128 



RECREATION. 



looks after the quails: If something is 

 not done soon, we shall have no fishes l.eft. 

 Gabe Thompson, Carthage, Mo. 



A SLIP ON THE FLY. 



I greatly enjoy going through piles of 

 old magazines and papers that lie covered 

 with dust in an old garret. In one of my 

 recent searches I found a slip that may be 

 of use to the casters of the fly. It was 

 laid away carefully in the leaves of a mag- 

 azine with no signature to tell who the au- 

 thor was. It was as follows : 



"I have just seen an artificial fly made 

 and used by the Indians of Kings river, in 

 California, for fishing. It was given to one 

 of our State fish commissioners by a gen- 

 tleman who has pushed his travels through 

 that unknown part of the country. There 

 has been little if any communication be- 

 tween white people and these Indians, so 

 the idea of taking fish with an artificial fly 

 clearly originated with themselves. From 

 what can be learned these Indians have 

 used flies for many generations past; how 

 many it would be difficult, if not impos- 

 sible, to establish, but long enough in all 

 probability to give them priority of man- 

 ufacture over any of English or other 

 civilized make. 



"We are not indebted to the Indian for 

 the artificial fly, for we discovered the util- 

 ity of it without his aid ; but for all that, 

 it may now be safe to assume that he in- 

 vented it and used it long before we did, 

 either in England or here. To the Indian, 

 then, should the credit of the invention of 

 fly fishing be given, and to this tribe on 

 Kings river. No other tribe on this con- 

 tinent, as far as I know, appears to have 

 used flies for taking fish. The hook of the 

 fly I have seen — the first and perhaps the 

 only one ever possessed by a white man — ■ 

 is made out of a piece of iron wife. It has 

 no barb, but the portion of the shank of the 

 hook not covered by the fly, and down to 

 the crook, is wound with a fibrous sub- 

 stance resembling flax, to prevent, in some 

 degree, the fish from shipping or getting 

 off when once hooked. Before the Indians 

 got iron or iron wire to make the hook 

 they made it from the tibia or shank bone 

 of the deer, as being the hardest and closest 

 grain of the bone. The fly, although a 

 little roughly put together, is beautifully 

 made, closely representing when cast on 

 the water that which it is intended it 

 should, the caterpillar. It is made from 

 the hairs taken from the deer's hock, which 

 possesses a scent. It is also sometimes 

 made from the long hairs of the wart on 

 the deer's leg, from which there is also a 

 scent. It is generally supposed that the 

 scent of the deer comes from between the 

 hoof, but old deer hunters will tell you 

 that it also comes from the wart. The 



Indians say the fish like the smell, and 

 water will not destroy or dissipate it. Here 

 is an important fact for anglers and arti- 

 ficial fly makers. In tying, the hairs lie up 

 the shaft of the hook, so that when the fly 

 is thrown and drawn across up and down 

 the stream the action of the water causes 

 the hairs, of a reddish tint, to spread out. 

 When the strain on the line slackens the 

 hairs spring back, and the movement so 

 produced, of opening and closing the hairs, 

 gives to the fly the lifelike action and the 

 appearance of a caterpillar. 



"These Indians say that mountain trout 

 will take this fly when they will not look 

 at any other bait. The line is made from 

 a fine fibrous plant which grows there, re- 

 sembling what is called the milk plant, of 

 which there are 3 known varieties on this 

 continent. The line is as strong as the 

 best silk one cast, with the advantage of 

 being considerably lighter. 



"The important fact is that the Indians 

 of the West coast caught fish with an arti- 

 ficial fly probably long before such were 

 known and used in England; also that 

 those of the Indians are constructed on 

 more scientific principles than those of Eu- 

 ropean or other manufacture." 



Edwin C. Hobson, Nashua, N. H. 



TWO NEW REELS. 

 724,208.— Fishing Reel. Edward D. Rock- 

 well, Bristol, Conn., assignor to Liberty 

 Bell Company, Bristol, Conn., a corpo- 

 ' ration of Connecticut. Filed July 29, 

 1902. Serial No. 117,435. (No model.) 

 Claim. — 1. The 

 combination, with 

 a fishing reel hav- 

 ing a chambered 

 spindle, of a gear 

 loosely mounted on 

 said spindle and 

 provided with a 

 recess having a 

 wall eccentric to 

 the axis thereof, 

 said recess termi- 

 nating in a shoulder; a device mounted in 

 the spindle, and adapted automatically to 

 engage the shoulder of the gear-recess when 

 the spindle is rotated in one direction, and 

 to be disengaged from said shoulder when 

 the spindle is rotated in an opposite direc- 

 tion ; and means for applying resistance to 

 said gear. 



2. A spindle having a bore at one of its 

 ends; a roller mounted in said bore; a de- 

 vice sleeved on the bored end of the spin- 

 dle and having a recess of greater ampli- 

 tude than the spindle, said recess having a 

 shoulder with which the roller is adapted to 

 engage when the spindle is rotated by the 

 running out of the line ; and click and brake 

 elements cooperating with said device, etc. 



