AND OTHER HUNTING ADVENTURES. 271 



in Missoula at twenty-live cents a pound. Of course, 

 the majority of the ranchmen along the stream do 

 little or no fishing, but the officers and men at Fort 

 Missoula do an immense amount of it, as do the res- 

 idents of the town of Missoula; and visiting sports- 

 men from the East take out hundreds of pounds 

 every season. But the stream is so large and long, 

 and its net- work of tributaries so vast, and furnish 

 such fine spawning and breeding grounds, that it is 

 safe to say there will be trout here a century hence. 

 The heathen Chinee has never been permitted to 

 ply his infamous dynamite cartridge here, or in any 

 of the streams of this vicinity, as he has long been 

 doing in Colorado, Nevada, and elsewhere, and this 

 fact alone would account for the unimpaired supply 

 in these streams. 



The reproductive power of the mountain trout is 

 equal to all the tax likely to be levied against it 

 here by legitimate sportsmen, and if dynamiting 

 and netting are prohibited hereafter as heretofore, 

 no fear need be felt as to the future supply. 



The market fisherman of whom I spoke was a 

 faithful devotee to the fly, and never would use any 

 other lure. A white or gray hackle was his favorite. 

 He used a stiff, heavy pole, however, about ten feet 

 long, cut from the jungles that grow on the river bot- 

 tom, and a heavy line, afoot shorter, with double gut 

 for attaching the fly. He fished from the shore or 

 waded, as was necessary to reach the best water. 

 He cast with both hands, and the instant the fly 

 touched the water he would raise the tip so that 

 the line would just clear, and then trail or skitter 

 the fly gently, but rapidly, toward him. Thus, the 



