210 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept. 12, 1896. 
to, but thought that the cold snd the terrible labor of 
clearing up a pine farm was a cheap price for the thought 
of owning a farm. So he labored on, and sent back for 
his friends, and they sent for theirs, until there was a col- 
ored settlement of some forty families working away up in 
the Michigan woods. They lumbered in the winter and 
cleared land when they could, and now their labor has 
made a little hole in the woods, though here and there a 
scarred hillside, slowly being eaten up again by the forest, 
shows all there is left of some man's efforts at making a 
home for himself. These things Bush showed me and told 
me about as he took me down to his little creek. He told 
me where I would see the trout, and I found his state- 
ment correct. I had visible proof of the efiBcacy of State 
stocking. I saw a dozen trout in my iishing that after- 
noon which would have weighed over Slbs. each, and a 
few which I thought heavier than that. Of trout. lOin, 
long there was abundance. 
But there was another lesson in the day on Bush's 
Creek. The trout were there, and it was generally 
known that they were there, but the fact that they re- 
mained there depended entirely on the fact of their inac- 
cessibility, I fished three miles of that stream, and 
never saw a worse stretch of water in my life. The cedar 
windfalls made a, protection which but few anglers would 
care to break through at all, and fewer yet would care 
to try it a second time. It was not sport in any sense of 
the word. It was impossible to cast a fly or to use a fly 
in any way. At times one could not get a hook down to 
the water at all, so deep was the tangle of interlocked 
and bristling fallen trees that covered it like a floor. My 
fly-rod was in constant danger, and my clothing was soon 
torn. It was impossible to wade and impossible to walk 
the bank. It was a case of climb and scramble for three 
miles. There were trout there, to be sure, but only once 
in a whUe could one get at them decently, and never at 
all by means of the fly. No wonder the stream was not 
fished out, and no wonder there was no path along its 
bank! Now I had abundance of such fishing as this in 
my life before, and when I feel that I must have trout to 
eat I will endure it, albeit I cannot call it sport. But 
when I came out at the cross road, three miles above 
the point where I had gone in, and when I stood, black 
with the grime from burned logs and ragged from the 
war with cedar stubs, I vowed at the time that never 
again would I go after trout in such a place. And I 
registered my belief to myself, there alone in the forest, 
that I did not believe there was a stream out of doors in 
Wisconsin or Michigan where a man could wade like a 
gentleman and catch a basket of trout on the fly. My 
experience, a somewhat varied one, had once again 
taught me that where there were trout there was no 
wading, and where there was wading there were no 
longer any trout. 
Then I walked six miles home and kicked myself every 
step. And when I got to camp there was an invitation 
from Mr. Geo. L, Alexander to come for a day on the 
stream of the Fontinalis Club. I took counsel of my own 
experience that day, and thought there might be reasons 
for this club. But still I was skeptical and said to myself, 
"If there is ever, anywhere, anyhow, upon the face of 
this green earth, m this whole State or anywhere else, a 
stream where I can really get in and wade and really 
take a basket of trout on the fly, I shall, the moment I 
see the truth thereof, establish a paean of thanksgiving 
which shall be heard throughout the land." 
This is the peean. There is such a place. There are 
gentlemen so fortunate as to own it. It is better than I 
thought, and better than any one can know who has not 
seen it for himself. Best of all, it is not going to be 
ruined. It is going to be kept just as it is. There will be 
no willow poles in the deep corners where the market 
fishers threw them. There will be no tin cans of defunct 
worms along the banks. The trout will not all be finger- 
lings. And yet this will be in a locality altogether pos- 
sible and pleasant. So much for the idea of a trout pre- 
serve in a region where fifty of the handsomest trout 
streams on earth bubble along emptily, telling you of 
what they were ten years ago, and of what they might be 
to-day were it not for the belief of the public that it can 
both eat and keep its cake. 
In the excellence of the sport afforded, in the wild 
character of its surroundings, and in the thoroughly 
sportsmanlike though comfortable conditions under which 
the sport may be pursued, I imagine that the like of the 
Fontinalis Trout Club does not exist anywhere in the 
coimtry. It is a stream of the wilderness, untouched 
since the hand of the lumberman left it at least, and 
showing no trace of any past or possible attempt at civili- 
zation. The stream is not "improved" or changed in any 
way. The natural cover has been left almost as it was 
originally. There is no artificial extension of the stream 
at all, and not the least effort to change its natural con- 
ditions. Here, let us thankfully remember, are at least 
five miles of the wilderness where the willow rod and 
the tin can and the side path shall not tell of glories gone 
by. The glories are here, just as they were when the 
cruiser first came. They are to remain here. No man is 
allowed to use anything but the artificial fly as a lure, 
and unwritten law places a limit on his take even then. 
This is the example of one preserved stream as against 
that of the fifty open ones. Against such an example the 
local public of course rebels, wishing always to break in 
and devour the cake, witting not that the wise self-re- 
straint of the members of such clubs is only a fair and 
rational purchase price against the lack of restraint prac- 
ticed by the general public. Ever since Biblical times the 
wise virgins who had oil to burn have had rather the best 
of the argument over the foolish ones who had none. 
That is the status of the game preserve question in Amer- 
ica in a nutshell, one must fear. Not all men are wise, 
but some are, and some will fall back on the common 
law which governed individual action long before statute 
law was dreamed of. It will be the law of trespass 
against the flsh and game laws in this country, before an- 
other generation has passed by, one must fear, though 
there will stUl be heard the cry, "Give ua of your oil, for 
we have none." 
My companion guests, Mr. O. A. Woodruff and Mr, W. 
H. Yardley, and myself drove in to the Fontinalis Club 
house from the railroad station of Vanderbilt, a little pine 
woods town which lies well up toward the top of the 
lower peninsula, something like forty or fifty miles south 
of Mackinaw City, I should guess. The road was sandy, 
but lay part of the time through a very pleasant bit of 
pine and maple forest, so that the five miles passed very 
quickly. At the end of our way there came into view a 
piece of clearing in the big woods, and here we saw the 
club house, a log house, to be sure, but such a log house 
as one sees nowadays, designed by an architect and 
worked out handsomely in one of the best building 
materials. This log house would serve well for a fashion- 
able suburban dwelling, with its gables, its broad veranda 
and its generally handsome and substantial look. About 
this main building were grouped others, a cottage for the 
ladies, buildings for the keeper and famUy, a spacious 
bam, etc, in all quite a little settlement of a strangely 
finished and sophisticated look for that wild and unkempt 
country. 
But it was the interior of the club house that most im- 
pressed one. Of course there was the usual dining hall, 
and upstairs, at one side of the great court which extended 
from floor to roof, there were sleeping chambers. But 
the main room of the lodge, a vast one, sided and ceiled 
and raftered with native pine, was a very dream of a place, 
a room such as one always thinks of when building air 
castles, a roofing in of the outdoor air, with sweetness, 
light, warmth, comfort, rest in every suggestion. The 
fireplace was a noble one, and the very flames in the cor- 
ners of it winked at one with subtle hints of heroic 
stories told within its hearing. There were pictures of 
the right sort upon the wall — pictures, sometimes so diffi- 
cult, but here so well chosen. There were big swinging 
hammocks dangerous to a fisherman's conscience, and in- 
deed everything one could suggest to make the place an 
ideal gathering place for sportsmen. It was that combi- 
nation of elegance and naturalness which is the expression 
to-day of the best of modern sportsmanship. My friends 
and myself, left alone for a moment, could not avoid 
comment upon the charm of the place, nor congratula- 
tions later to the members belonging to this lucky organi- 
zation. Of all the halls, gun rooms and assembly places I 
have seen among the sportsmen's club houses in the coun- 
try, I do not know of one where one would more will- 
ingly throw himself down and say: "This is the place, the 
very place!" The walls bore evidence of the occupancy, 
with their decorations of rods, baskets and the like, and 
the tracings of record trout taken on the Fontinalis 
stream or captured by traveling members on other 
waters. There were pictures of the great trout of the 
Nipigon and of salmon of the Restigouche (the latter 
taken on a very successful trip by Mr, Russel), and there 
were outlines of big trout killed on the home stream by 
members, notably one of 30oz. and one of oSoz., if memory 
serves, fish taken by Mr. Alexander and Dr. Longyear, 
showing what the sport can be there at the home of the 
club. It was all very fit and very sportsmanlike and very 
pleasant. 
At the hour when we arrived we were not expected, 
owing to delay of our train, and none of the members 
were at the club house, all being out upon the stream 
improving the opportunity of a most excellent cloudy 
morning for fly-fishing. There were present at the club 
at the time the two Misses Russel, of Detroit; Mr. George L. 
Alexander, of Grayling, Mich, ; Mr. Wm. K. Anderson, 
of Detroit, and his friend, Mr. D wight; Mr. C. Valentine, 
of Chicago, and Mr. Kemp, of Gaylord, Mich., who was 
invited in with our party. At lunch time these all came 
in — for the fishing there never need take one far enough 
away to miss luncheon if he cares to come in — and then 
we met everybody. It was pleasant to learn that the 
Misses Russel are very ardent and successful trout fishers, 
When they appeared it was in regular trouting garb, 
with the waders which the fishing there makes neces- 
sary, and they were enjoying in a rational and pleasant 
fashion not only the happiness of being out of doors in 
the freedom of the pine country, but also the sport of 
fishing for trout and catching them, too, with the fly. 
There are not very many places in the coimtry where 
this is a possibility. The ladies showed us their catch of 
the morning with just pride, and told us of larger fish 
which had escaped. Evidently the atmosphere of Fon- 
tinalis was of the proper sort. It is impossible to abide 
there without imbibing the first and highest principles of 
angling. 
Mr. Alexander welcomed us upon his return from the 
stream, and soon everybody was crowding about him and 
peeping into his basket, for he is the acknowledged ex- 
pert of the club, and usually gets trout if any one does. 
He smilingly emptied his basket, and to my surprise and 
delight I saw that he had actually thirty trout, nearly a 
basket full, some running up to fib. in weight. They 
were bright and beautiful fish, every one of them killed 
honorably, upon the fly, as all trout should be, and cer- 
tainly the sight of them was enough to make an angler's 
heart jump. These were real trout, actual trout, taken 
upon the fly, and upon a stream where a man could wade 
and cast a fly ! Then I wondered if dreams ever had 
come true before. 
Mr. Alexander is a bom fly-fisherman and a tireless 
lover of the brook trout. He has a rare skill with the 
rod, as we had occasion to witness later, and he ties his 
own flies and makes his own pattern at times, as we also 
learned. (The best fly on the stream we found to be the 
one called the "Alexander," a white-winged fly with red 
body, devised and much used by himself.) But it is not 
as a fly -fisher that Mr. Alexander most excels, if he would 
allow us to say so, but as an entertaining and obliging 
host. A more unselfish man never lived, and his is always 
the task of taking care of everybody, and seeing that 
everybody has a better place to fish and a better time all 
around than he has himself. I don't know what title 
should be given the man who carries this responsibility, 
but the office is an unusual one, and one which should be 
maintained in every body of sportsmen in the land. The 
only objection or difficulty I can see to this is that there 
is but one George L. Alexander, and he is already located. 
I have read a good deal about the true sportsman, and 
have heard several speeches about him and have been on 
his trail, but if I ever actually saw him anywhere, it was 
right here at Fontinalis. This may be said partly at the 
charge of my exuberance at finally finding that long 
sought place where one could wade and catch trout on 
the fly; but there are a great mimy others who say the 
same thing, so I presume Mr. Alexander will have to 
blush and stand it. 
When we got to the stream for our afternoon's fishing, 
I found it an ideal trouting water. The little river, 
which has the pleasant name of Fontinalis, is a branch of 
the Sturgeon River, and is preserved for four or five miles 
in all by the Fontinalis Club. It averages about 50ft. in 
width, I should think, and is rareJiy too deep to wade with 
high wading trousers, though some of the holes run as 
deep as 5ft. or so in places. The bottom isi sandy or grav- 
elly rather than rocky, and the stream breaks up into 
riffs, shallows and islands at places. There are three 
dams upon the club property, and above and below these 
the big trout love to lurk. Some of the shore is lined 
with windfall at the middle dam, and a boat is used 
there, from which to my surprise two of the party, Mr. 
Alexander and Mr. Woodruff, caught a nice basket of 
fish. Along most of the fishing water it is possible to walk 
along the shore, and part of the stream runs through 
meadow, where it is possible to walk along and east fly 
and catch trout without wading. For the most part the 
best fishing is had by wading, and as in parts of the 
stream the bottom is a trifle soft, the most killing way of 
fishing is by casting up stream, as in wading down stream 
the roily water disturbs the fish if one is not very careful. 
But the trout! Never, even in the wildest mountain 
streams, have I ever seen so many trout. If I say the 
stream swarms with them I shall not exaggerate. By 
mistake in Mr. Alexander's directions I took the stream a 
little further up than was intended, and came upon it at 
a bridge once used by an old logging road. Under this 
bridge there is a deep hole, and above it the water runs 
deep for quite a little stretch. When I came up and 
looked over into the water here my hair fairly curled. A 
dozen trout, several of which would have gone l^lbs. 
each, darted into cover from the white sandy spot over 
which they had been lying. And in the reach of the 
river above the bridge the trout were at that instant leap- 
ing and feeding bv the dozen. It was a pretty sight and 
a thrilling one. Not for a long, long time had I been so 
near to some actual trout fishing. I confess I hurried in 
very unseemly fashion. 
I dropped into the stream nearly hip deep along the cut 
bank above the bridge, and in two minutes was fast to 
my first trout on the Fontinalis. It happened that ar little 
feeding flurry was going on, and I got half a dozen in a 
short time, some very handsome ones, but a few less than 
the established length of 7in, honest measurement re- 
quired in the club rules, which latter were returned. 
Each of us had his hand measured before leaving the 
club house, and each of us had a certain crease marked 
on his wrist, which was just 7in, from the tips of his 
fingers, so there was no trouble about the proper measure- 
ments. It was not long before I saw the wisdom of the 
restrictions established by the club, which constitute a 
practical protection to the fish of the stream. In a short, 
time my flurry of rising trout had subsided, and I cast 
for some time in vain. It needed a long and light line to 
take flsh, for even on a stream so little fished as this the 
trout soon learn a thing or two. What one could do with 
bait upon such a stream is a different thing, but with the 
artificial fly alone and a standard of 7in. actual length it 
takes a good stream and good fishing nowadays to get a 
basket of trout. Of course we hear of a great many 
streams where this is possible, but we do not often actu- 
ally see them. If the rules of the 7in. standard and the 
artificial fly could be enforced as statutory law we should 
see good fishing in open streams to-day that were long 
ago depleted by the usual methods, I saw hundreds and 
hundreds of trout, but some of them were feeding and 
some were not, and some were a little too small, and 
some did not like the sort of fly I had, and some pre- 
ferred the abundant live insects to my fly, and some I 
frightened by bad casting at a critical time, and some 
saw me and ran away, so that I found at the time I left 
the stream I had less than a dozen trout in my basket. 
But they were trout, honorable trout, killed on a fly in a 
stream which permitted a long cast and a chance to play 
a flsh. The next day I killed thirty trout before it was 
time to leave for the train, the most of these upon a crude 
Alexander fly, which I made by cutting down the wings 
of a May fly and wrapping the body with red silk. This 
is the best trout fishing I have ever had east of the Rocky 
Mountains. Of course I hear a great deal of parties going 
out and catching a thousand trout and all that sort of 
thing, but that is not trout fishing. It is no sport to grub 
trout out with a worm or a piece of fin or a grasshopper, 
nothing to compare with such angling as that at Fonti- 
nalis. To my notion there is no sport with the gun which 
surpasses quail shooting over good dogs, and no sport 
with the rod like that of fishing for trout upon a good 
stream and with the fly. Rare indeed is the opportunity 
for the latter. 
These being the methods of the Fontinalis Club, and 
such being the natural excellence of their stream, it is an 
easy guess that they will always have good fishing. The 
stream is regularly stocked, and as the membership is 
only twenty-two, not many of whom are ever present at 
one time, the supply is equal to every demand made upon 
it. The trout are more abundant now than they ever 
were in that stream. It will for years yield pleasure to 
men who know how to enjoy it, and it is a living lesson 
against the foolish and wasteful ways of the men who 
fish on streams belonging to the people, and come back 
boasting of having killed a thousand trout. 
There is a great deal of a kind of moss in many reaches 
of the Fontinalis stream, perhaps of the same sort that 
makes the Caledonia stream, of New York, and the Cas- 
talia stream, of Ohio, so famous, and certainly holding 
abundance of food for the trout. We found the fish lying 
under the edges of the moss banks, or in the cuts made by 
the current, and the best place of all was some deep spot 
where the white sand of the bottom was exposed. Here 
there was always the certainty of a strike if one were 
skillful and careful enough, for each pool of that kind 
would have a dozen or two of trout lying along the bot- 
tom. I sometimes parted the bushes and looked down 
into such pools, and often saw as many as twenty -five or 
thirty trout, some very large ones, lying in view in the 
transparent water. Yet in spite of the numbers of trout 
in this water it should by no means be supposed that the 
stream is a "tame" one, or one where it is easy to take a 
lot of trout. Indeed, it is much harder to take trout there 
than upon a wild stream which has an equal number of 
fish; for the latter is sure to be the less fished one. There 
are good days and bad days at Fontinalis, and even while 
we were there some of the anglers came in with only a 
very few trout. Luck is a large factor in trout fishing at 
Fontinalis as elsewhera The fish taken there are clean 
and brilliantly colored, showing health and abundance of 
natural food. 
The largest trout of the stream are of course found in 
the deepest water, and this is either above or below the 
dams. The club house is built upon a high bluff directly 
at the side of the stream, and near here is the lowest of 
the three dams upon the property, so that there is a lovely 
and convenient pool for evening fishing right at the door 
