THE AMERICAN ANGLER. 



Vol. 26. 



APRIL, 1S96. 



No. 4. 



SUMMER NIGHTS ON A TROUT STREAM. 



BY IRA S. DODD. 



Six or seven years ago it was my 

 good fortune to find a charming place 

 in which to spend a summer vacation. 

 On the shore of a romantic little lake, 

 set like a bowl between picturesque 

 hills, was a cottage built and furnished 

 very simply, yet in artistic harmony 

 with its surroundings. 



It was a boarding house, with a char- 

 acter all its own. Too small to hold a 

 crowd, and too secluded to attract the 

 noisy set, it had become the resort year 

 by year of a few people whose intelli- 

 gence was larger than their purses. 

 Not far off in the valley below was the 

 Beaverkill. 



Here there was mountain air, pleas- 

 ant company, amid remarkably pictur- 

 esque surroundings, and near by a no- 

 ble trout stream. What more could an 

 angler ask ? 



Though trout fishing is not at its best 

 in midsummer, it is always possible for 

 one who knows his river to pick up a 

 few good fish in the gloaming, that 

 pleasantest of all times .on a trout 

 stream. Late in the afternoon I would 

 get into my fishing rig, betake myself 

 to the river and wander up or down, 

 casting my flies over the well known 

 places, stopping, perhaps, about sunset 

 for a drink of buttermilk and a chat at 

 some farm house, bringing up after dark 

 at some deep pool where the big fellows 

 hide, and then tramp home for a late 

 supper. 



There is a peculiar charm about such 

 fishing, a sense of rest and freedom and 

 of communion with nature, which can 

 be enjoyed in scarcely any other way. 

 You are alone with your own thoughts 

 and with the river, which comes to 

 seem a living thing, and a friend who 

 can talk and will talk with you if seen 

 that you are by yourself, and let you 

 into its secrets and tell you where your 

 game lurks. My best trout have been 

 taken on these evening strolls. I shall 

 never forget two that I landed in quick 

 succession from the great pool below 

 the old dam. 



I had gone out rather early that after- 

 noon, and found a strong wind blowing 

 and conditions unfavorable. I fished 

 down stream for a mile or more with 

 poor success, and then left the stream 

 and took the road toward home. It was 

 dark when I reached the forks of the 

 road near the dam. The wind had gone 

 down and it was a calm evening. It 

 seemed a pity to pass the old pool with- 

 out a cast, and I turned in toward it. 

 Putting on a good sized ginger hackle 

 and a coachman, my favorite evening 

 cast, I dropped them lightly on the dark 

 water. No response. Another cast, 

 and another — and then ! I thought at 

 first I had struck a snag, but in a second 

 it proved a pretty lively snag ; a big 

 trout, evidently. But how shall I land 

 him, for to-day I have no net with me ? 

 Fortunately I knew the pool and re- 



