Series of six pictures. First Prize in the Forest and Stream'iS Amateur Photograpliy 
Competition. 
that the heavy rod tires my arm and gives me a muscu- 
lar exercise that I would not take voluntarily. It docs 
me good, is dumb-bells and Indian clubs, and has forced 
me to cast with my left hand. As my left arm has al- 
ways been weak since the boxing lessons of boj^hood and 
my frontier life of forty years ago, I regard this en- 
forced use of it as a blessing. This is, I think, the first 
plea in favor of heavy rods in these later days, when the 
great double-handed trout rods of the last ce.ntury have 
beconie curiosities. While the left soon tires' with cast- 
ing, it is a relief to the right. A young man may 
strengthen his arms with many devices, but an old man 
will not take exercise for exercise sake; therefore, the 
heavier rod is my favorite, for the reasons given. 
It is better to put a heavy line on a light, whippy rod 
than to give a good stiff rod a light line. The whippy, 
double-action rod, which kicks back when you throw it 
forward, may be good for those who like that sort of 
rod, but it will never send out a long line, and I prefer an 
alder cut from the bank. 
Of course ou/ ordinary trout fishing with the fly, is 
done within 40ft., but many an angler has seen a ta-out 
rising beyond that distance when he could not get 
nearer, and then he wishes that he had the power to 
make a long cast. It is in preparing for such chances 
that the intelligent angler wishes to know how to get 
there. There is no royal road to this learning, nothing 
but practice beforehand, on the old motto: "In time of 
peace prepare for war." I like a heavy line and do not 
believe that its descent on the water alarms a trout, as it 
strikes some 20ft. away and then unfolds loft. more; the 
ruffling of the surface is nothing if there is a slight wind 
making a ripple on the water, while if the surface is still 
the effect is such as we often see when a gentle puff of 
air from above strikes the water and moves forward in 
a wedge-shaped ripple. (See remarks on page 231, last 
week.) Trout are never alarmed at a falHng leaf or 
twig, nor by the motion of insects on the water; these 
things they see every day. This makes me an unbeliever 
in the theory of casting lightly as a thistle-down. What 
trout fear is the moving shadow of a man or beast on 
the bank; the waving branches of the trees they know 
all about. 
The Coming Trout Season. 
To-day the wind is east, and there is fog, mist, rain 
and hail alternately in the air. No need to say, "Hail, 
gentle spring," for it will do it without invocation, and 
then the rheumatism in that left knee and right shoulder! 
Yet it all belongs with the spread that spring lays out, 
and why not accept it philosophically? A fellow who 
can take things as they come to him in this world and is " 
glad that they are no worse, has all the elements of hap- 
piness that are in sight. _ But this is largely a matter of 
temperament, as is the disposition to grumble. An op- 
timistic view of things brought me through where others 
died — ^but that's not related to the opening of the trout 
season— yet it has a relation to the selection of trout- 
ing companions. 
It was not on the waters of the "Bigosh," which the 
Minnesota maps call "Winnebigoshish," of Itasca county, 
but on a trout stream of Sullivan county, N. Y., that the 
thing occurred. It was 'June — 
"And what is so rare as a day in June? 
Then, if ever, come perfect days; 
Then heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, 
i. And over it softly her warm ear lays." 
Tne trout were rising fairly well and the birds were 
domg their level best to tell how they enjoyed life as 
Lowell has described a June day. We lunched at noon 
and fished an hour, when up came a thunder storm. We 
trudged through it over three miles of muddy roads, 
soaked and sodden; shoes ruined and hats wrecked. On 
the way I tried to make light of the affair, but my com- 
panion would have none of it. After a change of cloth- 
ing, a dinner and a rainbow in the east, my friend re- 
marked: "It's always my luck to be caught in this way 
and get a soaking, and you made it worse by making fun 
of it; what fun there was in it I can't see, getting soaked 
through and spoiling all the cigars in my coat." 
- ^ On returning to the city I sent this man a box of 
cigars with a note of commiseration for his sufferings 
and his loss. His hide was so thick that he asked m.e to 
fish with him the next year; but we did not fish. 
Where to Fist? 
Lest any reader should think that this heading might 
tell him of prolific trout streams somewhere between 
New Brunswick and Oregon, I hasten to say: The ques- 
tion is a personal one. An invitation to spend a week at 
a club where the trout are plenty, but just shy enough to 
make angling that uncertainty which constitutes its 
charm to such sportsmen as regard the pursuit of game, 
and not its capture, as the highest form of sport, has 
been reluctantly declined. The man who says: "I can 
fish if they bite fast" may be an estimable citizen, but he 
misses the spirit of the angler. Walton tersely expressed 
It when he said: "Anghng is somewhat like poetry; 
men are to be born so." v 
Then there are other invitations to wet a line in pri- 
vate waters, none of which can be accepted, because 1 
am so chained to business that two days from home 
just now is my limit, and if my fly is dropped on some 
Long Island stream at the opening of the season for a 
day or two it will be joy enough, and thanks have been 
sent to the kind friends who remembered the scribbler 
who has a new book — there. I almost said it — but the 
fact is that there is a big grindstone running, and my 
nose is on it. 
A note from John Patterson, of Ozone Park, N. Y., 
—golly, what a name — who has a fishing station at Goose 
Creek, Jamaica Bay, Long Island, says that the first 
flounders were taken there on March 15, and promises to 
keep me advised about their biting, but when the trout 
season opens the flounder is no temptation. Later m 
the summer at Patterson's there is sometimes good 
weakfish ground, as he is near the Broad Channel, the 
Raunt, and other good grounds, as Goose Creek is the 
first railroad station on the ti-estle which crosses Ja- 
maica Bay from Brooklyn to Rockaway Beach. Some- 
times other game fishes run in there, but the flounder and 
the fluke live on that submerged meadow called Jamaica 
Bay, and hundreds find recreation in catching them, if 
the sport is not exciting. 
Unios for Bait. 
In Forest and Stream of March 11 I had something 
to say of the fresh-water mussel as food. Without any 
reference to the question of food. "Matasiso" writes of 
the unio as bait for fish. He says: 
"I sat down this evening to compose my mind before 
.going to bed and picked up 'Men I Have "Fished With" 
for the one hundred and seventeenth time (more or less, 
for I have not kept tabs on- the record; but I read it on 
an average of once a week, when somebody has not bor- 
rowed It). As I read about your old chum Steve Mar- 
tin (vide page 142), I noted that George Scott experi- 
mented with fresh-water clams (unios) for bait. 
"I wonder how many fishermen have tried that? If 
we could go into executive session and moralize over 
the past what funny experiences we could rake out of the 
cmdcrs of the old furnaces of fun. But the spirit moves 
me suddenly to tell you of an incident that occurred in 
the fall of 1897, in fact, during the same trip to Ply- 
mouth, Mass., when I wrote you about 'Nesmuk.' 
•T was with S. B. Duffield, Jr., a young and promising 
artist, and our tent was pitched on a bluff, about one- 
eighth niilc distant from the nearest cart road; and our 
diifflc had to be jackasscd (you see I am acquiring 
Mathensms) that distance through the woods to the 
lake shore, and we had a tussle getting the canoe in So 
we did not get settled and ready to go fishing till after- 
noon of the second day. Of course, when we started, we 
found that bait was scarce; we were after yellow perch 
for supper, and wanted minnows for bait, and not a 
blamed 'minny' could we find. 
" 'Duft'' thought we were counted out, and made up his 
mind for fried bacon; but we got the canoe in the water 
and I reached down and pulled in a dozen unios. 
'■ 'What in blazes are you going to do with those 
things? says Duff. 
" 'Use them for bait.' 
" 'Well, I'll give you my hat, if you get any fish with 
that bait.' 
" 'Now, my boy, you can sling paint and make pretty 
good johnny-cake; but your Uncle Dudley can show you 
how to catch fish. 'Tis not the desire for food that calls 
the fish, but the way you put it before them. If you 
know how to do it, you can catch fish with a bit of salt 
pork, if the fish feel like biting, and if they don't, you 
could not catch a fish with the nicest bait in the coun- 
try.' 
"Now, I would rather catch a perch on a rod with a 
pretty little reel than to land a 4lb trout with a cordwood 
pole, so I rigged the split bamboo, stuck on a bit of clam, 
and started in. I had pulled in three or four nice little 
perch, and found, on baiting up, that I had only a soft 
bit, which would not stand much chewing; so after 
throwing in my line I laid the rod across the gunwales 
and stooped over to open another clam. Si^ddenly the 
reel said 'click,' and I grabbed the rod just in time to 
, keep it from going overboard, and the reel kept on with 
a click-click-c which, being translated, means 
'bass.' 
"Now, DuflF, though a thorough sportsman, did not 
know much of bass fishing, so I observed: 'Get your 
line in and get hold of that paddle, and don't be more 
than a week about it, either; and if that fish makes for 
the boat to go under it, you shove her ahead a length, 
so I can pass the line over your head.' The bass breached 
so near the boat that he flipped the spray into my part- 
ner's face. But I was engaged for a circus just then, 
and he got the paddle. The bass showed his, breeding 
for a few minutes, and then started for the boat, while 
I reeled in for dear life. But the canoe did not move, 
and as the tip of the rod crept down toward the butt I 
mentally sighed and thought the rod was gone. 
"About the time the two extremes met; the bass con- 
cluded he had enough and he came up, and I led him to 
the stern of the canoe. 'Now, Duff' said I, 'you slip 
that landing-net under him and lift him into the boat, 
but don't touch the line.' 
"Under went the net; but it did not envelop the fish, 
and he slipped out, but had not strength to break away, 
and I led him back, and to my horror Duff dropped the 
net, took hold of the line, and before I could catch my 
breath stuck his finger down the fish's mouth, and throw- 
ing him into the bottom of the canoe, fell on him to 
keep. him from jumping back into the water. 
"I then and there offered a few pertinent remarks on 
methods of landing fish, and I fear offered up a few- 
prayers for his soul's 'illfare,' but he had the fish. 
"There was no means of weighing the fish, but it fur 
nished a meal for the pair of us, and there was some left. 
I presume he weighed between 2 and 12 lbs. I do not 
dare to estimate closer, for fear you would question my 
veracity." 
"Matasiso" is one of those well-meaning fellows who 
start in to tell you a story and get switched off on .an- 
other track. He began to tell of the use of unios for 
bait and then ran into a bass fight, but as we all do 
the same thing when we get excited, it's all right. He 
did, however, show that he took some perch and one 
bass with this neglected bait. 
Troat Flies. 
A "Novice" writes: "T will fish for trout on Long 
Island in April and go to the Adirondacks in Tune. 
What flies would you recomrhend?" 
For Long Island in April take the alder, black prince 
grizzly king, Montreal, stone-fly, yellow Sally, coach- 
man, queen of the water, green, brown and gray hackles 
and red ibis. It is the fashion to scoff at the red ibis 
