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CHAPTER 



FISH AND FISHING. 



ASK an old frontiersman about fish and fishing, and the 

 chances are a hundred to one that he will answer, ' Oh, 

 there are no fish in the plains streams.' If. you want 

 fish you must go to the ' Big Horn/ or Bear Lake, 

 or the Timpanogos, or the Middle Park, or some other 

 mountain locality of which he has specially pleasing 

 reminiscences. 



This is easily accounted for. After a man has taken 

 his one, two, and even five and six pound trout ' as fast 

 as he could throw his hook in,' the ordinary plains fishing 

 is tame even to monotony. Nevertheless, there is scarcely 

 a stream on the plains which will not furnish fair sport 

 to one not so enamoured of ' game ' fish as to disdain 

 anv that will not rise to a 'fly.' 



Many of the streams which take their rise in the 

 gorges of the great first plain are filled with trout near 

 their heads. These disappear as soon as the streams 

 fairly reach the second plain, their place being filled by 

 other and more common fish. 



The Purgatory, a tributary of the Arkansas, and the 

 Muddy, a tributary of the Green Eiver, are notable 

 examples of this. 



There are said to be trout in some of the streams 

 which take their rise in the second plain, as the Bijou 

 and some of the tributaries of the Republican. This is 

 not well authenticated, and I doubt it. It is a most 

 curious fact, well known to plainsmen, that there is not 



