30 THE FINE ART OF FISHING 



matter as merely poetic or artistic license, knows full 

 well that the thing is a pure nature fake. 



The brook trout, unless fairly yanked from the wa- 

 ter by too strenuous rod work, so seldom that one can 

 almost say positively never leaps from the water. In 

 rare instances he may leap upon a slack line, but the 

 general rule is quite the other way. The brook trout 

 does not belong to that class of game fishes which may 

 be called the leapers, but the brown trout may rightly 

 be thus classified. The leap of the brown in the effort 

 to rid himself of the hook is very much like that of the 

 black bass, a spectacular and vicious shaking of the 

 entire body in the air. I once struck a good rise of 

 brown trout, taking six in almost that number of casts,, 

 running from a half to one pound, and every one of 

 them jumped one or more times. 



There is an impression that the brown trout rises 

 reluctantly to the artificial fly. Nothing could be more 

 erroneous. They are very free risers when conditions 

 are at all favorable quite as much so as the native 

 trout. The fight of the brown trout is not as fast, as 

 electric, as that of the native trout, but when in good 

 condition the brownie is a very bulldog for tenacity, 

 making a prolonged and decided objection to coming to 

 the net. In fact, sometimes it is pretty hard to tell 

 just when he is "all in" it is a very hard fish to tire 

 entirely out. Frequently when you have a brown trout 

 of good fighting size almost at the edge of your land- 

 ing net he will apparently acquire an entirely new lease 

 of life and fight his way back to mid-stream. 



As a general thing you will have little trouble in 



