356 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Mat S3, 1889. 



FLY-FISHING FOR TROUT. 



IN looking over my writing table I find a number of 

 unanswered letters which have been laid a ide for a 

 more convenient season to answer them till I find quite a 

 pile, and among theni 1 find a goodly number inquir- 

 ing in regard to fly-fishing, rod si reel's, ties to use, how 

 to use them, etc., etc. With your permission I will use 

 a little space in your much valued paper upon this sub- 

 ject; not that I am able or intend to write an exhaustive 

 treatise on that almost boundless subject, but finding a 

 growing interest among those who fish for trout with 

 bait to know more about the methods of the fly-fisher, I 

 thought it might interest a large class of your readers to 

 give a little superficial knowledge of the art and the 

 paraphernalia pertaining thereto. More particularly as 

 I see a noted want in that direction. 



Tin-re are books upon that subject, but only a few of 

 the great mass of trout fishers have them, and the bal- 

 ance either do not know where to procure them or have 

 not the means to spare to get them, and many would not 

 buy them, preferring to go without the knowledge or get 

 such as might be offered by papers they may read. 



I have in mind in this description the needs of those 

 who fish in southern New England, and although what I 

 may say may not be applicable to larger wat ers and large 

 trout, still the reader will find the theory good in many 

 another locality, and with slight change to suit the par- 

 ticular pond or stream these rules will apply to any water 

 where trout live. 



The successful fly-fisher needs the following articles: 

 rod, reel, line, flies, leader, fly-book, creel, landing net 

 and fishing boots. Armed with these he can go forth 

 with reasonable hopes of ultimate success. 



The rod should be a good one. Split bamboo of the 

 better grades are preferable, but cost more than some like 

 to pay; but don't take the cheap split bamboo, it is a 

 snare and a delusion. If you cannot afford a good split 

 bamboo buy a good all lance wood, or one with an ash 

 butt and lancewood joint and tips. It should have solid 

 reel seat below the hand, should be from 9$ to 10+ft. long, 

 made of three pieces with cap and welt ferrules, and 

 have a hand grip bound with cord or cane, and should 

 have two tips. In using them never use a tip two days 

 in succession, except when obliged to do so by breakage. 

 If split bamboo, the rod should weigh from 6 to 8oz., and 

 if lancewood. from 7 to 9oz., with what is termed a very 

 "limber back," that is, it should bend evenly and easily 

 back to the hand grip, and when swung by the hand back 

 and forth the tip should be able to describe an arc of a 

 circle, the cord of which should be equal to the entire 

 length of the rod. There is an erroneous idea among 

 some bait fishers that by having a light tip fitted to a bait- 

 rod it would make a fly-rod of it. A bait-rod is and will 

 remain such to the end of its existence, while a fly -rod is 

 of an entirely different make up. 



The angler in buying his first fly-rod should get as lim- 

 ber and pliable a rod as he can find; avoid stiffness and 

 rigidity of action as a defect, not that it. is an actual 

 fault, but in learning to cast a fly the soft, pliable rod is 

 the better of the two, and when he has learned to cast 

 well then he can buy such a rod as pleases him best. 



The reel should be a plain click reel with safety bands, 

 or flush handle, and should be fitted to the rod in exactly 

 the opposite direction from what you would fit it to fish 

 with bait; that is, it should have the handle on the right 

 side of the rod when the rod had its rings on the under 

 side. It should be of what is termed in trade as an 80yd. 

 size, and the angler can suit his taste both in this and in 

 the rod, also as to whether he will buy brass, nickle or 

 German silver; but whichever you buy, have rod and reel 

 match, if only for the beauty of it. 



The line should be a tapered 40yds. enamelled, braided 

 silk line. If this seems a trifle too high in price, a good 

 level, oiled silk braided line will do. In either case the 

 size should be for the 6oz. split-bamboo or the 7oz. lance- 

 wood rod, what is termed G or No. 5, and for the heavier 

 rods F or No. 4. 



I advise the use of 40 to 50yds. of line, not that one 

 ever uses so much, but it is continually wearing off and 

 growing shorter, till in a few years a shorter line becomes 

 entirely useless, and has to be thrown away and a new 

 one bought. Use the smaller end of the tapered line to 

 cast with. 



The flies one needs can hardly be enumerated, and I 

 6hall only give some general directions for the angler to 

 follow. Flies are of such wonderful variety and size that 

 it is almost useless to give names, and it will be several 

 years before he will be familiar with the names of more 

 than a limited number. Trout rarely rise to the fly in 

 the month of April, but when they do it is generally at a 

 brown or red hackle or a dun, more often a blue dun. 

 Sometimes a cinnamon will take well: but black, white, 

 yellow, red or green seem to be of little account. 



In May the hackles and some of the dims are good; in 

 fact, any fly whose color is slate, buff, brown, or a mix- 

 ture of these colors, or in which any of these colors are 

 shaded with yellow, black or red, seems to be taking. 

 June brings a greater variety; in fact, almost anything 

 that is a fly, excepting the very brilliant ones— which are 

 the most attractive to the amateur angler— are at one time 

 or another good flies. These gaudy flies, that look so 

 very beautiful to an uneducated eye, are very doubtful 

 flies to try. When trout do take them, they take them 

 well; but it is discouraging work to find the right day. 

 till finally the angler comes to see less and less beauty in 

 them, and the little bunch of brown luzz we call a brown- 

 hackle begins to have a very handsome appearance to 

 him. Thte brings to mind a No. 5 salmon-jungle of very 

 showy appearance, that I tried -several times each year 

 for three years in succession and only found one day 

 when it took trout; that day it and its mate, a similar 

 fly, took twenty trout in about an hour. 



June is the month when the gray and black flies come 

 into use. July gives a chance to use a still largei variety, 

 and admits some of the showy ones. The same can be 

 said of Aigust, and all summed up in a few words of an 

 old sp rtsman, "A few well- selected flies are better than 

 a book full of them selected hit or miss " The angler 

 must find out almost wholly what those few are; but a 

 good rule to follow is this: For the first of the season 

 use browns or slates, and only add colors as the season 

 advances, ending in August with the brightest flies in the 

 book. A word as to quality. For a season's fishing six 



dozen is not a large quantity, neither is it a small allow- 

 ance. There will be many left at the end of the season, 

 but a good assortment comes handy on one of those mean 

 days when trout seem to be particular as to the fly they 

 want and that very fly gets hung on a bush just out of 

 reach and it is lost, and it was the last of its kind in the 

 book; then I have seen the time when I would gladly give 

 the price of the whole six dozen for a few of that par- 

 ticular Ay. 



For leaders use only heavy 6ft. with loops and have 

 them made with two "loops for dropper flies, about 2ft. 

 apart, thus enabling the angler to use three flies. A 

 half dozen more or less of these leaders is sufficient. 



Any fly-book that the angler may choose, from the old 

 fashioned pocketbook to the most elaborate and newest 

 styles, according to taste, is proper; this is merely a re- 

 ceptacle for carrying flies, leaders, etc., and it matters 

 not what it is, excepting that it should be conveniently 

 arranged and sufficiently large. 



A word is sufficient in regard to the creel, landing net 

 and boots. Do not get the basket and net too small, or 

 the boots too large. 



Tie a strong cord to the net, or a strap with a small 

 snap at its end is better, fa-ten it to the front of your 

 fishing coat, and when not in use throw it over your 

 shoulder, allowing strap enough to let it hang easily upon 

 your back. 



Now a word as to the arrangement of the flies upon 

 the leader. Use only three on a gang, or cast, as they 

 are called, and arrange them something after this fashion : 



The day before the angler goes fishing he should take 

 down his book and arrange six or eight different gangs 

 of flies, beginning with the three most likely flies in his 

 judgment, and placing them upon the leader, the heaviest 

 fly for the stretcher, or end fly, the next in size for the 

 first dropper, and a small fly for the top or second dropper. 

 This arrangement is for swift water. If arranging for 

 absolutely still water the order of size should be re- 

 versed, placing the small fly at the end for the stretcher, 

 and a large fly for the top dropper. The reason for this 

 arrangement will be explained la er. 



After having arranged the six or eight different casts, 

 having them all provided with different flies, coil them 

 up carefully and place them in the book, not forgetting 

 to put in a small piece of chamois skin or a large rubber 

 band, the first being preferable. 



The old method of soaking leaders over night is utter 

 folly, for a more excellent way is described below. 



Having said this much as descriptive of the tackle 

 necessary, and supposing that the angler has fully 

 equipped liimself according to directions, and that he is 

 fully acquainted with the methods of fishing with bait, 

 he is now ready to take his first initiatory steps in fly- 

 fishing. A word before he starts about casting and then 

 he may go to the brook and try for himself. He has 

 probably read of the phenomenal casts at the tourna- 

 ments and heard of the guides in the woods, who all 

 cast 100ft., no one ever hearing of a guide who casts less 

 than that figure. He has doubtless come to think that 

 in order to be successful as a fly-fisher he must be able to 

 make a long cast. This is entirely erroneous; it is said 

 by an old woodsman that "it is impossible to take a 

 trout on a cast of over 75ft." Although this is probably 

 not absolutely correct, yet every one who has tried it 

 finds, fust, that it is next to impossible to cast over 75ft., 

 and second, that having made an extremely long cast, it 

 is well nigh impossible to hook a trout, if one should 

 rise. This is the third improbability, and so we find that 

 it is highly improbable, if not impossible, that trout 

 should be taken by long casting. 



Twenty-five or thirty feet is about as much as any fly- 

 caster usually uses, particularly on mountain brooks, and 

 this distance can be readily attained to by a very small 

 amount of practice; and when the amateur angler has 

 become acquainted with the motions of the cast suffici- 

 ently to be able to cast 25ft. fairly well, he should then 

 practice for accuracy, for this is the more essential 

 feature, and one that must be acquired with more or less 

 proficiency in order to be successful. 



We may suppose that by this time the angler with his 

 outfit has arrived at the brook andis "rigging up." When 

 he gets out his gang of flies he finds they assume the form 

 of a spiral spring, so having his friend, "for certainly he 

 has taken his friend with him," hold the end of the 

 leader, he takes the chamois, and with a few rapid rubs 

 between his finger and thumb straightens the leader so 

 that it hangs perfectly. 



Standing in the middle of the stream at the head or 

 upper part of a long, deep pool, where he always expects 

 to find a trout when bait-fishing, and grasping the grip of 

 his rod with his right hand, having the reel on the under 

 side, he unreels perhaps 15ft. of fine, and with a sharp 

 upward and backward stroke followed by a correspond- 

 ingly sharp forward stroke, he lands his flies upon the 

 still water of the pool below, and by a tremulous motion 

 of the wrist begins to draw them slowly toward him, 

 always keeping the little top dropper fly hopping and 

 jumping from ripple to ripple till he has made them cross 

 the rapid water at the entrance to the pool. He must 

 watch his flies very closely all this time, and will not 

 have to be told when he has a rise, as he will doubtless be 

 as much surprised as the trout he hooks, if indeed he 

 hooks him. At the first appearance of a break or rise he 

 must leam to strike instantaneously. This is done by a 

 quick upward twist of the wrist, and this is where most 

 beginners fail. While in bait-fishing he lets the trout 

 have the line and go where he likes, the fly-fisher seems 

 to try to snatch the fly away from the trout; but the 

 trout is very rapid, and the angler must be correspond- 

 ingly quick or the trout will drop the little bunch of 

 feathers, finding that it is not the insect or fly that he 

 thought it to be, and the angler loses his fish. 



Having hooked the fish he quickly transfers the rod to 

 the left hand and reels him up to him till he is almost at 

 his teet; then grasping his landing net he slips it under 

 him with a deft motion and the trout is his. The art is 

 nearl. his also, for with his first trout taken squarely and 

 honestly on a fly comes the enthusiasm of fly-fishing 

 which carries him on to perfection. 



And thus having led the angler to a successful capture 

 I have finished what I proposed to write. Still I might 

 continue and tell you that not all brooks afford good fly- 

 fishing. In some brooks trout never seem to rise to a fly 

 at all- while in others they come out with a slash that 

 surprises even an old hand at it, and the next brook he 

 tries they may take the fly well, but make no noise about 

 it, seeming to come up and suck it in quietly, as though 



it was the most natural thing in the world to do. Then 

 again brooks differ as to the fly one should use, and it is 

 no sure sign because they take a certain fly on one brook 

 that they take that particular fly on all brooks. Nor is it 

 a certain sign that they will take a certain fly to-morrow 

 because they have to-day; for to-morrow they may take 

 another very different fly, or none at all. Hence the 

 advantage of having the six or eight gangs ready rigged 

 beforehand, so that if one cast fails to bring a rise an- 

 other may be tried, and so on till the right cast or gang 

 is found; then note the particular fly or flies they take, 

 and he will find them taking one fly or possibly two, and 

 scarcely a day in the season will they take all sorts of 

 flies as well as some particular one, although I have 

 found them at times when I thought they would take 

 almost any fly offered them. 



The reason for the arrangement of the flies on the 

 leader as described above is that the large fly at the end 

 catches more water and therefore offers more resistance, 

 and helps to hold up the two droppers and make them 

 appear more lifelike. 



The beauties of the art will gradually unfold them- 

 selves to the angler till he will come to say that "one 

 trout taken on a fly gave me more pleasure than a basket 

 full taken with bait, and I shall use bait no more." 



Notliks. 



THE MAINE WATERS. 



EANGELEY, Me., May 12— Editor Forest and Stream 

 Most of the Eangeleys were clear of ice April 30, 

 something very unusual. Last year I crossed both the 

 Eangeley and Mooselucmeguntic lakes on the ice May 19. 

 Now the trees are green and the weather is warm enough 

 for midsummer. The fishermen are coming in quite fast 

 and some of them are on their way out with their box 

 of fish. I think that so far the fishing has been very 

 good at all points on the lakes. Below I give you some 

 of the catches made this spring, and I wish it understood 

 that I do not impose upon the readers of the Forest and 

 Stream by giving a record of a catch of fish which I have 

 not first assured myself is correct. 



Mr. E L. Simpson, of Brunswick, Maine, has been at 

 Camp Bernis a week; in this time without the assistance 

 of a guide he has taken one hundred trout; most of these 

 were taken from the wharf. His record runs as follows: 

 One 51bs., one 4±« one 4, one 8&, and a great many between 

 2 and Slbs. Mr. W. P. Clark, of Peabody, Mass., and Mr. 

 W. D. Brockett, of Stoneham, Mass., "with John and 

 JatnesiCollins for guides, have been fishing in the vicinity 

 of the Upper Dam for the past week. Their record is 

 two 74lbs., two 5, two 4, twelve in the vicinity of 31bs., 

 and many about 21bs. The guests at the Mooselucme- 

 guntic House report good success also at Indian Eock 

 and Mountain View House, Mr. E. L. Bird and Mr. Geo. 

 Whittier took at the "Eddy" on Eangeley Stream in one 

 day's fishing 45 trout, the net weight of which was 401bs. 



F. C. Barker. 



Boston, May 20.— The trout season in Maine is picking 

 up. Eeports begin to indicate a good catch, and after 

 all there are a good many prominent business and pro- 

 fessional men on the grounds or have just returned. The 

 early season disturbed, the starting a good deal, but the 

 finest of weather of late has started off even those who 

 were in doubt about going at all. Again the salmon sea- 

 son at Bangor has been a failure thus far, and several 

 parties intending to go there have tired of waiting for 

 the salmon to rise and have gone to either Eangeley or 

 Moosehead. From Moosehead the reports are good. 

 Some fine trout were shown at the Boston Chamber of 

 Commerce the other day. Messrs. L. E. Pierce, M. J. 

 Conant, S. E. Ellis and Jas. H. Davis had just returned 

 from a few days' fishing at Moosehead. Their catch of 

 trout included 225 in all, among which they showed at 

 the Chamber of Commerce a lake trout that they claimed 

 to weigh 11 Jibs., with five other lake trout of good size. 

 Their largest brook trout weighed 51bs. , with others of 

 good size. The catch of trout excited a good deal of in- 

 terest among their brother merchants. The Kineo Club 

 will start for Moosehead May 81. 



The catch of trout at Eangeley is proving rather re- 

 markable for numbers this spring, though the monsters 

 have not yet responded. Five pounds for a brook trout 

 is the largest record I have yet heard of that could be 

 authenticated. But the catch is proving remarkable in 

 the number of landlocked salmon that are being taken 

 in Eangeley and Mooselucmaguntic lakes. Already the 

 record runs up into the dozens of these fish caught, but 

 the range in size is not large. In fact a 41b. landlocked 

 salmon is considered a large one for these waters this 

 spring. But the number is rather gratifying to those 

 who have been instrumental in stocking these lakes with 

 these fish. It seems that they are taken in trolling, with 

 the minnow bait, the same as trout; or rather they are 

 generally taken when fishing for trout, and I have yet to 

 learn of any peculiarities in either bait, tackle or manner 

 of fishing that brings them, otherwise than that practiced 

 in trolling for trout. None of them are on record this 

 year as having risen to the fly. Possibly they may later 

 in the season, though they are not yet noted for rising to 

 the fly in any of the Maine waters. 



Ladies are counted in to the Eangeley fishing trips more 

 than usual this spring, and they are making some fine 

 records with rod and line. There have been registered 

 at the Elmwood, Phillips, Maine, N. N. Thayer and wife, 

 Boston; W. F. Sturtevant and wife, Springfield; F. A. 

 Magee and wife, Thos. Cunningham and wife, and 

 Weston Lewis and wife, of Boston. Mr. F. A. Magee is 

 the principal of the Magee Furnace Company, of this 

 city, and a regular visitor to the Maine trout waters. 

 Mrs, Magee is a novice with rod and reel, but her record 

 is rather satisfactory. She has landed an 81b. landlocked 

 salmon, the largest of the season thus far. Senator W. 

 P. Frye is at his camp on Mooselucmaguntic. The story 

 is that considerable fishing has been done off the rocks in 

 front of his camp this spring, and a great many trout 

 caught. This was all done before the worthy Senator 

 got there. The Allerton Lodge people, of Boston, quite 

 a crowd of them, are at the same lakss 



There is a mystery about the salmon, at Bangor. Still 

 they do not rise. The theory is that the water is too 

 roily. It is said that a great dam above has been carried 

 away, and hence the roil. But it is also true that the 

 run into the nets at Bucksport and other towns down the 

 river all the way to the ocean has been very small. The 

 trade in Boston which handles these salmon from these 

 netters have not yet received half the usual number. It 



