8S6 
The Charms of Brook Fishing. 
BY EDWARD A. SAMUELS. 
While to the ordinary mind fishing for trout has 
but one meaning, to the experienced angler it has a 
great multiplicity of conditions which are so varied 
that the recreation is as full of changes as are the 
waters in which it is pursued. So great is the variety 
one hardly realizes all the different phases that exist 
in this most enjoyable sport. 
He who follows the mountain brook to its very 
source in pursuit of the beautiful fish which inhabit 
its waters, finds altogether different conditions from 
those which offer to the angler who casts his fly upon 
the pools of the larger streams, and both differ as 
greatly as does their environment from those of him 
who follows the fascinating sport that is to be found 
on the bosom of the placid lake, in whose depths lurk 
the gorgeous-hued leviathans whose capture is to him 
the acme of piscatorial enjoyment. 
Broadly speaking, the various phases of trout fish- 
ing are almost limitless, but technically, they may all 
be included in brook, river and lake angling, each of 
which possesses peculiar charms quite separate and 
distinct from those of the others. 
Among my angling friends are some who find their 
greatest enjoyment in following the meanderings of 
the crystal water brook down mountain sides, through 
forests in which their noisy prattle finds many an echo 
from trees and ledges and wild, rocky shores, and 
thence to the flower-covered meadows in which the 
stream flows more quietly but always with an abundance 
of delightful nooks and ever-changing beauties. In 
such brooks the trout that are obtained are not of large 
size, but their coloration is always beautiful, and 
though comparatively small they may be, they possess 
the gamy qualities which the larger fish exhibit, and the 
angler who returns at night with well-filled creel feels 
a degree of satisfaction, such as is not always enjoyed 
by many of his brothers of the angle who obtain their 
sport in different waters. 
I have other friends, also, who care but little for brook 
fishing, but find their keenest enjoyment upon the pools 
of larger streams and rivers upon which the fly may 
be cast or the minnow deftly thrown and played in the 
deeper recesses of the dark and foam-flecked water. 
One gentleman of my acquaintance, in fact, declaring 
that in his opinion it requires as much sportsmanlike 
skill to cast the minnow successfully as it does to 
employ the feathered lure. There are still otlicrs who 
are not satisfied with either brook or river fish.ng and 
are content only to rise and conquer the larger fish 
which are found in the deep water. 
I have for many years partaken of the ])leasures 
that are found in all these methods, and it seems to me 
as I bring back to memory all the enjoyment that has 
fallen to my lot that if Twere asked which is the most 
delightful of them all, which affords the keenest pleas- 
ure and arouses all the love for nature which in me 
lies, I should say they are found in the greatest in- 
tensity in that which is ordinarily classed as brook 
fishing. And I have been devoted to the use of the fly 
for nearly a half century at that. Brook fishing is not 
scientific angling in the ordinary acceptance of the 
term; it does not tax the skill and patience of him who 
casts the fly, nor does it mean a prolonged and stub- 
born battling, such as is to be had with the denizens of 
the lake, but it has a singular charm that is quite in- 
describable. 
The delights of brook fishing have been well por- 
trayed by some of the master minds of the world, and 
one could easily fill a volume with selections from those 
eloquent and poetic writings; I shall not, therefore, at- 
tempt here to add to what has already been penned, 
but I cannot refrain from offering one brief extract 
from a charming description that I find in one of _my 
most cherished books, “Salmonia, or Days of Fly-Fish- 
ing,” printed in London in 1828. The author’s nam^e is 
not given, he subscribing himself simply as “An 
Angler.” In treating of the charms of brook fishing, 
he says: 
“How delightful in the early spring, after tl^e dull 
and tedious time of winter, when the frosts disappear 
and the sunshine warms the earth and the waters, to 
wander forth by some clear stream, to see the leaf 
bursting from the purple bud, to scent the odoi; of the 
banks perfumed by the violet and enamelled, as it were, 
with the primrose and the daisy; to wander upon the 
fresh turf below the shade of trees, whose bright blos- 
soms are filled with the music of the bee; and on the 
surface of the water to view the gaudy flies, sparkling 
like animated gems in the sunbeams, while the bright 
and beautiful trout is watching them from below; to 
hear the twittering of the water-birds, who, alarmed at 
your approach, rapidly hide themselves beneath the 
leaves of the water lily, and as the season advances, to 
find all these objects changed for others of the same 
kiiwl but bet'ter and brighter, till the swallow arid the 
trout contend, as it were, for the gaudy May fly, and till 
in pursuing your amusement in the calm and balmy 
evening, you are serenaded by the songs of the cheer- 
ful thrush and melodious nightingale, performing the 
offices of paternal love, in thickets ornamented with 
the rose and woodbine.” 
Brook fishing possesses one peculiar quality in that 
it may be enjoyed by every one; it requires no elabor- 
ate and expensive outfit of flies and all the other para- 
phernalia which are deemed necessary by the scientific 
angler, for the country lad, equipped with alder pole 
and tackle of the simplest kind, may equal the success 
obtained by the most experienced angler; the aesthetic 
part of his nature may not be awakened like that of the 
older and more thoughtful fisherman, but the enjoy- 
ment that falls to him is as keen as is that of the other. 
In brook fishing I always enjoy the companionship of 
one of these lads, and I have found in his free and 
artless chatter an endless fund of information con- 
cerning the denizens of the woods and fields and waters, 
information such as is acquired only by the keen-eyed 
observer whose young life has been spent among 
them, , _ _ 
One of the many varied e.xperiences which have 
fallen to me in this line comes back to memory with 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Dec. 30, 190S. 
all the freshness of a recent happening, although it 
occurred nearly a half century ago. I was spending a 
short vacation in the little town of Gilead, Maine, to 
which retired spot I had penetrated while engaged in 
my favorite study of ornithology. The farmhouse in 
which I made my headquarters was located quite near 
the Androscoggin River, which, at that point, flowed in 
a stately movement through most picturesque surround- 
ings. The farmer’s son, Eugene, a bright lad of about 
sixteen years of age, often accompanied me in my 
rambles in search of rare birds and their nests and 
eggs, and I am free to confess that a large share of my 
success on those outings was owing to his quickness 
of vision and knowledge of the habits of the feathered 
songsters of that neighborhood. One day as we were 
rambling through the woods in which a noisy brook 
was making its course in the direction of the river, I 
noticed as I stooped to obtain a drink, a trout darting 
from the shadow of the bank on which I rested and dis- 
appearing in a shaded nook further down the stream. 
“That was a nice trout, Eugene!” I exclaimed. “Are 
there many in this brook?” 
“Oh, yes,” he replied; “ and if you would like to give 
them a day, I will go with you and show you where 
they may be found.” 
Of course, I replied I would be glad to accept his 
offer, for fishing was then, as it is now, almost a pas- 
sion with me. Among my belongings was a lance- 
wood bait-rod which almost always accompanied me 
in my ornithological outings, and I had a small kit of 
fishing tackle which usually found a place in my travel- 
ing bag. 
On returning to the house, I set up my rod and ar- 
ranged my line, etc., and early on the following morning 
we started for the headwaters of a brook which flowed 
down the side of a spur of the White Mountains and 
emptied finally into the Wild River, which debouches 
into the Androscoggin near Gilead. What a glorious 
June morning that was! I shall never forget it; my 
young guide was familiar with all the paths and good 
roads which traversed that portion of the forest through 
which our route lay, and he 'was ever on the alert to 
point out to me some rare and beautiful forest flower 
or woodland bird or adroitly hidden nest. 
At length we reached the place which he deemed best 
for the beginning of our sport, and in a short time our 
hooks were baited and dropped into the water. 
Eugene’s rig was a peeled alder sapling, line and 
hook ganged on silk-worm gut, which I had furnished 
him from my abundant stock, such hooks not having 
before come into the possession of the country lad. 
A landing net was not needed, and as for a creel, the 
young man had a covered wicker basket slung liy a 
strap from his shoulders, and he carried onr luncheon 
in a haversack which hung by his side. 
At the point where we began fishing the brook was 
hardly more than a tinkling rill which musically 
flowed among the rocks on the mountain side; that 
trout should ascend through the many shallow places 
and rapids to this secluded spot seemed almost in- 
credible, but that they had done so I soon proved, for 
in the first little pool in which I dropped my lure the 
bait was quickly seized by a fish, which, when landed, 
seemed disproportionately large for such a diminutive 
stream; it was but little more than six inches in 
length, but it was as gorgeously attired as are any of 
the famous guadily hued denizens of the Laurentian 
lakes. 
During the entire length the brook consisted of 
sharp pitches, sometimes several rods in length, at the 
bottom of which were quiet little nooks and pools 
which were often a foot or more in depth, but which 
were generally so shallow it would seem almost im- 
possible that trout -should inhabit them. 
The shoalness of the water, however, was sometimes 
more apparent than real, for the reason that it was as 
clear as that which flows from a spring and was almost 
as bright and sparkling; it was, in fact, an ideal moun- 
tain trout brook, such as one finds in the greatest per- 
fection in New England and the Middle States. When 
we began fishing, Eugene proposed that we should 
alternate in taking the lead, each falling to the rear on 
landing a fish; this arrangement met my approval, for 
"share and share alike” is a fair proposition, in brook 
fishing at any rate, and I have known of more tiian 
one good day’s sport being spoiled by the greediness 
of an angler who was never satisfied unless he was in 
the lead. 
An so down tlie varied reaches of that beautiful stream 
we followed, each succeeding the other as he added to 
the common stock another of the gamy little denizens 
of the brook. At many points it was a hard brook to 
fish, for to reach the pools one had to perform no 
little amount of rock climbing, but fortunately, these 
rough places were followed by considerable intervals 
of smooth water which often flowed among shrubbery 
and even througii a young forest growth which afforded 
an agreeable shade and protection from the rays of 
the sun, which, on the mountain side, often seemed more 
fervid than we could have wished. 
The wh.ole forenoon was spent in fishing the upper 
two miles of the brook, for we did not hurry nor 
neglect any promising spot. Half the success in brook 
fishing lies in the thoroughness with which it is done, 
and oftentimes more fish are passed by careless haste 
than are taken; this I have proved on more than one 
occasion, when with a companion I have been out 
upon a brook, for, seeing his eagerness to get ahead, 
I have voluntarily fallen to the rear and, fishing care- 
fully the pools which he passed by, I succeeded in 
creeling more and better fish than fell to his rod. At 
noon we halted in a little grove, of hardwood trees for 
lunch, and after that was eaten, we stretched ourselves 
upon the bed of soft and springy moss to enjoy a little 
siesta and listen to the songs of the birds who had 
found an abiding place in that little grove. 
Among them was a vireo, my favorite among all the 
feathered inhabitants of the woods; tame and unsuspi- 
cious was the little fellow, and hovering about us some- 
times but a few yards away, he permitted us to examine 
him in his neat attire of cap of ashy blue, coat of bright 
olive green, and waist-coat of unsullied white. 
I love the song of this beautiful bird, for it always 
seems to me to be the expression of calmest, quietest 
content, and all his movements are marked by grade and 
elegance. 
One of my greatest pleasures when rambling in the 
woods is to recline on a grassy knoll and watch this little 
songster, and as I watch I wonder whose pardoned spirit 
lives within his little body, and wish that if there is any 
truth in the doctrine of transmigration of souls I might 
be good and favored enough to some time hence become 
a vireo. All the summer long, in sunshine and in storm, 
from earl}' morn to dewy eve, his sweet soliloquy, his 
beautiful warble is heard — soliloquies of peace and good 
will for all the world. 
Ah, the vireo is almost an angel among the birds, and 
all should do him reverence. See the little one how busily 
he keeps employed, searching each leaf, each bud and 
twig for dainty morsels of insect food, and as he moves 
among the foliage, now leisurely poising on some waving 
branch, now fluttering at the end of some leaf-capped 
twig, how like a little elf does he appear. 
Before resuming our fishing my young guide removed 
the trout from his basket, and, after washing them in the 
cold water of a nearby spring, he replaced them in the 
hamper, putting beneath and laying upon them some 
moss which he moistened in the spring; forty-seven there 
were in ail, and so nearly of a size were they it would 
have been difficult to select one from the others. 
As we descended the brook it gradually increased in 
volume, being fed by a number of springs along its 
course; the pools became larger and deeper also, and the 
trout seemed to be more numerous, but their size did not 
differ from that of the fish we had taken in the pools 
above; whether or not they were all of one season’s 
growth co’.tld only be conjectured. Possibly the fish of 
that brook never attained a larger size, and we did not 
succeed in landing a half-pound trout until we reached 
the lower pools near the point at which the brook emptied 
into the wild river. 
Our catch that day numbered eighty odd fish, and I do 
not remember of ever having seen a more beautiful col- 
lection of the typical brook trout. 
The same species when taken in the deep water of the 
lakes loses much of the symmetry and grace and ex- 
quisite markings of the little brook inhabiter; the trout 
we capture in the rivers and larger streams also lose 
much of the elegance of form and beauty of coloration. 
It is in the pure water of the brook only that the ideal 
spotted trout is found. 
Our fourscore fish, small though they were, filled Eu- 
gene’s hamper to overflowing and they made a load of no 
trifling weight, as I discovered, when, to relieve the lad 
of his burden, I threw the strap over my shoulder and 
carried the basket a part of the way home. 
Poor Eugene ! He was a good boy, a brave and manly 
lad such as v/e find on the farms all over New England; 
he was studious withal, and his ambition was to acquire 
an education which would enable him to embark in one 
of the learned professions. But the great Civil War 
came, that awful struggle which cost the country so 
much of blood and treasure they never could be reckoned, 
and Eugene’s life, like that of many thousands of other 
young men who were as bright and manly and as full 
of ambitious dreams of the future as he, was freely given 
in re.sponse to what he considered to be the demands of 
patriotism and duty. 
A Venture in Eels. 
Early in September nearly all the eels in the central 
water shed of Pennsylvania turned their noses away 
from the ponds and streams in which they had been 
spending the summer and began wriggling down the 
Susquehanna River toward the sea, filled with an irre- 
sistible instinct to seek salt water for the purpose of 
spawning. It mattered nothing that before them in the 
long reaches of the Susquehanna there lurked dread 
danger of capture; that cunning devices by the thous- 
ands were set along the route for their ensnaring to 
gratify a wondrous human passion for their flesh, or 
that the vast majority in yielding to the compelling im- 
pulse were going to their death from exhaustion con- 
sequent upon the act of reproduction. 
By thousands and by millions they sinuously swam 
their way down the Susquehanna. Tons upon tons 
were entrapped in fish baskets and entangled in nets; 
but thousands of tons escaped to fulfil their destiny in 
the salt water of the Atlantic. On one cloudy night 
soon after the run began a boat might have been seen 
in the shallows on the Susquehanna. It was being 
poled silently and skilfully among the deep shadows of 
overhanging trees near the shore. The man who did 
the poling stood in the stern and kept a sharp lookout 
ahead. He seemed to have an air of expecting to see 
every moment something he did not want to meet, for 
his face was livid with fear and anxiety. 
In the bow crouched another man who grasped in 
his right hand a pole about six or seven feet long, at 
one end of which was fastened an iron contrivance 
closely resembling a small, straight, tined dung fork. 
There was no look of apprehension on his face, only 
eager expectancy as he peered alertly into the water 
illuminated by the flare of a light fastened on an iron 
rod set in the bow of the boat. The boat itself was 
long, narrow and punt shaped at both ends, a boat of 
a type common on the Susquehanna. 
The boat was poled silently and without a word being 
spoken by either men for perhaps ten minutes, when 
the man who was propelling the craft spoke. 
“It’s a bully night fur eels, Jake, ’n ef we’re let 
alone we’ll make a haul.” “An why shouldn’t we be 
let alone?” retorted Jake, testily, “we ain’t doin’ 
nothin’ but spearin’ a few eels, an here’s a peach,” mak- 
ing a swift dart with the implement in his hand. The 
next instant he swung aboard a large wriggling eel 
impaled on the prongs. 
For the next half hour the two men were too busy 
to talk or whisper. Every few minutes the man in 
the bow would lean quickly forward, make a swift 
thruct with his spear, and almost as regularly toss a 
bleeding eel aboard the long, narrow craft. He had no 
time for conversation, and the other man was too 
much occupied in properly poling the boat and keeping 
it well within the shadows of the bank. Curiously 
enough also, he kept the bow of the boat as much 
as possible toward the short, as though anxious that 
