GAME-FISH THAT LEAP ABOVE THE SURFACE 111 



— that is, casting the fly for it — has yet to gain a 

 much larger number of adherents, and such cannot 

 be had till the bass becomes a more epicurean 

 feeder, which I fear will not come to pass. 



A bass taken on the fly in swift-running water 

 makes a tussle in which angler and fish are equally 

 matched. They begin equal, and the winner on 

 either side is not ashamed of his fight. My old 

 friend and fishing companion William Keener of 

 Roscoe, N. Y., one evening hooked a three-pound 

 brown trout in that grand pool formed by the 

 junction of the Willowemoc and Beaverkill. I was 

 fishing the other side, and at dusk watched him 

 walking up and down the pebbly shore. In the 

 dim twilight I shouted: "What on earth makes 

 you so restless.'*" He replied: "Got two on." 

 Determined to see the end, I waited for nearly 

 two hours in the moonlight, when at last I saw 

 him slow up at a little cove, step in the stream, 

 give a sweeping kick with his mighty hobnailed 

 boot and out flew the pair of fish into the tall 

 grasses on shore. To my utter amazement he had 

 carefully played together a three-pound trout 

 alongside a four-pound bass — a feat in fishing 

 I have never seen or heard equalled. With a 

 twinkle in his laughing eyes Bill said: "If that 



