168 
FOREST AND STREAM 
April, 1920 
after their long winter’s fast. In large 
streams, worm fishing is done from a 
boulder over some pool full of trout, with 
a nine foot, 5-ounce rod, and a nice, 
crawly angle worm, much like any other 
kind of still fishing for perch or blue gills 
the country over. A more exciting varia- 
tion of it is worming on small streams 
grown over with alders and willows, 
where a long rod is a misery, there being 
no room to use it. Here I prefer the short 
bass bait-casting rod, five feet six inches 
long, provided with a quadruple multiply- 
ing bass reel. This is easily handled, and 
the trout is played on the reel like a bass. 
Rubber hip boots, with leather hobnailed 
wading sandals are essential, as one is in 
the stream half the time. The fishing is 
generally done downstream, the line be- 
ing paid out of a loose running reel and 
the worm allowed to float down along the 
bottom. A small, number ten, snelled 
hook is used, and same is put through the 
collar of your night-walker, allowing him 
to squirm at will. A trout’s mouth is so 
large that he takes in the whole worm at 
a gulp, and you strike and hook him in 
the gullet with the little number ten. 
The rest is reel play, with the usual 
strategy of keeping him away from roots 
and submerged trees, wading up on him 
promptly and slipping the landing net 
under him as quickly as may be, for a 
trout is never tired out and is never more 
dangerous than when right under your 
feet. Never try to lift him out of the 
water without the landing net under him. 
Again, early in May, before the hatch 
of Mayflies is out, nothing is better than 
live minnows or even preserved ones, par- 
ticularly for large trout. Once I fished 
a big, well-stocked stream for a whole 
day without a rise to my dry fly, while 
my partner filled his creel, taking trout 
right out under my nose with a switch 
cast and a live minnow on the small num- 
ber ten hook. Meanwhile another angler 
took a twenty-seven-incher on a Devon 
artificial minnow. Needless to say I was 
not slow to abandon any and all my flies. 
Cleaning the morning’s catch 
W ET fly fishing was for years the old 
standby in our country, and served 
very well until the trout got edu- 
cated. The stream was simply whipped 
with three flies on a cast, generally fished 
downstream to avoid tangling them up, 
and the innocent trout took them with a 
will. Now they know all about those 
flies, and can tell without rising just 
what maker tied the fly. As to touching 
one — never ! 
Which brings us to the dry fly. They 
are soothing to the human breast, for 
never are we more satisfied with our- 
selves than when we have completely 
fooled some wild animal at his own game. 
It depends on two principles; first, that 
a trout cannot see back of him for a 
distance of some thirty degrees on each 
side of his dorsal fin. As he always lies 
facing up-stream, you are safe from de- 
tection if you fish up-stream towards the 
head of the pool. If he sees you at all, 
it is all off, for he hunts his hiding places 
and will remain there for an hour or so 
until he is convinced that you have de- 
parted. Coupled with this may be men- 
tioned that a trout cannot see anything 
A stream where bushes lie in wait for your back-cast 
at all above water if it is more than 
thirty feet away from him in a circle of 
that radius. This is because beyond that 
distance the sight rays are reflected 
downward by the under surface of the 
water, which acts like a mirror to him. 
The second principle of dry fly fishing 
is that trout will be fooled by a fly, close- 
ly imitating a natural insect, and float- 
ing naturally downstream, as if it had 
just dropped off a bush. American dry 
flie.s are tied to imitate closely our natur- 
al insects, and one notes the predominat- 
ing insect on the streams at the time 
of day when one is fishing, and chooses 
one out of the fly box as near like it as 
possible. 
Naturally, all dry fly fishing is done 
up-stream, or across .stream on wide 
ones. With good practice in casting, one 
can get out fifty to sixty feet of line, and 
drop the fly where wanted, wherefore 
one is safe in casting for a spot sixty 
feet away across the stream, for it is 
outside of the thirty foot limit, and the 
caster is invisible to the trout, especially 
if he is standing on a rock and his feet 
are not sticking down into the water. 
The tackle used is a rather stiff rod, 
costing about ten dollars, nine feet long, 
five ounce, split bamboo with snake 
guides. The reel may be any cheap af- 
fair, of hard rubber, single click, and 
goes on the but of the rod to give it 
balance. It holds thirty yards of size E, 
double-tapered trout line, costing three 
to seven dollars, and on the end of this is 
a six-foot gut leader and a small fly, tied 
dry, so it will float, and it must be small, 
on a number twelve hook. This tackle, 
properly used, is a killer and will take 
trout in fly time where the usual methods 
will make one conclude that the stream 
must be fished out, in spite of the State 
having been on the job stocking the 
stream. 
If the stream is .small, one stands at 
the lower end of a pool, where there is 
room for a long back-cast without the 
fly getting hung up in trees, and he casts 
towards likely spots with false casts, that 
is, without ever letting the fly touch the 
water. At each cast, more line is stripped 
off the reel and fed out, until you land 
the fly right over a chosen eddy or 
boulder, where a trout is most probably 
lurking. Keeping a sharp watch out, you 
note that little feathered fraud bobbing 
down-stream as you slowly strip in line 
to take up slack. Suddenly there is a 
swirl in the water, and instantly you 
strike, for the trout is so quick that you 
cannot take it away from him, and also 
so quick as to spit out the fly the instant 
he feels the hook. If hooked, he will be 
all over the pool and you have your hands 
full stripping in line with your right 
forefinger, snubbing him away from 
snags, etc., until finally you have him 
near you and can get him where he is in 
shallows, or at your feet, where the land- 
ing net can come into play. 
O N a large stream, say one three hun- 
dred feet across, like the Esopus in 
New York, or the Broadhead in 
Pennsylvania, one works up-stream along 
the banks, wading out to boulders from 
which a possible trout lair can be cast. 
Never wade right in where the trout are, 
