April, 1919 
Forest and stream 
165 
Fishing a shallow stream free from cover one should keep back from the water 
innate wariness. Oftentimes I have 
wished that this were the case. But 
there is no psychic relation between the 
mind of a man and the mind of a trout. 
A nd so it behooves the angler to 
make a careful study of his brook 
and act accordingly. If you are 
fishing a brook which forbids the proper 
use of a fly or the casting of a bait lure, 
then get busy in the old-fashioned way, 
— that of keeping your lure always in the 
water and working it to and fro across 
the brook. Don’t be ashamed to do it; 
it isn’t unsportsmanlike; not to do it, 
in certain cases, shows false pride. If 
it is a big brook, jump right in and wade, 
but don’t go splashing along like a side- 
wheeled steamer. Just because the run- 
ning waters are making a big commotion 
and noise is no reason why you should. 
A trout has a fine sense of discrimina- 
tion; any discord in the music of the 
brook is quick to meet his detection. If 
the average angler were possessed with 
an equal sense of discrimiation, better 
contested games in the art would result. 
In this method of fishing, one should, of 
course, fish down stream and allow the 
worm lure, which can’t be beaten, to dan- 
gle along in a careless, unguided way as 
nearly as possible. If a worm were 
thrust on his own resources in a brook 
that is the way he would do, and a trout 
is wise enough to know it. Where a 
strong current prevails this is often dif- 
ficult to do, for the line is bound to 
straighten out, and perchance the angler 
stops walking for a moment the worm, 
of course, will halt, too. In such cases 
it is an excellent plan to keep retrieving 
the lure and permit it to be swept down 
until the line straightens. I have caught 
many a trout in this way that I could 
not catch by any other method. 
In the case of a small, brush-bordered 
brook it is not well to wade. For a first 
fishing, no harmful results will follow, 
but the next trip will show the tell-tale 
effect. The wading has made the trout 
extra cautious because of their previous 
-right. Even if you yourself do not in- 
tend to fish a small stream again, you, 
as a member of the great angling fra- 
ternity, should have consideration for 
your brother fishermen. Though often 
difficult to enter your lure through a tan- 
gle of bushes, and often an act that will 
test every atom of one’s patience you are 
likely to be repaid by a big catch, for 
the more cover trout can find in a small 
stream, there is the place they love to 
dwell. 
In fishing slow-flowing meadow 
streams, oftentimes one is obliged to re- 
sort to tactics nearly reverse to those 
employed in hillside streams. In the 
foregoing, I have emphasized the need of 
making as little noise as possible in wad- 
ing a large active brook. In fishing a 
quiet meadow stream, I would advise the 
angler to do no wading unless absolutely 
necessary. It is far better to fish a half- 
mile of this kind of brook from the bank 
than to fish two miles by wading. There 
are places which necessitate one’s get- 
ting into the brook, places which would 
be impossble to fish in any other way. 
One of the streams which I fish many 
times a season has more than a dozen 
places so densely covered with bushes 
that it would be impossible to enter a 
lure except by getting into the middle of 
the stream a few yards above and then 
feed the line slowly and carefully into 
the big bush-embowered pools. It is 
something like the process of threading 
a small-eyed needle, and if it doesn’t 
call for as much skill as does the casting 
of a fly then I acknowledge my inability 
as a fair judge. 
I T was on a hot afternoon last season 
that I came to one of these tangles. 
It was a big brook but so dense were 
the bushes both above the water and at 
the sides that an opening of only about 
eight inches presented an opportunity for 
the entrance of my lure. Cautiously I 
allowed the current to carry it along, and 
the instant it entered the bushy tunnel 
there was a strike and a splash and a 
big trout was mine. Here was a case 
where fishing from the shore would have 
been impossible. Crawling through 
bushes and getting your face and hands 
scratched oftentimes, and getting your 
line tangled and your hook caught nearly 
all the time isn’t so pleasant as standing 
on a flower-covered bank with not a bush 
in sight and debonairly casting an ornate 
fly on placid, sky-reflecting waters, but it 
is a part of the game and any true an- 
gler should be willing to play it just as 
ardently as when the moves are easy and 
all is tranquil. 
When there is but little current in any 
stream, then, of course, one is obliged 
to cast, whether using bait or fly, for the 
movement of the water is inadequate to 
carry the lure along. It is often well 
when bait casting to drag the lure slowly 
along for several feet from where it first 
struck the water, for many a time a 
trout will strike when a worm lure is in 
action whereas if it was still he would 
give it little, if any, attention. This pro- 
cedure belongs to the same rule as the re- 
trieving and feeding out of a line in swift 
water, that I have previously stated. If 
one were to ask me the “whys” of this 
kind of action on the part of a trout as 
well as ask me many other reasons for 
their eccentricities at various times, I 
would answer emphatically, “I don’t 
know.” And I believe that every honest 
angler would have to answer the same. 
A plausible reason, however, for a trout’s 
preference oftentimes for a moving lure 
is that it denotes life and action and this 
appeals more temptingly to him. 
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 188 ) 
A quiet meadow stream should not be waded unless absolutely necessary 
