, and a cold perspiration breaks +out on the forehead. My poor young friend, having never previously +experienced an appetite, of course didn't know what had taken hold of +him. He began to cry and totter, and I stepped up to him just in time +to save him from falling off a moss-covered rock into a roaring trout +stream. + +"I'm ill," he said, "have been ill all my life. I thought this trip +would do me good but I'm worse. Please let me lie down; I'm very +faint." + +"Oh, come," said I, "you're only hungry; here, give me your rod, and +lean on my arm; you'll be all right in a little while." + +I took him up to the farmhouse and started him slowly on some deviled +trout and watercress. Poor fellow, he reminded me of a young setter +dog born and brought up in the city and taken afield for the first +time. Well, that young man did nothing but cry and eat for two weeks. +He then went home to tell his folks he had come to life, and then +hurried out to feed and weep for another month. I know a hundred young +men and women in New York who are in a bad way with the city +complaint. The streets are filled with ghost-like creatures. Lord +Derby is right: "If you do not find time for exercise you will have to +find time for illness." + + +"To-morrow we will go a-fishing; do thou go now and fetch the bait." +--Hymir to Thar. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE BROOK TROUT + + "Then, give me the trout of the mountain stream. + With his crimson stars and his golden gleam; + When he, like a hero, on the moss lies. + The Angler has won his fairest prize!" + + AUTHOR UNKNOWN. + + +=Trout Taking Flies.=--"Trout invariably strike the insect first with +their tails, knocking it into the water and then devouring it with a +swift dart which can hardly be distinguished from the original +movement, so quickly does one succeed the other."--W. C. Prime. + +=Trout Colors.=--The color of a trout's back depends on the color of +the bottom of the river. Rapidly growing trout differ greatly in spots +and color from those which grow slowly and thrive badly. A middle-aged +trout differs in color from an aged trout. Speaking generally, the +young, healthy, fast-growing fish will have silvery sides, white +belly, and plenty of well-defined spots. The poorly fed fish will have +few or no spots, a drab belly, and muddy yellow sides. Old trout are +particularly lank and large-headed. + +=Tame Trout.=--An English gentleman has two brook trout that take +flies from his fingers, and that ring a little bell cord when they +are hungry. They were taught this latter performance by having bits of +food tied to the cord when it was first introduced. + +=Wild Trout and Tame.=--"Somehow the catching of, as it were, +stall-fed trout has not the same charm as the fishing for the wild +trout. The domestics lack that fierce rush and dash of the wild +beauty."--John B. Robinson. + +=Sight, Hearing, etc., of Trout.=--"There is no question ... as to the +high development of the senses of sight, taste, and hearing in +trout."--Wm. C. Harris. + +=Trout at Play.=--"Many times have I leaned over the sides of my boat +in Northern waters, where the trout lay beneath me, and seen the +mottled beauties chase each other, and race and leap in rivalry of +sport, until their bright sides irradiated the dark stream with +glancing light, as if the rays of the sun had taken water and were at +their bath."--W. H. H. Murry. + +=Trout in Hungary.=--The streams of Hungary afford excellent angling +for trout and grayling. + +=Unidentified Trout.=--M. P. Dunham of Ovando. Montana, a sportsman's +guide of many years' experience, writes me: "We have two trout here in +Montana that I do not find pictured in _The Angler's Guide_ or any +other book I have seen containing the technical portraits of the +fishes. One of these trout weighs up to forty-nine pounds and its +average weights are twelve pounds to fifteen pounds. The other is a +small trout that averages less than one pound in weight, and it has +no spots. The large trout has a few spots, these being particularly +brilliant in the mating season--September and October. The best time +to fish for this large species is in August and September. Both of +these unidentified trout will rise to the artificial fly, but in +fly-fishing I have never taken a specimen of the large species that +weighed over six pounds, the fish ranging beyond this weight favoring +small fish and red meat for bait. The waters are overstocked with the +large variety; the small unspotted variety is only in one stream." +Undoubtedly these two trout are odd forms of well-known species. Mr. +Dunham should send specimens of each to the United States Fish +Commission at Washington. The small trout will undoubtedly prove to be +the common mountain trout, whose peculiar habitat--the one stream Mr. +Dunham mentions--is responsible for its peculiar coloring. The large +fish that ranges up to forty-nine pounds is no doubt a form of lake +trout which has been known to attain a weight of eighty pounds and a +length of six feet. + +=The Trout's Symmetry.=--"Few humanly designed lines are more graceful +than those of the yacht. The trout is made up of such lines. It is a +submarine designed by the Almighty. It makes the most of the simple +elements of artistic beauty--symmetry of line, suggestive of agile +power, and delicately blended harmonies of rich color."--New York +_Evening Telegram_, editorial page, July 17, 1915. + +=The Beautiful Trout.=--"Of all the many species of trout, +_Salvelinus_ or _Salmo_, the brook trout, _fontinalis_, is by far the +most beautiful."--Charles Zibeon Southard. + +=A Loving Trout.=--At the Wintergreen estate, Highland Lake, Winsted, +Conn., a brook trout was kept in captivity in a deep spring for seven +years. When the fish was fifteen inches in length two other brook +trout, a male and female, each ten inches long, were placed in the +spring to keep the old fellow company. He promptly fell in love with +the lady trout and killed and swallowed her escort. + +=Albino Trout.=--The fish hatchery in St. Paul, Minn., had at one time +twenty thousand albino trout in stock. This species was discovered in +1893. There is something peculiar in Minnesota waters which aids +propagation of this species. The fish are white mottled with red and +yellow spots; the fins are white with red bands mottled with yellow. +The eyes are red and the trout has apparently a transparent skin so +that the bones are visible through it. + +=Rainbow Trout.=--Dr. A. E. Buzard, of Hayward. Calif., fishing in the +Spokane River within ten minutes' walk of the city of Spokane, Wash., +creeled eleven rainbow trout weighing, collectively, seventeen pounds. + +=Rocky Mountain Trout.=--H. E. Peck, of Kenman. North Dakota, and H. +N. Stabeck, of Minneapolis. Minn., enjoyed good trout fishing last +summer in the Crow West country of the Rocky Mountains. A catch of +thirty-one trout weighed, collectively, fifty-one pounds. The largest +specimen weighed three and one fourth pounds. + +=Flood-water Trout.=--When the trout stream is flooded, the trout find +plenty of food and they gorge themselves with worms, etc. Then they +refuse the Angler's bait for several days--"trout feed on a rising +stream, not on a falling stream."--E. Curley. + +=A Tame Trout.=--"Sunbeam, the pet speckled trout in the fish hatchery +at Estes Park, is very fond of being stroked and petted, and will swim +around and rub itself against a person's hand whenever a chance is +given it."--Estes (Calif.) Correspondent New York _World_. I'll +warrant this fish only rubs its lips against the hand of man. No fish +will willingly allow its body to come in contact with a man's hand, +because fishes are covered with a slime that protects them when they +encounter rocks, logs, etc., and they naturally would not voluntarily +waste this valuable armor. + +=Traits of the Trout.=--The brook trout (_Salvelinus fontinalis_), +using its tail with vigor and precision, will splash water into the +midst of a mass of flying insects (midge, black gnat, mosquito, etc.), +and thus disable these insects so that they will fall on the surface +of the water, where they become easy prey to the voracious trout. +_Fontinalis_ will also use his tail in striking to disable larger +insects (butterflies, beetles, cricket, potato-bug, etc.), and the +Angler's artificial flies when they are floating in or upon the water. + +=Rainbow Trout.=--"The rainbow takes the fly so readily that there is +no reason for resorting to grasshoppers, salmon eggs, or other bait. +It is a fish whose gameness will satisfy the most exacting of expert +Anglers, and whose readiness to take any proper line will please the +most impatient of inexperienced amateurs."--Prof. Evermann. + +=The Tactful Trout.=--"Trout are emblems of quiet, calm, and +gentleness, such as love not to be in troubled waters or to be tossed +to and fro by the blustering of wicked and malevolent spirits, but +rather live quiet at home than enjoy abundance through labor and +trouble."--Randal Holme. + +=Double-headed Trout.=--A two-headed brook trout is the product of the +fish hatchery at Colebrook, N. H. + +=Trout in Side Currents.=--"As a general rule although many trout are +taken near, very near the rough, white water of a stream, they do not +as a rule lie in the very swiftest portions, but in adjacent and +quieter side currents."--Samuel G. Camp. + +=The Angler's Joy.=--"The brook trout always will be the Angler's +greatest joy, but the German brown trout [introduced in American +waters] and the rainbow trout add variety to the social life of the +streams."--Neal Brown. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE ANGLER + + "I live not in myself, but I become + Portion of that around me; and to me + High mountains are a feeling, but the hum + Of human cities torture." + + BYRON. + + "He'd eat his lunch in a minute; + He had no time to spare. + At a mounted fish in a window + He'd stop an hour to stare." + + _Judge._ + + +=The Lone Angler.=--"The reason a man likes to go angling is that his +family doesn't like to go with him."--New York _Press_. + +=The True Angler.=--"If true Anglers, you are sure to be gentle; and +as the truly gentle are always virtuous, you must be happy. Let +neither prosperity nor adversity deaden 'the fresh feeling after +Nature' which the use of the rod and reel always heightens or confers. +Whether overladen with good fortune or suffering under the shocks of +adversity, forget not to take the magic wand and repair to the +murmuring waters. 'The music of those gentle moralists will steal into +your heart'; and, while invigorating physical energy, your souls will +be charmed and your minds soothed and tempered by the melody of +birds, the sights of nature, and the sounds of inferior animals above, +around, and beneath the enlivening waters. With rosy dreams and bright +streams, breezy morns and mellow skies, a light heart and a clear +conscience, may 'God speed ye well.'"--Genio C. Scott, _Fishing in +American Waters_. + +=Real vs. Rural Angler.=--The assertion that the bent-pin-fishing +country boy can catch more trout than the properly equipped Angler is +material of the comic papers. No impracticable boy, whether he be of +the country or of the city, can excel the correctly rigged, careful +Angler. The bent-pin youth of the farm may outfish the unskillful, +showy tyro from the city, but to compete with the scientific Angler he +would have about the same chance of outfishing the expert as a cow +would have fishing alongside of a mink. + +=The Bicycle Angler.=--Mr. David Rivers writes me: "I ride my wheel to +my favorite angling places regularly in the spring, summer, and autumn +times. The four-ounce rod takes up no noticeable space on the wheel, +and my leader-box and fly-book are easily carried in my pockets." + +=The Determined Angler.=--"There is peculiar pleasure in catching a +trout in a place where nobody thinks of looking for them, and at an +hour when everybody believes they cannot be caught."--Henry van Dyke. + +=Dry and Wet Fly Angler.=--"Startling as the statement may sound, it +is probably true that the really good wet-fly fisherman is a greater +rarity than the really good dry-fly man."--London _Field_. + +=The Expert Fly Angler.=--"A real expert with the wet-fly is a much +rarer bird than one with the dry."--London _Fishing Gazette_. + +=The Finished Fly Angler.--= " ... to be a finished wet-fly Angler one +must possess as much skill as the dry-fly fisherman."--Emlyn M. Gill. + +=The Angler Body and Soul.=--"To take fish is only the body of the +gentle art. Some of its real enjoyments are what the Angler sees and +feels--the echo of the running streams, the music of the birds, the +beauty of the flowers peering at him from every side, the bracing +atmosphere, the odor of pines, hemlocks, and spruce; the hush of the +woods at night, the morning song of the robin, and the revived +appetite."--A. L. H. + +=Ye Gude Angler.=--"Wha ever heard o' a gude angler being a bad or +indifferent man?"--Noctes. + +=The Merry Angler.=--"And if the angler take fysshe: surely thenne is +there noo man merier than he is in his spyryte."--Dame Juliana Berners +(1496). + +=The Religious Angler.=--"The old man fished not for pastime, nor +solely for a subsistence, but as a solemn sacrament and withdrawal +from the world, just as the aged read their Bible."--Thoreau. + +=The Satisfied Angler.=--Trout in the creel or no trout in the creel, +the Angler never complains of poor sport if there be trout in the +water he fishes, if the weather be pleasant, and the scenery fair. +Some fishermen judge their day by the actual catch of fish. The true +rodster loves the pursuit and capture of the fish, the bright day, and +the beautiful natural surroundings equally well. + +=The Tidy Angler.=--I don't care if the fish I catch weigh only a +pound, no matter what the species may be. My tackle is light, fine, +and properly rigged, and with it, in taking big fish or half-pound and +pound fish, I have just as much sport as the man who uses heavy, +coarse, ill-kept tackle on bigger game alone. The woodcock--the king +of game birds--is bagged with No. 10 shot, but the sport of taking it +is quite as great as the shooting of fowl ten times its size. + +=The Assiduous Angler.=--The constant-in-application man becomes the +practical fisherman. + +=The Compleat Angler.=--"Walton's book is as fresh as a handful of +wild violets and sweet lavender. It breathes the odors of green fields +and woods."--Henry van Dyke. + +=The Literary Angler.=--Izaak Walton's famous work, _The Compleat +Angler, or the Contemplative Man's Recreation_, a copy of the first +edition, small 8vo, original sheep binding, London, 1653, brought the +highest price of the day (April 9, 1915) at the sale of the library of +the late General Brayton Ives at the American Art Galleries, New York, +$2475. George D. Smith was the successful bidder. The record price for +this edition is $6000, which was paid at the sale of the library of +W. C. Van Antwerp of New York some years ago at Sotheby's in London by +the late Bernard Quaritch, acting as agent for the late J. Pierpont +Morgan, in whose collection the valuable volume now is. + +=A Centenarian Angler.=--Mrs. Jane T. Rinkle of Bristol, Tenn., is +over one hundred years of age. Still vigorous for one of her years, +Mrs. Rinkle believes that her long life and her bright prospect for +living some years longer is due to her fondness for angling. "I have +hardly passed a fishing season in fifty years," said the old lady at +her last anniversary party, "that I have not gone to the river with +hook and line." + +=The Woman Angler.=--The Duchess of Bedford has the distinction of a +record catch of English salmon. Her creel for one day numbered +thirteen, the greatest string of salmon ever taken in a single day by +a woman. Three other prominent English women Anglers are Lady Sybil +Grey, daughter of Earl Grey, Milicent. Duchess of Sutherland, and Lady +Rosemary Portal, only child of the second Earl of Cairns. Each of +these ladies are highly expert in fly-casting. + +=The Waltonian Angler.=--"It matters not at all what trout waters the +Angler fishes if he has the true and kindly spirit of Izaak Walton, +the Master Angler of years ago; for then every stream and lake has its +own peculiar and delightful charms in which the Angler revels while +angling, with either the wet or the dry fly, to fathom their +piscatorial secrets. Of all sport. I know of none that seems to +develop in the individual such a kindly spirit, such a full +appreciation of all living things, and such an absorbing love for the +many and varied charms of 'the open' as fly-fishing."--Charles Zibeon +Southard. + +=The Merciful Angler.=--The names of three members of a recent jury in +the County Court of Brooklyn. N. Y., were Fish, Fisher, and +Fishline--a trio of honest men, no doubt. With Bates and Waters added, +this jury would have little trouble in mercifully holding up the +scales of justice. + +=The Peaceful Angler.=--"Don't think of your business or profession +while fishing. Forget your desk, your pen, and also your debts and +your enemies, if you have any."--"The Professor." + +=The Mathematical Angler.=--"His rule in fishing was to fish in the +difficult places which others were likely to skip."--Daniel Webster. + +=The Ever-Youthful Angler.=--"Don't become old--go fishing once or +twice a week."--"The Professor." + +=The Halcyonian Angler.=--"The whole arcana book of trout fishing +consists in rather the mental construction of the Angler than in the +manner and method of the process. The fish is a convenient peg, so to +say, on which we hang the _dolce far niente_, and render the day's +sport in its pursuit halcyon and superlative. The sport itself may be +insufficient, but there is always some recompense in the effort made +and in the close communion with 'dear nature's self.' Not always do +large bags and great results crown the Angler's desire. Too often it +is far otherwise, and yet the true Angler never feels like giving up +fishing because of poor sport."--John Harrington Keene. + +=The Luxuriant Angler.=--James L. Breeze's string of salmon pools in +Restigouche cost this enthusiastic Angler $35,000. + +=The Concentrated Angler.=--"A gentleman hesitates to bother anybody +whose mind is concentrated on his fishing. The expert knows by +experience one question leads to another, then on to begging, +borrowing, or buying. The expert knows that tyros are never provided +with tackle, bait, or reasonable consideration for others. They expect +the whole boatload of Anglers to wait on them because they catch no +fish."--Louis Rhead. + +=The Home Angler.=--"The sporting element among fishermen haven't any +fine sensibilities ... the true fishermen fish for edible fish only +for their own use and the use of their families."--"Piscator." + +=The Lost Angler.=--"Remember that water always is supposed to run +south, save in a few instances where it runs direct north or west from +the mountains, as the Red River in Minnesota, flowing north, for +instance. This certainly would be a misleader. But as a rule water +runs south. Follow it. Along streams man makes his abode."--Robert +Page Lincoln. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +ANGLING + + "... which, as in no other game + A man may fish and praise His name." + + W. BASSE. + + "I chose of foure good dysportes and honeste gamys, that is to + wyte: of huntynge: hawkynge: fysshynge: and foulynge. The best to + my symple dyscrecon why then is fysshynge: called Anglynge with a + rodde: and a line and an hoke."--DAME JULIANA BERNERS, _The + Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth an Angle, 1496_. + + "If the bending rod and the ringing reel + Give proof that you've fastened the tempered steel. + Be sure that the battle is but begun + And not till he's landed is victory won." + + AUTHOR UNKNOWN. + + +=Fair and Foul Angling.=--Anybody can catch a trout with a worm. This +is the bait of the boy and the boatman. The Angler gives the trout a +fair battle with the artificial fly. Comparing live-bait fishing to +artificial fly angling is like comparing blacksmithry to jewel +working, bronco breaking to genteel horsemanship, or buccaneering to +yachting. + +=Refinement of Angling.=--Angling is fishing governed by rules of +chivalry--correct tackle, limit in the catch, and humane treatment of +the game. + +=Landing the Fish.=--"The surest way to take the fish is give her +leave to play and yield her line."--Quarles, _Shepheard's Eclogues_, +1644. Subdue a big fish before you try to land him. Don't be in a +hurry. Give him line, but keep it taut (not tight), and don't become +excited. Don't try to yank him out of his element or pull him through +the line guides. Raise the rod tip over the back of your head, and +don't grab the line--guide the game into the landing net or up to the +gaff. Take your time. Be glad if the fish escapes. His life is as +important as yours--to him, at least. Besides, you'd soon tire of +fishing if you never lost a fish. "The play's the thing" in angling, +anyway, because, as an Angler, you can buy fish cheaper than you can +catch them, if you play fair--if you're not of the gentry that judge +the day by quantity instead of quality. Some of the greatest Anglers +are the poorest fish killers, but to them one fish correctly captured +on chivalric tackle means more than a tubful of butchered victims +means to the unenlightened bungler. Contrast and conditions count for +something in everything. If there were no cloudy days we'd never +correctly value the sunshine. Method in the pursuit, appropriateness +of the equipment, and uncertainty in the catch, wholly distasteful to +the selfish neophyte, are thoroughly appreciated by the Angler. + +=Ancient Angling.=--One of the most ancient literary works on fishing, +perhaps the most ancient of all really known volumes on the subject, +is _Hauleutics of Oppian_, the work of a Greek poet, A.D. 198, from +which many articles on fishing and angling, thought to be modern, have +been taken. Athenaeus tells us that several writers wrote treatises or +poems on fishing centuries before the Christian era. + +=Old Angling Books.=--1486--_The Booke of St. Albans_; by Dame Juliana +Berners. 1590--_Booke of Fishing with Hook and Line_; by Leonard +Mascall. 1596--_Hawking. Hunting, Fowling and Fishing_; by W. C. +Faukener. 1606--_Booke of Angling or Fishing_; by Samuel Gardner, D.D. +1651--_Art of Angling_; by Thomas Barker (the second edition of this +book, published in 1657, was issued under the title of _Barker's +Delight_). 1652--_Young Sportsman's Delight and Instructor in +Angling_, etc.; by Gervase Markham. 1653--_The Compleat Angler, or the +Contemplative Man's Recreation_, etc.; by Izaak Walton (the second +edition, almost rewritten by the author, appeared in 1655). +1662--_Experienced Angler, or Angling Improved_; by Robert Venables. +1676--_Angler's Delight_, etc.; by William Gilbert. 1681--_Angler's +Vade Mecum_; by Chetham. 1682--_Complete Troller_; by Nobles. +1696--_The True Art of Angling_; by J. S. + +=Carrying the Rod.=--Joint your rod only when you reach the place of +angling, and take it apart again when you are ready to leave the water +for camp, unless the camp is on the edge of the lake or stream. When +angling along thickly wooded banks, carry the rod in front of you, tip +first, pointing the tip through the bushes you penetrate; never pull +it after you. Fasten the hook on one of the reel bars, and then thrust +the rod's tip through the branches or shrubbery ahead of you when you +move along, casting here and there. This is not necessary when one +only moves a step or two, for then, if there be open space, the rod +and line may be held clear of the underbrush and branches. In all +cases keep the rod ahead of you. When disjointed, the rod pieces may +be held together by small rubber bands until the rod case is made use +of, but don't lay the rod away with the rubber bands intact, as the +rubber will bend the tip out of shape, dislodge the wood coating, +disturb the whipping, and tarnish the ferrules. Dr. E. F. Conyngham of +Bonner. Mont., doesn't like my notion of carrying the rod tip first. +The Doctor says he favors carrying it butt first with the tip trailing +behind. "I have fished with a fly for trout and salmon nearly forty +years in Europe and this continent," says the Doctor, "and never yet +saw an expert Angler carry a rod in the way described by Mr. Bradford. +That is just the proper caper to break tips. The rod in going through +brush should be carried butt forward; then the tip will trail as +easily as the tail on a dog, and furthermore, you can walk at good +speed without interference. In my many years of fly fishing I have had +one broken tip; a woman knocked it down and stepped on it. Luckily it +was lancewood, so I could repair it. What would have been my +predicament had the rod been of split bamboo?" Very good, Doctor. I +may be wrong but, I learned my way from my fathers of the angle--Seth +Green. John Harrington Keene, Frederick Mather, William C. Harris, _et +al._--when I was being taught first lessons in fly-fishing. Seth +Green, John Keene, and Harris personally advised me to carry the fly +rod tip in front of me, and each of the trio personally showed me the +method on the trout streams. Harris and Keene always carried their fly +rods tip first, and I have seen both these experts along the streams +many times during many years of personal fishing with both of these +Anglers. However, Dr. Conyngham must not be denied his view on the +subject. Just as there are famous wing shots who shoot with one eye +closed and other experts who give trigger with both eyes open, so in +angling, there are many practiced hands who disagree on the various +ways and means in fishing. I favor keeping my tip in front of me, and +while I shall never change this method, I refrain from condemning Dr. +Conyngham's contrastive way of carrying his tip. Charles Zibeon +Southard agrees with both the Doctor and me. He advises carrying the +tip ahead in the open and behind in the brush. + +=The Angling World.=--"Angling takes us from the confusion, the filth, +and the social and moral degradation of the big cities and places us +in close contact with one of the most important divisions of human +labor--the cultivation of the soil, which is the real foundation of +all national wealth and true social happiness. Everything connected +with the land is calculated to foster the best and noblest feelings of +the soul and to give the mind the most lofty and sublime ideas of +universal nature. To men of contemplative habits the roaming along +brooks, rivers, lakes, and fields gives rise to the most refined +intellectual enjoyment. Such persons move in a world of their own and +experience joys and sorrows with which the world cannot meddle."--A. +L. H. + +=Colorado Trout Streams.=--Colorado has six thousand miles of trout +streams. + +=Angling Saves Words.=--"Contemplation and quietness! Will these words +soon be labeled in our dictionaries 'obsolete'? It would seem so; yet +there will be some use for them, among old-fashioned folk, as long as +the word 'angling' holds its place."--Willis Boyd Allen. + +=Large-Trout Angling.=--Frank Brigg, of London. England, fishing in +New River, caught an eighteen-pound trout, the heaviest specimen of +trout ever taken in a London water. + +=Speculation in Angling.=--"I often wonder if the basis of fishing is +not founded upon the element of chance, and whether fishing does not +fascinate because it is a species of gambling. To a degree it is a +hazard. You take your best tackle, select your choicest bait, and you +do more, for you pray to the goddess of success."--"Ancient Mariner." + +=Economy in Angling.=--"Don't take more fish than you can use; if you +do, you take that which belongs to someone else."--"Tops'l." + +=An Angling Classic.=--"Angling is the only sport that boasts the +honor of having given a classic [Izaak Walton's _The Compleat Angler_, +1653] to literature."--Henry van Dyke. + +=How to Approach a Trout.=--" ... sense of hearing in all species of +fish is a matter of concussion on the surface of the water. Sit +motionless in a boat, and you may sing, "I Won't Go Home 'Til +Morning," or any other gala song, to the extreme high limit of your +voices, and the trout or any other fish will remain undisturbed, but, +scratch your toe upon the bottom of the boat, and presto! the pool is +as dead and barren as a burned prairie. Approach a pool from over the +bank with a careless tread, and when you reach it the trout are gone, +none know where. Crawl to the pool noiselessly on all fours and you +will find your trout reposing without fear of danger. The avoidance of +concussion is the great factor on a trout pool or stream in getting a +satisfactory creel. Slide, rather than step, in wading, and your +success will be greater."--Wm. C. Harris. + +=Strike from the Reel or Hand?=--"The strike must be made with +sufficient force and no more. If insufficient, the hook will not +penetrate far enough to hold the fish in its subsequent struggles, and +if the force is excessive the gut will break at its weakest point, and +leave the fly and possibly one or more strands of gut in the trout's +jaws. The Angler should acquire the habit of striking from the reel, +_i.e._, without holding the line in the hand. Many old fishermen +prefer holding the line when striking, but it is at best a risky +proceeding, and too likely to result in a breakage of the gut."--F. M. +Halford, _The Dry-Fly Man's Handbook_. "Personally I never 'strike +from the reel' ... because less control is had over the line, likewise +the fish."--Charles Zibeon Southard, _Trout Fly-Fishing in America_. I +favor Mr. Halford's method--"strike from the reel"--in fly-fishing and +in weakfish fishing with light tackle. In heavy bait fishing, Mr. +Southard's strike with the "hand-held line" suits me. + +=The Silver Hook.=--"There is a good deal of fun in thinking you are +going to have it."--New York _Press_. True; Walton says the Angler's +anticipation of fishing is as great a joy as the realization of it. + +=Angling Ailment.=--"We never get over the fishing fever; it is a +delightful disease, and, thank the Lord, there is no cure."--Ira W. +Moore. + +=Angling and Nature.=--"Association with men of the world narrows the +heart; communion with nature expands it."--Jean Paul Richter. + +=Angling and Mathematics.=--"Angling may be said to be so much like +the Mathematics, that it can ne'er be fully learnt; at least not so +fully, but that there will still be more new experiments left for the +tryal of other men that succeed us."--Izaak Walton, _The Compleat +Angler_, 1653. + +=Tendency of Angling.=--"I am now over 76 [years in age] and owe my +life to fishing, and I find the tendency of fishing is to make one +careful, artful, patient, and practical."--"Watcher." + +=Angling a Science.=--"Angling is a science, not merely a pastime. It +will broaden you and start your boy in a manly sport that will draw +him to the country instead of to the dance hall, to the fields and +streams instead of to the pool room."--"Greenhorn." + +=Fly vs. Worm.=--"That fly-fishing is clean, and free from the +muscular efforts of mountain-climbing; that it is usually rewarded +with larger fish than those taken with a worm; that it has a freedom, +a jollity, a certain broad, wide-spaced exhilaration, I willingly +admit. But, the humbler, old-fashioned method has a charm of its own +which I am not ready to forego."--Willis Boyd Allen. + +="Ye Gods and Little Fishes."=--"When we have become familiar with the +great cities with their bewildering sights and distracting sounds, the +finest things remain to be discovered, and these discoveries must be +made as we stand open-eyed in the presence of God's workmanship. Hills +and streams, woods and flowers, bees and birds and butterflies, the +flora and fauna of this earth where we have our home for a little +time, should, somehow, be brought into the life of the child. The boy +who grows up into manhood without being privileged to know the world +of nature by personal contact has been robbed. He may be intelligent +in many things and a useful member of society, but he has missed out +of life some of its deepest satisfactions and purest joys. Indeed, +such an one is not symmetrically educated, and is quite likely to be +put to shame as the years pass by."--Lathan A. Crandall, _Days in the +Open_. + +=Angling Is its Own Reward.=--"No other sportsman brings home more +from his sport than he takes to it than the fisherman. His basket is +heavy with present food in the morning, and loaded with future food in +the afternoon, with an appetite and a sleepetite that requires three +days to satisfy."--Hy. Julius. + +=Ideal Angling Time.=--The last two weeks in June--what lovelier +period for brook trout fishing in the rich flower-lined mountain +streams? When does the wild shrub smell sweeter than now, the wind +blow more balmily, the songbirds trill sweeter, and the spotted trout +bite better? + +=Landing the Trout.=--The proper time to spend in landing a fish all +depends upon the condition of your fishing ground. Lead your prize +away from obstructions, keep the line taut, and do not nervously hurry +the play. Take your time. + +=Fishes' Feeding-Time.=--Fishes are said to bite better between the +new moon and the first quarter; or between the last quarter and the +change. + +=Calmness in Angling.=--Don't hurry a large fish. Subdue him as far +from you as possible. + +=Shadowless Angling.=--Never let your shadow fall upon the angling +water. Keep the sun in front of you. + +=Striking and Hooking.=--Nothing is more difficult to learn about +fly-fishing than the art of striking or hooking the game. + +=The Fishless Fisherman.=--"You took a day off from your work and went +fishing? Have any luck?" "Certainly. A day off is luck enough."--New +York _American_. + +=Angling Spirit.=--"It is the way we do things and the spirit in which +we prosecute our endeavors that counts. The man who takes the day to +go fishing on the great ocean or in the forest and can commune with +Nature can be as good a Christian as the best man that ever entered +the portals of a church, cathedral, or synagogue."--"Nature Factor." + +=All Sports in Angling.=--"The sport that sums up dancing, song and +picture, athletics and all games of chance is angling. The waves make +you dance, all pictures roll before you, any chance can win the pool, +and every fishing boat is a _saengerfest_."--B. M. Briggs. + +=Early Trout Angling.=--"Don't let anyone tell you of the folly of +trout fishing in early April. It's great sport, and if you're skillful +enough to get a few of the gamest and wisest fish that swims at this +time of the year your success will be complete in May and June, when +the ideal weather comes."--H. T. Walden. + +=Skill vs. Kill.=--"To qualify as a sportsman in the taking of any +kind of game, a man must show much more enthusiasm in skill rather +than in the kill, always remembering to give or inflict the least pain +possible on the game taken by his skill."--Wes' Wood. + +=Rainbow Trout Angling.=--"I get harder play with a three-pound +rainbow trout than with a maskinonge of twenty-five pounds. I have +caught only a few rainbow trout. The first one I ever caught was three +years ago in the Esopus Creek in the Catskills. I felt somewhat +relieved when I had him in the net. He was the gamest fish for his +size I ever hooked, and I have killed ten and twelve pound salmon on a +trout rod. The rainbow trout is first cousin to the lordly +salmon."--M. J. Doyle. + +=Secret of Angling.=--"Fishing is more than catching. Its pleasures +are the whole outdoors. Appreciation is the secret of the +lure."--Theodore Macklin. + +=Limit in Angling.=--"It is very foolish for Anglers, when they get +more fishes than they want, to even give them away; far better it +would be for them to stop fishing when they have caught enough for +themselves, and give the fish a chance."--George Hartley. + +=Age of Angling.=--"The allurement of fishing is as old as the granite +mountains of the Andes. Down through the ages of the past, even from +the day of the anthropophagi, comes to us the fact that all the world +rejoices in the gentle art of fishing. Fishing--the one word that +opens up to our understanding the philosophy of nature--is the +fundamental basis of our civilization."--David Jones. + +=Gentility in Angling.=--"Sportsmanship abhors greed and all +vulgarity."--H. W. Wack. + +=Angling Clears the Brain.=--"When we are confused and harried by the +turmoil of modern life, our heads and our hearts aching with its +complex problems, its exigent demands, its rebuffs, and its bitter +disappointments, let us turn once more to the forest and meadow, the +peaceful stream, with the fleecy clouds or overhanging boughs kindly +tempering the rays of the summer sun; let us drop our pens, abandon +for the nonce our manuscript, our ledgers, or the stock reports of the +day, and 'go a-fishing.'"--Willis Boyd Allen. + +=Up and Down Stream.=--"I fish up stream (and I think this best) and +down stream and across stream--according to wind and time and weather, +etc., and the sun. I have found I can get the larger fish in upstream +fishing; but there are pools one can't get the flies to--the likely +places--from below, nor yet from either side. When I come to such a +pool I get above and cover it well by casting across stream from +me--the sun being opposite--and let my flies float down, drawing them +the while across current with a twitching motion, as an insect +struggling to swim across. It is a deadly method if well done and gets +the big ones too. I hold the line of course in my left hand, and as I +gently raise the rod with my right, I take in line with my left, thus +at all times having full control and ready for a strike."--Ernest L. +Eubank. + +=Fly-Fishing First.=--"Fly-fishing comes first, then comes bait +casting with the fly rod; third, still fishing; fourth, casting of +live bait with the short rod from the reel, and last, if not entirely +without the pale of true sportsmanship, the use of the plug."--Rayx. + +=Fly Rod and Bait Rod.=--"It takes some skill to keep sixty feet of +line in the air when fly casting, and requires free space for the back +cast. It is fascinating work and requires more delicacy in handling a +fly rod than a bait rod. The fly rod, especially in Southern Missouri +waters, lands more fish during the day than the bait rod, but the +latter lands larger fish. The bait caster makes fewer casts on account +of reeling in the line after each cast, but the water is more +effectively covered. One has to be a judge of the water and determine +which method should be used. In the northern lakes bait casting is +far superior in results to fly casting."--M. J. Brennan. + +=Land and Water.=--"You're natural when fishing, and unnatural on +shore. Fishing rubs the barnacles off your natural self, and makes +your bodyship sail more easily."--B. M. Briggs. + +=First Record of Angling.=--"The first authentic record of angling +appears in the Old Testament of the Bible, computed to be about 1500 +years before Christ, where the Lord asked Job: 'Canst thou take out a +fish with the hook?'"--John Ryan. + +=Roman Angling.=--The walls of Pompeii are adorned with angling +scenes. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +TROUT FLIES + + "To make several flies + For the several skies. + That shall kill in despite of all weathers." + + CHARLES COTTON. + + +=Weight of Flies.=--"Flies do not soon get tired; ... they are light; +the wind carries them. An ounce of flies was once weighed, and +afterwards counted; and it was found to comprise no less than six +thousand two hundred and sixty-eight."--Victor Hugo, _The Toilers of +the Sea_. + +=The Dry-Fly.=--"Upon the curling _surface_ let it glide, with natural +motion from thy hand supplied."--Unknown Author. The italics in the +word surface are ours. The dry artificial fly must swim on the +surface, must fly upstream, must have no companion fly, must keep dry +by sailing in the air between actual casts, and must attract the fish +by minutely mimicking the living fly both in the air and on (not in) +the water. + +=Vegetable Flies.=--Bearded seed of the wild oat and a silvery willow +leaf have been used successfully as artificial flies for brook trout +and black bass. + +=To Carry Flies.=--Do not use your large fly-book when wading. Put a +half dozen seasonable patterns in your hatband, and a dozen more in a +little book that will not bulge your pocket. + +=Variety in Flies.=--You can never carry too many trout flies on your +trip. Fill your fly-book and stick them all over the crown of your +hat. Trout do not like the same fly at all times any more than you are +fond of feeding on one sort of meat. + +=Clumsy Flies.=--Most trout flies are too large, and they frighten +more trout than they attract. + +=A New Fly.=--" ... an altogether original fly, unheard of, startling, +will often do great execution in an overfished pool."--Henry van Dyke. + +=The Floating Fly.=--"The floating fly seemed to have the effect of +arousing the trout to action at once. During the week I estimate that +there was an average of ten rises to the dry-fly to every one to the +same fly wet."--Emlyn M. Gill. + +=Fishing the Dry-Fly.=--"The dry-fly is clearly out of place on the +wet-fly water as the wet-fly is on the dry-fly stream. After all, it +is only in the style of deceiving and hooking fish that dry-fly and +wet-fly Anglers ... assuming both to be good sportsmen ... can much +differ. In nearly all other fly-fishing matters they must naturally be +at one. It has already been said that the dry-fly is quite out of +place in many trout streams. The dry-fly streams, though they have +increased of late years, are still and ever must be in a decided +minority. The dry-fly Angler is not, as a rule, a very early riser. He +can do nothing without natural flies, and in my experience there are +very few duns or other water-flies out till nine or even ten o'clock +in the morning."--A. B. Dewar, _The Book of the Dry-Fly_. + +=American Dry-Flies.=--"Whirling Dun, Wickham's Fancy, Pale Evening +Dun, Jenny Spinner, (Hackle Fly), Willow Fly (Hackle Fly), Orange Fish +Hawk (Hackle Fly), Olive Dun, Soldier Palmer (Hackle Fly). Silver +Sedge, Red Spinner, White Miller, Coachman. Black Gnat."--Emlyn M. +Gill, _Practical Dry-Fly Fishing_. + +=Brazilian Flies.=--Brazilian flies, costing seven dollars a ton, are +used to feed fishes in England. + +=Fresh Flies.=--"When trout are taking the fly on the surface, and are +not simply feeding on the larvae as they swim upward, a brand new fly +is more likely to catch a fish than one which has been a great deal +used. I always use May-flies dressed on eyed hooks, have a goodly +supply, and when one gets so wet as to necessitate a considerable +amount of labor in the drying of it, off it comes, and is stuck in my +cap to dry at its leisure. Of course it is rather wasting to the +cast--this frequent changing flies--and no little trouble to those +whose fingers are all thumbs, and whose eyesight is becoming dim, but +it is far less trouble to change the fly than to dry it when +thoroughly soaked."--_London Fishing Gazette._ + +=Rocky Mountain Trout Flies.=--First, Royal Coachman; second, Gray +Hackle with yellow body. Then: Black Gnat, Ginger Quill, Cowdung, +Blue Quill. Grizzly King, Shad Fly, and Stone Fly. Hooks, No. 6 to 14. + +=Early Season Flies.=--Dark Stone, Codun, Alder. Bowman, Black May, +Beauty, Ben Bent, Blue Bottle. Hare's Ear. + +=All-Season Flies.=--Alder, Gray Palmer, Green Palmer, Ginger Palmer, +March Brown, Reuben Wood. Professor, White Miller, Coachman, Royal +Coachman. Dark Coachman, Codun, Scarlet Ibis, Brown Palmer. Red +Palmer, Grizzly King, Queen of the Water, King of the Water, Brown +Hen, Black Gnat. Early in the season use hooks No. 6 to 8; later, No. +8 to 12. Use the small patterns on streams, and the large patterns on +lakes and rough waters; and, as I have repeatedly suggested, when the +day is bright and where the water is clear, use the small flies of +plain colors; on dark days and in the evening, use the large bright +flies. + +=Dyed-Feather Flies.=--"Some Anglers say no dyed feathers should be +used in tying flies, that they fade to a damaging extent. We have +always found dyed feathers practicable."--_London Rod and Gun._ + +=The Brown Hackle.=--"Fasten red (crimson red) wool round a hook, and +fit into the wool two feathers which grow under a cock's +wattles."--AElian, third century, A.D. "Out of the thousands of trout +that I have caught, it is safe to say that over 70 per cent. were +taken with the Brown Hackle."--C. T. Ramsey. Two hundred Anglers, +representing all parts of the United States, contributed fly-fishing +chapters to _Favorite Flies_. Mary Orvis Marbury's wonderful volume +on artificial flies and fly-fishing, and 130 of them declared the +Brown Hackle their favorite pattern. "I had supposed that the Red +Hackle was an imitation of the small red caterpillar, but the veteran +Nessmuk affirms that it resembles nothing below or above. It is his +favorite bug, and that settles the question."--H. C. Wilcox, _Favorite +Flies_. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +CASTING THE FLY + + "Ah, tired man! Go find a spot + Somewhere in solitude; + Take hammock, books and tackle + And wearing apparel crude. + And live, if but the shortest time. + A wild life in the wood + A-fishing, reading, dreaming. + And you'll declare it good." + + J. MILTON HARKINS. + + +=Up and Down Stream.=--English Anglers wade upstream, and some Anglers +in America do the same. There is good reason in this manner of wading +on the part of the old country's Anglers, because where they practice +it the water is quiet and not altogether shallow. In America, where +our trout waters are rapid and foaming as they rush along, it is not +practical as a general rule to wade upstream. The walking is +difficult, you become wet, the trout see you notwithstanding they lie +face up stream, your flies drift toward you, it is hard to keep the +line from being slack all the time, the flies sink too often, and +altogether you spoil the chances of creeling whatever is takable in +the stream. On still, barely-flowing, deep waters a line may be cast +up or down stream. + +=Down Stream.=--"There is much diversity of opinion about the manner +of fishing, whether up or down the stream. The great majority of +Anglers, both in Europe and this country, favor the latter method, and +very few the former."--John J. Brown. + +=Motion of the Fly.=--In clear, smooth water let the fly sink a +little; then move it along with a quick motion. + +=Manner in Fly-Fishing.=--"The manner in which the flies are fished +distinguishes the fly-fisherman from the mere fly-caster, whether or +no the fly-caster, as such, be expert or otherwise."--Samuel G. Camp, +_The Fine Art of Fishing_. + +=Fly-Casting Practice.=--"When the learner becomes accustomed to +handling his rod, he must try to perfect himself in two matters of +great importance--accuracy and delicacy. Place a small piece of paper +fifteen or twenty feet away, and aim at making the knot in the end of +the line fall easily and quietly upon it. Your efforts will be aided +if you will raise the point of the rod a trifle just as the forward +impulse of the line is spent, and the line itself is straightened in +the air for an instant in front. This is a novel kind of target +shooting, but its usefulness will be realized when the Angler finds it +necessary to drop his flies lightly just over the head of some wary +trout."--Ripley Hitchcock. + +=The Magic Fly.=--"Reader, did you ever throw the fly to tempt the +silvery denizen of the lake or river to his destruction? Have you +watched him, as it skimmed like a living insect along the surface, +dart from his hiding-place and rush upon the tempting but deceitful +morsel? Have you noticed his astonishment when he found the hook was +in his jaw? Have you watched him as he bent your slender rod 'like a +reed shaken by the wind,' in his efforts to free himself, and then +have you reeled him to your hand and deposited him in your basket as +the spoil of your right arm? If you have not, leave the dull, +monotonous, everyday things around you and try it."--S. S. Hammond. + +=Lifelike Fly.=--Don't simply drag the fly through the water. Move +your wrist gently up and down; then the lure will look and act like a +living insect, not a bunch of hair or feather. + +=Nature-like Fly.=--"In fly-fishing the lure must always be in +motion." Excepting, say I, the instant when it first drops upon the +pool. I have caught many of my largest trout--sometimes two at a +single cast--the moment the fly touched the water. + +=Dry-Fly Success.=--"There are no insurmountable obstacles in the way +of becoming a successful dry-fly Angler that do not confront the user +of the sunken fly."--Emlyn M. Gill, _Practical Dry-Fly Fishing_. + +=Correct Fly-Fishing Line.=--"Nothing in reference to fly-fishing can +be answered with such ease and confidence as the question what line +should be used. Unquestionably the enameled waterproofed line, and no +other."--Henry P. Wells. + +=Sunken Fly.=--"Every bass fly-fisherman knows that to let his flies +sink for a depth of six or eight inches is alluring. Under certain +conditions, when after trout, to let the flies descend for a depth of +two feet before retrieving, is to tempt some sleepy old monster to +attack. "--O. W. Smith. + +=The Strike.=--"The moment the trout seizes the artificial fly, it is +as far in his mouth as it ever will be; therefore, you cannot strike +too quickly after you have seen or felt the trout."--D. W. Cross. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +TACKLE TALKS + + "Slight lines of hair surprise the finny prey." + + POPE. + + "See that all things be right + For 'tis a very spite + To want tools, when a man goes afishing." + + CHARLES COTTON. + + +=To Extract Hooks.=--Cut the snell free and push the hook on through, +depressing the upper end so as to bring the point out as near as +possible to where it went in. Don't try to pull the hook back. + +=Knots in Rodwood.=--Don't switch a light rod sideways. The maker may +have purposely put a knot to one side, and this would cause the rod to +snap. + +=Function of the Rod.=--"The essential and most important office of a +rod is that which is exhibited after the fish is hooked ... in other +words, in the playing and landing of the fish. In practical angling +the act of casting, either with fly or bait, is preliminary and +subordinate to the real uses of the rod. The poorest fly-rod made will +cast a fly thirty or forty feet, which is about as far as called for +in ordinary angling. But it is the continuous spring and yielding +resistance of the bent rod, constantly maintained, that not only tires +out the fish, but protects the weak snell or leader from breakage, and +prevents a weak hold of the hook from giving way; and this is the +proper function of the rod."--James A. Henshall, _Favorite Fish and +Fishing_. + +=Silkworm Gut.=--"The features to be sought are good color, a hard, +wiry texture, roundness, even diameter from end to end, and length. +From these are to be inferred the strength and wearing quality of the +gut, which are what we wish to estimate. From the color we infer +whether the gut is fresh or stale, its probable strength in relation +to its thickness, and, in part, its wearing quality. In all these +respects fresh gut is superior to old gut of original equal quality. +The color can best be judged from the fuzzy end of the hank, and +should be clear and glassy, and by no means dull or yellowish. The +wearing quality of the gut may be judged partly by its color, partly +by its springiness when bent and released, and also by its hardness. +It should feel like wire."--Henry P. Wells, _Fly-Rods and Fly-Tackle_. + +=Ronalds' Rod.=--"The best materials are ash for the stock, lancewood +for the middle, and bamboo for the tip."--Alfred Ronalds (1836). + +=South's Rod.=--Theophilus South, in his _Fly Fisher's Text Book_ +(London, 1845), prefers ash to willow for butts, hickory for middle +joints, and favors tips made from lancewood, cane, and whalebone, +spliced together--four and even five pieces in a tip. + +=Lightest Rod.=--Benjamin S. Whitehead fly-fishes with a +gold-and-ivory-mounted split bamboo rod weighing one and eleven +sixteenths ounces. + +=Tapered Line.=--"The line for dry-fly fishing should be either +single-tapered or double-tapered; the fine end of the taper will make +more of an inconspicuous connection with the leader and with a tapered +line casting ability is doubled."--Robert Page Lincoln. + +=Knife and Shears.=--A small pair of scissors attached to a string and +fastened to the Angler's coat are useful companions along the stream. +They are more easily operated than a knife; they save time, and while +you may do with them nearly all that can be done with a knife, they +will render a service that cannot be obtained from the single blade. A +knife should always be carried, nevertheless, and the proper one for +the trout Angler is that newly invented thing which requires no +finger-nail work and which is made ready for service by a mere +pressure of the thumb on the top of the handle. + +=Trouting Outfit.=--Here's a plain, practical, reasonable-price outfit +with no unnecessary items: A four-ounce lancewood fly-rod, a common +rubber click reel to hold twenty-five yards of fine waterproof silk +line, a seventy-five cent cane landing-net, small and with no metal on +it, a seventy-five cent creel, a dozen of the best made and +highest-priced assorted trout-flies, a pair of waders, and a dollar's +worth of the finest and best made silk gut leaders. + +=Rod Dressing.=--To whip rings or guides on the rod use silk twist, +drawing the final end through a few coils of the whipping by means of +a loose loop. To revarnish, wipe off all grease stains, and dress +lightly down with the best copal. To reblacken brasses, mix a little +lampblack with spirit varnish. Dress once or twice and let the +dressing thoroughly dry before using the copal. + +=Buy your Tackle.=--The old Anglers tied their flies themselves, and, +in fact, made all their rods and tackle, save, perhaps, lines. To-day +few Anglers think of tying flies or preparing any tackle, owing to the +expertness and moderate terms on the part of dealers. It is much +cheaper to buy tackle outright, as it is to buy gun shells ready +loaded. + +=To Remove a Ferrule.=--Hold it over the flame of a spirit lamp or any +flame until the cement is softened. If it has been pinned on, take a +large needle, break it off squarely, put it on the pin, and strike +just hard enough to set the pin below the ferrule, then warm and +remove. + +=The Joints.=--If your rod joints go together harshly or do not come +apart with ease, oil them lightly. See that no sand or any dirt gets +in the ferrules. To take the joints apart easily when they are tightly +set, gently warm the metal. + +=Rubber Bands.=--Little rubber bands are practical items of a +sportsman's outfit. One real service they render is in holding the +fly-rod joints together when you travel through the woods after your +day's fishing. + +=The Rod as a Measure.=--"The size of a fish can be found out very +easily, simply by having the butt of the fishing rod marked off in +inches up to two feet."--John Koltzan. + +=Position of the Reel.=--The reel of a bait-rod should be on the top +side of the rod, in front of the handle; that of a fly-rod, on the +under side below the handle. + +=Cork Handle.=--To avoid blisters on the hand, have the handle of your +rod covered with cork instead of cane, twine, or rubber. It will +prevent the hand from slipping, is pleasant to the touch, and very +light in weight. + +=Smooth Ferrules.=--Before jointing your rod, oil the male ferrules +with vaseline, or by rubbing them on the back of your neck. This will +prevent the joints from becoming tight after the day's sport. + +=Be Particular.=--The finer the tackle the fairer the sport. + +=Care of the Rod.=--See that your rod-case is thoroughly dry before +you put your rod in it, and always tie the case-strings loosely or you +will have bent tips and joints. + +=Tackle Tells.=--"The quality of gameness in a fish is best determined +by the character of the tackle used. A brook trout on a striped bass +rod, or a black bass on a tarpon rod, could not, in either case, +exhibit its characteristic gameness, or afford any sport to the +Angler. Excellent sport with small fishes, however, is now rendered +possible owing to the advent of the very light trout rod. It should +not be considered beneath the dignity of an Angler to cast the fly for +a rock bass, a blue-gill, or a croppie, with a three-ounce rod. +Certainly it is just as sportsmanlike as to fish for six-inch brook +trout in a meadow brook or a mountain rill."--James A. Henshall. + +=Rust Preventive.=--Use animal oil free of salt on any metal--steel, +iron, brass, German silver, etc. Vaseline may be used on brass and +German silver; mercurial ointment on steel and iron. Don't use +ordinary vegetable oil. + +=Telescopic Reel.=--An English reel, the telescope winch, can be +expanded to carry a double quantity of line or less at will. By its +means a trout reel becomes a salmon reel or bass reel or vice versa as +you please. + +=Fine Tackle.=--"His tackle for bricht, airless days is o' gossamere; +and at a wee distance aff you think he's fishin' without ony line +ava."--The Ettrick Shepherd. + +=Dressing for Silk Wrappings.=--Cobbler's wax dissolved in spirits of +wine. Paint it on with a feather. + +=Line Dressing.=--Deer's fat solidifies at a higher temperature than +most fats and will cling well. + +=Black Leader and Snell.=--"For trout, use a black leader and have +your hooks snelled with black gut."--"Country Pumpkin." + +=Thin Line.=--"The thinner the line I use the more fish I catch."--A. +Hamilton, Jr. + +=Cocoon Lines.=--The Japanese now make almost invisible fishing lines +from cocoons. The silk threads are boiled in oil and glue and +calendered under heavy pressure. The fish cannot see these lines, and +they are effective against the gamest species. + +=Enameled Line.=--"In casting from the reel I use a soft silk line, +but I prefer to strip cast. In strip casting it is absolutely +necessary to use a good enameled line. The reason I prefer strip +casting is that a long, slender rod can be used. No other line than an +enameled one can be stripped into the bottom of the boat and permitted +to run out rapidly without snarling."--"Greenhorn." + +=Making a Camp Rod.=--Surgeon's plaster, in tin spools, or +electrician's adhesive tape, are serviceable in many ways in camp. You +can even build a makeshift casting rod if you've forgotten or lost the +real article. Fasten the reel to a stiff section of any fishing rod or +a straight light-weight tree switch with the tape. Screw eyes or small +staples will answer for the running guides, but finer guides and a +cleaner-looking tip guide may be made with fine wire and the tape. + +=Tackle and Time.=--Correct fishing tackle is as necessary in the +hands of the tyro as with the practical Angler, but the beginner +mustn't expect tackle, however appropriate, to be all that is required +to make toward perfection in angling; experience and practice are +equally important. As an apprentice in carpentry who may have all the +tools of his master still needs experience and actual practice, so the +young Angler fully equipped with good tackle must serve an +apprenticeship on the waters. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE ANGLER'S KITCHEN + + "The reputation that trout enjoy as a food-fish is partly due to + the fact that they are usually cooked over an open fire.... The + real reason why food cooked over an open fire tastes so good to us + is because we are really hungry when we get it."--HENRY VAN DYKE. + + "Moses, the friend of God--Lev. xi., 9, Deut. xiv., 9,--appointed + fish to be the chief diet for the best commonwealth that ever yet + was. The mightiest feasts have been of fish."--WALTON. + + "... and fish the last + Food was that He on earth did taste." + + W. BASSE. + + "If you eat your kind, we will eat you."--BENJ. FRANKLIN. + + +=Catching vs. Cooking.=--"I care little whether I catch a fish on a +No. 6 or a No. 5 hook, or whether I use a $3 reel or a $2.99 one. +Whether I use bay leaves, or cloves, or mushrooms, or tomato sauce, or +tartar sauce in preparing my fish is more important. Game is improved +by hanging for a while, but fish should be eaten as soon as possible +after being caught."--"Piscator." + +=Fish as Food.=--The great variety of flavors in fish food makes an +ichthyological diet more palatable than quadruped meat, and therefore +more healthful because only that which is eaten with a relish is +digestible and nourishing. + +=Forest Fish Sauce.=--Use a wild rose berry to make a sauce for fish +food in camp. + +=Carp.=--The carp, celebrated in ancient song and story as the meat of +kings, is as savory as the trout or any other fish species if cooked +and served correctly. + +=Preserving Fish.=--Don't pack fish in wet grass or anything damp. Use +dry straw. + +=Frozen Fish.=--Don't freeze fish unless you keep it frozen until +quite ready for the fire, as it spoils soon after thawing. + +=Scaling Fish.=--Use an ordinary horse currycomb. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +CARE AND BREEDING OF TROUT + + "The water, more productive than the earth, Nature's store-house, + in which she locks up her wonders, is the eldest daughter of the + creation, the element upon which the spirit of God did first + move."--IZAAK WALTON. + + +=Transporting Trout.=--To bring your fish home, first clean them +carefully, taking pains to remove that little dark blood streak along +the backbone. Then, after wiping them dry, pack them in ferns, +separately, and free from ice. Never send your fish home by express; +take them with you. A box cannot be checked on the train. Use an old +packing trunk. In this you can also transport your heavy +outfit--wading boots, oilskins, landing-net, etc. + +=Trout in Captivity.=--Trout in artificial ponds should be fed three +or four times a week in the winter time during the very warmest part +of the day. There is no natural food in artificial ponds, and feeding +is necessary in order to keep the big fish from eating their small +companions. In natural trout ponds fed by springs so much care need +not be exercised in winter. Air holes need not be cut in any ice that +may form, as the springs afford a proper temperature, and but little +food, if any, need be given the fish. + +=Killing the Trout.=--Kill your trout the instant they are landed; +don't let them suffer slow death. The game deserves humane treatment, +and the meat tastes better by quick killing. + +=Trout Destroyers.=--Eels are ruinous to trout. They eat trout spawn, +and they should be removed from all trout waters. + +=Live Frozen Trout.=--Trout packed in ice for several days and carried +forty miles by stagecoach and two hundred and fifty miles by railway +(Feb., 1914) from the State of Washington to Montana, says the +_Lewiston Democrat_ of Butte, Montana, came to life and swam spryly +when placed in a tank of water at the end of their journey--Hennessy's +meat store at Butte. + +=Water Plants.=--Aquatic plants, besides affording protection and +shade to the fishes, supply oxygen to the water. + +=Growth of Trout.=--"Mr. Tomkin of Polgaron put some small river +trout, 2-1/2 inches in length, into a newly made pond. He took some of +them out the second year, above twelve inches in length; the third +year, he took one out of sixteen inches in length; and the fourth +year, one of twenty-five inches in length: this was in 1734."--Carew's +_Survey of Cornwall_. + +=Ducks Eat Trout.=--Arthur A. Woodford and S. W. Eddy, of Avon, Conn., +say that ducks eat trout and destroy the trout's breeding places by +digging in the banks along the ponds and streams. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE ANGLER'S CLOTHING AND FOOTWEAR + + And let your garments russet be or gray. + Of colour darke, and hardest to descry. + + _Pleasures of Angling._ + + +=Hobnail Footwear.=--Most any boot or shoe can be used for wading the +trout streams, but a special selection is always best for every sort +of purpose. Rubber, canvas, and leather are employed in the making of +the fisherman's footwear. The hobnail heel-and-sole pattern is the +correct article for use in swift-running water. The hobnail +recommended above all others is the common, cheap soft-iron hobnail +with corrugated head; carry a package in your tackle box. + +=Repairing Waders.=--Patch holes in rubber boots and rubber stockings, +etc., by covering the holes with thin sheet rubber, cementing this +with a mixture of black rubber dissolved in spirits of turpentine. + +=Drying Rubber Boots.=--Fill 'em full of hot bran. + +=Clothing.=--Sack coats, heavy trousers, a stout vest, all with plenty +of large pockets. In color the garments should be gray, drab, or +brown. + +=Hat.=--A soft felt of gray shade. + +=Boots and Shoes.=--Brown leather. + +=Waders.=--Leather shoes with holes in the sides or canvas shoes for +summer. Rubber boots or wading trousers for cold weather. + +=Woolen and Rubber Clothing.=--Good quality woolen will shed rain for +hours. Wear rubber outer garments in a wet brushy trail. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +LITTLE CASTS + + +=The Fingerling Fisher.=--It is sad to see a man with his creel full +of trout each not over the size of a lady's penknife. This character +has a photograph made of himself with the fingerlings held in front of +him so as to make them appear of legal size; this he sends to friends +in the city with glowing accounts of his catch of "a hundred speckled +beauties in one day." + +=Tent Waterproofing.=--Sugar of lead and alum. + +=Woodcraft.=--A good, simple way to find a road or dwelling, if you +are lost in the woods, is to follow down a stream. + +=Destroying the Streams.=--Discourage the indiscriminate cutting down +of trees. The destruction of forest land means the drying up of trout +waters and the waste of drinking water. + +=The Bungler.=--Bragging of ungentle catches, untruths about the size +of a specimen, and non-ichthyological nonsense about the mystery of a +species--unnatural history such as cheap fiction writers indulge +in--by bungling would-be fishermen annoy the practical man and puzzle +the earnest tyro. The record of honest sport is entertaining and +instructive. + +=Discrimination.=--Do not worry if the fish are small so long as they +are of legal size; reduce your tackle. A vest-pocket watch keeps just +as good time as a town-hall clock. + +=Sportsmanship.=--Chivalry to his companion and humane treatment to +the game he pursues are the Angler's axioms. + +=Giving Fishes to Neighbors.=--Don't give your neighbors part of your +catch. They won't appreciate it. They'll throw them away in most +cases. If they cook and eat them they suffer the belief that they are +doing you a favor. Most recipients of fishes think the specimens too +small, or that they have too many bones, or that they are too thin, +too tough, too hard to scale, etc. They'd rather have a +bought-and-paid-for cold-storage cod of ten pounds than a freshly +caught brook trout presented by an Angler friend. + +=Not All of Fishing to Fish.=--"The fisherman whose catching of many +fish causes him to forget his surroundings, blinds his eyes to the +beauties of Nature, and deadens his ears to the music of the wild, is +no Angler."--O. W. Smith. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +BORROWED LINES + + "Oh I could wish the lord to say + That all the twelve months + Should be May." + + GEORGE BORROW. + + "I borrow no man's tackle."--"FRANK FORESTER." + + +=Nature.=--"Solitude has its charm and its reward and Nature offers to +mankind the proper blessings, be they indulged in with care and +consideration. The mind that has been oppressed by following +civilization's rut will find ample comfort in the solitude given man +by Nature."--R. P. L., _The Sportsmen's Review_. + +=Save the Fishes.=--"We who love wild life and long ago abandoned the +many instruments of extermination and who have come to a more +considerate mode of recreation should do all in our power to +discourage its destruction and to encourage the propagation of the +wild life which has been so generously and graciously given us by our +Creator. Only extremists insist on terrible slaughter of fishes, +birds, and quadrupeds."--E. M. Hermann. + +"=Improvement.="--"No building enterprise, no 'betterment' ever spares +a tree. Insects and lack of care kill what 'improvement' +leaves."--New York _Evening World_, Aug. 18, 1914. + +=Jesus the Fisherman.=--"Had not the Saviour of Gennesaret understood +fishermen's signs, such as the riff on the water, the schooling of the +fishes, the hovering gulls, there would have been no miraculous catch +of fishes."--Charles Hallock. + +=Society where None Intrudes.=--"I had pined so much, in the dust and +heat of the great town, for trees and fields, and running waters, and +the sounds of country life, and the air of country winds, that never +more could I grow weary of these soft enjoyments."--Blackmore, _Lorna +Doone_. + +=The Call of the Wild.=--"Lying hidden away in the back of the brain +is the primitive longing for adventure and the tingle of the nerves +that awaits it. Under the veneer of what is called civilization lie +the racial and elemental passions, just as Mother Earth lies beneath +the asphalted streets of the city."--Adele M. Ballard. + +=Gold Fishing.=--"When all green places have been destroyed in the +builder's lust of gain; when all the lands are but bricks and piles of +wood and iron; when there is no moisture anywhere and no rain ever +falls; when the sky is a vault of smoke and all the rivers reek with +poison; when forest and stream, the moor and meadow and all the old +green wayside beauty are things vanished and forgotten; when every +gentle, timid thing of brake and bush, of air and water, has been +killed because it robbed them of a berry or a fruit; when the earth +is one vast city, whose young children behold neither the green of the +field nor the blue of the sky, and hear no song but the hiss of the +steam, and know no music but the roar of the furnace; when the old +sweet silence of the countryside, and the old sweet sounds of waking +birds, and the old sweet fall of summer showers, and the grace of a +hedgerow bough, and the glow of the purple heather, and the note of +the cuckoo and cushat, and the freedom of waste and of woodland and +all things are dead and remembered of no man; then the world, like the +Eastern king, will perish miserably of famine and of drought, with +gold in its stiffened hands, and gold in its withered lips and gold +everywhere; gold that the people can neither eat nor drink, gold that +cares nothing for them, but mocks them horribly; gold for which their +fathers sold peace, and health, and holiness, and beauty; gold that is +one vast grave."--Ouida. + +=Heaven.=--"My heart is fixed firm and stable in the belief that +ultimately the sunshine and the summer, the flowers and the azure sky, +shall become, as it were, interwoven into man's existence. He shall +take from all their beauty and enjoy their glory."--Richard Jefferies, +_The Life of the Fields_. + +=Modern Savagery.=--"Civilization is a nervous disease."--Clarence +King. + +=Humanity.=--"Reading and writing are not educational, unless they +make us feel kindly towards all creatures."--Ruskin. + +=Walton's Depth.=--"In Walton's angling works a child may wade and a +giant swim."--John Ryan. + + "I shall stay ... [the reader] no longer than to wish him a rainy + evening to read this ... Discourse; and that, if he be an honest + Angler, the East wind may never blow when he goes + a-Fishing."--IZAAK WALTON, _The Compleat Angler_, 1653. + + + + +APPRECIATIONS: + + + PRINCETON, MAY 30, 1900--"The + Determined Angler ... the + most pleasantly written, the + most sensible and practical and + instructive volume I have ever + seen of its kind." + + [Illustration: Grover Cleveland] + + THE ART OF ANGLING.-- ... a + book on the art of angling, + with a hearty indorsement from + the most famous of latter-day + fishermen, former President + Grover Cleveland. It fully + deserves this indorsement.--_New + York Herald_, September 22, + 1900. + + THE TROUT AND THE WHALE.-- ... rare + sympathy and + genuine knowledge. Mr. Bradford + undoubtedly knows, as + did his sainted forerunner, that + "there are fish, as namely the + whale, three times as big as the + mighty elephant, that is so fierce + in battle," yet a single salve-liner + fontinalis of "just a little + over two pounds and a quarter" + is the single luxury he allows + himself. Mr. Bradford's dealings + are with those sophisticated + denizens of much-fished streams, + that have to be approached with + the finesse of a diplomat and + handled with the swift skill of a + fencing master. In all that + pertains to this difficult and + studious art one feels that Mr. + Bradford is an adept, and that the + graceful, commendatory letter + from former President Cleveland + is amply merited.--_New York + Evening Telegram_, September + 8, 1900. + + PRACTICAL.--Practical advice.--_New + York Sun._ + + ANGLING CONVERTS.--There + is always a real charm about + what is written on the subject of + fishing, by real disciples of old + Izaak Walton, and the reason + may be found in the fact that + the spirit of the greatest of + anglers has come upon them. + _The Determined Angler_ is no + exception to the rule. It is + good reading, full of wisdom and + instruction. And while it will + prove very useful to the beginner + and even the veteran, it is also + calculated to make many converts + to the rod and line. The + book is full of wise counsel and + information.--_New York Evening + Sun_, September 8, 1900. + + FOR FAIR FISHERMEN.--Appeals + to those who fish fair.... Charles + Bradford, the + modern American authority on + angling.--_New York Press._ + + FOR GENTLE READERS.--Much + good advice and very + pleasant entertainment for any + gentle reader.--_New York Observer._ + + SUMMER AND WINTER.--Pleasant + reading whether by the + winter fireside or the shaded + banks of summer.--_New York + Evening Post._ + + ANGLING EXPERIENCE.--Mr. + Bradford is no novice in this line + of literature.--_New York Athletic + Club Journal._ + + ANGLING PHILOSOPHY.--Breathes + the very essence of + philosophy; the result of much + experience.--_Brooklyn (N. Y.) + Eagle._ + + WALTONIAN SPIRIT.--Pervaded + by the spirit of Izaak + Walton.--_The Outlook._ + + THE GENTLE TROUT.--The + author is an enthusiastic devotee + of the sport [angling], upon + which he writes with a contagious + enthusiasm ... an angler + of very positive convictions; he + has a fixed aversion to fishing + with the scarlet ibis, and confesses + to a personal preference + to sober colors in flies for all + seasons and on all waters. Above + all, he insists upon the use of + the most scientific methods, + since "a trout is a gentleman, + and should be treated as such + and lured with only delicate and + humane weapons." A facsimile + of a letter of warm commendation + from ex-President + Cleveland serves as frontispiece + to this agreeable volume which + is attractively printed.--_New + York Commercial Advertiser_. + September 13, 1900. + + THE GENTLE ART.--A gentle + exponent of a gentle art.--_Denver + (Colo.) Republican._ + + WILD BROOK TROUT.--The + announcement of a new book + on fishing interests a class of the + community, especially those + confined to the cities, which is + increasing year by year. This + work depicts a trout fisherman's + paradise. It is from the same + graphic pen as _The Wildfowlers_, + and divulges many a secret of + the fisherman's craft. One may + learn from its pages where a + gentle creel of real wild brook + trout may be made in a morning's + pleasant angling, "in a + free and comparatively virgin + gameland--a wild and naturally + beautiful country, embracing + all the charms of scenic splendor + for which the American brook + trout regions are famous," and + its pages contain an abundance + of practical detail concerning + tackle and methods of casting + the fly, and playing and landing + the game ... it makes a notable + addition to the sportsman's + library.--_New York Home Journal_. + May 10, 1900. + + THE ANGLER'S ART.--Mr. + Bradford gives eminently practical + hints on the angler's art.--_Salt + Lake City (Utah) Telegram._ + + A STUDY OF FISHING.--The + advice comes from one who has + learned many things about + fishing.--_Utica (N. Y.) Press._ + + COMPREHENSIVE ANGLING.--One + of the most comprehensive + bits of angling literature we + have had for many a long year, + and thoroughly deserves the + generous praise it has received ... the + most delightful fishing + book of this generation--_The + Amateur Sportsman._ + + THE ANGLER'S LIBRARY.--deserves + a place in the library + of every fly-fisherman.--_The + Sportsman's Magazine._ + + A FISHER OF MEN.--Mr. + Bradford may well be proud + of this tribute, for Mr. Cleveland + is himself a determined angler + and an experienced fisher of + men.--_Spirit of the Times._ + + SECRETS OF THE FISH.--What + he has to tell of the secrets + known only to the fish, himself, + and a few others is marvelous.--_Montreal + (Canada) Gazette._ + + PHILOSOPHY AND FISHING.--With + this kind of man philosophy + and fishing mix well.--_Rochester + (N. Y.) Herald._ + + QUALITY, NOT QUANTITY.--Mr. + Bradford writes for those + who see more in the trip than + the frying-pan.--_Savannah (Ga.) + News._ + + WALTON'S FOLLOWER.--A + true disciple of Izaak Walton.--_London + (Eng.) Post._ + + ANGLING ENTHUSIASM.--An + accomplished and enthusiastic + angler.--_Cincinnati (Ohio) Star._ + + CLEVELAND'S WORDS.--Charles + Bradford writes practical and + sensible books.--_Philadelphia + (Pa.) Public Ledger._ + + ANGLING ANTICIPATIONS.--Mr. + Bradford believes fishing is + a means and not an end.--_Albany + Argus._ + + JOYOUS MATERIAL.--He has + gathered material to make the + heart of the fisherman leap for + joy.--_Boston Transcript._ + + WOULD PLEASE WALTON.--Izaak + Walton, Christopher + North, and the other mighty + fishermen known to fame, would + wag their wise heads approvingly + over Mr. Bradford's book. + The Pilgrims who told King + James that they desired to go + God and catch fishes would + accord Mr. Bradford's volume + a place beside the Bay Psalm + Book.--_Pittsburg (Pa.) Gazette._ + + ENTERTAINING.--Mr. Bradford + has written before on angling, + and very entertainingly.--_Saturday + Evening Post (Phila.)._ + + CONTEMPLATIVE MAN.--Charles + Bradford is one to + whom, as Washington Irving + said, "There is something in + angling that tends to produce + a gentleness of spirit and a + pure serenity of mind."--_Dundee + (Scot.) Adv._ + + UNIVERSAL READING.--The + descriptive matter is both + interesting and instructive. + Fishermen in all parts of the + country will find the book well + worth reading.--_Bay City (Mich.) + Tribune_, July 19, 1900. + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + + + * Obvious punctuation and spelling errors repaired. + + * Changed "water-proof" to "waterproof" for consistency. Both + forms appeared in the original text. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Determined Angler and the Brook +Trout, by Charles Bradford + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DETERMINED ANGLER AND *** + +***** This file should be named 37856.txt or 37856.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/8/5/37856/ + +Produced by Christian Boissonnas and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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