APRtL 20, I9OI.X 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
309 
they require finer fishing, smaller flies and titinner leaders 
than our native brook trout at any time of the day, but 
some large brook trout and black bass that turn up their 
noses, figuratively, in scorn in the day, will take a fly at 
night as though they had been waiting all day for it to 
appear. A gentleman wrote to Mr. Archibald Mitchell in 
regard to several things of interest to anglers, and Mr. 
Mitchell sent me the letter and I quote a part of it now. 
leaving another part to be used later. The letter is dated 
in Connecticut : "At present what little fishing I can 
get is confined to the small-mouth black bass here in our 
little lake. This season" (the letter was written last fall) 
"has proven very poor indeed. I don't know why, unless 
the extreme lowness of the water has something to do 
with it. Even at the best of times they are very diffi- 
cult to get here, although of splendid proportions when 
captured. On July 4 I landed my first and best, 
scaling exactly 6 pounds. Since then I have retained in 
all perhaps a dozen of 3 pounds and over. I invariably re- 
turn all black bass under 2 pounds in weight to the water. 
Last Friday night I was tempted by the glorious moon 
to try a cast by moonlight, and got one of 4 pounds at 
11:30 P. M. on a Parmachenee-belle. I never can get 
them to rise to a fly lure except at night. It may appear 
rather like poaching, but to me there is a certain glamour 
and attraction about the lake by moonlight, and playing 
a heavy bass in and out of shadow, steering him clear of 
pads and obstructions, is by long odds a more difficult 
task than to capture the same fish in the broad glare of 
day. Last year I landed my largest bass in this way. He 
weighed pounds. I hooked him at il'<?o, and slipped 
the landing net under him at 12, after a magnificent 
battle." I doubt if many will indorse the ethics of return- 
ing all black bass under 2 pounds to the water, com- 
mendable a5 it i-s, but let those who have not, try fly-fish- 
ing, at night. A. N. Cheney. 
Talks to Boys.— XVI. 
K 
Ttoot FisWag. 
(CoKtinued from page 289.) ■ 
Now as we step down stream we find many things of 
interest, and we learn more and more about the habits of 
the beautiful fish that we are pursuing. We shall still 
adhere to the old-time, or conventional, methods of fishing 
for trout, and I shall only counsel you, as you gain 
confidence in your own casting, to go closer and closer with 
your fly up to the banks of the stream and along the black 
water which runs under the overhanging limbs or roots. 
The big trout are always hidden back under these re- 
cesses, and in order to get them you will have to go close 
in to them with the fly, for they are too shy to come 
out unless they can get something to eat with a verj' little 
run, or unless they think they will get a big piece of 
food without very much exertion. I must tell you of the 
way in which I Iiave seen a few anglers fish, which has 
proved successful in their hands and which has certain 
merits to recommend it. These men claim that by slap- 
ping the fly down pretty hard on the water in front of the 
hiding place of the big trout, the fish is deceived into 
believing that there is a big insect near by quite worth 
his wh:le to seize. Others think that the trout will rush 
out at this time because it is angry or annoyed or teased. 
I do not pretend to say, but I can only reiterate that I 
have seen many large trout taken in this way by men 
who were never able to take Ihem by means of a long line 
and a lightly landed fly. There seem to be no universal 
rules in trout fishing, or at least no rules without their 
exceptions, and this is one of the most curious ex- 
ceptions that I have ever noted in trout fishing. 
As the sun grows brighter and warmer on the water you 
will perhaps notice that the trout do not leap so much for 
their food, and that you do not have so many strikes as 
you go down stream. Perhaps at the middle of the day 
the sport will nearly have stopped. We might then as 
well go out on the banlc, find a nice place to rest up a 
little, eat a little luncheon and think things over. We 
can now change our flies, draw off our boots to rest our 
feet and make ourselves comfortable as we may until later 
hi the afternoon. At 2 o'clock I shall want you to take 
the stream. At 4 o'clock the sport will be pretty good 
again, and Just before evening, especially the evening of a 
warm day, when the flies are beginning to appear on the 
surface of the water in good numbers, we ought to have 
our best sport. If we have taken a dozen trout each 
during the day, we shall now be apt to take two dozen in 
the course of a comparatively short time in the evening. 
Should we get a couple of dozen nice trout in a day, we 
ought to feel satisfied. Certainly you will have spent a 
day among pleasant surroundings, and if you are as ob- 
servant as I hope you are, you will have learned some- 
thing which I hope you will never forget. A few days 
more of this and you will think that you have learned 
all there is about trout fishing. This is the wisdom of in- 
experience. Follow this art for five years, ten years, fifty 
years, and then you will find that you do not know all 
about trout fishing, but, on the other hand,, know but 
very little. It is an art that is the embodiment of 
science and which does not adjust itself to any scientific 
restrictions or to any hard and fast rules. _ I can only 
advise that you go out as often as possible with some one 
who is skillful in trout fishing and that you follow his 
ideas in regard to tackle. You need not ruin yourself in 
the purchase of expensive material. Do not stock up with 
dozens of bright and gaudy flies, Take_ a few of each 
pattern, and when you find that a certain fly is useful, 
renew your stock as you need it If you are fishing in a 
certain locality, you will be apt to find that half a dozen 
flies, and very much more likely two or three flies, cover 
all the range you need in pattern. Your reel in trout 
fishing is simple and inexpensive. Your greatest outlay 
should be for a rod. Trout fishing is not a delight unless 
you have the proper tools, and a good rod is an essential 
part of your equipment. 
Much the same advice as above applies in case you are 
running a deep river in a boat. In this case as much 
depends upon your boatman as upon yourself. He must 
drop dowm stream quietly and be careful to keep you 
from getting spilled out int® the cold and deep water. 
You use your line just as you do in wading, perhaps 
availing yourself rather more of the drift of the stream 
in carrying dov?n your fly. Do not allow the belly of the 
line to precede die fly, and remember always to keep your 
fly in motion with that little tremulous twitching of the 
tip of the rod. When you strike a trout, do not be in a 
hurry. He will go out of the water and roll and tumble 
in his endeavors to free himself from the hook. Do 
not pay much attention to this, but keep your rod up, as 
I have before told you. If you are fishing with a small 
click reel, you cannot recover your line very rapidly. I 
use this sort of a reel, but I always handle the line with 
my left hand. When I am wading in the water and strike 
a fish, I play him with the rod held in my right hand and 
the line held in my left hand. Then if the fish wants to 
run away, I let him pull the line out through the guides 
and through the fingers of my left hand, always playing 
him carefully. If he starts to me very fast, I pull the 
line down through the rings and allow the bight to float 
down the water ahead of me. Some anglers call this 
niethod clumsy, and perhaps it is, but I have always found 
it effective. You may try it if you like, or you may try 
to play a fast trout with the use of the reel alone, if you 
prefer that sort of thing. Each angler has methods and 
peculiarities of his own, and if I should attempt to debar 
you from this privilege I should be shutting you out from 
one of the greatest joys of angling. 
Now it may happen that in your trout fishing journeys 
you very often fall upon some stream where it is impos- 
sible to fish with the fly. Out of ten streams which you 
will find in the northern part of our angling country, you 
will scarcely find one where the proper use of the fly is 
possible. Yet the brushy streams, covered with inter- 
spaced boughs and filled with interlocked logs and brush 
heaps and piles of stone, are very often the homes of the 
best sort of trout. Then springs up the ancient question 
of whether it is ever correct to fish for trout with bait. I 
unhesitatingly say that it is sometimes permissible, though 
I should not ask you to depend upon bait-fishing or to 
practice it where you find fly-fishing a possible thing. 
In bait-fishing you do not use your fly rod, but take a 
short, stiff rod, suitable almost for bass casting, but per- 
haps a trifle longer and a bit more flexible. Sometimes 
you will wish to drop your hook into a deep hollow which 
lies between some log jam or under some pile of drift- 
wood or overhanging brush. You may, therefore, need a 
good heavy sinker to carry down your bait. You could 
not handle this sinker on a light and whippy fly-rod. Use 
a good-sized hook if you fee! obliged to do bait-fishing, 
and on this hook string your bait or angleworms, for you 
will find angleworms about the best all-round bait that you 
can discover for the trout stream. When you come to 
some open water where you can let your line run out ahead 
of you, let it drop down stream under the banks and through 
the deep pools. Draw it as closely as you may to the 
roots of the overhanging trees, always remembering to 
keep your bait in motion and never making any more dis- 
turbance than you can help. In this way you will take 
large trout. You will not feel the same strike that you 
feel when the trout hits the artificial fly, for he knows 
that the worm is not so fast as the insect, and hence he 
is apt to strike at it a bit gingerly and delicately at 
first. As quick as you feel him run, strike him well and 
firmly, and then play him just as I told you before when 
speaking of the artificial fly. Do not get in a hurry. 
Never try to throw your fish out on the bank, and never 
crowd him too much. Just keep him firm and free from 
snags and let him run about in the middle of the stream 
all he can. Of course, if you are fishing through a log 
jam or some obstruction of that sort, you may have to 
lift your fish out bodily. This is not very much fun, 
though sometimes one takes trout in that way. I would 
not counsel you to go bait-fishing tod often or too hard, 
A stream can be entirely depopulated by bait-fishing. Sup- 
pose that you find a wild stream where you cannot use 
the fly, but where bait is a. most killing way of fishing. 
Suppose you can catch a hundred fish a day there if you 
like. By no means should you feel yourself justified in doing 
this. Content yourself with a dozen or a couple of dozen 
nice fish daily. Then when you come back there next 
year with your friends, you will still have some fish left to 
offer you sport. A trout stream is not a large water, and 
it is never populated by any overwhelming numbers of 
trout, so that it can, without a great deal of difficulty, be 
fished out. Trout streams which lie near railroads and 
which are much visited never oft'er very good fishing 
for more than one or two seasons unless they are con- 
tinually stocked and carefully watched. By no means 
allow yourself to join that vast number of persons who 
go out to catch all they can and in any way they can. 
I should not care to waste my time in telling you about 
these things if I thought I were only turning out a fish 
butcher or a selfish person who had no regard for the 
rights of living creatures and no consideration for the 
claims of other men. 
Sometimes j^ou may discover that there are some 
large trout in a stream which you are unable to raise by 
any means, no matter how steadily and carefully you use 
the artificial fly. If you be on a preserved stream, one 
much fished or one where you do not absolutely need any 
fish, I should advise you to take these fish on the fly or 
not to take them at all. If you are in a wild country 
where you need something to eat and cannot take the trout 
in any other way, then you will very often find that a 
small minnow will very often raise a good-sized trout 
where nothing else will tempt him. You can hook your 
minnow through the lips or pass a hook through the gills 
and then under the back fin. Do not mutilate the bait 
any more than possible and allow it to swim down stream 
gently in as nearli^ the natural position as possible. Some- 
times a very large trout will strike even a good minnow 
bait in a very delicate and gingerly way. Wait until you 
feel that you have something on the end of your line, and 
then strike hard and firm. You will be very apt to take 
the largest trout on minnow bait. As to the use of the 
spoon hook, I counsel you to avoid it absolutely. If you 
cannot take trout in any other way than by the use of 
the spoon, then let them alone. The spoon hook is 
legitimate for certain sorts of game fishes, but we have 
not enough trout in this country to warrant the emplo}'- 
ment of a device like this. There are certain things which 
seem fit and proper. I cannot classify the use of the 
spoon hook in trout fishing as a sportsmanlike thing, and 
I would advise you to keep free of it, and also free from 
those who resort to these devices. If it is a possible thing. 
stick to the fly. If the fly is impossible, use bait only to 
the extent of taking a reasonable amount of decent fish. 
Do not allow yourself to deceive yourself. Learn a bit 
of self-denial. It is the fault of the student and of the 
beginning, as well as of the selfish and improvident man, 
to want to use any kind of device to take the fish if he 
finds they are not coming easily to the fly. You will find that 
the really scientific fly-fishermen, the high class gentlemen 
anglers of the old country and of this country, will stick 
to the_ fly absolutely and will not use any other artifice. 
Now, if such a gentleman as this strikes a bad day, when 
the sun is too bright or the water too clear, the insects 
too stupid or any other condition obtaining which pre- 
vents the fish from .rising, and if he passes the entire 
day without taking more than two or three fish, he will 
none the less go home contented and feel that he has had 
his share of pleasure, even though he did not outw'l the 
trout. That sort of gentleman will go again the ne.Kt 
day, and again the next ,day after that, and so keep on 
until he finds a bit of that sport which to him means 
everything in trout fishing. He_ l<nows, as I wish you 
would learn to feel also, that it is not a necessary thing 
that you take fish. It is not essential that you go home 
arid hold up a large string of fish and boast to your 
friends that you have done thus and so. It is not neces- 
sary that you should take more fish than your neighbor 
did when he went fishing. Learn to set aside all this 
sort of thing, which is only the vulgar part of angling. 
Learn that the main result in fly-fishing for trout is not 
the taking of a lot of fish, but the learning of a great 
many pleasant and enjoyable things. I am called a sports- 
man, and I have all of the sportsman's eagerness to ob- 
tain some results when I go fishing. I do not ask you 
to take your sole pleasure either in looking at the sky or 
the forest. I want you to take some fish and to believe 
that that is why you are out fishing. Yet I do not want 
you to feel discouraged or cast down if you do not catch 
a great many fish. If you will read the stories of army 
campaigns, you will see that there is a great deal done in 
preparation, that there are many marches and counter 
marches before there are any great and decisive battles 
fought. Therefore, believe me when I tell you that in 
trout fishing you must expect many unsatisfactory days. 
You must make many marches and counter marches before 
you come to the day of battle when you can feel that you 
are entirely satisfied and victorious over the handsomest 
and most alert creature of the wilderness. 
In fishing for the mountain trout of the Rocky Moun- 
tains, much the same advice applies as I have given you 
in regard to fishing for the brook trout of the more 
Eastern States. These mountain trout average larger, and 
the mountain streams are bolder and stronger than the 
brooks of the Eastern forests. The Dolly Varden trout, 
the rainbow trout, the Mount Shasta trout, the cut- 
throat trout are all species which are native to the West- 
ern States and which are not found in the East, except as 
they have been transplanted there. Each of these fishes, 
in its' way. ofl^ers good sport, and any time after you 
have finished your apprenticeship among "the brook trout of 
the East, I should advise you by all means to see some of 
the noble streams of the Rockies. Perhaps after that 
you may some time aspire to visit the grand angling 
streams of the Canadian Provinces, where you may take 
sea trout, and even the magnificent salmon. Do not be" 
impatient, and remember that there is as much solid pleas- 
ure in catching a dozen lo-inch trout on an Eastern 
stream as there is in killing a brace of salmon in the 
best pool of Canada. Everything is relative, and every- 
thing depends upon j'-ourseif and upon your own view 
point. Angling is called by some a selfish art, since it is 
a solitary one. Others more justly call it the most un- 
selfish of all sports. I have been giving you some ad- 
vice, and this is the final advice which I wish to give you 
in regard to fly-fishing: Learn to be unselfish. That 
means to learn self-denial, and self-denial is the price of 
all success in this world, and quite as much of all suc- 
cess upon the trout stream. W. G. De Groox. 
The Maine Ice* 
Boston, April 15. — The interest begins to increase among 
Boston sportsmen as to the time of the departure of the 
ice from the Maine trout and salmon lakes. Prospects 
are discussed in the tackle stores, as the rods are being 
brought in to be put in order. Somehow the impression 
is genera! that the season is to be an early one. Late 
reports from Sebago say that there has been a good deal 
of water on the ice which still binds that lake in the 
sleep of winter. This water soon works to the edges and 
under the ice, with the action of melting it more rapidly. 
Hence the clearing of the lake is expected to be early. 
The recent rain lasted for ten or twelve days with more 
or less severity all over Maine, raising the rivers to a 
tremendous pitch, and clearing them of ice. In the 
more northerly lake regions, however, the rain fell with 
the mercury anywhere from 32 to 36 degrees. This melted 
the snow but little, and only covered the ice with a deep 
slush, Elliot Russell, a well-known Rangeley guide of 
many years' experience, was in Boston Saturday, having 
left Rangeley the preceding day. He says that there is 
not a bit of bare ground there yet, with the snow (|uite 
deep on the lakes. His idea is that the slush of the late 
rain will take all the snow off the ice, leaving it exposed 
to the sun's rays, which will quickly melt the clear, blue 
ice that covers the lake. He claims that snow on top 
of the ice constitutes a covering that protects the solid 
ice from the rays of the sun. He expects an earl}' clear- 
ing of the ice and an early season. Reports from Lake 
Auburn predict an early clearing of that lake, as well as 
the Winthrop and Monmouth lakes. Cobbosseecontee is 
expected to clear early. At Belgrade they are planning for 
the lakes to be clear of ice earlier than usual. All this 
early clearing is based, however, on the fact of the long 
continued rain having taken the snow; off the ice and 
raised the ice up to high-water pitch. 
Mitskrat shooting has been the prevailing sport along 
the lines of the swollen rivers and smaller streams dur- 
ing the recent stormy weather. The water has evidently 
washed out the muskrat holes and set these animals to 
swimming for a living. Along the Concord River the gun- 
ners have had great sport shooting muskrats. Early in 
the week a couple of Boston gunners went up to a camp 
on the Concord and stayed over night. They fqajird the 
\ 
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