July 8, iSgp-J 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
38 
A CALIFORNIA TROUT STREAM. 
ing slush, a glimpse of a school of my summer friends 
skurrying away under the ice. I was not long in getting 
after them. 
First, as an essential to successful work with a fly, the 
Baldy must have more room. This I proceeded to ob- 
tain by running the snout of the punt as far up on the 
ice as possible, and rocking it violently in that position. 
This process, supplemented by an occasional punch 
alongside with the head of the axe, I repeated until an 
oblong square as large as the ground plan floor of the 
club house was filled with broken ice. In the center 
of this was the mooring stake. Laying the punt along- 
side the stake and grasping it with "both hands to steady 
myself, I succeeded after fifteen minutes' rocking in 
forcing the slush to the sides of the hole, to which it 
quickly froze fast. 
I enjoyed the rocking almost as mucTi as what came 
after it. Around and around the edges of the pool ran 
the merry tinkle of the ice bells, swinging on the choppy 
waves, mingling their crystalline notes with the mighty 
symphony of the winds. 
The pool was hardly clear of ice, when the trout began 
to come back, singly and in pairs, in groups and battal- 
ions; there were hundreds of them if there were ten! 
They formed up in two schools on opposite sides of 
the opening and began to encir<?l? it, keeping just within 
the shadow of the snow-covered ice field. They evi- 
dently thought themselves well hidden, but I could 
have counted every one of the beautiful creatures, if 
they had only Iain still long enough. It took them 
fifteen minutes or more to get used to the punt and the 
coonskin coat, but they finally settled down exactly as 
they had formed up. And then the sport began. I got a 
fly out just where I wanted it, and the largest trout in 
the larger school came after it alone and got it. I took 
him gently over the side, and he did not flop much in the 
three inches of snow that had drifted into the boat since 
putting out. They came up singly and they did not 
come fast, and T almost wished that they had not come 
at all — and I put back all that I caught but six large 
males. For it was only by virtue of my position as guest 
of a fishing club owning a preserve, that I claimed im- 
munity from the operation of laws which held to a strict 
accountability the man who at any time during the close 
season takes a trout in public waters. Any now I had 
the making of a breakfast for three, and that was more 
than I had hoped to get, fishing through a hole in the 
ice, with the tip of a red squirrel's tail for bait. And 
so there I stayed, hour after hour, reeling them in and 
letting them go again, and keeping the count on the 
gunwale of the Baldy, while Bismarck sat humped up 
in the. 5|iow in the shelter of a wooded point howling 
disgustedly from time to time, as he saw me putting a 
big trout back — stayed .until the shores of the lake grew 
dim in the wintry twilight, alternately "rocking" when 
a skim of ice hid the bottom from view and blowing on 
the icy bait, the loud roaring of the storm in my ears, 
the wild sense of its freedom in my veins, and the 
generous thrill of humane sport tingling in every nerve.. 
At last, when I pulled the Baldy out, the scratches on 
the gunwale totaled 78, 
That night as I watched the smoke from the corncob 
pipe drift lazily into the chimney, I seemed to find in 
the merest incident recalled of that afternoon on the 
storm-swept lake a flavor hitherto unsuspected. 
William Alfred Whitney. 
A Colorado Trout. 
Mr. Charles Hallock sends us this paragraph from a 
Denver correspondent: 
"Seven of us went trout fishing the other day, and we 
caught a fine mess. One of the fellows caught a trout 
weighing 6j--ilbs. Couldn't land him; had to shoot him in 
the head. He was 27J-^in. long and as pretty as could be. 
Am going to send yon his picture. He swallowed a loin. 
trqut ,33 hait. Can yoij beat that? A. 'E,. B, M. Xi," 
