TROUT OF TMK SAW-TOOTH 



■A ' 



After traveling twenty or thirty miles south- 

 ward from the town, the abode of the 

 writer, the water sinks in the sand and 

 gravel to rise again further on down nearer 

 the Snake River. 



Legend says that several years ago a few 

 brook trout were planted in the stream, and 

 the legend is sustained by an occasional 

 catch, but of course time has not been theirs 

 enough to add the size that the cut-throat 

 family furnishes. 



I know whereof I speak when I relate the 

 vast numbers of sixteen to 

 twenty-one inch trout that 

 are taken from this stream 

 every season, and it is a mat- 

 ter of wonderment to me 

 that they exist in such vast 

 numbers to this day, with 

 never a dollar expended to 

 propagate them in their 

 natural haunts. 



It was this little town 

 north of the desert that the 

 world-famed Jay Gould 

 finally found during the last 

 three years of his life on this 

 earth, and in answer to a 

 friend who asked why he did 

 not travel in a foreign coun- 

 try for his health and recrea- 

 tion he simply said, "This 

 is good enough for me." 



It was one of the fine days 

 in July — one of those fine 

 summer days that we experi- 

 ence on the Pacific Slope in 

 an altitude of 5,300 feet — 

 that a party of five — I 

 counted myself as one — 

 camped on the edge of the 

 Big Wood River, twenty 

 miles south of Hailey, and 

 to say the big trout were 

 taking the fly well was only 

 to express the conditions 

 mildly. Soon our baskets 

 were full and we moved to- 

 ward camp. We could stand 

 or walk along the bank and 

 see the big fellows in the 

 clear water. Of course they 

 wouldn't bite when we were 

 seen, but if we wanted to 



have some fun, we would walk away 

 from the river, and sneak up near a hole and 

 look at the big fish basking in the shade. 

 We would let a fly play out over and upon 

 the water's surface "just to see a struggle," 

 and it was this very time that I saw, hooked 

 and finally landed with a bend in my split 

 bamboo pole the largest speckled beauty 

 that it has been my good fortune to take, 

 although there have been larger ones caught 

 this season. 



Just to give the reader some idea of the 



OAK CREEK, ARIZONA 



