[June 28, 1902. 
Five-Inch Trout. 
The legal limit on trout in New York waters is six 
inches, as all anglers know who want to know, and 
thereby hangs a tale. There would seem to be a grow- 
ing belief, nebulous at present, perhaps, but which may 
hereafter crystallize into a positive conviction, that the 
trout fry and hngerlings planted by the fish commis- 
sioners become dwarfed and never attain a greater 
length than five inches, or a possible five and a half. 
The writer begs to leave the solution of this delicate 
problem to the scientific gentlemen who have been in- 
trusted by the State with the destiny of the fish in its 
waters. It was, however, to shed some light if possible 
on the question as to the average size of brook trout 
in Eastern New York, rather than in the hope of a big 
catch, that three of us tickled with the fly a classic 
stream, distant about 125 miles from the metropolis, dur- 
ing the last days of May, 1902. My two companions 
are well-known fly-fishermen, both connected with a 
philanthropic institution in lower Broadway. Skill and 
experience had amply fitted them for the task. The name 
of the stream shall remain a secret here. W e have no 
desire to deal a crushing blow at the revenues of two 
or three of the principal railroad systems converging 
on Manhattan Island; for, judging by the half-tone litera- 
ture that emanates from their passenger departments, 
their fixed charges are paid by the ever-hopeful sons 
of old lzaak. "The Compleat Angler" is, indeed, the 
first and greatest example of railroad literature ever pub- 
lished, and like most productions of genius, was long 
ahead of its time. 
The portion of the stream which received the honor 
of our attention lies more than a score of miles across 
a mountainous country, from a railway station. We 
chose it because of its fancied immunity from the plague 
of flies, of the feathered variety. Yet, upon our arrival, 
its banks presented the appearance of a May party in 
Central Park. The essential difference "was that the par- 
ticipants were largely - able-bodied male adults, waving 
fishing rods, and wreathed with nets and festoons of fly- 
bespangled gut, instead of spring blossoms. It began 
to look as if the railroad corporations were safe from 
defalcation for the current fiscal year. 
"What luck?" we asked, as we slid into our positions 
in the parade, fresh and eager, in full panoply. "Not 
much; they're runnin' pesky small." We soon discov- 
ered for ourselves that both the adjective and the adverb 
were appropriate. When the procession was at its live- 
liest, about 5 P.M., one might look up and down stream 
and see a number of small objects rising and falling up 
atfio'ng the tree tops, flashing in the sun like bits of 
mica on a hillside. These phenomena were soon ex- 
plained. Upon investigation we found them to consist 
of live-inch trout which were continually being yanked 
out of the brook by the May party. The writer had one 
hit him square between the eye-glasses from his own rod 
before he got his hand down to the delicacy required for 
this Liliputian angling. A little later one of the paraders 
was obliged to sacrifice his position in the lockstep in 
order to climb a yellow birch and extract a five-incher 
from his hook, which had landed among the branches 
in answer to his strike. At least we had ascertained 
the average size of the fish; but whether this was due or 
not to the commissioners' alleged hoodoo, we do not 
pretend to say. 
Seeing these troutlets practically existing in an alien 
element, the thought suggested itself easily that, in the 
slow process of time and inobedience to the laws of the 
origin of species, there will be evolved in the future, in 
some of the troubled waters of Eastern New York, a 
winged brook trout. We have the winged horse of 
mythology. Surely the Salmo Fontinalis of the Empire 
State is rapidly approaching its mythological era. 
There is a gleam of hope in this. It will at least furnish 
the fish with a double means of escape, and the fisher- 
man of the future in order to fill his creel, or shall we 
say his bag? will find it necessary to carry a shotgun 
as well as a fishing rod. 
Be that as it may, I had taken my fifteenth five-incher 
(he had pitched from a dizzy height on to a cluster of 
violets) when I resolved to question this panting speci- 
men himself as to how he regarded the important role 
he was playing in nature's drama. 
"Well," said I. while I sat on the bank and took him 
tenderly off the hook, "here you are. I hope I have not 
hurt you much?" 
"Oh, no," wriggled the little chap. "But I 'spected 
you'd net me or beach me." 
"You didn't give me a chance," I replied. "Does your 
jaw ache?" 
"Nothin' to squirm about. 'Taint my jaw — it's my 
gills. But I'm used to it now; this is three times I've 
been out to-day." 
"What!" I cried, astonished. "You mean to tell me 
you have already been caught twice to-day, young 'un?" 
""Yep," gasped the five-inch, flirting his tail. "Once 
on chub and once on a nice fat worm — couldn't resist 
him when he wiggled." 
"How many times," said I, "have you been out since 
you learned to swim alone?" 
"My spots! I lost count long ago. Five times for 
ev'ry fin, I reckon— What fly did you take me on?" 
"The professor; number 10." 
"Well, well, I've met the professor of'en enough to 
learn somethin' from him," he said, "but I s'pose I 
ain't got good fish sense yet. Would you mind givin' 
me a squint at your fly-book?" 
"With pleasure; it's always at the service of you and 
your relations," I put in, as I spread the book before 
him. 
"Ah!" sighed the youngster, "don't jolly me, please — 
this is no joke book for me," and he ran his glassy eye 
along the gaudy rows of make-believes, quite in the 
manner of a connoisseur in a picture gallery. 
"You've gut a lot of them," he. went on, "but T 
know 'em all. Why there's the Cahill." He flicked a 
number 12 with the tip of his caudal fin, "Mother went 
out for good on a Cahill. She was old enough to know 
better, but mother was always easy — never tired gaddin' 
up an' down stream, flouncin' into cut-offs, cuttin' a 
dash in shallow pools, and nibblin' at bugs an' grass- 
hops on a full stummick. 'Tween you and me an' the 
landin' net," he quivered along confidentially, "she was 
a' leetle fond of showin' off. like the rest of her sex. 
Once a rival of father's, a great swell all over polka 
dots, called her a 'speckled beauty.' Off she fins up 
stream with him, an' stayed there till a water snake 
snipped three or four of her spots off; then she lit out 
for hum an' lurked there good an' tight." 
"Speaking of your other parent," Tasked, "what of 
him?" 
"Father? Oh, my fins! Father was a big fish! Had 
a deep hole all to himself under a mountain ash." 
"How big?" I asked, expecting a whopper. 
"Well, you'll hardly believe me, but pop was a good 
seven-inch trout! What d'ye think o' that?" 
I turned 1 round to smile, not wishing to wound his 
family pride. 
"What a monster!" I exclaimed. "This sounds like 
a fish story. But what did the author of your being go 
out on?" 
"Chub. Pop took chub on a Fourth o' July from a 
summer boarder." 
A pathetic little spasm thrilled along his diminutive 
sworn he winked at me, his mouth open as if he were 
about to suck in quietly a particularly silly moth. 
"D on't judge all fly-fishermen by me," I begged him. 
"My two friends, for instance, they " . 
"See here," he interrupted, "was that a friend o' yours 
I met, in the brown Dunlap, with flies in the linin'?" 
"Yes, that's The Governor." 
"What kind o' fly was that he was castin'? Looked 
like a squirrel's tail to me." 
"Why, he must have been trying the whirling dun," 
I hazarded, 
"Great hooky! It took a whirl out o' me, sure 
enough! Scared me half to death!" 
"This is not the first time the whirling dun has been 
used on this stream," I explained. 
"Mebbe not; but I guess I was in the air, on one o' 
my outin' trips, when it passed by before, Ennyhow, the 
Guv'nor seemed to think this fishin' pretty small bugs, 
guess, b'cause I heard him say, 'Pshaw, I've had enough 
of this fry fishing; I'm going home—' an' he went.'" 
"No wonder," I laughed, "The Goverrior has taken 
some big fish. Why, he has caught a brook trout weigh- 
ing seven pounds." 
"Seven pounds! A native? You mean seven inches, 
like's not. 'Scuse the slang, but ain't y' tryin' to git 
me on a string?" 
"No, my dear fingerling," I demurred. "He's got 
THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS. 
Photo by Split Bamboo. 
backbone, and I thought he looked into the future with 
prophetic eye. 
"'But I don't blame pop for takin' chub!" he added. 
"Chub's good! Ever had any?" 
"Never," said I; "brook trout is good enough for 
me." 
Here he collapsed utterly on his left side, his jaws 
agape in the piscatorial tragic mask. He gazed at me 
with a reproach that touched me. 
"Hold me in the brook a minute, quick!" he struggled 
out. "I'm sinkin' fast." 
"There! Now I feel relieved, thankee. But that re- 
mark o' yours was a little rough, my friend. . You're 
as hard-hearted as a mink," 
Let me confess to a feeling of shame when he called 
me his friend. 
"Pardon me; I did not mean to be cruel," I apolo- 
gized. "But I took you for a game fish." 
He bristled up at this, fins and tail aqu-iver. Plis spots 
glowed angrily, the silver on his sides blazed in the 
light, and he throbbed out convulsively: 
"Well, so I am! Game to my fin tips! I'm a native, 
I am, an' none o' your fish commissioners' spawn, 
either, Iemme tell you!" 
"So, so!" I returned soothingly. "I am sorry I of- 
fended you. Fontinalis. You're very touchy for one of 
your inches." 
"Well, we natives are proud of our breedin'. Fact 
is," said he, "we don't even shake fins with those im- 
ported brown Dutchmen. We ain't on the best o' 
terms." 
"I am delighted to hear you say so," quoth I, "my 
friends and I don't care a brown hackle for all the 
German trout in the State." 
"Your friends? Is there a school of you in the 
party?" 
"Three of us. There are two celebrated fly-fishermen 
with me from New York." 
"Say," said the wee chap, curling himself quizzically, 
"I kind o' like 3 r ou fly-fishermen." 
"Oh," said I, throwing my chest far out into the land- 
scape, "we're entirely different from the other kind, you 
know." 
"Yeh, there is a big difference," he assented, as he 
slyly peeped into my empty creel. "You ain't so killin'." 
Now, this was not exactly what I was looking for, and 
my chest measurement shrunk a bit. I could have 
the skin mounted in his dining-ruum, and I've seen it." 
"Well. I want to know! Pop wasn't so big after all. 
Did he ketch him in our brook here?" 
"Well, hardly," said I. "He got him in his private 
pool in Canada." 
"Now, honest," he asked, looking me straight in the 
eye, "what d'ye think 0' my chances to tip the scales 
at seven some day?" 
"Well," I answered, pointing my wisdom ringer at 
him, "that depends greatly on your ability to control 
your appetite, my young gourmand. Don't let the sum- 
mer boarder worm himself into your confidence, and 
above_ all, when you see my other friend, The Mathe- 
matician, on the stream, slip under a bank and stay 
there. Remember that!" 
"You mean the tall gen'l'man with the patent fly- 
book? I think he has sore feet." 
"The very man. His boots hurt him." 
"Crickets!" said he admiringly, "he can cast a fly, 
he can — light as willow fuzz — an' he strikes quicker'n a 
kingfisher!" 
"Quite so," I agreed, "and he fished -this brook long 
before your great-great-grandmother ever lay on a fold — . 
spawning bed, I mean." 
"Do tell! I saw him pull out my big brother this 
morning' on a Parmacheene belle — the one that used 
to boast to the fam'ly, under that rock yonder, that no 
fisherman could ever fool him with a bunch o' feathers." 
"That was the pride that went before a fall," I glibly- 
said, rather happily, I thought. 
"Seems to me," he spat out, "it went before a rise." 
And the little fellow wriggled and twisted in his glee 
at his jokelet, until I feared he would literally die on my 
hands. 
"Hadn't I better put you back?" I asked him, in alarm. 
"You are only five inches, you know, and the law won't 
allow me to take you with me." 
"Five inches," he jerked out indignantly. "T must 
be a full five and a half — measure me again — just this 
once." 
He curved himself in a jiffy and glanced at the end 
of his tail, then straightened himself out with a snap. 
He looked almost the legal limit. It was evident that 
his personal vanity was even stronger than his dread of 
the frying-pan. 
"It's no use " J objected. "T tried lo stretch yon br 
Eore."' 
