102 AX ANGLER'S REMINISCENCES. 



in midstream, where a small island divided the current, and they caught a boat 

 load. You see, a man may be a prize winner at a fly-casting tournament and yet 

 have no "luck" on the streams. 



It is not my purpose in these desultory notes to discuss low-grade and high- 

 grade angling. Of course a masterly cast with the fly will pick up a fish which a 

 gob and wattles can't reach. We all understand that, and we have long been 

 familiar with the logic which, from the days of Saladin, prefers dexterity to brute 

 force, commending that which soars above the thing which grovels. I am simply 

 trying to show where those who attempt to practice high-grade angling are 

 deficient, and that many who talk by the book are but bunglers in the manual art. 

 It is not every man who can talk horse that is able to keep his saddle or handle 

 the reins. Some pretenders may have the written code at their tongue's end, 

 whereby they mystify the credulous ; but they never can deceive a veteran. An 

 expert can read them off-hand and detect their short-comings the instant they 

 step toward the animal to take hold of the rein or put a foot in the stirrup. It is 

 so with the man who handles rod or paddle. It is not necessary to take him to 

 the river side to size him up. An apparently insignificant movement will give him 

 away. It is the same with the man who takes hold of a gun or ax, billiard cue, 

 foil or Indian club ; who steps into a carriage or a boat, or enters a drawing 

 room. Ignorance cannot be disguised. It is the companion of awkwardness, and 

 the two go always hand in hand. 



One chief reason why most trout anglers fail is because they don't keep their 

 eyes on their work. I do not believe that a short-sighted individual can be 

 perfectly successful. He must miss a great many fish that rise. An angler should 

 never take his eye off the water. It should follow with constant vigilance the 

 vagaries of his flies. He should retrieve his line as seldom as possible ; being sure 

 always to strike the instant he thinks he detects a gleam. The motion of a trout 

 is often quicker than the glance of the human eye, and unless the angler is on the 

 alert the trout will have seen and investigated the lure before a contemptuous flap 

 of the tail has made the angler aware that he has come and gone. Often an 

 upward lift of the rod tip will hook a fish whose presence was not suspected at 

 all, the barb fastening to its tail, side or gill. Such incidents as these have given 

 rise to the notion that trout knocked the flies into their mouths with their tails. 



One object of wading a stream is to avoid observation. Proper wading is the 

 most deliberate operation imaginable. A good wader will scarcely roil the water 

 in a mill tail. He will often pick up a score of fish without moving more than a 

 couple of rods. The fish will so little heed him that they play about his legs. I 

 have often waded through a school collected in a long reach of fairly deep water, 

 and then getting out on the bank and going back to the beginning, fished the same 

 pool a second and third time with tolerable success. Wading also enables the 

 angler to cover water that he could not otherwise reach, and it permits him to 

 fish with a short line. It is a great mistake to fish with a line that is not under 

 complete control. There is a great difference between stream fishing and pond 

 fishing. I seldom attempt a long cast. The more line one lays on a still surface 

 the shyer the fish become. A long line is like a long-range sharpshooter's tele- 

 scope rifle intended to bring game where less effective weapons fail. A thirty- 

 yard or even twenty-yard line, laid evenly out on the wings of a masterly cast, is 

 an exquisite performance, but the accomplishment is seldom of practical use in 

 angling. 



I remember once an amusing incident at Ridgewood, Long Island, where a 



