506 
FOREST AND STREAM 
November, 1921 
ARCTIC FLY-FISHING 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream: 
zine that were called for within the next grating eider or oldsquaw. The snowy 
few days. 
When I took my vacation the next 
year and visited the old fishing ground 
I went with a “newfangled” outfit. I had 
a rather stiff casting rod, a tri-part reel, 
and a couple of artificial baits. 
It took me some little time to learn to 
cast without having a back-lash, and I 
lost one bait in the process, but the num- 
ber of game fish that I caught during 
that vacation was a surprise to me and 
the neighbors around there. 
This kind of fishing was a new thing 
in that locality and so my luck was ex- 
ceptionally good for a while. 
It is a real thrill to the fisherman 
when he is reeling in his bait to have 
something almost yank the rod out of 
his hands and start upstream with a dash 
that makes the reel sing. It brings a 
certain sense of excitement which is un- 
known to the one who still-fishes. Very 
often I have stood on the bank of a river 
casting out into the stream and have seen 
a pickerel following the hait as it neared 
the shore, out of curiosity. 
But I do not always go for game fish. 
Occasionally I like to use worms and go 
after the smaller fry: perch, “rockys,” 
sun-fish, bullheads, etc. If there is less 
excitement about this kind of fishing 
there is more uncertainty, for one can 
never tell what sort of a fish will bite 
next. 
Skill can be developed in still-fishing as 
well as in casting. It is not altogether 
a matter of chance or luck; one can 
study the habits and life history of the 
fish in his vicinity, the weather condi- 
tions, etc., and the more he knows about 
the fish he catches the more fun it is to 
catch them, whether with wooden plugs 
or worms. 
Theodore H. Cooper, New York. 
owl had joined the faunal stew upon the 
recommendation of an Eskimo friend, 
who considered them singularly tasty. I 
thought little of his culinary discrimina- 
tion after that, for the owl possessed a 
most filthy flavor, and an elastic tissue 
almost impervious to the action of boiling 
water. 
Health, strength, and a fair degree of 
optimism could be maintained on this 
diet, but I was ever “fish hungry,” hav- 
ing spent my early days by the sea. Dur- 
ing the past year I had partaken of fish 
only once, and that was frozen salmon 
trout while the guest of an Eskimo. I 
take little interest in this form of fish ; 
a mass of tasteless ice crystals dissolve in 
the mouth leaving a flavor suggesting the 
odor of a gurry bucket. 
However, the return of the birds and 
the midnight sun brought less thinking 
of non-essentials, and more wholesome 
activity. Going afield at about nine 
o’clock in the evening, when the sun was 
lowering over the northern horizon, field 
work would be carried on until three or 
four in the morning, because during these 
hours the lower temperature enhanced 
and white fox hair, lined with ptarmigan 
leathers. 
Reaching the mouth of a lagoon about 
two miles east of Demarcation Point I 
noticed that the sea ice had been melted 
by the outeoming stream until a pool 
about fifty feet across had been formed. 
A moment at the margin to inspect the 
possibilities of fording to avoid going 
around on the slippery ice revealed a 
number of salmon-trout swimming lazily 
about in the clear water. 
Like every other person in the north 
country, my thoughts took in the gastro- 
nomic opportunities suggested by the 
sight of fish, and secondarily the sport. 
Of the latter I knew nothing for I had 
only seen trout netted by the Eskimo, 
and what the white men in the “beach” 
called “Tom Cod” jigged through cracks 
in the ice by squaws and boys ; the latter 
a singularly cold, unproductive pastime 
in a hungry country. 
Hurrying back to camp I found my 
small Bristol steel rod, the best rod for 
very rough expeditions, some line, and a 
small assortment of flies. The reel could 
not be found, but that was a minor detail. 
I wished fish for supper, and if they 
nr HE FATES had willed it that I 
* should spend the arctic spring and 
early summer of 1914 in a cabin on the 
north coast of Alaska, at Demarcation 
Point, a trifle over 69 degrees north lati- 
tude, for the purpose of Zoological col- 
lecting. 
The arctic night at headquarters had 
been long, very long; for, not expecting 
to winter, we were by no means equipped 
as we might have been, as to food and 
clothes. Shelter of the best we had. 
With the return of birds in May there 
came a welcome addition to the diet of 
beans, rice, and bread. The Yukon stove, 
always burning, was within reach of my 
skinning-tahle, from which I would cast 
into a pot of boiling water the bodies of 
various birds as I finished skinning them. 
The pot contained everything from king 
eider ducks to the diminutive semi-pal- 
mated sandpiper (and once a snowy owl 
to my regret). 
On becoming hungry, almost an hourly 
phenomenon in the north, I would jab 
about the contents of the kettle with a 
long fork, and consume anything that the 
tines pierced without great pressure, per- 
haps a succulent “peep” or snowbunting, 
or mayhap the breast or leg of a distinte- 
Author’s camp at Demarcation Point, Alaska 
the chances of finding birds upon their 
eggs. Then, returning to the cabin, spe- 
cimens would be prepared until about 
noon, when, if the weather was bright, a 
little insect collecting would be indulged 
in before crawling into the caribou-skin 
sleeping-bag which I found none too 
warm that summer. 
On the night of June 28 I left the 
camp at the usual hour, deciding to walk 
along the edge of the tundra near the 
beach in an easterly direction. There 
had been several cold showers during the 
day, but by evening the air was clear as 
crystal and decidedly chilly. The tundra, 
free from snow, with flowers here and 
there, looked as much like summer as 
this dreary land can appear, but the 
ocean was still an unbroken expanse of 
ice as far as one could see. 
Pacific and red-throated loons, old- 
squaw, king, and Pacific eiders were to 
be seen flying over the ice or tundra. 
Here and there snowbuntings were 
noted, one of two nests found contain- 
ing the large complement of seven eggs. 
The nest was in a hollow driftwood log, 
a very snug affair composed of grass 
would take a fly, fish I would have, reel 
or no reel. 
Returning to the mouth of the lagoon, 
I was soon rigged, and under the mid- 
night sun with bemittened hands was 
casting flies upon the icy waters of the 
Arctic Ocean, certainly the only one thus 
engaged at that time on this ocean in 
the western hemisphere. At the time I 
looked back on my other days of fly- 
casting — streams, lakes and alder-fringed 
stillwaters of the Provinces, Adiron- 
aacks and New England, bare hands of 
course, friends hard by, and perhaps the 
annoyance of strange intruders to break 
the peace and disturb the waters. What 
a contrast to be fishing alone on the 
shore of the Polar Sea, with mittens on 
during the last of June, with no sounds 
but the wail of the white fox and ghostly 
shrieks of the red-throated loons; no 
sights but the white frozen sea and 
brown tundra, and my shadow cast long 
upon the little beach by the cold midnight 
sun hanging low over the northern pack. 
Various flies did I try, until one fish 
struck at a Silver Doctor. It was a good 
three-pounder, and I was indeed excited 
