BAIT-FISHING 51 



per young "sport," he said, "Gee, but this is 

 great fun!" The old man said, when I passed 

 him, "Pity there ain't a law to kill such durn 

 fish-hogs as that up there." You can draw your 

 own conclusions as to which of the two was a true 

 sportsman. 



I have elsewhere said that I much doubt the 

 stories one sometimes reads of big catches being 

 made on artificial flies before a single natural 

 fly has put in an appearance upon the surface of 

 the stream. No doubt a trout can be taken now 

 and then even early in the season before the 

 snow and ice have disappeared, but in my ex- 

 perience good catches have never been made un- 

 der those conditions. I have never found fly- 

 fishing worth while until the weather has warmed 

 sufficiently to bring into being the first brood of 

 insects. 



I can take you to streams in the Middle West 

 from which it is all but impossible to take a 

 single trout with an artificial fly. They are bait 

 streams, because streams where the fish are not 

 in the habit of feeding upon the surface. There 

 are also streams from which it is impossible to 

 take a fish unless your hook is baited with a 

 certain kind of flesh. I know that sounds a lit- 

 tle bit like a "fish story" but it is the unvarnished 



