46 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Jv-LY 17, 1897 
gm mid §w^r Si^¥^S* 
Pi^oprietors of fishing resorts will find it profitable to advertise 
them in Fohest and STRBAii. 
WHERE TO GO. 
One important, useful and considerable part of the Forbst and 
Stream's service to the spoi-tsmen's commuDiiy is the information 
erfven inquirers for shooting and fishing resorts. We make it our 
business to Jmow where to send the sportsmen for large or small 
game, or in quest of his favorite fish, and this knowledge is freely im- 
parted on request. 
On the other hand, we are constantly seeking information of this 
dharaeter for the benefit of our patrons, and we invite sportsmen, 
hotel proprietors and others to communicate to us whatever may be 
pt advantage to the sportsman tourist. 
MEN I HAVE FISHED WITH. 
XLIX.— Rev. Henry L. Zleeenfuss. 
The rector of Christ Churcli, Pouglikeepsie, N. Y., was a 
jolly companion on a trout stream when I first knew him, 
and in his later days, when he was the Archdeacon of 
Dutcliess, he retained the same good qualities which have 
rightfully been attributed to the gentle angler since the days 
when Tzaak Walton wrote that angling classic which will re- 
tain a place in English literature as long as that literature 
shall last. 
One May day a score of years ago I was lazily fishing 
down a stream in.BuUivan county, N. Y.. tributary to 
the Neversink Eiver, whicb empties into the Delaware, when 
1 stopped to repair the damage that an unruly trout had made 
in my landing net, which bad now shown that it was too 
tender to retain so strong a fish ; and as I was engaged in cut- 
ting out the bottom of the net preparatory to knitting in a 
new one with sojt'^. old fish line, a dark-haired stranger, 
with a pleasant face and equally pleasant voice, ' asked: 
"What has torn your net in that manner; did it catch upon 
a tree?" ' 
I explained that a trout had broken two or three meshes 
and escaped, but in order to knit in the bottom of the net in 
proper shape it required much cutting. He sat down and 
watched the knitting in of a new bottom with much interest, 
and admired the completed job so much that, when he found 
that I was making headquarters at Woodburn, he went there 
for the night, and cut and tore all sorts of holes in an old 
seine in order to learn how to cut them out so that they could 
be knit in without losing or gaining a mesh. This work de- 
lighted him, and in after years I saw him show some herring 
fishermen how to knit up a hole in a net instead of gathering 
it in a bunch and tying it. This he regarded as a great 
accomplishment, and in later years often said to me: "We 
can cast a fly and take a trout with the rest of them, but 
when it comes to mending a landing net we can beat 
them." 
I have said that on a day in May I was lazily fishing down 
a stream. Most anglers get into a lazy, discouraged way 
about noon, when the trout don't want to bite and they do, 
but I was keeping up the pretense of fishing until a certain 
cool spring was reached, where there was promised rest and 
refreshment. The angler who joined me was a stranger on 
that stream and accompanied me a half-mile further to the 
spring, where we sat in the shade and ate our luncheon. 
Afterward we compared the contents of our creels and the 
pages of our fly-books. rods, lines and reels. One of the 
pleasures of fly fishing is to meet a brother of the angle, and 
after a mutual inspection of flies and tackle, to sit down in 
the shade and discuss the merits of several flies for that par- 
ticular day and water. We had exchanged cards and found 
that we had many friends arid acquaintances in common. 
iiir. Ziegenfuss had eight handsome brook trout to show 
and I had nine, but as we matched them we decided that 
our catches would not vary an ounce and that the fish in my 
creel would run about three to the pound and his a trifle 
more. The fish were in good flesh but slender, as those in 
rapid brooks usually are, bright in color, and formed a 
pretty picture upon the grass where they lay. 
"I see that you are fishing with only one fly, and that it is 
an oak fly; did you take all your fi^h with that?" asked Mr. 
Ziegenfuss. 
"Yes, the morning opened bright and I chose a dull fly; 
the brown wings are only lightly relieved by a dull, yellow 
body, and happening to hit it right, I stuck to it. One fly is 
plenty, if it is the right one. Sometimes, after changing 
flies several times, I have put on three flies, when lake fish- 
ing, but in fishing a stream, with its eddies taking one fly 
over a sunken log and another under it, one fly is easier to 
handle, aud, to tell you the truth, T never did care as much 
for stream fishing as for casting from a boat upon a lake." 
My companion looked up and said : "With me it is the 
reverse; 1 love the babbling of the brook, which seems to 
sing the song to which Tennyson has given words, and then 
the ever changing lights and shadows, the big trout which 
your fancy installs under the roots of the great tree upon 
whose domain the brook has encroached, and the keen ex- 
pectancy with which you present a most killing fly, only to 
lose it in a mass of roots, and so get a lesson in perseverance 
as you try it again. Have you anything in lake fishing to 
compare with this for the poetry of angling?" 
Surely my new friend had a keen appreciation of all the 
finer enjoyments of angling, and to him the capture of a fish 
was only an incident in a day's sport and not the main object 
of it. He had challenged me to a comparison of the style of 
fishing which I preferred, to stream fishing, which he took 
the most delight in. I began by saying: "Questions of taste 
are not debatable; de gustib-us, etc. The two modes of fly- 
fishing are so different that it isditficult to compare them. If 
I did not enjoy brook fishing you would not have found me 
here on this pleasant May morning; that is a self-evident 
fact. I am somewhere from fifteen to twenty years your 
senior, and am not only not as ambitious for the athletic 
exercise of wading a stream or tramping its banks as 1 once 
was, and a seat in a boat on a mountain lake, where the 
scenery is all of nature's handiwork, unmarred by the axe of 
man, is as pleasing to me as the brook. I see that you have 
waded the brook in low shoes, woolen stockings and trousers 
tied down." 
"Yes," said he. "Do you prefer rubber wading boots? I 
notice that your shoes are wet, but that you are not shod for 
wading. Is that your usual rig for a brook?" 
"It is my only rig," 1 answered, "for I seldom fish brooks 
now. The fact is that I abominate all kinds of wading 
boots and trousers, or rubber clothing in any form. If I 
should require a Turkish bath that would be a thing to go 
for; but I had a pair of wading trousers with boots attached, 
which came up under my armpits, and I wore them one day 
and stewed in them while wading the West Canada Creek 
in the Adirondacks. I was steamed and almost parboiled, 
until fortunately I slipped upon a mossy stone, landed on my 
back in the water, which flUed the waders and had a sooth- 
ing, cooling effect on my exhausted syBtem. I went ashore 
and emptied the water out of the things, and sat enjoying 
the air as it blew on my superheated legs and body. Then 
I tore a leaf out of my note-book and wrote: 'These things 
cost me $18,~lawful currency of the United States. They 
are yours if you want them. If I have an enemy, I only 
hope that he may find them and wear them for half a day, 
and suffer as I have done.' Then I himg them by the road- 
side and left them." 
"That was your experience with waders," said Mr. Ziegen- 
fuss, ' 'but how about getting into the stream in a rig like mine, 
with low shoes, either with or without hob-nails? I agree 
that all rubber clothing produces too much perspiration to 
be comfortable; but what about wading in low shoes when 
stream fishing?" 
"It is the ideal rig for wading," I replied; "especially if 
you cut slits in the shoes near the soles to let the water out. 
But then, my dear young man, pardon the reference to your 
youth, to a man of my years and life of exposure, a day with 
his feet and legs in water that will sustain trout, while the 
sun is broiling his brain, is a source of present discomfort and 
future rheumatism, or sciatica, that takes the edge off fish- 
ing. I hope that I have stated my case so that my personal 
preference for boat fishing on lakes wiU not appear to detract 
from your favorite methods, for these questions of sport are 
not to" be answered by hard-and-faat rules; each individual 
must decide for himself the form which suits his taste, age 
and other physical peculiarities. In my stream fishing now 
I do not wade much, but fish from the banks when it is pos- 
sible. Of course I get my feet and legs wet, but they are not 
chilled for hours, that's what I don't fancy." 
"What are your plans for the day?" Mr, Ziegenfuss asked. 
"It wai my intention to fish down to this spring, some- 
thing like three miles from the village, as the crow flies, but 
about twice that distance by meandering the stream, rest 
here as we have done until the sun gets half way between 
meridian and the hilltops and then work back, fishing as 
long as it is light enough, and then take a straight cut for the 
hotel. What are your intentions?" 
"I have none," he said. "I stopped at a farmhouse last 
night and thought that I would fish down to the Neversink 
to-day and then fish that stream to-morrow and get home 
Friday night, but if you have no objection I will go back 
with you and we will talk things over at the hotel. I came 
alone because I had a chance to get off, but none of my fish- 
ing companions could leave ; I had heard much of this stream, 
and here I am." 
"My case, exactly, and If you will go back with me to- 
night I will be delighted, for you know how lonesome it is 
at a country hotel where an angler is entirely out of sympa- 
thy with his fellow-man, as he finds him in the hotel bar- 
room. I'm a gregarious fellow in a general way, but I par- 
ticularly enjoy company in whose talk I can find some inter- 
est, and can assure you that your company to-night will be 
a pleasure the more valued because unexpected." 
We rested awhile longer before starting, and we cast our 
flies over likely water for a mile without a rise, Mr. Ziegen- 
fuss in the stream and I alternately on its banks or in it. 
"It's no use," said he, "the trout refuse our flies; we must 
change. What do you propose?" 
"Lighter colored flies — coachman, professor, Reuben- 
Wood, or queen- of -tbe-water. You have two flies on and 1 
only ©ne; they were good in the morning,, and in the noon 
glare, but the sun is somewhat overcast, and our dark flies 
do not attract. I think any of the flies named will be good, 
saving the Reuben-Wood for nearer sundown, when its 
white chenille body wiU show up to advantage." 
"All right," said my friend, "you take your choice, but I 
have a royal coachman and a red ibis which I will try first, 
and a white miller when the sun gets below the hills." 
He soon got a strike and I stopped to see the fight. It was 
impossible to tell whether the fish was on the royal coach- 
man, which was the tail fly, or on the hand fly, but soon he 
had a trout on each, and the conflict deepened. The fish 
had already passed below him, and he was putting on all the 
strain he dared, in order to keep them from reaching the 
roots of a tree which had been washed out and lay across the 
stream. Ten feet more and they would reach it. I offered 
no advice, for a master-hand held the rod; but my heart 
beat hard when the tip of his rod touched the water and his 
click reel told that he was yielding line, "^rhen he checked 
the rush and one fish broke loose. As he reeled the other 
trout in we saw that the hand fly was gone, and that the 
tail fly had held a tired-out trout that would weigh nearly 
lib., the largest fish we had taken that day. As we went on 
I took two trout on the professor, and a good one on the 
Reuben Wood just at sundown, and my partner took two 
more. 
After supper we found a piazza, and taking our chairs on 
it felt a grateful relief from a country bar-room, which is 
usually the only sitting-place for a male guest. Few anglers 
have escaped an evening of horror in such a place, listening 
to the village sport who knew how "That ar bay mare o' 
Jenkins's would win the race 'cause I see her trot in private 
when Doc Miller held the watch on her, an' she done her 
mild 'n less 'n 3:30; but look out for that roan colt o' Si 
Harkins's nex' week; 1 tell you he's a wonder," etc. ; or the 
rural tough who exultingly relates his exploits in helping to 
"clean ud" a circus. 
Whenl spoke to my friend of these objectionable features 
of many country inns, he related the following incident : 
"Some years ago, while fishing a stream in New York near 
the Pennsylvania line, I put up at the only hotel in a village 
of about 1,000 inhabitants which lay some three miles from a 
larger one, where there had been a circus and a fight the 
night before. The evening was too cool to sit out, and there 
was a warm fire in the bar-room. I couldn't goto bed before 
10, and had to listen to a gang of village rufllans tell of their 
exploits, as they started in perfectly sober and became hilari- 
ously drunk before 1 retired. By the way, do you happen to 
know the significance of the call 'Hey, Rube'?" 
"Yes; it is like the white plume of Henry of Navarre— a 
rallying point for the canvasmen of a circus, to denote either 
an incipient fight or the thick of it. The bucholic ruffians 
band together to attack these canvasmen without any other 
reason than the love of fighting, -which is inherent in the 
Anglo-Saxon and Celtic races. The men who put up and 
guard the canvas of a traveling circus know all about the 
rural toughs, and when they hear the slogan 'Hey, Rubel' 
they rally on the cry." 
' 'That explains what the leading ruflian said. In his tale 
of the battle he laid out the plan of assault something like 
this: 'Before we made the attack on the main entrance and 
the ticket wagons, we had men with clubs posted so that 
when they called "Hey, Rube!" our men would be between 
them and the front entrance; but they had men in the rear, 
and Jo Beal got shot in the leg and a fellow from Lima got 
a bullet in his arm, and they got the best of us for a while, 
but lots o' people seen me clean up a circus man when he 
come up into town.' That," said Mr. Ziegenfuss, "was the 
sort of talk that I was compelled to listen to, because there 
was no escape. After that evening I never wondered at Bar- 
num's reply when he was asked why his boss canvasman 
selected a tough lot to assist him. You remember what he 
said?" 
"iSTo; but I can guess." 
' 'Barnum, who by the way was not only a good citizen 
but also a Christian gentleman, listened and answered ; 'If 
my canvasmen were all good Christians and turned the 
other cheek to the smiter, 1 would never use the same canvas 
twice. In the large cities my men have little trouble, the 
gangs of ruffians do not concentrate their efforts on a circus, 
as those of country towns do, and we get along well.' From 
what I heard that night I think rowdyism in the cities is 
under vastly better control than. in country places." 
"Your position on this point," I answered, "is correct, 
and when we fish a stream in company and I hear you call 
'Hey, Rube,' it will be a sign that you need assistance. 
But what will we do to-morrow?" 
It was decided that we would fish down over the same 
course in the morning, take our nooning at the same spring, 
and then fish down the Neversink to the railroad and take 
cars for our homes. We agreed to make an early start, 
breakfast at 5:80 and leave at 6, an hour that some people 
would not call early, but was early enough for us. Ten 
o'clock struck, and 1 suggested that if we were to be called 
at 5 we should retire, but the rector asked me a question 
which required at least an hour to discuss in a rudimentary 
way, without attempting to exhaust it. I was always will- 
ing to sit up in good company, and without quoting to my 
companion my favorite statement that "there are two things 
I hate to do ; one is to ^o to bed and the other to get up," I 
made him answer in this fashion: 
' 'Angling is a science, at least anglers admit that, because 
it is 'knowledge set in order.' but it is not an exact science, 
like mathematics and hair-cutting, because its professors 
differ, as doctors do, and on no question do fly-fishers differ 
more than the one on which you ask me to give judgment, 
If you will make the question a personal one and ask if I 
prefer to fish up-stream or down, there would be no hesita- 
tion about the answer nor the reasons for this individual 
preference, but this is a moot question, both in England 
and America, and pages have been written on each side of 
it. I am somewhat familiar with the literature of the sub- 
ject, and am sure that trout can be taken by both methods 
in streams swift or slow; otherwise there would have been 
no argument." 
"That's all very true, and 1 will amend the question by 
asking: Do you prefer to fish a stream up or down? A law- 
yer would demand a categorical answer to this, but I merely 
ask for your individual preference. That, 1 think, places 
the question just as you want it; isn't that right?" 
"Yes, that's the only way any angler could answer it," I 
replied, "and speaking only for myself 1 will say that 1 love 
to fish down stream, and if that is not possible, I like to fish 
up stream, with strong emphasis on 'love' and 'like'; in fact 
the strongest kind of emphasis, and all the shades of mean- 
ing that can be placed between them." 
"Then you do not dislike fishing up stream?" asked the 
rector — he' was not an archdeacon then. 
"Oh, no; 1 don't dislike any form of fishing that is done 
for sport, and can enjoy bobbing for eels, if that is the best 
kind of fishing to be had, but the evening is too old to go 
into such questions. They are like questions of politics and 
religion, men may argue them for years without profit. 
You know the opinion of the man who is 'convinced against 
his will,' and in this case it is largely a question of preference 
and not of belief." 
In the morning we fished down the stream. The day was 
neither dull nor bright and the wind was south. My friend 
was to take the lead and I to keep half a mile behind, in 
order that the pools might recover from the disturbance and 
the trout regain their confidence in drifting insects. When 
I reached the pool where the rector lost a fly the day before 
I took a trout, and yelled "Hey Rube." There was a lonff 
bend in the brook here and my partner came across it in a 
few minutes. 
"I presume you are in trouble/' he said, "although I see 
no evidence of it. " 
"The trouble is that you put your mark on a trout and 
then leave it forme to catch," and I opened my creel and 
showed him a beauty with the red ibis which he lost the day 
before firmly fastened in the lower jaw of the fish, "I 
would not have called you oft' the stream if you had not been 
within a few yards of the spring where we rest and refresh, 
but allow me to restore your lost fly and present the fish 
which purloined it. The loss of this fly is one reason why 
I prefer to fish with only one. I dislike doubles." 
After our nooning my companion said: "During our talk 
last night you did not give a reason for your preference for 
down stream fishing, I think 1 prefer it myself because it is 
easier, but I can't say that it is more successful." 
"Easier it is, for certain, and that's reason enough for me; 
but going down stream one has perfect control of his line, 
and as the current takes his flies where his rod guides them 
there is no casting to be done, with its exasperating hanging 
up of flies on the bushes behind. To me the coming back of 
flies whose movements the current controls in up stream 
fishing overbalances the effect of disturbing the water above 
the trout. It is only slow streams that can be fished up, it 
is impossible to fish up our swift brooks." 
"And then," said my friend, "one is more apt to slip on a 
mossy stone and feel the water pour down his coat collar 
when he is wading down stream, and -this keeps him much 
cooler than when wading up the brook. That's my main 
objection to wading down stream." 
When we parted at the railway station, it was with a" 
promise to fish one of his favorite streams, a tributary of the 
Walkill, a month later; and we had excellent sport for three 
days, fishing it from New Paltz down to Gardiner and back. 
The Walkill rises in Ulster county, N. Y., and flows off N.E. 
to join the Hudson at Rondout. 1 had agreed to meet him 
at Zach. Du Bois', where all anglers who fished the Walkill 
in those days found a welcome; and after depositing my lug- 
gage and engaging a room I strolled out to look at the stream, 
and was startled with the cry of "Hey, Rube!" and there 
was my friend. j^He never forgot the rallying cry of the cir- 
