Mav 13, 1899.] 
FORliST AND STREAM. 
87J 
precious- one poor little pull on the line seems when fish 
are not Tai ting ! I let the line rest for a moment and strike, 
feel the fish and we part. It is a serious matter on such a 
jday for a trout to trifle with you in that way. A few 
more pools arc tried and a fisherman meets me. He has 
caught three in the first pool he tried, and had no bites 
since; thinks the wind is in the east. It is enough to 
put the wind in the east. Failure is wrrtten all over the 
records of the day, and as I came home tired, I think I am 
,not as fond of fishing as I had thought. The history of 
this little fishing expedition may seem mostly preface, hut 
all there is to tell was the anticipation, the only sure 
thing in fishing. 
I had another day. My younger brother is bitten with 
the snake, and we went fishing a few days later in Stony 
Creek for revenge. We put the old gray in the buggy and 
took our dinner. We started in at the forks and suc- 
ceeded in getting fifteen trout big enough to keep, which 
made a very decent show in a lolb. creel. They bit freely 
for awhile, and I took about one in three. Then they 
ceased to take the bait, and we wound up at the Blue 
Hole. 
I have a bite. One of those nibbling bites big trout in 
deep water so often indulge in, and wliich are so trying 
to the nerves in waiting for the fish to go to work in 
earnest. I "feel" the fish gently, knownig that it is a 
dangerous experiment, but inaction is intolerable. The 
nibbling continues until the bait is taken and the fish 
moves away in a strong, steady rush that causes the line to 
cut the water. I strike, knowing that I will feel the 
weight of a fish, and glorious consummation, a monster is 
hooked, and he makes one grand rush, and I think I have 
the master of the pool. But one strong rush settles it, and 
to the top of the water comes a large sucker. It is a 
very desirable addition to our catch, but it is not a trout. 
I thought when I first felt that weight there was to be a 
fight, but one effort is all the cyprinidce thinks it is neces- 
sary to make. ■ Like a passenger being ejected from a 
train, they make only a show of resistance, and wait for 
further developments. 
My best fish I took on Williams River, another no-ac- 
count stream, but which yielded me enough trout. We 
got ahead with the work in the office, and my brothers 
went to another county for some athletic events, and the 
old gray horse, who enjoys a fishing trip as much as I 
do, was pressed into service for a polo game, and with 
spurs and a plankct holder, I hear he acquitted him- 
self very creditably. He sweated, and helped ~to^lvmi the 
game for our side, and got his name in the papers". The 
spur was something he had never dreamed of in his - 
philosophy before. I am expecting to get a fine offer for 
him soon, but I shall refuse. His being gone made it - 
necessary to look for other means of transportation. , 
Twelve miles into the mountains was most too much of 
a walk for me. 
There .is a superior colored person who attached him- 
self to me sometime since, and who makes living easier.. 
He owned a pony and dogcart, and the bare mention of 
his driving me to the meadows on Williams River was 
enough, and the problem was solved. There was an axle, 
he said, which Anvilson, who didn't understand steel, had 
welded, and which had let him down, but Hammerson. the 
rival blacksmith, had then welded it by a receipt which 
had been handed down from father to son. We risked 
it, and it proved worthy of our confidence. Balancing our- 
selves over the axle that means so much to a dog- 
cart, we went up into the mountain. I know of nothing 
finer than to visit the high grass country to the west 
where an elevation of 3,500ft. makes you feel the "ex- 
hilaration of height." Uncle Harry told me tale after tale 
of old-time murders and other horrors; how the white 
people escaped when slaves could not testify, and how all 
the colored people were taken miles and miles to see 
bad white men executed, and how they all came home and 
got religion. 
Twelve o'clock saw us at the head of the dead water. 
As I took a hasty lunch, an otter swam right before my 
eyes, and seeing me, dived, tip- tilting Hs fine tail into the 
aiir. Up stream is the best way for me to fish a trout 
stream,, and I have never been able to determine whether 
It is really the right way to fish a stream, or being so 
httle fishing up stream, it places the fisherman at a differ- 
ent point from that where the fish are accustomed to sec 
a man. 
I cast in the eye of a pool and the line stopped as the 
bait rolled down stream, but there was that indescribable 
sensation conveyed to the hand and arm that it was no 
dead weight that held it in place in the midst of the 
seething waters. I waited a moment and struck. Too 
late or too soon, or through some fault of the fish, T 
only felt it well, and lost it. This I did with seven 
fish. One was just being landed when it broke away, and 
all these fish were large. I examined my hook carefully 
and whetted the point with a small stone. The next trout 
that bit was taken, a fine one of I2in., but it dropped in 
some sand with the hook broken from the leader in its 
mouth. Putting on a No. 2 hook I had better luck I 
believe the hook was dull. I often sharpen mv hooks, and 
am not methodical enough to carry a whetstone, but find 
the nearest stone does equally as well. 
_ A breeze sprung up soon afterward that made the fish- 
ing poor, but every now and then a trout was added to 
those in the creel. They ranged large. That is the 
rule here in early fishing. The large trout are taken all 
the year round, but small trout are not in the way in this 
month. The whole trip I did not take a dozen which I 
had any hesitation in keeping, and when I came home 
grandsires, who had lamented the diminishing size of 
trout, said they had never seen a finer lot. Our law 
here requiring trout under 4in. to be returned to the water 
has a bad effect on fishermen. It encourages fishermen to 
keep all those over 4in. When they are reproached with 
bringing m little fish not larger than sardines, they will 
remind you that by inference the Legislature has declared 
them of lawful size and big enough to keep. 
Before night I felt that there was weight in my fish 
basket, and that is a very comfortable feeling indeed It 
reminds you that you have not lived in vain I have 
niade no arrangements for staying all night, having no 
time to get a camping outfit together, and having to 
travel light, I had felt no misgiving on the subject and 
when I m§t the .man of the neighborhood, I asked Wm 
what the chance of stopping with him over night was, 
was disagreeably surprised to hear liim say: "Pretty 
slim." He was under the impression I was with a crowd 
of people, and when he found that I was by myself, he 
very cordially invited me home with him, and he made 
me most comfortable. 
He told me that some unknown dogs had been running 
deer into the river for their own edification, and he had 
sworn he would kill them on the first opportunity. That 
when it came he took his rifle to fulfill his vow, but his 
heart failed him, but that they should most certainly die 
next time. I encouraged liim, for the thought of a doe 
heavy with fawn run to death by idle hounds was too 
horrible to entertain. I had seen these very dogs on the 
river, and not thinking what they were about, had given 
them the remnants of my lunch. He told me that he had 
got one bear last fall, and that a .25 caliber is big enough 
for anything in these mountains. He had heard of a bear 
in a certain locality. Had said to himself that the bear 
was probably using under a certain clump of chestnuts; 
had packed a 431b. bear trap four miles, and set it under 
leaves and cut sweep apples up and scattered around it. 
Had found the bear in the trap on the second morning 
unable to move the trap and drag, and had shot it. Had 
got some good bee trees last summer. Surely life far 
from the haunts of men has some compensations. If my 
host ever quarrels with his wife, he falls out with all the 
people in his neighborhood. In this log cabin of very 
niodest dimensions is the little daughter of the house, a 
timid two-year-old maiden^ whom Uncle Harry nearly 
frightened into fits, as she had not seen a black man. If 
any one desires to knOw what a child can be to its parents 
they should see this mountain home on the banks of a 
brawling stream. 
Next morning, April 21, was the first clear morning 
of the year without frost, and so I brushed the dew 
away as I worked my way up stream. The narrow 
valley had been cleared, and the ground was carpeted 
with a thick blue-grass sod. The fall of the stream was 
so great that in walking up the narrow meadow one seems 
to be ascending a hill. 
It was a perfect morning, and I was under its influence, 
and thought then that some day I might tell of the day, 
the high mountains, the falling waters, the sun and shadow, 
but the hour is past, and, leaving such descriptions to 
those who can find words to record their sensations, I fall 
back to the plodding recital of occurrences. 
This was one of the rare early days when the trout 
would take the bait on top of the water. I fished over the 
ground I had passed over twice the day before, and at a 
likely place, where I had not been able to do any busi- 
n.e|is before, a large cream-colored trout darted to take 
the bait, and giving it too much time out of too abundant 
caution, I lost the best trout I had yet seen. If I had 
not ;seen it I w'ould probably have caught it. 
Every now/and then I would strike a fish and land it as 
soon as possible, as is the rule in fishing for brook trout. 
• At the best pool I know of on the little river I had a 
most vigorous pull. I dropped the point of the rod an in- 
stant and struck. I felt the weight of a fine fish, and in 
the first contest , the line parted at the tip of the rod 
without giving me a good idea of the fish's .size. I think if 
I had ever gotten the fish turned I could have landed it. 
I had a similar experience. I saw a little pot of water 
large enough to afford a lurking place for a trout, and so 
situated that only those who are on the lookout for such 
places, which, from their location, have been unobserved 
and untouched by the common herd, would choose for a 
cast. I have better luck in such places for trout than 
any other. _ The conditions are such that in streams fished 
to death, it is often useless to try the show places, and 
trout can only be caught when they lurk in some spot 
which has not caught the fisherman's eye, and who, there- 
fore, have no cause to suspect that their daily bread is 
loaded. A wood might be practically denuded of its flow- 
ers, and yet a violet or two might be found in its hidden 
places. I hope 1 make myself clear. 
It was in such a place that, by ignoring a long shallow 
pool, I walked half-way over in the stream and cast where 
a small part of the water passed behind a boulder. I let 
the lure wash down in the current, and in front of the 
boulder a big trout showed up and snapped the bait. I 
struck, and the current and weight of the fish broke this 
line above the leader, though I had changed reel and line 
after my late mishap. Truly, "nobody knows what trouble 
we see." Having caught a lot of big trout with the lines, I 
have reason to believe that the largest fish got away. As 
the old song runs : "We've all been there before, many a 
time !" 
The writer asks to be excused if he has taken too long 
m saying, "April 21, fished in Edgar Beard's hacking- 
caught twenty trout. April 22. fished same place till noon ' 
caught thirty-one. Had fish for breakfast and took a lolb' 
basketful home. Uncle Harry not at trysting place; car- 
ried kit and fish basket (approximate weight 6olbs'.) up 
mountain two miles and a half to cart, and found Uncle 
Harry lying in the sun. sufficiently apologetic for havino- 
missed me." Andrew Price. 
Marlinton, W. Va. 
Cable Car, Pike and Mttscalongc 
Last week, as the forms of type of the Forest and 
Stream were on their way to the press room, an elec- 
tric car conductor, turning his motor the wrong way, put 
on full- speed and threw forms, wagon and driver into 
the air. The driver was pitched out over the horse's 
head, the Avagon was landed on its side in the gutter and 
more than half of the pages of type were knocked' into 
pi— which is a printer's expression for one of the most 
hopeless kinds of chaos on earth. By putting in a solid 
night the very efficient foreman of the Forest and 
Stream printing office had the paper ready for press not 
more than fourteen hours late. 
By a mistake in the make-up of the angling pages the 
cut of a pike was substituted for that of the muscalon<^e in 
Dr. T. H. Bean's capital paper on this fish. We regret 
the confusion which must have ensued in the minds of 
our angling readers, who have doubtless been puzziing 
their brains tO' reconcile the illustration with the fish thev 
have always known as -the rouscalonge, " ' ■' 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
Col. Fox's Fly Dope. 
I had occasion last summer to mention in the columns 
of Forest and Stream the excellent fly dope which we 
used on the Boardman, in Michigan, and wliich was pre- 
pared by Col. E. Crofton Fox after a formula of his own 
invention. This ointment was not a theoretically good 
thing, but an actually good thing, and its deviser was a 
man whose experience in the pine woods of America and 
the tropical growth of lower latitudes had made him 
anxious to secure a preparation which would afford real 
protection against biting insects. I can vouch now, as 
I did then, for the efficiency of the dope, as can my 
friends to whom Col. Fox has given the formula. As 
Col. Fox is not in the dope business, and only made 
known the formula as a courtesy to his friend, I never 
felt like telling the formula to anyone, and never did so, 
but I have been obliged to answer a great many letters 
and have sometimes referred such letters to Col. Fox, 
who Avas good enough to hand them over to a firm of 
druggists at his home in Grand Rapids who knew the 
formula. This week I sent him one more letter, this time 
from Mr. L. Fisher, of AUentown, Pa., who wrote me 
and sent me $1 to get him up a bottle of this compound. 
Now, I am not in the drug business, nor is Col. Fox. we 
both having other things to take care of, he being busy 
buying tracts of lumber, and I myself much occupied with 
elevating trap shooting and doing other great and good 
deeds in this naughty world. Well, anyhow. Col. Fox 
wrote me a letter, and he sent me the formula, and here 
are they both. I am very sure a great many sportsmen 
will thank Col. Fox for his courtesy, as I am sure I do 
again. A nicer man never put foot in a wader. 
Cut this recipe out and paste it in your fly-boOk. and 
remember Col. Fox. If any outfit ever tries to sell you 
a box of dope made up on this recipe for trade purposes, 
don t buy it. Make your own. This is amateur and not 
professional dope, and it is good. Col. Fox writes: 
"Your Enclosure from Mr. L. Fisher, of .A.|]entown. 
Pa., has just come to hand. I think that you and I have 
both been bothered enough in regard to this matter 
of Fox's fly dope, and I have concluded to publish the 
recipe in the Forest and Stream for the benefit of fish- 
ermen and hunters of this country. You will remember 
you used it with me on the Boardman River last June, 
and I gave you the recipe at that time, with the request 
that It be not published; but since then I have become 
" so solicitous for the sportsmen on account of my own 
suffering that I am desirous of benefiting them by giv- 
ing to the public this prescription, which I have made 
during the last twenty-five years' experience in fishing, 
hunting and estimating of pine timber in all the States of 
the Union and in Canada, and in Mexico and Central 
America. I can vouch for its efficiency against all the 
vermin found from the Equator to almost the North Pole. 
I trust that I will have the pleasure of meeting you in 
the near future on a trout fishing expedition in this neigh- 
borhood. I return the postal money order sent you by 
Mr. Fisher, which you can return to him with my com- 
. phments. If you wish to publish the inclosed recipe he 
will be able to have it put up in his own city." 
The following is the recipe: 
^ ' Fox's Fly Dope. 
Oil Pennyroyal. 
Oil Peppermint. 
Oil Bergamot. 
Oil Cedar. 
F. E. Quassia aa 3 i 
Gum Camphor, 3 iv 
VaseUne Yellow, | ii » 
M. S.— Dissolve camphor in. vaseime by heal, when cold add 
remainder. 
How to Fasten Your Creel. 
You buy a nice new creel, don't, you? And you find 
a nice wicker-work loop sticking up to hold the lid down 
You poke a stick through this, and then you knock the 
stick out, and the lid comes open just as you are wading 
a deep and swift bit of water, and your trout all get out 
of the basket. Then you get another stick and poke it 
in the loop hard, and this time the pesky thing breaks off 
and leaves you with a loose lid. 
Of course, the hole in the top of the lid is supposed to 
be there for the purpose of poking the trout through it 
into the ba.sket, but this only shows how very little of 
human nature was known by the man who designed the 
trout creel of commerce. It is all right to say that one 
should tie down his lid firmly, poke his trout through 
that hole, and not look into the basket till night, but this 
is founded on anything but rational premises. Any fel- 
low knows better than that. Here you, are just out of 
the house after a winter of . dolor. You get into the 
stTeam— feels nice on your feet, doesn't it. and . better yet 
about yom- knees, and still better when it runs high as 
your hips?— and you get to work, and you catch a trout. 
You put him through the hole in the lid, and go on cast- 
ing. But do you leave that lid locked down with a 
string? Nay, prithee, say not so! You do far otherwise 
tnat. You go along, to the next bend at farthest 
and then you are seized with a desire to know how that 
trout is getting along in the basket. You want to see 
him, to hold hirti again in your hands, to have converse 
with him, and to express once more your admiration 
Can this all be transacted through the hole in the lid of 
the basket? I trow nay. There is nothing more needed 
in the world than a good, easily opened fastening to the 
lid of a trout creel— not one that will shut easily, but 
come open easily. Shall mankind sit at lunch on the 
bank, with trout in the basket near by, and not open the 
same basket, and lay forth its contents upon the cleanest 
sward there is to be found? Say not this in anglerdom 
We have long enough tolerated this policy of the closed 
door. 
Now, if you will take a stout rubber band and fasten it 
by passing it between the strands of the basket some 
bin. or so below the locking loop, on the front face of 
the basket, you will begin to have light and happiness 
dawm upon you. You will grasp the idea without much 
further direction. Pass this rubber band up until it sticks 
out through the little hole in the front edge of the cover 
which is cut for the purpose of letting through the lock- 
ing loop.- Ct»t Qfif tbi§ worthies? loop, for it will only 
