98 AMERICAN FISH CULTURE. 



speckled beauties, hand over hand, and often carry them 

 off by back loads. In this way they sometimes take them 

 that weigh four pounds each. The most ordinary pupil of 

 Isaac Walton can take them in the evening, when in the 

 mood of rising, with the right miller, and with a small piece 

 of angle worm on the point of the hook, to induce them to 

 hold on to the hook till the novice can make his twitch to 

 hook them. But in the day-time none can succeed but the 

 expert. The water is so clear, and they are so shy and so 

 well educated, that it requires a 50 or 60 foot line, a fine 

 10 foot leader, and very small flies, or hackles, and those 

 must be cast upon the water so gently and life-like, to 

 induce them to rise and take the fly, and when they do 

 take it they discover the deception, and spit it out so quick 

 that but very few are ever able to so cast the fly and to 

 jerk quick enough to hook them. The fishermen among 

 the oldest inhabitants tell me that at the least calculation 

 there are 4000 pounds of trout taken from the creek yearly, 

 and yet they compute the number of trout to-day at 1000 to 

 each rod of the stream, or 320,000 in the creek, of all sizes, 

 from four or five pounds down to five inches in length. 

 On the 18th of this month I took 110 fine trout in about 

 three hours, with the fly, from the creek, and put them 

 into one of Mr. Green's ponds. The day was clear, and 

 the water so clear and transparent that I had to fish with 

 a 60-foot line, which took the most of the time to get the 

 line out to this length and to reel in the trout against the 

 strong current after being hooked. 



"The next day I took 85 splendid fellows from one 



