22 
FOREST AND S T R E A M 
January, 1919 
FISHING BY THE FRIENDLY FIRESIDE 
WHEN WINTRY WINDS BLOW, THE ANGLER DREAMS OF THE FAR-DISTANT 
OPENING DAY AND PLANS NEW ATTACKS ON THE STRONGHOLDS OF THE TROUT 
T hose who know what it feels like 
to have the fishing virus enter their 
blood during the winter and who, 
along holiday time, prefer to gaze into 
the depths of the friendly fire, seeing 
a certain pool where that big one will 
be lying in a few months, instead of 
reading the daily horrors in their paper, 
will find very little instruction — but per- 
haps a slight interest — in reading what 
I have to say. Rather will those poor 
unfortunates who have never caught a 
trout, nor planned how they should catch 
others, find perhaps something herein 
to lead them to a better life, that of — I 
sincerely trust — a fly fisherman. 
Those of us who hunt certainly find 
pleasure in taking good care of our guns 
and exercising our dogs; we who camp 
love to overhaul our duffle, patching the 
tent, sharpening up the ax, making mar- 
velous new sleeping and cooking con- 
traptions; but those of us who fish for 
trout — we never have time enough to 
overhaul our tackle properly! There are 
new windings to be put on this rod, and 
that one is to have an agate guide; the 
fly that the “big fellow” really would 
take best must have a different hackle 
from the March Brown, and our stock 
of Whirling Duns looks rather played 
out, so they must be retied; there are 
some bad spots in this leader, and the 
landing net needs a bit of patching. Oh ! 
if any one should ever get through fuss- 
ing with his tackle — which he never will 
— there are so many different ways of 
fishing that eddy just above the big 
round rock, and the place where the 
current has cut under the left bank by 
the leaning oak. These and many other 
battlefields must be thought over, and 
the best plan of attack decided on — only 
to be changed when we finally fish them. 
You who have never fished for trout, 
if you have read this far without giving 
up in disgust, must see what a lunatic 
a fly fisherman can be. Here I am in 
the middle of December wondering 
whether Emerson Hough is right about 
that buck tail for high water in the 
streams, and whether I shall make my 
first cast in a certain little pool just 
above the white bridge with his much 
praised buck tail — on the first of next 
April, mind you! — or whether a Silver 
Doctor sunk about ten inches will turn 
the trick. And my favorite rod has just 
been set up and gone over carefully in 
preparation for that April day’s fishing. 
Now I wager that there are a thousand 
other men in this country tonight who 
are not only thinking about whether 
they shall go to this stream or that 
one on the oj ening day, but are revar- 
nishing their rods, tying leaders and 
flies, paraffining lines, and gazing wist- 
fully at fishing catalogues. In other 
words, mine is not an isolated case of 
By VIRGINIUS 
the trout fever; it is prevalent in a vio- 
lent form throughout the country. 
W HY is there such a gripping fasci- 
nation in fly fishing, and what is 
this fascination? I hardly know; 
it consists in so many things that a list 
of them might become tedious. If you 
are at all curious about it, try it, and 
the answer will be plain even if you 
too cannot find words for that answer. 
I have spoken of fly fishing several 
times; if you would know the real pleas- 
ure and beauty of catching trout, be- 
come a fly fisherman, and leave bait fish- 
ing to those who fish for food instead 
of pleasure. When I started to write I 
made up my mind I would not take sides 
on any of the “great arguments” — dry 
fly versus wet, upstream versus down, 
and so on, and I hardly feel that I have 
broken my decision when I say “leave 
bait fishing for those who fish for food.” 
We all fish for food at times, and when 
the camp needs trout for lunch and flies 
are not attractive, by all means use bait, 
so that we may not be forced to fish 
our flies all afternoon on empty stomachs. 
I suppose there must be something 
delightful about deciding whether to use 
this worm or that one to try to catch 
some big speckled fighter on, but I know 
it is delightful to open the fly book and 
wonder whether a dark Montreal or a 
Coachman will prove most enticing to 
that same big fellow. And there must 
be some satisfaction in being able to 
chuck a baited hook into the current so 
that it will be carried down to a hungry 
trout, but the satisfaction there is in 
dropping a dainty fly just where it will 
do the most good — about twenty-eight 
feet from you near that patch of foam 
— is something I can vouch for. Fur- 
thermore the joy at landing a trout must 
be something fiendish to repay a bait 
fisherman for tearing most of the trout’s 
entrails out when he releases his hook; 
I know that a fly fisherman’s joy is not 
marred by removing his fly from the un- 
feeling lip of his adversary. Well, I 
suppose it is really unnecessary to en- 
large on this subject; surely it is if you 
will only try fly fishing. 
S O many better men than I have de- 
scribed the outfit necessary for the 
tyro that I almost feel it would be 
superfluous for me to do so; I will con- 
tent myself with a few “don’ts” con- 
nected with the purchase of such an out- 
fit. And the greatest of these is “Don’t 
buy a cheap outfit.” That is not a very 
encouraging remark, is it? It is not as 
bad as it sounds however. I have met 
men on a trout stream with rods that 
must have cost all of ;pi.50; they also 
had every other item that is devised for 
the use and pleasure of a trout fisher- 
man. If necessary do without a fly- 
book, and a creel and a leader box, ap^ 
a dry-fly atomizer, and several other 
things, but GET the best rod you pos- 
sibly CAN afford! ! Almost any medium 
priced enameled line (if there is such 
a thing) will be strong enough to hold 
any trout you will catch, but the same 
cannot be said of leaders. Cheap flies 
may look just as good to you as ex- 
pensive flies, but I am satisfied that a 
trout can tell the difference in the price 
better than the most expert fishing 
tackle dealer. If you cannot afford to 
buy three dozen good flies, try one dozen 
or half a dozen. You can be just as 
economical as you please when it comes 
to a reel, but get one large enough to 
hold the line you just purchas::d. I 
started out to tell you some “don’ts,” but 
I see it developed into “do’s”; so do buy 
the best rod, leaders, and flies that you 
can, and skimp on the other items. 
A hat band or an envelope will serve 
as a fly book; an envelope or a little 
tin box will do for a leader box; an 
old wet towel or a handful of grass in 
connection with a coat pocket makes a 
serviceable creel; and so on through all 
the things that we would like to have 
and can’t afford to have if we get a 
good rod. Never fear, however, when 
the virus gets into your blood it will not 
be a question of what you can afford 
to spend; it gradually develops into 
patching an old suit instead of buying 
a new one, so that you can become the 
owner of an imported double-tapered 
line, or some new fly-box with little 
clips that keep your dry-flies just as 
they should be kept. 
A nd now a word as to the time 
when we become thoroughly im- 
bued with the fly-fishing disease. 
Our first impulse is to become rabid 
partisans in the “great arguments.” 
Don’t! Every kind of trout fishing; up- 
stream and down stream, dry-fly and 
wet-fly, fishing the rise and fishing the 
stream, all these are the best way at the 
proper moment. The fisherman who em- 
ploys them all, is the best fisherman. 
I have recently become the proud pos- 
sessor of a very beautiful volume on 
trout fishing — the most elaborate volume 
on this subject it has been my good for- 
tune to see — and my distress at finding 
several chapters taken up with bicker- 
ing about wet-fly and dry-fly men, and 
what this man said and that man said 
and the dictionary meanings of their 
words — well it is a rank shame that a 
man with the talent, knowledge, and 
experience that the author of this book 
has should incorporate such trivial stuff 
in such an otherwise authoritative work. 
When you become an accomplished fly 
fisherman I beg of you not to add your 
