Oquassa Brown Yellowstone Saibling
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 Winipiseogee and supposedly in Lake George.
Trout, Lake(Mackinaw Trout, Namaycush, Lake Salmon, Salmon Trout, etc.): Caught with medium tackle on the troll and with minnow bait in deep water in the chain of Great Lakes from Superior to Ontario, also in Lake Champlain, New York, and other lakes of the United States and British America, occurring also to the northeastward, in Mackinaw River and in the Knowall River, Alaska. Is known as Mackinaw Trout in Lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior, and as Lake Salmon and Salmon Trout in the lakes of northern New York. Is said to attain a weight of ninety pounds and a length of six feet.
Trout, Malma(Dolly Varden Trout, Bull Trout. Speckled Trout, Lake Trout, Red-Spotted Trout. Salmon Trout, Chewagh, etc.): Caught on Brook Trout tackle in fresh water and Black Bass tackle in the ocean. Occurs in northern California, west of the Cascade Range, throughout the Aleutian Islands, and northward to Colville River in Alaska, and is not unknown at Behring Island, and Plover Bay, Siberia. Taken in the sea it is called Salmon Trout; in the lakes it is called by all the names parenthesized above. In salt water it feeds upon shrimp, smelt, young trout, sand lance, anchovy, herring, etc.; in fresh watersmall fish, worms, etc. Weighs up to fourteen pounds in the ocean; averages smaller in the lakes.
Trout, Oquassa(Blue-Back Trout): Caught on Brook Trout tackle in the lakes of western Maine. New York, and New Hampshire. Attains a length of ten inches.
Trout, Saibling:Caught on Brook Trout tackle in Massachusetts, New York, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin. A native of northwestern Europe, introduced in American Brook Trout waters.
Trout, Sunapee(Salvelinus aureolus): American Saibling, White Trout, Golden Trout, Charr, etc. A native of Sunapee Lake, N. H., and Flood Pond. Ellsworth, Maine, now being introduced in other lakes. Favors deep water; takes live bait. Weighs up to twelve pounds.
Trout, Utah(Salmo virginalis): Abounds in the streams and lakes of Utah west of the Wasatch Mountains—in Utah Lake and the Sevier, Jordan, Bear, and Provo rivers. Weighs up to twelve pounds.
Trout, Yellow-Fin(Salmo macdonaldi): Found in Twin Lakes, Colorado, in company with the Green-Back Trout, from which it is distinct in color, habits, and size. Weighs up to nine pounds. Is caught on the artificial fly and with the troll. Favors gravel bottom in deep water.
Trout, Yellowstone(Salmo lewisi): Abundant in Yellowstone Lake, Wyoming, and throughout the
Rainbow Tahoe Steel-head
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, Wyoming. Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. The young are abundant in Puget Sound, and are occasionally taken along the California coast. Weighs up to thirty pounds.
Salmon Trout, Brown(Brown Trout, etc.): Caught on the artificial fly practically the same as Brook Trout are taken. Same rods, tackle, and flies. Introduced in this country from Europe. Weighs up to twenty pounds.
Salmon Trout, Kansas River:Caught on Brook Trout tackle from the Kansas River to the upper Missouri. Reaches twenty-four inches in length.
Salmon Trout, Lake Southerland(Salmo declivifrons): Found only in Lake Southerland. Reaches a length of ten inches; is very gamy; takes the fly, and leaps.
Salmon Trout, Lake Tahoe(Lake Tahoe Trout, Silver Trout, Black Trout, etc.): Caught in Lake Tahoe. Pyramid Lake, and the streams of the Sierra Nevada on Brook Trout tackle. Weighs up to twenty pounds.
Salmon Trout, Loch Leven(Loch Leven Trout, etc.): Introduced to this country from Europe, in streams inMichigan, Maine, and other States. Is taken on the artificial fly the same as Brook Trout.
Salmon Trout, Rainbow(Rainbow Trout, Golden Trout, Golden Salmon, Brook Trout, Speckled Trout. Mountain Trout, etc.): Caught with the artificial fly in fresh streams and salt rivers. Occurs from near the Mexican line to Oregon and has been successfully introduced in the Eastern and Northern States, where it is taken upon ordinary Brook Trout tackle—light fly rod, fine leader, click reel, etc. Flies, same as those flailed for Brook Trout. Season: Same as Brook Trout. Weighs up to six pounds.
Salmon Trout, Rio Grande:Abundant in the headwaters of the Rio Grande, Rio Colorado, and their tributaries; occurs in Bear River and the streams of Utah.
Salmon Trout, Steel-Head(Hard-Head, Steel-Head Trout, etc.): Caught mostly in nets. Reaches a weight of twenty-two pounds. Found along the Pacific coast from the Sacramento River northward to Alaska. Abundant in the Columbia and Frazer rivers in the spring. Inhabits river-mouths.
Salmon Trout, Waha Lake(Waha Lake Trout, etc.): Caught on Brook Trout tackle. A local form of the Black-Spotted Salmon Trout, found in Waha Lake, a landlocked mountain tarn in Washington.
THE ANGLER AND THE FISHERMAN
Oneprofound proof of the soundness in the philosophy that teaches against wantonly wasteful slaughter in the chase is the disinclination on the part of certain so-called sportsmen—a vulgar gentry that resort to the woods and waters solely because it is fashionable to do so—and their guides to honorably dispose of their game after the killing. These greedy snobs are viciously adverse to losing a single bird or fish in the pursuit, but they think little of letting the game rot in the sun after the play. With this fact easily provable any day in the year, it may be said that outside of market fishing and camp fishing for the pot the one real object in fishing and angling is the pursuit itself and not the quarry.
In baseball, it's the game, not the bases; in archery, it's the straightest shooting, not the target. True, we play cards for prizes, but surely as much for the game itself, not altogether for the prizes, because it is possible to buy the prizes or their equivalent outright or take the prizes by force.
My bayman develops fits bordering closely upon incurable hysteria if I lose a single bluefish in the play, but he worries not when he goes ashore with a sloopful of hand-liners and half a hundred fish he cannot make good use of.
"Pull it in! you'll lose it!" "We could catch a hundred if you wouldn't fool!" "The other boats'll beat us badly!" "There's a million right 'round the boat!"
These are a few of his excitable expressions. But, when I say to him, "What's the difference, Captain, in losing one or two fish here and wasting half a hundred on shore?" he calms down for a minute or two. Only for a minute or two, however, for he's in the game solely for fish, not the fishing. It's all numbers and size with him, and he's encouraged in this greed by nine out of every ten men he takes aboard his boat.
"We caught fifty," says Tom.
"We caught a hundred and ten," says Dick.
"We caught two hundred and sixty," says Harry.
And so the bayman brags, too, because it's purely business with him.
I have always found the greatest pleasure in fishing is the fishing and not the blood and bones associated with the pursuit. I would rather take five fair fish on fine tackle correctly manipulated than fill the hold with a hundred horrid monsters mastered by mere strength, as in hand-line trolling for bluefish in the ocean and for muskellonge, etc., in fresh water.
"But," says Captain Getemanyway, "I can catch more fish with a hand-line than you can with your fine rod and reel."
"Of course you can," I reply, "and you could catch more if you used a net, a stick of dynamite, or a shotgun."
If it's the fish alone that is the object of the Angler's eye, why resort to any sort of tackle when there's a fish stall in every bailiwick?
There is great need of enlightenment in the common ethics of angling. Many persons are under the impression that quantity rather than quality makes the Angler's day.
According to their view of the pursuit, fishing is judged by figures, as in finance—glory to the man with the biggest balance. This is not so, because with this view accepted, Rockefeller would shine above Christ, Shakespeare, and Lincoln.
The mere catch—the number of fish taken—is only one little detail; it is not all of angling. If it were, the superior fisherman would be the man who got his fish in any manner.
Some of our greatest Anglers purposely never excel in the matter of numbers. The Angler's true qualities are based on the application of correct tackle, correct methods in fishing, and a correct appreciation of the pursuit, the game, the day, and the craft.
'Tis the day and the play, not the heads and hides that count.
An ancient writer says of the royal hounds: "The hunter loves to see the hounds pursue the hare, and he is glad if the hare escapes." So it is in angling; we do not wish to catch all the fish we can take in any fashion. We want to take some of them in a proper manner with appropriate implements.
"I can catch more trout with the angleworm and more bass with the trolling spoon than you can with the artificial fly," says Robert.
"Of course you can, Robert," say I, "and you could catch still more if you spread a screen across the tiny stream or set a trap, or if you used a set line with a hundred hooks, just as the target shooter might more readily puncture the circle with a charge of shot thanwith the single bullet, or just as the greedyman with a blunderbuss might excel in number the wing shot by potting quail bunched on the ground instead of chivalrously bagging single birds on the wing with a pertinent arm."
The neophyte always confounds the angler with the indiscriminate fisherman and so implicates the angler in the cruelty and wastefulness associated with mere chance fishing, when in fact the Angler is the real propagator and protector of the fishes, and is in no sense cruel or wasteful.
The laws that prohibit greedy catches, and protect the mother fish in breeding time, are made by, enforced by, and supported financially by the Angler.
The rearing of the fishes that are placed in depleted waters was originated by, is conducted by, and is paid for by the Angler.
No other class has earnestly bothered its head, honestly lifted its hands, or liberally opened its purse in these matters, and the nearest association man in general has with the preservation of both wild fish and fowl is in uttering a cowardly, false accusation against the one who really deserves sole credit for the work, the sportsman, the genuine field sportsman, not the vicious sporting man of the race track, cockpit, and gambling den—two distinct species of animal, as vastly separated in character as the deerhound and the dragon.
And why this charge against the innocent? Simply because the guilty wish to shield and profit themselves, as the thief cries fire that he may pick your pocket in the panic that ensues.
But then there is a well meaning but wholly unenlightened element, that, influenced by the cry of themethodical spoiler, ignorantly condemns the honest man—the really humane men and women who are sincere in their condemnation but totally ignorant of their subject.
One of this sort, an estimable woman in public life, loudly preaches against the chase and is all the time drawing dividends that provide her with the means to indulge in the vulgarest and cruelest of fashionable extravagances—among them the wool of the unborn lamb, furs from the backs of fast-disappearing quadrupeds, and feathers of the farmers' most valuable insect-destroying song birds—and these wicked dividends derived from several acid factories, a gas house, a power plant, and a dye works that have not only killed off the trillions of fishes in several rivers but destroyed forever the very habitat of the species!
Another of this sort is well exemplified in the character of an old gentleman in Pennsylvania who loudly proclaims against trout fishing, but who utterly ruins nearly eight miles of trout water, once the home of thousands of lordly fish, by permitting his mill hands to run off sawdust in the streams.
This poor, ignorant soul objects to you and me chivalrously taking half a dozen specimens on the fly—catching the cunning trout with an imitation of the living thing itself destroys by the thousands for food and play—while he mercilessly slaughters the entire immediate supply, and prevents further propagation of the whole species with the refuse of his forest-devastating, money-making machine.
True, the Angler like all fishermen, and like the fishes themselves, kills his specimens, but this killing is ordained by nature herself—at least it has better grounds for excuse, if excuse it needs, than that ten-foldmore destructive killingbythe 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.
FLY-FISHING
"Of all sports, commend me to angling; it is the wisest, virtuousest, best."—Thomas Hood.
WhenI go fishing, it is for the purpose of catching fish; when I go angling—fly-fishing—it is the soul I seek to replenish, not the creel.
"One of the charms of angling," says Pritt, "is that it presents an endless field for argument, speculation, and experiment."
True, but Anglers have no argument in the first feature of their pastime—the object of it. Fishermen and men who do not go fishing or angling argue that the object sought by the Angler is the fish, but Anglers all agree that the game is but one of the trillion of pleasant things that attract them to the pursuit of it.
They argue and speculate and experiment in the matter of rods and tackle, and they argue as to the virtues of the various species, the qualities of the waters, the conditions of the weather, but they have ever been and ever will be calmly agreed as to the object of it all—the love of studying rather than destroying the game, the love of the pursuit itself.
They angle because of its healthfulness, and the consequent exhilaration of mind and body that attends the gentle practice, not merely for the fishesit may procure them, or for the sake of killing something, as the unenlightened person charges, for the death of an animal, to the Angler, is the saddest incident of his day.
All things animate, man included, were made to kill and to be killed. The only crimes in killing are in killing our own kind, and in killing any kind inhumanly.
And, of all creatures, the Angler is the least offender in these crimes. The very game he seeks, though beautiful and gentle to the eye, and, at times, noble in deed and purpose, is the most brutal killer of all the races—the lovely trout in its attacks upon gaudy flies, the valiant bass and pike in devouring their smaller brethren, and the multitudinous sea-fishes, not alone in their feeding upon one another, but in their wanton murder of the millions upon millions of victims of their pure love of slaughter.
But, of fly-fishing for brook trout:
"Fly-fishing," says Dr. Henshall, "is the poetry of angling"; and "the genuine Angler," says Frederick Pond, "is invariably a poet."
Fly-fishing, the highest order of angling, is indulged in in several forms—in fresh water for salmon, trout, black bass, grayling, perch, pike-perch, pickerel (Long Island brook pickerel), sunfish, roach, dace, shad, herring (branch), etc.; in brackish water for shad, trout, white perch, etc.; and in salt water for bluefish (young), herring (common), mackerel, and—doubt not, kind sir, for I am prepared to prove it—squeteague (weakfish), plaice (fluke, summer flounder), and other species of both bottom and surface habitats—another "endless field for argument, speculation, and experiment."
As there are many forms of fly-fishing, so are there many ways of fly-fishing for trout, and many kinds of trout, the various forms of brook trout, lake trout, and sea trout.
Volumes would be required to discourse intelligently upon all these forms of trout and fly-fishing for them; so I purpose in this particular instance to confine myself to one species and one form of trout and one order of fly-fishing.
The trout referred to is the true brook trout, scientifically alluded to asSalvelinus fontinalisand commonly called, besides brook trout (its most popular name), speckled trout, mountain trout, speckled beauty, spotted trout, etc.
The fly-fishing treated of is that popular form that is most indulged in by the Eastern trout fly-fisherman—small-stream fishing in the mountains and wooded level lands that "carries us," as Davy wrote as far away as 1828, "into the most wild and beautiful scenery of nature to the clear and lovely streams that gush from the high ranges of elevated hills."
Above all other styles of fly-fishing, it calls for the most delicate tackle and the very daintiest hand.
"How delightful," says the author ofSalmonia, "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 animatedgems in the sunbeams, whilst the bright and beautiful trout is watching them from below; to hear the twittering of the water-birds, who, alarmed at your approach, rapidly hide themselves beneath the flowers and leaves of the water-lily; and, as the season advances, to find all these objects changed for others of the same kind, but better and brighter, till the swallow and the trout contend as it were for the May fly, and till in pursuing your amusement in the calm and balmy evening you are serenaded by the songs of the cheerful thrush, performing the offices of paternal love in thickets ornamented with the rose and woodbine."
The other forms of fly-fishing for trout, the pursuit of larger specimens of the same species in larger waters, the lakes and ponds and rivers—all equally inviting by their gentle requirements and the "beautiful scenery of nature"—deserve special treatment, because, as in fly-fishing for salmon (salmo salar), the very top notch of all forms of angling, the play, the player, the scenes, and the accessories are sufficiently different to confound the reader I am mainly endeavoring to amuse with these particular lines.
Small stream fly-fishing for brook trout belongs in a class just between fly-fishing for the brook trout of broader waters, the lakes and ponds, and fly-fishing for salmon in the lordly rivers of Maine and Canada.
The brook trout is angled for in the spring and summer, principally with the artificial fly, and by the chivalric Angler only with the artificial fly, though many greedy fishermen of trifling experience and wholly deprived of the true spirit of angling—in that they fish for the fish alone and judge their day and play solely by the size of their catch—contrive to convince us that the live lure is equally honorable,notwithstanding that the cruel, clumsy, uncleanly, unfair, wasteful practice of live-bait trout fishing is condemned by every truly gentle disciple and practical authority.
Most advocates of live-bait trout fishing, who would have us believe that their method is entitled to recognition in the same category with fly-fishing, proudly proclaim that this should be because they "can catch more fish with the worm or minnow than the Angler can catch with his fly."
If this reasoning is to settle the debate, if killing and quantity compose the Angler's axiom, why not resort to still more productive means—dynamite, or net the stream instead of gently fishing it?
No, the trout fly-fisherman abhors trout bait-fishing for the same reason the wing shot prefers his appropriate arm to a cannon; the yachtsman, his gentle craft to a man-o'-war; the horseman, his trained mount to a locomotive; the archer, his arrow instead of a harpoon; and so I might go on in similes that would burlesque every form of recreative amusement in the world.
The brook trout breeds in the autumn, favors eddies, riffles, pools, and deep spots under the banks of the stream, and near rocks and fallen trees, and feeds on flies, small fish, worms, and other small life forms.
Its shape, weight, size, and color are influenced by its food, its age, its activity, its habitat, and its habits. Its color corresponds to the color of the water bottom and will change as the water bottom changes. If removed to a new water, where the bottom color is different from the bottom color of its first abode—lighter or darker, as the case may be,—it will gradually grow to a corresponding shade, blending with its newhabitat just as its colors suited the stones and grasses and earthy materials of its native domain.
In weight, the brook trout ranges up to ten pounds in large waters. There is a record of one weighing eleven pounds. This specimen was taken in Northwestern Maine. The species averages threequarters of a pound to one pound and a half in the streams, and one pound to three pounds in the lakes and ponds. It occurs between latitude 32-1/2° 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 workmanship. The cheap, so-called split bamboo of the dry-goods store bargain (?) counter, retailed for a price that would not pay for the mere wrapping of the correct article, is a flimsy, decorative thing, and wouldcollapse, or, worse still, bend one way and stay that way, if used on the stream. The fly-rod material must be springy and resiliently so, and the rod must be constructed so as to permit of this condition.
The reel I favor is a small, narrow, light, all-rubber or narrow aluminum common-click reel, holding twenty-five yards of the thinnest-calibered silk, waterproof-enameled line.
My leader is a brown-stained one of silk gut, twelve feet in length. The leader should be fresh and firm, flexible and fine, not a dried-up, brittle, unyielding, snappy snarl of the salesman's discarded sample box that breaks at the mere touch, or releases the flies at the first cast or parts at the first strike—if by some miraculous mischance you get this far with it. The leaders, a half-dozen of them, should be carried, when not in actual use, in a flat, aluminum, pocket-fitting box between two dampened flannel mats (though not preserved this way in close season), so as to have them thoroughly limp from being water soaked, that you may more readily and more safely adjust them, for break they surely will if handled in a dry state.
The willow creel, in which the spoil of the day is deposited, should be, I think, about the size of a small hand-satchel. To this is fastened a leather strap, with a broad, shoulder-protecting band of stout canvas. This I sling over the right shoulder, allowing the creel to hang above the back part of the left hip where it will least interfere with me during the fight withfontinalis.
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 footin 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,—ifyou don't lose many by whipping them off or getting them caught in a tree,—and two are all I use for the cast, though a cast of three flies is the favorite of many fishermen. I amuse myself by presuming to have a special list for each month, week, day, and hour, but the extravagantly erratic notions of the trout forbid my recommending it to brother rodmen. Trout that show a preference for certain flies one day may the next day favor entirely different patterns. Sometimes they will take an imitation of the natural fly upon the water and at other times, being gorged with the natural insect, will only strike at some oddly colored concoction of no resemblance to any living thing in nature; this in play, or in anger, and at other times out of pure curiosity. An Angler doesn't need a great number of flies—if he knows just what fly the game is taking. You can't very well determine this half a hundred miles from the fishing; so you take a variety with you and experiment. The flies should be of the best make and freshest quality, tied by a practical hand—some honest maker who is himself an Angler—not the cheap, dried-up, wall-decorative, bastard butterflies of the ladies' dry-goods shop, that hybrid mess of gaudy waste ribbon-silk and barnyard feather, the swindling output of the catch-penny shopman whose sweat help do not know—upon my word—the name or the purpose of the thing they make.
Any six of the following list will kill well enough for a single day's pleasant fishing in any water at any time during the legal season: Dark Coachman, Gray and Green Palmer, Ginger Palmer, Alder, Scarlet Ibis, Abbey, Imbrie, Professor, Conroy, Reuben Wood, March Brown, Orvis, White Miller, Coachman. Royal Coachman, Codun, Brown and Red Palmer,Brown Hen, Queen of the Water, King of the Water. Squires, Black Gnat, Grizzly King, Quaker.
I use, as a rule, dark colors in clear water, and on bright days and early in the season; lighter shades in dull water and on dark days, in the evening, and as the season grows warmer; but many Anglers philosophize just the reverse—use light colors for early season fishing and somber hues for midsummer play—hence the endless arguments and experiments described as one of the charms of the craft.
I prefer, as I have said, two flies on the leader, and my favorite of favorites for all times and all places is a cast made up of gnat-size pattern of dark-gray wing and pale-blue body, and another of a peculiar drab-cream shade.
In throwing or casting the fly I never "whip" or "flail" the rod, and I never cast with a long line when a short one will answer the purpose. Distance alone may count in a fly-casting contest, but in the wild stream a careful short cast is more effective than a clumsy long one.
I angle with my shadow behind me, and in casting the flies endeavor to allow only the flies to touch the water. The line frightens the game, and if a trout should take a fly on a loose, wavy line, he will not hook himself and he will blow the fly from his mouth before the Angler is able to hook him.
In learning to cast the fly, the young Angler should start with the leader alone, as I believe all fly-fishing is begun by old and young, and as he lifts the flies from the water after the forward cast to make the backward motion he should simultaneously draw from the reel a half-yard of line and allow time for the flies to complete the whole circuit back of him. Infly-fishing the cast is not made from the reel as in bait-casting; the line is drawn from the reel a half-yard at a time with the left hand. The line must fully straighten itself behind the Angler ere it can be sent out straight before him. The flies and at most only a little part of the leader should fall lightly upon the surface—as we imagine two insects, entangled in a delicate cobweb, might fall from a tree branch—and be drawn smartly but gently in little jerks a second or two in imitation of two tiny live-winged bugs fluttering in the water; and then, as the Angler steps slowly, firmly, but silently and softly in the current downstream, he should repeat the lifting of the flies, the drawing off of more line from the reel, and the circling backward cast that takes up the slack and gives the line its forward force. Thus he should continue, deftly placing the lure in every likely spot ahead of him in the center of the brook and along its moss-lined, flower-decked, rock-bound or grass-fringed banks.
The Angler is careful not to let the trout see him, see his shadow, or see the rod, and not to let this wisest, most watchful species of all the finny tribes hear him or feel the vibration of his body.
In hooking the trout the Angler strikes the second the fish strikes—not by a violent arm movement, but by a mere instantaneous nervous backward twist of the wrist, as one would instinctively draw up his hand from the pierce of a needle point. Many trout are hooked the instant the leader is lifted for a new cast, and many hook themselves without the slightest effort on the part of the Angler.
When the fish is hooked he should not be flaunted in the air, as the boy fisher yanks his pond perch.The prize should be handled as if he were but slightly secured, his head should be kept under water, the line kept gently taut, and the fish softly led out of noisy water and away from stones, long grass, submerged tree branches or logs.
If the catch is heavy enough to draw the line from the reel it is allowed to do so, but the line should be kept taut and reeled in the second he hesitates. There need be no hurry.
After a little while the game's rushes will cease; then it should be reeled in, care being taken not to arouse it again by the contact of a weed or stone.
The tip of the rod is now raised over the head and back of the Angler until the butt points downward; then, if the fish has been reeled in near enough, it is secured in the landing net, tail first, and carefully slid into the creel through the little square opening for this purpose in the lid.
If you, reader mine, should some day get as far as this glorious part of the play, and the fish should be a small one, be satisfied; the true Angler is ever of a contented heart; if the fish should be too small, set it free—the true Angler is always humane and generous; if it should prove fit to feed upon, do not subject it to unnecessary suffering—skillfully kill it outright at once; the true Angler is manly and merciful.
And, and—good luck to you, brother.
WALTON'S WAY
"More than half the intense enjoyment of fly-fishing is derived from the beautiful surroundings."—Charles F. Orvis.
A clausein a recent tariff bill prohibited the importation of some of the favorite artificial flies of the Angler and likewise prohibited the importation of the materials used in making these flies, particularly feathers and skins of the valuable song birds whose insect-eating prevents the destruction of the trees and other foliage absolutely necessary to the preservation of the planet upon which man lives.
This clause was fathered by the wise and welcome bird-protecting institutions known as the Audubon Societies, and was intended to stop the infamous traffic in wild birds for millinery purposes, which, if not reformed, means the utter extermination of the world's feathered friends.
The feathers and skins imported annually for artificial flies were to come under the same prohibition as millinery feathers.
England has a law prohibiting the importation of certain plumage, but specific exception is made for the materials used in fly-making.
There was a foolish opposition to this clause on the part of a few professional fly tiers, some of the flydealers, 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 YorkSunsays: "The first effect of prohibiting the importation of the feathers for flies will be to drive many back to bait-fishing. An Angler using bait should take ten trout for every one he could kill with a fly. The Government, the States, and clubs are spending large sums for the stocking of streams with trout. The expenditure would scarcely be justified if there is to be bait-fishing in these streams—they would soon be fished out. Thousands who formerly used bait have taken up fly-fishing because it is better sport."
What does this writer mean by the word "many"—the "many" he thinks that will be driven back to bait fishing as the effect of the prohibition of the importation of the feathers for flies? Many what? Not Anglers, by any means, because the Angler would rather merely try to catch his trout with an artificial fly made from a feather duster than to be assured ofcatching the game with a worm or minnow or salmon egg. The "many" refers to fishermen, or professional fly tiers, not Anglers.
The Angler and the ordinary fisherman are as far separated in character and nature as the hummingbird and the buzzard are separated in life and lesson.
The real opposer to bird-protection in this objection to the clause prohibiting the importation of bird feathers and skins is the commercial fellow, and there is no commercial side to angling.
The Angler is a student as well as a lover of nature, and he knows that without the insect-eating birds there can be no trees, that without trees there can be no waters, that without waters there can be no fishes, and that without fishes there can be no fishing. The stupid fisherman can't surmount this, and the commercial fly tier, whose business alone teaches him enough of the angling art to be able to figure this natural science, thinks too much of his money creel to admit it. This pretended ignorance is called good business instinct, and the Angler doesn't object to men minding their own business, but when business instinct runs wild and evokes the effrontery to imply that the Angler, a non-commercial being, is opposed to the prohibition of earth-valuable bird extermination, business instinct is going a little too far with its money-mad method.
The Angler does not condemn the use of correct tackle; he's a believer in it, and just as he is sincere in his advocacy of proper tackle and in his immaculate use of proper tackle, so is he sincere in his profound belief in correct methods in fishing.
The fisherman—the fellow who judges his day by the number of fishes he kills in any manner regardlessof 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,andfishes 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 agentleart; so, to practice it, one must be gentle.
The Angler will not resort to fishing with live bait if the few European artificial flies are excluded from his lures, because he can catch all the fishes hisgentleartentitleshim 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 hisgentlecreel can be filled without them, he'll not insist on their importation if it tends in the slightest manner toward the extermination of the very things that make possible the gentle art of angling—the birds and the trees, without which the fishes themselves could not survive.
The world is not composed entirely of fishermen—the earth itself should not be sacrificed for a few against the multitude—and the Angler, the fisherman of quality, is wise enough to appreciate this; his individual pastime is not as important as the general welfare of the masses, and it will be said that the fisherman, who estimates quantity over quality, is far less entitled to consideration.
Angling is a pastime of a craft; the birds, the trees, and the waters are necessities of a planet and its people.
Fishing for the market—a distinct method from that of the Angler and the common fisherman who fishes for the mere sake of killing and counting—is not concerned in this argument, and may be dismissed with a brief word of commendation. Legitimately practiced, discriminately carried on according to the law of man and nature, it is even more admirable than angling and far more honorable than the wasteful pursuit of the vulgar amateur fisherman. Our Saviour sanctioned net fishing; chose simple fishermen for his disciples—St. Andrew, St. Peter, St. James, and St. John.
The expression, "fly fisherman," may refer to the fisherman or the Angler, for there are lots of fly fishermen as well as mere fishermen who are not Anglers, for the reason that fly-fishing, indulged in by a greedy hand, can permit of ungentle fish-catching the same as bait-fishing. Both methods are equally destructive if not followed with strict rules of angling, and all that need be said to properly define angling is that it is the poetry—the art and refinement—of fishing. The common fisherman is simply a fish-basket filler; the Angler fills his soul, not the creel.
THE WANTON WAY
"There's an Angler's law, and a court or legal law. The fisherman who adheres to the Angler's law can't break the court law."—Seth Fielding.
Gentilityin the limit of the catch and giving the fish its sporting chance on light tackle constitute the ethical soul of angling. The fisherman who stops fishing when he has a few specimens is angling; he's an Angler. The fisherman who fishes with no limit in his catch is merely fishing; he's a fisherman, not an Angler.
Any picture of a few fishes may illustrate the catch of the Angler, and the photograph onFrontispieceshows the catch of the worst type of fisherman—the wanton fish exterminator who, ignoring the Angler's gentle law, takes his greedy mess because it is according to the so-called legal law.
Dr. William T. Hornaday, author ofWild Life Conservation,The American Natural History,Our Vanishing Wild Life, etc., and director of the New York Zoölogical Park, has sent me the photograph of the greedyman's catch—made near Spokane, Washington—with the following notes:
"The great trouble [in the matter of wasteful fish-catching] is not so much with the people who catchfish 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 interestsappeared to be behind the movement. Under the new law the milliners were enabled to reopen in Pennsylvania the sale of aigrettes, because those feathers came from members of the unprotected Heron Family! It required a tremendous State campaign to restore protection to the herons and bar out the aigrettes; but it was accomplished in 1912. Hereafter, let no man for one moment be deceived by the claim that the very few-and-far-between herons, bitterns, and kingfishers that now remain in the United States, anywhere, are such a menace to fish life that those birds are a pest and deserve to be shot. The inland streams of the United States and Canada lack fishes because they have been outrageously overfished,—wastefully, wickedly depleted, without sense or reason, by men who scorn the idea of conservation. In Orleans County, New York, a case was reported to me of a farmer who dynamited the waters of his own creek, in spawning time!"
The Angler angles according to his own humanely conservative law. The greedy fisherman fishes according to court or so-called legal law, good or bad, and he always breaks the Angler's law and very often the court's law.
In viewing Dr. Hornaday's Spokane photograph note the bait-casting reel on the fly-casting rod—the rig of a clumsy as well as greedy fisherman. The mess of trout shown is one that no Angler would ever make and one that any gentleman would be ashamed of—"three times too many fish for one rod," as Dr. Hornaday says, "another line of extermination according to law." Of course, the Doctor means the fisherman's law or the court's law, not the Angler's law.
FLY-FISHING FOR TROUT
"The variety of rivers require different ways of angling."—Izaak Walton,The Compleat Angler.
Theart of catching fish with artificial lures in imitation of natural insects is the most chivalric of all methods of angling.
Fish, particularly trout, often hook themselves when they seize the fly of a fisherman using a pliant rod that will yield and spring freely. As the game strikes, the Angler strikes, hooking the fish swiftly but delicately by a simple turn of the wrist. The trout is not flaunted up in the air by force, as some coarse perch fishermen lift their catch. The trout fisher does not use his arm at all in hooking a trout beyond aiding the hand in holding the rod for the wrist to do the work. A practiced troutman can secure his fish by moving his hand five inches—a little backward nervous twist of the wrist.
Trout often snap a fly and spit it out so quickly that the tyro does not have a chance to strike and hook the prize. At other times they take hold more slowly, and afford the beginner more opportunity to hook them, and, as I have said, they very often hook themselves.
The beginner will have some trouble in overcomingthe excitement or "trout fever" that always accompanies the trout's rise and strike, but experience will gradually make him more calm and active at this important moment. The tyro trout fisher is often more frightened at the rise of the trout than he would be at the flush of a noisy grouse or the springing of a surprised deer.
When you have hooked the fish, always handle him as if he were but lightly secured. Do not attempt to lift him out or yank him up to you. Keep the line gently taut, and softly lead the prize out of rough water or away from stones, grasses, logs, or tree branches. Do not let him come to the surface until he is pretty well exhausted and you are about to put him in the landing-net. If he is a large fish, tow him ashore if the water edge will permit. Where there are overhanging banks this cannot be done. Do not be in a hurry to get him out of the water. Be calm and work carefully.
If the fish is large enough to overcome the reel click and run off the line, let him do so, but check him and guide him according to any obstruction there may be.
When he has rushed here and there for some little time with his mouth open and with a constant check—the line should always be taut—he will become tired, and when he is tired he will not rush. Then softly reel him in, being careful not to let him come in contact with a stone or weed, which is sure to arouse him again. Reel him up quickly, without making a splashing swoop, and he will soon grace your creel.
Several persons have expressed an objection to a list of flies I once named, saying a good Angler might kill just as many trout on quarter the number.
Any Angler can take even less than one quarter of the enumerated list and catch fully as many brook trout as one who might use all of the flies mentioned—if he can pick out the ones the trout are rising to without trying them all until he discovers the killing ones. A chef might please his master with one or two of the forty courses billed, if he knew what the man wanted.
Sometimes an Angler can judge the appropriate fly to use by observing nature in seeing trout rise to the live fly; but, there are times when trout are not rising, times when they are tired of the fly upon the water, and times when the real fly is not on the wing. Then the Angler is expected to take matters in his own hands and whip about quietly until he discovers the proper patterns. It is better to try for the right flies with a list of twenty-nine than whip over a list of a thousand or more. I have learned from experience that trout, like human beings, are in love with a variety of foods at different times. Their tastes change with the months, the weeks, the days, the hours, and, under certain conditions which I will presently explain, the minutes.
"... fish will not bite constantly, nor every day. They have peculiar, unexplainable moods that continuing favoring conditions of water, wind, and weather cannot control" (Eugene McCarthy,Familiar Fish).
When I mention twenty-nine different patterns as being seasonable at a stated period, I do not mean to say that the trout will rise to them all and at any time and under all conditions. In the first place, the person using them might be a tyro unfamiliar with the gentle art, the streams might be dried up, there might be an earthquake, the flies might be too large, too coarse,and for that matter a thousand other conditions might interfere. I fish dozens of streams in different localities several times every month during the legal season, and I have been a fond Angler—if not a skillful one—since my tenth birthday. Experience on the streams, a true love for nature, and a careful attention to my notebook enable me to separate the artificial flies into monthly lists. No man can class them into weekly or daily lots.
"When a fly is said to be in season it does not follow that it is abroad on every day of its existence" (Alfred Ronalds).
The Eastern gentleman who said if he could have but one fly he would take a yellow one, is probably a good Angler, for a yellow fly is a fair choice. If I could have but one fly I should take a—ah! I cannot name its color; 'tis the quaker, a cream, buff, grayish, honey-yellow shade.
Beaverkill, Seth Green, Ashey Montreal, Dun. Wickham's Fancy, August Brown are killing patterns in the Pennsylvania streams.
Trout change in their tastes by the month, week, day, hour, and minute. There are flies among the list given for this or that month that they will not rise to to-day or perhaps to-morrow, but surely there are some among the list that will please them, and you have to discover those particular flies, and so, as I have said before, 'tis better to search among twenty-nine than twenty-nine hundred.
In July of a certain season I waded a stream in Pennsylvania and had these flies with me: Quaker. Oak, Codun, Reuben Wood, White Miller, Yellow Sallie, Hare's Ear, Iron Dun, Brown Palmer, Cahill, and a few others. The first day I killed eighteen troutin fishing fifty yards in a small stream running partly through a large open field and partly through bushes, fishing from the left bank. Twelve were taken on a brown palmer, four on a dark-gray midge, and two on a tiny yellow-gold-brown fly. I fished three hours, in which time I received exactly two hundred and fifteen strikes; eighteen, as I have said, proved killing. I fished stealthily up and down the stream, hiding here and there and making the most difficult of casts at all times. I went up and down the little stream a half dozen times, never going into the wood, but merely fishing from where the stream came out of the wood to where it hid itself again beyond the field. Part of the water I fished, as I say, was in underbush, but I did not leave the field.
Now I am going to show you how the tastes of trout varied by minutes, in two instances at least, and I desire you to know every little detail. To well convince you that the casts I made were difficult, I will say that my line became fastened in twigs, leaves, and bushes every other toss. I had to put the flies through little openings no larger than the creel head and take chances of getting the leader caught while on the way, and after it was there and on its return. I sometimes whipped twenty times at a little pool before I reached it. There were logs, branches, mosses, cresses, leaves, and grasses to avoid. The water in parts was swift and still, narrow, shallow, and deep, sometimes being four feet wide and three feet deep, and then ten feet wide and three inches deep; sometimes running smartly over bright grasses or pebbles and light in color, and in other places lying dark and still in pools made by logs and deep holes.
A tyro would have fished the ground in ten minutesand caught nothing; some Anglers would have gone over it once in twenty-five minutes and taken a half-dozen fish. I had the day to myself; I had nowhere else to go; I was out for sport, recreation, and study,—not fish, for I am a lover of nature in general,—and so I took three hours at the play, and fished and observed inch by inch like a mink, the king of trouters.
I say I had two hundred and fifteen strikes, out of which I killed eighteen trout, and you are surprised. You think you could have done better, much better, but I know you could not—you could not have done as well as I did and I wish that I could put you to a test. I have seen afontinalisrise to a small coachman twenty-six times, snapping apparently at the feather each time, but never allowing himself to be hooked nor hooking himself. He was playing. He was a young trout, but an educated one, and well knew there was no danger if he kept his wits about him. I have witnesses to this performance who will substantiate my story, and I can easily further prove the truthfulness of the statement by taking you to a stream where a similar performance may be enacted. And I have seen an uneducated trout rise and snap at a fly without taking it. The first one rose in play, this one in curiosity—and there are trout that will rise in anger. All of them may know the bait is not food. It is a mistake to think that all brook trout will spurt from a fly the very second they discover it is not real food, as it is an error to believe that all brook trout will take the fly when they know it is the living thing. All trout are not alike; they vary in their tastes and antics as they do in color and size. Mind you, I speak only of one species here—the true brook trout,Salvelinus fontinalis, and thus the material should be interesting.