Apkhj 13, igoi.J 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
289 
Talks [to] Boys,— XV. 
Trout Fishing. 
In approaching the subject of fishing for brook trout, I 
must first of all ask you, as I did when we were speaking 
of the question of bass fishing, to use your judgment and 
your reason. In order to be successful in the pursuit of 
any wild creature, it is necessary for one to know the 
habits of that creature, and in order to know those habits 
it is essential that one be familiar with the surroundings of 
the creature itself. Now, when we come to study the 
country in which the brook trout is found, we find that it 
lives, not in deep, quiet and rather warm streams, or in 
broad and shallow lakes, as does the black bass, but, on 
the_ contrary, it is always found in rapid and cool streams 
or in deep and cold lakes. The best of our trout country 
is situated in the northern part of the United States, or 
across the line in the British possessions, or high up in the 
mountains which cross this country in the eastern or 
western parts of the United States. The brook trout can- 
not live in shallow or muddy waters. It is a creature of 
the wilderness, and goes with the forests of pine, spruce 
and balsam, with the granite rocks of the mountains and 
with the cold, and spring-fed streams which issue from 
the floor of the ancient forest. You will find bass in the 
eddies of deep and sluggish rivers, and you will some- 
times find big trout in the eddies of the rivers which they 
inhabit; but the trout stream is apt to be flat, shallow, 
wide, uneasy and turbulent, and its deepest holes will 
perhaps not exceed a few feet in depth. One would think 
it impossible for a fish to live in so heavy and turbulent 
a water. Yet the trout finds himself quite at home there 
and is able to make his living under what would at first 
.seem to be very hai-d conditions. 
Now your reason will readily teach you that an animal 
that has survived in these peculiar surroundings must 
be one of great vigor and of great shrewdness and alert- 
ness. These qualities fit perfectly in the description of the 
brook trout. It is not a very large fish. The heaviest 
specimens, taken from deep and still waters, where there 
is abundant food, rarely go over eight or ten pounds, and 
the average trout of the forest stream rarely attain a 
weight of over a pound or a pound and a half. Yet it is a 
fish of great muscular vigor for its size, its combat with 
the waters having given it a firm muscular condition. 
Moreover, being obliged to seek its food amid the foam- 
flecked, rushing waters of rapid streams, it has long been 
necessary for this fish to be possessed of great quickness 
of sight and of great rapidity of motion. The little half- 
drowned insect which is floating down a trout brook is 
hardly visible to the eye of the angler. Yet the trout 
must not only be able to detect it among all the drift 
wood of the streams, but able also to grasp it as quick as 
a flash, without any hesitancy or any delay in making up 
its mind about it. 
Now, if you have used your reason you will see that 
these very peculiarities of the brook trout make it desirable 
as prey for the angler who uses the artificial fly. There 
is no creature, no matter how shrewd it be, which cannot 
be outwitted by man and his superior mental acuteness. A 
long time ago, no one knows just how long, some man 
discovered that even the quick vision of the trout could 
be deceived, and that it could be induced to strike at an 
artificial fly which more or less resembled the natural 
insect upon which the trout sometimes feeds. From this 
ancient discovery all the modern- evolution in fly-fishing 
and fly-fishing tackle has come. Of all the sports of the 
field or the stream, this fly-fishing for trout has perhaps 
the most distinct fascination for those who follow it per- 
sistently. One may always learn something about fly-fish- 
ing, and there never was a man who knew it all. It would, 
therefore, clearly be of no avail for us to try to tell you 
all about fly-fishing, for that is something which no one 
has ever done or ever will do. The main thing for you 
is to learn a few of the broad principles of the art, and 
then to do your own experimenting and your own thinking 
afterward. 
We will say that you and I are on the banks of a 
typical trout stream, situated in the far north woods of 
Canada, or Maine, or Michigan, or Wisconsin. Perhaps 
the stream is so large that we are obliged to use a 
boat, in which case each angler must have a boatman to 
handle the canoe or the boat as it slips down stream while 
the fly-fisher is plying his rod along the likely places. In 
so large a stream as this we may expect to take larger 
fish than in the little brooks, for there seems to be a 
rule that big waters produce big feed, and that big feed 
means big fish. Perhaps, for our purposes, however, since 
we intend to study rather the first principles of fly-fishing 
for trout, we may do better to conduct our experiments 
in the smaller streams, one shallow enough for wading. 
Here our first question is one of proper preparation for 
the sport. If you are young and vigorous, you may per- 
haps be able to stand exposure to the cold weather all 
day long if you are provided simply with heavy woolen 
clothing and with heavy shoes to protect your feet in the 
wading. For myself, I have grown too old for that sort 
of thing, and I usually provide myself with a pair of 
wading socks, which may be bought at the sporting goods 
houses. Over these water-proof wading socks, which 
come up to the hips, or perhaps about the waist, I draw on 
a pair of light canvas overalls to protect the mackintosh 
against snags and sharp stones. Over the feet of the 
waders and over the bottoms also of the overalls I pull 
on a pair' of very heavy wool stockings, and over these 
stockings use a pair of stout shoes provided with plenty 
of hob nails on the soles. This sort of an outfit you will 
find gives you a good footing on the bottom of even the 
most slippery and rock-strewn stream. If you use only 
the ordinary rubber-soled boot-foot of the mackintosh 
wading trousers, you will find that j'ou are not secure upon 
a slippery bottom and are especially in danger if you are 
wading in a deep bold stream where, once in a while, you 
strike a streak of slippery clay along the bottom. In 
such case you might, perhaps, take a rapid slide and get a 
bad ducking in a deep hole at the end of the riffle. It is 
unpleasant to be_ submerged when you are wearing a 
high pair of wading trousers. In some streams, such ss 
the bolder rivers of lower Michigan, anglers sometimes use 
a wading staff to help them against the heavy current. 
fs">x the rest nf your costume I wo),j1{| advise plenty 
of heavy woolen underwear, a short jacket with pockets 
in which you can put your fly-books, your lunch, etc., and 
almost any kind of light hat, into which you can stick 
your spare flies when not in use. If it is in midisummer 
and you are in a country much infested with black flies or 
mosquitoes, you may need perhaps to wear a netting over 
your head, dropping the net inside the collar of your coat. 
I find it well to wear soft gauntlet gloves with fingers 
cut out. This protects the hands against the flies. Per- 
sonally, I never wear a net, but sometimes tie a handker- 
chief over the back of the head and neck, protecting the 
face by using a "fly dope" made of vaseline, tar and penny- 
royal. The mosquitoes will bite you sometimes through 
this unless you keep it constantly renewed; but I would 
not advise you to be what is known as a dude or tender- 
foot fisherman. Learn to take a little punishment along 
with your sport and you will be all the better sports- 
man for it. 
For rod I should counsel about a five or six pound split 
bamboo as a practical tool. It will cost you some money, 
but it will wear you for many years. You may save 
money by getting a lancewood or a Bethabara, but some 
do not fancy these latter materials so much. Some use a 
heavier rod than that above suggested, and others go to 
so light a weight as four ounces. A four and a half ounce 
rod may be a very deadly tool, provided that its length 
do not exceed about eight feet. I fancy these .shorter 
rods more than the extremely long ones, as they are 
much handier in getting about Oii the trout streams and 
quite powerful enough to subdue everl a heavy fish when 
properly handled. 
For your line, you will use a heavy, smoothly finished 
enameled line, just the opposite from the soft, raw silk 
line which you employed in your bass fishing. This heavy 
line is tapered at both ends, and is so smooth that it slips 
readily through the guides of your rod. With it you 
may cast 40 or 50 feet. Some experts are able to cast 100, 
J 10 and even 125 feet, with a heaA'^^ rod and heavy line. 
Do not concern your mind about such things, for they 
have nothing to do with practical fishing. On the trout 
stream you will not need to cast more than -30 feet on the 
average, and you may perhaps catch a great many of your 
trout at distances of less than 20 feet, contrarj'- to the 
general belief of most anglers, who have firmly fixed in 
their minds the old ideas about casting a long line and a 
light fly. 
Your leaders, made, as of course you know, from the 
gut of the Spanish silk worm, should be of the best 
qualit}^, drawn fine and neither too light nor too heavy 
for the purpose in hand. You must remember that the 
eye of the trout is very keen, and that he looks up and 
sees the latter between the eye and the background of the 
sky. Some anglers prefer their leaders stained a light 
blue or mist color, but it is questionable whether the color 
makes so much difi'erence. The main thing is to have the 
gut as fine as is consistent with strength, and then to lay 
it out straight and not allow it to sag or belly in going 
down stream, so that the leader shows to the trout in 
advance of the fly. Of course, after j'our first day's trout 
fishing you will know that you should soak three or four 
leaders in a wet pad of flannel before you go on the stream 
to fish. This delicate gut when dry breaks almost like 
glass, but when wet it grows very must stronger. It is 
well enough to soak your leaders in your leader pad 
over night before going out on the stream. 
As to the flies which you are to use, I shall not attempt 
to tell j^ou anything, nor try to settle all the infinite con- 
troversies which have arisen over the question of the 
artificial fly since the first days when anglers went after 
trout. In general, there are two schools of fly-fishermen 
— those who believe in imitating the natural insect, and 
those \vho believe that the trout does not strike at the 
artificial fly because it takes it to be a real insect. No 
one can settle the ancient difficulty between these two 
schools. There is no law under which the trout of all 
< streams can be classified. Sometimes on one stream and 
for an entire season, a bright, gaudy fly, unlike any 
wmged insect on earth, will prove most killing, and on the 
same stream_ during the next year this same fly will not 
prove effective. Sometimes the same will be true in 
regard to the small and dark-colored fly. It is the com- 
mon belief that in bright, clear streams, in meadow brooks 
and in waters very much fished, a small and dark colored 
fly is the best to use; this is, however, merely theory, and 
I have seen it entirely controA^erted in actual experiments 
on more than one much fished stream. I shall not attempt 
to give you specific directions in regard to the choice of 
your fly, but will advise you only in a general way to 
use, on the ordinary Northern stream of the United 
States, a fly not larger than No. 8, with perhaps a brown 
body and scanty hackle and wings of white, brown or 
gray. I would not counsel gaudy flies. You yourself 
will find that on one stream a certain fly will do which 
will not do on another, and you will also learn in your ex- 
perience that at difi'erent times of day on the same stream 
the trout will want diiferent flies. Thus you see the 
infinite range which is before you in the way of theory 
and experiment. 
Suppose you use for your first fly (the stretcher or the 
one furtherest from the rod) a coachman, which is a 
white-winged fly having a peacock body. Your leader 
should not be over six feet, for you cannot handle your 
flies well with too long a leader, since sometimes you 
want to get at your last fly and you do not want the 
leader knot to strike the guide at the tip of the rod. Now 
you will find that by pressing on the leader on each side 
of the knots which fasten its links of gut together, you 
can nearly always open this knot, so that it shows a' little 
slit between the two ties of the knot. I would suggest that 
you cut off the loop attached to the snell of your fly and 
poke the head of the snell between the two strands of 
the knot thus opened. Now pull them tight again and you 
have j'our fly fastened to your leader, perhaps a couple of 
feet above your stretcher fly, in such way that the knot 
shows but very little in the water and much less than the 
double strand of the loop would show. You will see that 
we are trying to fool the sharpest witted fish that swims, 
and we do not want him to see any commotion on the 
surface of the water. 
Suppose we are contented with two flies to start. I am 
sure you will cast much better with two than with three 
flies. Personally, I rarely fish with more tfiai? one fly, and 
I do rioi: pare to gast foo long a line. ' 
It is about 9 o'clock in the morning. The sky is a little 
overcast and there is a light wind blowing. The surface 
of the water is all broken up into ripples and swirls, So 
that one would think that no fish could see through the 
water any distance. Yet I must asshre you that the trout 
can see you at a considerable distance, and if he does 
see you, he is not apt to take your fly. This, however, 
must be said with certain qualifications. Personally, I 
have very often taken trout which, it seems to me. must 
have seen me. The great secret of successful trout fishing 
is to move along quietly in the water, putting the feet 
down gently on the bottom and making as little dis- 
turbance at the bottom of the stream and on the surface of 
the water as can possibly be made. Go along slowly. 
Keep your eyes alert as the Indian does who is hunting for 
game. Watch every little log and every dark place under 
the overhanging bushes, every pocket under the roots of 
the trees which overhang the waters. Early in the sum- 
mer the trout may be out in the shallows in mid-stream, 
but these are not apt to be big trout. The old fellows 
lie down under the bank, and if you go splashing down 
stream you would never know there were any big trout 
near you. Go slowly, and do not be in any hurry. Some 
think it is better to fish up stream, and for the skillful 
angler on a much-fished stream this is no doubt true; yet, 
as we are beginning. I will take you down stream, as that 
is the pleasantest and most successful way for the be- 
ginner to do his angling. 
You see a little winged fly struggling across the water 
ahead of you. It dips into the water now and again, un- 
able to keep on further in its flight. In an instant there 
is a little flash and you do not see the fly any more. A 
trout has seen it and has made it part of his morning meal. 
Again and aga^n, if you watch closely, you will see these 
little splashes along the edges of the water, most often at 
the tail of some pool which lies at the bottom of the 
stretch of fast and shallow water. You will hardly ever 
strike the trout at the upper part of the pool, but as your 
fly goes drowning down in the middle of the fast water, 
until it gets into the deep water at the tail of the pool, 
then you will see that the trout knows what is going on. 
You have learned to cast, of course, before you have 
gone upon the trout stream. I must counsel you not to 
try to let out too much I'ne. Run out your line to 25 or 30 
feet. Your rod will handle it perfectly and keep it straight 
all the time. Take plenty of time in your back cast, al- 
ways looking around to see what is behind you. A long 
line is always apt to be tangled in the tree tops. There 
are, however, trout streams in the upper part of the United 
States where one can wade and cast nicely with a long 
line. Having seen your way clear both in front and be- 
hind and taken plenty of time with your back cast, as you 
have been so often told before, you will not whip off your 
fly. Just the instant your line straightens out behind, 
pitch it forward with a turn of the wrist. Your fly will 
go forward the full length of the line in front. Aim at 
some point just a little above the water. This will make 
j'Our fly light upon the water more delicately. Pick along 
in this way at all the likely spots next to the bank as you 
go down stream, and allow your fly to drift out into mid- 
current, moving it all the time with a gentle twitch'ng of 
the wrist. This is the common or conventional way of 
fishing for trout in a rapid stream, and it will kill trout. 
Ordinarily it will take the most trout just about the time 
the line straightens out in midstream. You may also let 
your fly drift on ahead of you in the pools which lie be- 
tween the riflSes. The water will give it a certain motion 
and you must give it a little different motion with this 
same tremulous twitching of the wri<;t. 
iPresently you feel a sharp twitching tug. You do noti 
know where it came from, for it has been done so 
quickly you could not tell. Perhaps you saw the flash of 
the fish as it turned and struck your fly. Perhaps you 
hooked the fish, and, again, yerj likely you did not. In 
regard to striking the fish as it rises to the fly. I can only 
s&y, do so as quickly as you possibly can. for the trout, un- 
less it hooks itself, will at once leave the fly, if it finds it 
is the real article. It is not an unusual thing for a trout 
to hook itself. Do not jerk back with your arm as you 
strike, but just strike with a little motion of the hand 
and wrist. It will not take much to hook the fish. 
Once having hooked your trout keep the top of your 
rod up and let him swing. He will be up. down and all 
over the stream, all in a flash, as quick as a bird in the 
air, but if you keep a tight line on him he cannot very- 
well break away from the spring of the rod. After awhile 
he will try to get down to the bottom or undertake to 
get under some root or snag. Swing him away from that 
if 3^ou can without breaking your tackle. It is in such 
times that the biggest fish usually break away, for as quick 
as they get resistance enough from the rod they tear 
away or break the gut. The rod is just to give the fish 
all the strain that the tackle will stand and so keep him 
plunging until he becomes tired out. Then you may reel 
him up and pass the landing net under him. Break his 
neck gently and place him in your basket, already lined 
with grass or green leaves. Before you put him in the 
basket, hold him out in your hand and look at him. for 
he is the loveliest creature you will find in all the wild 
wilderness, as sweet as a violet, as handsome as a rose, 
as clean as the clear blue sky, 
W. G. De Groot, 
Food Fish, and Fettilhefs. 
A BILL now in the New Jersey Legislature provides that 
it shall be unlawful to catch by the use of pound nets of 
in any other manner, "for the purpose of converting or 
manufacturing, or attempting to convert or m.^nufacture, 
or by disnosing of the same in any manner for the purpose 
of manufacture or converting into oil or fert'H^'ng ma^ 
terial of anv kind whatsoever, by any kind of chemical or 
manufacturing process, any of the following food fish: 
Shad, bluefish, weakfi=h. .ctrip-'d bass, sea bn«s, porsry. sea 
trout, salmon or kingfish." The measure is needed, and 
the bill should not fail to be made a law. 
Dr. George P. Powell and Qint. Totrn returned Satur- 
day from a hunting trip into the Devil's Garden, where 
they had a wonderful experience, seeing great quantities 
of all kinds of game, including thirty-five deer. — Fof*; 
