THE AiMER[CAN ANGLER. 



Vol. 26. 



MARCH, 1896. 



No. 3. 



YAGERVILLE AND BEYOND. 



BY GARDNER LADD PLUMLEY. 



Nearly every year a fishing trio of 

 which I am a member makes an attempt 

 to find new and not yet fished out waters 

 near New York. These attempts are 

 generally failures, and yet when Nature 

 has spread her table linen to bleach and 

 all the world is white, we generally suc- 

 ceed, with the pleasant aids of a glowing 

 open fire and three pipes of good to- 

 bacco, in discovering sortie new and 

 blessed spot where we think that hap- 

 pily the good rule given by Andrew 

 Lang will hold good : 



"When, O stranger, thou hast reached 

 a bum where the shepherd asks thee 

 for the newspaper wrapped around thy 

 sandwiches that he may read the news, 

 then erect an altar to Priapus, god of 

 fishermen, and begin to angle boldly." 



Years ago we found such a spot by 

 selecting a post-office, on the map, iso- 

 lated and many miles from any railway 

 yet on the banks of a stream swift and 

 pure and then filled with fine trout. 

 The sun has never shone quite so 

 brightly, and I know that the flowers 

 will never bloom quite so gaily again, as 

 when we first learned to use the fly on 

 this stream. But time has changed us 

 some, perhaps, and the old fishing spot 

 more, for clubs have come and summer 

 boarders and the trout have grown 

 strangely smaller and much less numer- 

 ous than they were in the old days. 

 Yet this quiet grassy valley is still beau- 



tiful and wild, and a few trout remain 

 to tempt us back when other fishing 

 plans have failed. 



The winter of 1895 found us again 

 seeking new waters, and when the Do- 

 minie informed us that he had heard 

 of just what we sought we listened to 

 him with interest. While staying at a 

 pleasant lake-side hotel during the pre- 

 ceding September, he noticed a picture 

 of a fine lot of trout hanging in the 

 dining-room, and charmed not only with 

 the artistic skill shown in this painting, 

 but more by the size of the fish as com- 

 pared with the size of the creel, also 

 conventionally depicted, he interviewed 

 the artist, who at once led him to the 

 piazza of the house, and, pointing out a 

 ravine between two distant mountains, 

 generously disclosed to him the weighty 

 secret that in that far distant and dimly 

 to be discerned gorge a noble stream 

 could be found. It was there that in 

 one forenoon's sport he had secured the 

 splendid basket of fish which on the 

 afternoon of the same day he portrayed 

 in the painting. Here was evidence in- 

 deed; the artist told of the stream and 

 the picture gave certain evidence of 

 what sort of fish inhabited those distant 

 waters, and if the artist could catch such 

 trout there, why should not the Dominie 

 and his friends ? 



This was the story to which we fondly 

 listened, and with visions of big trout 



