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Determined Ander
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Charles Bradford
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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 **Thc Wildfowlcrs,'* **Thc Angler's Secret/'
",The Angler's Guide,*' ** Frank Forester/' etc.
Second Edition, Greatly Enlarged
Illustrated
G. P* Putnam's Sons
New York London
Zbc Iknickerbocker pted6
J9J6
Copyright, 19 i6
BY
CHARLES BRADFORD
Ube ftnicTterbocIicr press, lAcxo ISovft
f fc
-<
J, CHARLES DAVIS
THESE LITTLE YARNS ARE DEDICATED IN REMEMBRANCE
OF SOME DELIGHTFUL OUTINGS PASSED
IN HIS SOCIETY.
294
THE BROOK TROUT'S HOME
"I am Salmo fontinaliSf
To the sparkling fountain bom;
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 orna-
mented with the rose and woodbine." — Days of Fly Fishing^
J828.
vu
" 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
vut
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 fisher-
men ... 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,
X Preface
and while all Anglers are fishermen there are many
fishermen who are not Anglers.
''Anglo-Saxon," writing in the New York Press y
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, compan-
ionship, etc. When a man, fisherman or no fisher-
man, 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 pro-
fessionals."
All Anglers are amateurs, brother Peter. There
are no professional Anglers, though there are both
amateur and professional fishermen, and those fisher-
men who are amateurs are Anglers. The word
"amateur " seems to be adrift upon the same bewilder-
ing 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
Preface
XI
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 dis-
ciples 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 strad-
dling 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 sepa-
rated 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
xu
Preface
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 in-
crease 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 deHghtful, 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 can-
not be legitimately compared to the code and the
creel of the competent Angler.
C. B.
Richmond Hill,
Long Island, N. Y.,
March, igi6>
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 Outingy 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 reproduc-
tion 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
xiv AxitKor's AcKno^wledgments
photograph framed in birch bark and presented to
me by the poet, Isaac McLellan.
''The Brook Trout'* illustration is from a pho-
tograph of a captive specimen in an aquarium, the
engraving being loaned me by the late John P.
Burkhard.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. — The Holy Anglers
II. — Histories of the Trouts — How
THE Angler Takes them
III. — The Angler and the Fisherman
IV. — Fly-Fishing
V. — Walton^s Way '.
VI. — The Wanton Way
VII. — Fly-Fishing for Trout
VIII. — The Angler's Prayer — Save the
Woods and Waters
IX. — Trout and Trouting .
X. — Trouting in Canadensis Valley
XI. — The Trouter's Outfit
XII. — Trout Flies, Artificial and
Natural
XIII.— The Brook Trout's Rival
XIV. — Trout on Barbless Hooks
7
15
21
33
38
41
52
56
64
68
71
84
87
XVI
Contents
XV.-
XVI.-
XVII.-
XVIII.-
XIX.-
XX.-
XXI.-
XXII.-
XXIII.
XXIV.
XXV.-
XXVI.-
XXVII.-
XXVIII.-
PAGE
-The Brook Trout Incognitc
) . 92
-Hooking the Trout .
. 102
-Doctor Nature .
. 104
-The Brook Trout
• 106
-The Angler
V • "2
■Angling
. 119
-Trout Flies
. 133
-Casting the Fly
. 138
-Tackle Talks
. 142
-The Angler*s Kitchen
• 149
-Care and Breeding of Trol
rT . 151
-The Angler's Clothing
AND
Footwear
• 153
-Little Casts
. 155
-Borrowed Lines
. 157
ILLUSTRATIONS
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 . . . lo
Brown Trout lo
Yellowstone Trout lo
Saibling Trout (Long-Fin Charr) . . lo
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 taeir
behalf while he was waiting; for there was a bright fire of coals
on the shore, and a goodly fish broiHng 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. " — Thoeeau.
The principal fishes of the Sea of Galilee to-day are
the same as they were two thousand years ago —
2 TKe Determined Angler
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 y
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.
THe Holy Anglers 3
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
4
Appellations of tKe Trouts 5
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 Sahnon 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
6 TKe Determined Angler
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 323^° and 55°,
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 tribu-
taries of which it abounds. It also inhabits the head-
waters 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
7
8 THe Determined Angler
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 Hamp-
shire, and Massachusetts. For the larger specimens
use a six-ounce fly rod; for the tiny mountain speci-
mens, 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 bath-
CBcetor) : 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 Cres-
cent Lake, though more slender and of lighter color.
Trout, Crescent Lake Speckled (Salmo crescentis):
Closely resembles the Steel-Head. Weighs up to ten
Brook Trout.
Maima (Dolly Varden) Trout.,
Lake {Mackinaw) Trout,
Histories of tKe Trouts 9
pounds. Pound in Crescent Lake, Washington. An
excellent game fish.
Trout, Dublin Pond {Salvelinus agassizii): In-
habitant of Center and Dublin Pond and Lake Monad-
nock, 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 Labra-
dor, 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 jar dani): 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,
lo THe Determined Angler
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 (Salvelinusmarstoni) : 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 re-
Brown Trout.
Yellowstone Trout.
Saibling Trout {Long-fin Charr).
Histories of tKe Trovits II
sembles the Siscowet Lake Trout of the same lake, if
it is not, as many think, merely a local variety of the
same form.
Trout, Lake (Winipiseogee Trout): Caught on
medium tackle and small-fish bait in Lake Winipiseo-
gee 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 at-
tain 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
12 TKe Determined Angler
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, in-
troduced 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 Moun-
tains— ^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
Rainbow Trout.
Lake Tahos Trout.
Steel-head Trout.
Histories of tHe Troxits 13
Snake River Basin above Shoshone Falls, and the
headwaters of the Missouri.
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, Wyom-
ing, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. The
young are abundant in Puget Sound, and are occasion-
ally 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. In-
troduced 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 declivi-
frons): 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, Sil-
ver 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
14 THe Determined Angler
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 head-
waters 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 philo-
sophy that teaches against wantonly wasteful slaugh-
ter 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 pos-
sible 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.
15
i6 THe Determined Angler
''Pull it in! youll 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 shot-
gun."
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?
TKe Angler and tKe FisKerman 17
There is great need of enlightenment in the common
ethics of angHng. Many persons are under the im-
pression that quantity rather than quaUty 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 puncturethe circle with a charge of shot than
l8 XKe Determined Angler
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 chival-
rously bagging single birds on the wing with a perti-
nent 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 un-
enlightened element, that, influenced by the cry of the
The Angler and the Fisherman 19
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 crudest of fashionable
extravagances — among them the wool of the unborn
lamb, furs from the backs of fast-disappearing quad-
rupeds, 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 char-
acter 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 chi-
valrously 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-
20 TKe Determined Angler
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, vir-
tuousest, 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 wfio 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 de-
stroying 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
21
22 TKe Determined Angler
it may procure them, or for the sake of killing some-
thing, 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 in-
humanly.
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."
Fly-FisKing 23
As t6ere 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 intelli-
gently 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, scien-
tifically alluded to as Salvelinus fontinalis and com-
monly 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
24 TKe Determined Angler
gems in the sunbeams, whilst the bright and beautiful
trout is watching them from below; to hear the twitter-
ing 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, be-
cause, 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 endeav-
oring 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,
Fly-FisHin|^ 25
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 recogni-
tion 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 fiy-fisherman abhors trout bait-fishing
for the same reason the wing shot prefers his appro-
priate 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
26 THe Determined Angler
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 North-
western 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^^° and 55°, 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 workman-
ship. 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
Fly-risHing 27
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, water-
proof-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
d3posited, should be, I think, about the size of a small
hand-satchel. To this is fastened a leather strap,
with abroad, 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
28 THe Determined Angler
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,
Roy aL Coachman, Codun, Brown and Red Palmer,
30 TKe Determined Angler
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
"flair* 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 be-
fore 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
riy-rishing 31
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,/ock-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.
32 THe Determined Angler
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, sub-
merged 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 itoutright 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. Or vis.
A CLAUSE in a recent tariff bill prohibited the im-
portation 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 arti-
ficial 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
3 33
34 TKe Determined Angler
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 importa-
tion 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
"Walton's Way 35
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 humming-
bird 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 com-
mercial 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 extermina-
tion, 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
36 THe Determined Angler
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 prac-
tice 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.
Walton's \Vay 37
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 in-
dividual 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 fisher-
men 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 fisher-
man 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 Ught 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. WilUam T. Hornaday, author of Wild Life
Conservation^ The American Natural History, Our
Vanishing Wild Life, etc., and director of the New
York Zoological Park, has sent me the photograph of
the greedyman's catch — made near Spokane, Wash-
ington— with the following notes :
**The great trouble [in the matter of wasteful fish-
catching] is not so much with the people who catch
38
THe Wanton Way 39
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
40 TKe Determined Angler
appeared to be behind the movement. Under the
new law the milliners were enabled to reopen in Penn-
sylvania 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 accojnplished in 191 2. 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 himianely
conservative law. The greedy fisherman fishes accord-
ing 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 fiy-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 imi-
tation 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 back-
ward 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
41
42 TKe Determined Angler
the excitement or *' trout fever*' that always accom-
panies 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 over-
hanging 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 con-
tact 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.
riy-risKin^ for Troxjit 43
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 with-
out 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 con-
tinuing favoring conditions of water, wind, and
weather cannot control'* (Eugene McCarthy, Fa-
miliar 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,
44 THe Determined Angler
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
riy-FisHiiig for Trovit 45
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 anddown 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 con-
vince 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 be-
ing 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
46 THe Determined A.ngler
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 tc^ 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 sub-
stantiate my story, and I can easily further prove the
truthfulness of the statement by taking you to a
streaim 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. Salve-
linus fontinalis, and thus the material should be in-
riy-FisHin^ for Trout 47
teresting. 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.
1 6, 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 flsherman 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.
r 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
48 THe Determined Angler
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 accord-
ance 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
riy-FisHin^ for Trout 49
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 de-
vouring— 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 differ-
ent 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
4
50 THe Determined Angler
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 strik-
ing 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 condi-
tions, I found it was the rule this day, especially in the
one deep pool I found. In other places — one in partic-
ular, 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
riy-FisKing for Trouit 51
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 them-
selves, 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 light-
ning. 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. Condi-
tions 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 onl]?
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 im-
portant 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 tha/n 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 commer-
cial 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
52
Save tKe "Woods and Waters 53
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 mill-
man 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 Tacbma, 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 enter-
54 THe Determined Angler
prise or spirit of themselves, while any nature student
could tell them that the business success of any terri-
tory 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 out-
rival 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 off-
spring exists upon.
The Michigan enterprise, spirit, etc., is now trans-
ferred 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 ima-
gine 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
Save tKe Woods and "Waters 55
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 Michi-
gan, 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 ex-
hausted.
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
i^**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 Phila-
delphia 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
56
Trout and Tro\itin^ 57
do' their trading and receive their mail at Cresco, and
it is an easy matter to obtain excellent food and lodg-
ings 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
58 TKe Determined Angler
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 Bush-
kill 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 dis-
regard 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 thou-
sand 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 country-
men there — the Sand Spring, Buckhill Falls, Spruce
Cabin Falls, and the Bushkill Falls.
Trout and Troutin^ 59
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 oppor-
tunity 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.
6o THe Determined Angler
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 speci-
mens 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
Trout and Troiatin^ 6i
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.
62 THe Determined Angler
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 particu-
lar 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
Tro\it and Troviting 63
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
landmg-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 differ-
ent 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 unpleasant-
ness 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, Penn-
sylvania, 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
64
Troviting in Canadensis Valley 65
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
5
66 TKe Determined Angler
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 m 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 moun-
tain 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,
Xro-utin^ in Canadensis Valley 67
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.
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 bot-
toms (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 lance-
wood.
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
68
The Troviter's 0\Jtfit 69
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 flnest 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, provid-
ing you order these of the flnest 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
70 TKe Determined Angler
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 Mc-
Lellan, Francis EndicotL, Dean Sage, Wm. C. Prime,
Henry P. Wells, Judge Northrup, John Harrington
Keene, et at, 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 ablu-
tion of oil." — Robert Page Lincoln, Outdoor Life,
September, 191 5.
Then the wet fly resembles the dry fly, and there-
fore 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 P. 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 artiflcial
flies use the expressions *' in season, '' *' seasonable flies,"
etc. Now, how could this or that artificial fly be in
71
72 THe Determined Angler
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. ii, 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
Trovit Flies, Artificial and Natural 73
through various stages to know fish with nothing but
my own nature flies. I have made careful color pic-
tures 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 in-
sects 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 with-
out saying. As a matter of fact it is not the question
74 THe Determined Angler
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 stand-
point, 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 para-
graph 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
Xro-ut Flies, Artificial and Natural 75
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 distinc-
tions. 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 h^vmg 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
76 THe Determined Angler
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 nymphse or pupse — 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 pat-
terns.' 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
Trovxt Flies, Artij&cial and Natviral 77
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 Fishery etc.: **I have nothing more to
say. I hung up my trout rod last summer at Chester-
fleld, M^ass., 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 pre-
pared 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
78 TKe Determined Angler
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 artiflcial 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 Par-
machenee 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 imme-
diately 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 Flies, Artificial and Natural 79
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 fish-
able 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 knowl-
edge 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 de-
lightful 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
8o THe Determined Angler
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 your-
self if a catch of this size is not very unusual on the
best of trout fishing waters. So far as my own ex-
perience goes it certainly is most unusual, and I fish
on many fine waters each year and for at least one
hundred days.
Trout Flies, A.rtificial and Natural 8i
"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 hund-
red 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 flfty-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
82 THe Determined Angler
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 mate-
rially 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.' '*
Troxit Flies, Artificial and Natural 83
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 argu-
ment, 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, render-
ing 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, includ-
ing 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
84
The BrooK Trouif s Rival 85
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 Vhen the morning
stars sang together' Sind 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 warm-
ing 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
86 TKe Determined Angler
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 play-
grounds. 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 wood-
land 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 chil-
dren, mere fish takers, not Anglers, but the craft is
honored by the association of many fine female de-
votees 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 exam-
ple of the artful and merciful woman fisher, and Cleo-
patra 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
87
88 THe Determined Angler
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 dis-
patches 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.
Trout on Barbless HooKs 89
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. Lin-
coln 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 inci-
dental 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
90 TKe Determined Angler
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 lady-
bug 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. Per-
haps 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
Trout on Barbless HooKs 91
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, Salve-
linus fontinalisj 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
92
THe BrooK Tro\jt Incognito 93
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 re-
maining 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 Newfound-
land— 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 so-
journing 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
94 TKe Determined Angler
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 re-
moved 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,
THe BrooK Trovit Incognito 95
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 meadow-
land sod banks, and Corneirs albinolike gamester suc-
cumbing to the fly in the foamy fountain of a deep
woodland brook; both specimens widely separated in
appearance, habits, and habitat, but still both legiti-
9^ TKe Determined Angler
mate 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
TKe BrooK Trcut Incognito 97
lose their spots in the sea, becoming pale and silvery
in color. Brook trout were originally found at a dis-
tance not greater than three hundred miles back
from the ocean in waters tributary to it. Where
conditions of temperature were favorable, they in-
variably sought salt water. When transplanted to, or
found in, inland waters, they have adapted themselves
to fresh- water conditions afe 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 high-
land 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 Labra-
dor 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
98 THe Determined Angler
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 b}^ 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 in-
dividuals 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 consid-
erable size, and the same trout uniformly return to the
same river, just as salmon do — at least, we infer so
THe BrooK Tro-ut Incognito 99
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 — in-
fluenced 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 ha^e 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 pat-
100 TKe Determined Angler
terns 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 New-
foundland, 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
TKe DrooK Trout Incognito loi
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, Barti-
bog River, Eskeldoc River), Bathhurst (Nipisguit
River, Tetagouche River, Caroquet River, Pock-
mouche River), and Campbellton, in the Bale de
Chaleur River, Restigouche River, and the Casca-
pedia, 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 0. W. Smith, in Outdoor Life (December,
1 9 14), 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 dis-
cussion 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 thefish is perfectly humane.
Two friends wittiessed my catch (July 11, 191 5) of a
Long Island two-and-one-quarter-pound brook trout
102
HooKin^ tHe Troiat 103
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, im-
proper exercise, steady indoor work, irregularity,
cigarettes, and incorrect food incorrectly eaten. He's
•well now. He went out in the woods for two weeks
104
Doctor Nat\jire 105
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 experi-
enced 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. "
'*0h, 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 mid-
dle-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
io6
THe BrooK Trovjit 107
little bell cord^wlien~tIiey 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 sa^ne 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 ques-
tion ... 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' experi-
ence, writes me: *'We have two trout here in Mon-
tana 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
io8 THe Determined Angler
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 A'ugust 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 Troufs 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 Tele-
grantj editorial page, July 17, 1915.
The Beautiful Trout. — '*0f all the many species of
trout, Salvelinus or Salmo, the brook tront yfontinaliSy is
by far the most beautiful. " — Charles Zpibeon Southard.
THe BrooK Trovit 109
A Loving Trout. — At the Wintergreen estate, High-
land 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 some-
thing pecuHar in Minnesota waters which aids propa-
gation 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 rain-
bow 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
no THe Determined Angler
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 it-
self against a person's hand whenever a chance is
given it/* — Estes (Calif.) Correspondent New York
World, ril 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.
R^ainbow Trout. — "The rainbow takes the fly so
readily that there is no reason for resorting to grass-
hoppers, 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.
TKe BrooK Tro\it ill
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 al-
though 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 Ufe 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 virtu-
ous, 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
The Angler 113
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 regu-
larly 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 state-
ment may sound, it is probably true that the really
8
114 TKe Determined Angler
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
The Angler 1 15
sport if there be trout in the water he fishes, if the
weather be pleasant, and the scenery fair. Some fisher-
men 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-applica-
tion 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 jfields 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, 191 5) 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
Ii6 TKe Determined Angler
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, Mihcent,
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 A?igler
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
The Angler 117
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 busi-
ness 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 Haley onian Angler. — "The whole arcana book
of trout fishing consists in rather the mental construc-
tion 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 dolcefar 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
Ii8 THe Determined 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>ooo.
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 pro-
vided 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 Treaty se 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 horse-
manship, 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.
119
I20 THe Determined Angler
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, ap-
propriateness 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
OppiaUy 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
Angling 121
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. i6o6^-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 1 657, was issued under the title of Barker's
Delight), 1652 — Young Sportsman's Delight and In-
structor 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 Trailer; 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 shrub-
bery 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
122 The Determined Angler
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
Angling 123
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 con-
demning 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 degrada-
tion 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 cal-
culated 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 enjoy-
ment. 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 thou-
sand miles of trout streams.
Angling Saves Words. — "Contemplation and quiet-
ness! Will these words soon be labeled in our die-
124 THe Determined Angler
tionaries '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 un-
disturbed, but, scratch your toe upon the bottom of
Ang'lin^ 125
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
m 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 in-
sufficient, 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,
126 TKe Determined Angler
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-cHmbing; 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.
Angling 127
But, the humbler, old-fashioned method has a charm
of its own which I am not ready to forego. *' — WilUs
Boyd Allen.
'*Ye Gods and Little Fishes.'*— "When we have
become familiar with the great cities with their be-
wildering 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. JuHus.
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
128 THe Determined Angler
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 obstruc-
tions, 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
Angling 129
ever entered the portals of a chiirch, 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 Sanger J est, ''^ — 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 some-
what 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.
I30 TKe Determined Angler
Secret of Angling. — "Fishing is more than catching.
Its pleasures are the whole outdoors. Appreciation
is the secret of the lure. '' — Theodore MackUn.
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 philo-
sophy 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 disappoint-
ments, let us turn once more to the forest and meadow,
the peaceful stream, with the fieecy clouds or over-
hanging 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 re-
ports of the day, and 'go a-fishing.'*' — Willis Boyd
Allen.
Ang'ling 131
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;
foturth, 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 handUng 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
132 TKe Determined Angler
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 saiHng in the air between actual
casts, and must attract the fish by minutely mimick-
ing the Uving 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.
133
134 THe Determined Angler
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 overflshed 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
Trovit Flies 135
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 dol-
lars 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 larv^ 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 necessi-
tate 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 Coach-
man; second, Gray Hackle with yellow body. Then:
136 THe Determined Angler
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.'' — -^lian, 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
Troxit Flies 137
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 up-
stream, 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 notwith-
standing 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 alto-
gether 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
138
Casting the Tly 139
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 flnds 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 astonish-
140 THe Determined Angler
ment when he found the hook was in his jaw? Have
you watched him as he bent your slender rod 'Uke a
reed shaken by the wind, * in his efforts to free himself,
and then have you reeled him to your hand and de-
posited 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^he 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 water-proofed 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
Casting' tKe T\y 141
trout, to let the flies descend for a depth of two feet
before retrieving, is to tempt some sleepy old monster
to attack/'— 0. 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 side-
ways. 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 prelimi-
nary 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
142
Tackle Talks 143
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 Fish-
er's Text Book (London, 1845), prefers ash to wil-
low for butts, hickory for middle joints, and
favors tips made from lancewood, cane, and whale-
bone, spliced together — four and even five pieces
in a tip.
144 TKe Determined Angler
Lightest Rod. — Benjamin S. Whitehead fly-fishes
with a gold-and-ivory-mounted spHt 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 ob-
tained 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, reason-
able-price outfit with no unnecessary items: A four-
ounce lancewood fly-rod, a common rubber click reel
to hold twenty-five yards of fine water-proof 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-fiies, 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
TacKle TalKs 145
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
146 TKe Determined Angler
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 Hght 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 thor-
oughly 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. Cer-
TacKle TalKs 147
tainly 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 vege-
table 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 usethe 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
148 THe Determined Angler
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 en-
ameled 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 make-
shift casting rod if youVe 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
149
150 THe Determined Angler
quadruped meat, and therefore more healthful be-
cause only that which is eaten with a relish is digest-
ible 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.
t
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 feed-
ing 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 exer-
cised in winter. Air holes need not be cut in any ice
that may form, as the springs aflprd a proper tempera-
ture,' and but little food, if any, need be given the
fish.
«5r
152 XKe Determined Angler
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., 1 91 4) from
the State of Washington to Montana, says the Lewis-
ton 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 3^ 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 hob-
nail 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.
153
154 THe Determined Angler
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 fingerUngs held in front of him so as
to niake 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 Water-proofing. — 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 indis-
criminate 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, un-
truths about the size of a specimen, and non-ich-
thyological nonsense about the mystery of a species
— unnatural history such as cheap fiction writers in-
dulge in — ^by bungling would-be fishermen annoy the
practical man and puzzle the earnest tyro. The record
of honest sport is entertaining and instructive.
155
156 THe Determined Angler
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 sur-
roundings, 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
**0h 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 civiliza-
tion'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 extermina-
tion 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
157
158 TKe Determined Angler
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 schooUng of^the fishes, the hover-
ing 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 adven-
ture 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
Dorro-wed Lines 159
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 re-
membered 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 educa-
tional, 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.
161
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.'
'^ ^'^.<r-~.
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 Her aid , September 22,
1900.
The Trout and the Whale.
— ... rare sympathy and
genuine knowledge. Mr. Brad-
ford undoubtedly knows,
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 deal-
ings 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 ad-
vice.— 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 con-
verts to the rod and line. The
book is full of wise counsel and
information. — New York Even-
ing Sun, September 8, 1900.
For Fair Fishermen. — Ap-
peals 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 Ob-
server.
Summer and Winter. — Pleas
ant reading, whether by the
winter fireside or the shaded
banks of summet. — New York
Evening Post.
Angling Experience. — Mr.
Bradford is no novice in this line
of literature, — New York Ath
letic Club Journal.
Angling Philosophy. —
Breathes the very essence of
philosophy; the result of much
experience. — Brooklyn {N. Y.)
Eagle.
Waltonian Spirit. — Per-
vaded by the spirit of Izaak
Walton.— r/id Outlook.
The Gentle Trout. — The
author is an enthusiastic devotee
of the sport [angling], upon
which he writes with a con-
tagious enthusiasm ... an angler
of very positive convictions; he
has a fixed aversion to fishing
with the scarlet ibis, and con-
fesses 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 fac
simile of a letter of warm com-
mendation 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.
APPRECIATIONS ;
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 rnorn
ing'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 nota-
ble addition to the sportsman's
library. — New York Home Jour-
nal, May 10, 1900.
The Angler's Art. — Mr,
Bradford gives eminently prac-
tical 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
A mateur 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 ^o
to the new world to worship
God and catch fishes would
accord Mr. Bradford's volume
a place beside the Bay Psalm
Book. — Pittsburg {Pa.) Gazette.
Entertaining. — Mr. Brad
ford has written before^ on an-
gling, 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.— 5ay City {Mich.)
Tribune, July 19, 1900.
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