30 TROUT LORE 



when I confess that I regard all such stories with 

 suspicion, though they may be true. I hold that 

 it is next to useless to surface fish with flies, and 

 that is the only true fly-fishing, unless insects are 

 to be found hovering above the water. But 

 bait fishing is another matter in early spring. 

 I remember a few years ago going trouting on 

 the fifteenth of April, the opening day in Wis- 

 consin, when snow was fully a foot deep along 

 the stream; yet I made a handsome catch of 

 trout, all on worms. There was little sport in 

 it, though, for my line froze in the guides and 

 tip; again and again I was compelled to thaw 

 out the ice. Now it may be true that those fish 

 would have struck at a bobbing fly, but I could 

 not induce them to do so, and the worms upon 

 which they fed so greedily were swallowed on 

 the bottom. I am glad I had the experience, 

 that's all. As to the legitimacy of bait fishing 

 well, we will take that much mooted matter 

 up in a later chapter. 



As we have all heard from childhood, "trout 

 bite best when it rains," a bit of angling super- 

 stition which had its root probably in the fact 

 that the farmer-boy could fish then and not in 

 fair weather. Trout do bite when it rains and 

 rains hard; I have proved it again and again; 



