
About Brook Trout 
A subscriber living in a little Michigan town, 
one of the ever-enthusiastic, eager-to-learn 
youngsters, who may some day become an 
angling authority, writes for» some inside 
information on brook trout and brook-trout 
fishing. ‘‘I have fished only one season with 
the fly,” he writes. ‘“‘Is it true that the brook 
trout is an inveterate gourmand ? 
‘““How much credence can be placed in the 
story of a trout flopping its tail at a floating 
insect, to drown it, so it can be easily caught? 
‘“‘T know from experience that a small- 
mouthed black bass will leap out of the water 
on a slack line, trying to throw the hook out of 
his mouth. I am told a trout never leaps on a 
slack line, but I did not observe this when 
fishing for trout, not knowing about it at the 
time. 
‘“As I have no angling-books, I should appre- 
clate to have these questions answered. Also, 
I should like to know the meaning of the word 
Fontinalis, and when, to what extent and how 
horsehair snells and leaders were used.” 
As answering all but the last question, we 
recall an article by Wm. C. Harris, the cele- 
brated angling authority, and of whom we shall 
never get done thinking, though he is now no 
~ more of this world. The article appeared some 
four of five years ago, in a book entitled, ‘“The 
Speckled Brook Trout,’ published by R. H. 
Russell, New York. We quote: 
Fontinalis—“‘living in springs’”’—is without 
doubt the most amply descriptive, specific name 
that ichthyologists have ever bestowed upon a 
fish, for take a trout from its native and highly 
aerated home and it will die if placed in water of 
a higher temperature; put him in a large aquarium 
tank and ice it as you may, and his life is only a 
question of a few months; the solstice season ends 
it. At the New York Aquarium, where every 
appliance for the preservation of fish-life is at hand 
and intelligently used, the brook trout can seldom 
be kept from season to season. 
Living thus in pure waters, the habits of the 
trout naturally partake of the character of its 
environment, if we except the fact that he seems 
to be somewhat of a gourmand. We have fre- 
quently taken them on the fly when the head and 
shoulders of a _ half-swallowed minnow were 
sticking from their mouths, which would seem to 
indicate a tremendous gorging habit; but, on the 
other hand, even this trait would seem to show 
their eagerness of pursuit for the most delicate 
entrée of their water menu, the insects of the pools, 
hence all anglers, with whom to decry their brook 
beauty is to blaspheme nature, would be disposed 
to call him a gourmet rather than a glutton. 
But be this as it may, when a brook trout is 
hungry, he is very much like all other creatures of 
the earth, air and water, including the human 
family—he will eat what he can get, his own 
spawn-child, minnows of all kinds, earthworms 
and grubs, crawfish and dobsons, all living things 
of the water-bottoms and insects of the air that 
fall upon the surface of the pool. But he is, with- 
out doubt, one of the most energetic and persistent 
foragers for food that our waters contain. We find 
him dashing over and through the shallows im 
chase of frightened minnows; breasting the wild 
waters of the rapids, while awaiting the drifting: 
bug or other surface-washed food, and then again: 
we find him leaping for hours into the air, partic- 
ularly in the gloaming, for the midges, the no- 
see-ums, or the mosquito fly, born and fledged by 
the ravs of a single day’s summer sun. 
The habits of the trout being born of the springs, 
with an environment, the beauty and almost 
kaleidoscopic condition of which, changing with 
every glint of a sunbeam through the foliage, are, 
as has been noted, in touch and quality with its 
habitat. He seeks the purest portions of the home 
stream, loving the white-capped aeration of the 
strong currents, and the mouths of the little rill- 
like tributaries, which not only bring down food 
for his well-developed appetite, but a fresh supply 
of oxygen for his arterial system. Whenever he is 
found in a pool of quiet water, a long stretch of 
which often exists in large trout-streams, he is less 
forceful in action, lazily and leisurely taking the 
surface lure. 
Among the fly-fishermen for trout we often 
hear these characteristic phrases: “He is a slow 
striker,” or “‘a quick striker,’’ and these qualities 
when applied to the methods of an angler seem to 
satisfy his brethren of the craft as to the reasons for 
success, or the lack of it, in the rodster under dis- 
cussion. Experience has shown, however, that 
slow or quick striking on the part of the angler 
has much less to do with success in scoring than 
the well-established fact that trout of different 
waters, even of the same waters where the physical 
conditions are changing with nearly every rod of 
its downpour, have varied ways of taking a fly 
when it is deftly thrown to them, In long, quiet 
pools overhung with alder growth from which 
insects are falling constantly the trout has the 
habit of coming leisurely to the surface, lazily as 
