TROUT HABITS; LURES AND USE 



scarlet band on the middle of the body. This 

 is all the more interesting because, as a rule, 

 the trout of most of our Eastern streams out- 

 side of Maine are not attracted by gaudy 

 flies and certainly are not partial to red dis- 

 played lavishly. A contrary experience, of re- 

 fusing a Professor until the scarlet tail was cut 

 off, was quite common this operation prac- 

 tically converting that fly into a Queen of the 

 Water. Again, how irreconcilable is this claim, 

 as to the negative value of color, with the 

 equally positive statement of Charles Bradford 

 who trout fished assiduously since he was ten 

 years of age up to the time of his recent death 

 at fifty-five that he 'would not think of set- 

 ting out on a two-weeks' fishing trip without 

 at least two hundred flies of fifty different pat- 

 terns; for though he might not use more than a 

 dozen during the whole time, how was he to 

 knoiv beforehand just what dozen they would be? 

 What the present writer believes to be the 

 real status of this matter sheds some light upon 

 these apparently contradictory conclusions. This 

 is that the color may have made little difference 

 years ago, as is true today of the absolutely 

 wild trout of some virgin waters so far back 

 in the wilderness that it is impossible for anglers 

 to reach them for a few days' fishing. Only 

 under such conditions may trout still be taken 

 on any kind of a fly regardless of what kind of 

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