420 
[Sept. 15, 1906. 
lie should make inquiries in regard to the fish¬ 
ing before locating anywhere. Beaverkill P. O., 
where 1 am staying, is eight miles above Rock¬ 
land, but in very hot weather the fishing is in¬ 
different. The trout are hidden away mostly, 
although a few fine schools may be seen where 
cold brooks enter the river. Yonkers might 
have tried his hand on the big trout below the 
wooden bridge here. This fish can be seen 
any morning before he has been stared out of 
countenance by people on the bridge. This fish 
must weigh nearly four pounds, and is a bright, 
handsome specimen. 
If Yonkers wants trout fishing in August, he 
must go where the water is cool, not way down 
stream near the Delaware River. He was near 
really first-rate black bass fishing, I believe. 
In July and August, if a man wants trout, he has 
to work for them. This is the case everywhere; 
but very fair fishing may be had in the upper 
reaches of many trout streams, particularly in 
the evening and early morning. Sport is apt 
to be poor when the summer sun is blazing down 
upon the water. It is hard to travel a long dis¬ 
tance for a little fly-fishing and then have no 
success, but no one is to blame for Yonkers’ 
disappointment, except himself. He appears to 
have taken a train to the first railroad station on 
the Beaverkill and expected to find good trout 
fishing on leaving the cars. 
The good season of 1906 is past, and it is a 
long time until April 16, 1907. One tiling we 
know is that there are lots of trout in the stream 
for breeding purposes. I fished three times in 
the last five days of the season. Once I came 
in from an attack on the life and liberty of the 
big trout below the bridge with nothing in hand 
except a regular buster of a chub. I did hook 
one very fine trout in the big pool, but when 
nearly exhausted, it rushed into the submerged 
branches of a small tree, which had come down 
in some freshet, wound the casting line in them, 
and pulled the hook out just when I thought he 
was mine. 
I killed ten fine trout on Tuesday, but the last 
day of the season was not so satisfactory. I 
made a late start, several fishermen were in ad¬ 
vance, and more sawdust was running than I 
ever saw in the Beaverkill before. It was not 
a blank day, however, as I basketed three brown 
trout and one fontinalis. The former were good 
fish, one of them weighing a pound. You see, I 
go on telling the fish stories which Yonkers 
complains of;'but the good people who have 
eaten the fish do not complain—they are sorry 
that the season is over. 
After my trip way up stream, I was able to 
give all hands a fish supper. The Beaverkill 
has been known to at least three generations 
of anglers as one of the best trout streams in 
the State of New York, and it would be hard 
to find anywhere a more beautiful one. 
The past summer was unusually warm for this 
part of the country, and if we had not had 
heavy rain at intervals and occasional cool 
waves from the northwest, sport would have 
been poor indeed. If the temperature of the 
water rises above a certain degree, trout cease 
to feed and disappear in a puzzling way. No 
doubt some of them run up, but many remain, 
as they appear again in their old haunts after 
a few cool days and nights. 
I have watched two trout in a long, shallow 
pool on one side of an island all summer. 
When the weather was very warm they were 
under the rocks and right on the bottom. At 
other times they were out in the stream, poised 
an inch or two above the gravel and small 
stones. These fish were in a very public place, 
and had been disturbed and angled for so much, 
that it was impossible, apparently, to take them 
by fair fishing. 
'The big trout below the bridge only came into 
the pool about two weeks ago, on a rise of 
water, and from its color must have been out 
in a sunny exposed place all summer. Probably 
it had begun to think of finding a, mate to en¬ 
joy a honeymoon with. The lower portion of 
the bridge pool has shoaled a good deal; former¬ 
ly it was much deeper, and several years ago 
there were four big trout in the same place near 
a flat rock. These large fish like plenty of water 
or. at least, a first-rate place to hide. Unless 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
they have shelter where they are invisible, they 
are not safe during low water from the poacher. 
In 1894 three trout, weighing 2 j 4 to 5 pounds, 
were snared out of one pool on the Neversink 
by two farmers who were experts with the wire. 
I saw the men and two of the trout running as 
I passed up stream, but never dreamed that they 
could take the fish out of such a large body of 
water by snaring. The stream was very low 
and clear, and 1 learned afterward that there was 
no secure hiding place for the trout. 
The big Indian 7-pounder lived in the same 
small pool for four years at least, but this trout 
had a hole in the abutment of a bridge into 
which he returned when disturbed, and out of 
which he could not be poked. At last a scoun¬ 
drel shot the old fellow with a rifle. It was 
very amusing to watch the behavior of strangers 
when they caught sight of that trout. Some 
men would go wild with excitement and longing. 
They would put off for their rods, miles per¬ 
haps, and return in haste; they had little doubt 
of taking the great fish in a minute. If still in 
position when they returned, the first cast of fly 
or bait sent the shy monster to his den. In 
four or five years of residence, he was hooked 
four times. Theodore Gordon. 
Beaverkill, Sullivan County, N. Y. 
Trout Food. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I inclose the following from your issue of 
Sept. 1: 
“A hunter and I were reading about the trout 
destroying minnows in Sullivan county and he 
said: 'I have fished for brook trout for twenty 
years in New York State and have dressed 
thousands of them and never yet did I find a 
minnow or any kind of a fish except crawfish in 
their maws.’ I quickly -replied that that had 
been my own experience in Essex county, N. 
Y., through a period of nearly forty years catch¬ 
ing many large speckled trout in brooks, creeks 
and rivulets. I don’t doubt that brown and rain¬ 
bow trout are shiner-eaters and I believe that 
they cut down the supply of young fontinalis 
wherever introduced. Would like to hear more 
on alleged cannibalism of fontinalis. 
“Peter Flint.” 
In the Outlook of the same date Spectator 
tells of seeing the trout fed in the New York 
Aquarium. The following is a part of his 
article: 
“A truly high-minded and gamy fish, like the 
trout, takes his food after quite another fashion. 
When the quartermaster gets to the trout tank, 
he sets down his tray of chopped clams, liver, 
raw meat, and dead fish, and sends for a bucket 
of lively minnows. These he spills, one silvery 
handful after another, into the pool. The Spec¬ 
tator is no hunter, and he feels that his sym¬ 
pathies ought normally to go with the minnow- 
lings. But even he cannot restrain his admira¬ 
tion of the pure skill the trout show in running 
down their prey. Little as he is, the minnow is 
no despicable quarry; for he cannot be taken 
from behind. The Spectator has seen more than 
one 'unhappy trout that had attempted a minnow 
tail-end first, and was repenting at leisure with 
a sharp dorsal fin jammed across his throat, 
scuttling about the tank with the fore-half of 
the minnow protruding unconcernedly from his 
gaping ja\Vs. He could neither swallow the 
awkward morsel nor spew it out. The Specta¬ 
tor fancies he has seen a twinkle in the eye of 
the minnow and chagrin in that of the trout. 
But the incident has usually closed with the dis¬ 
comfiture of the quarry, a second trout obligingly 
coming to the rescue and swallowing the min¬ 
now head first.” 
Here in Maine I have caught fontinalis on 
live bait, both when "fishing for them and also 
when fishing for pickerel in winter. I have also 
caught large trout on live bait early in June in 
the West Branch of the Penobscot, when they 
refused both flies and angleworms.' Trout taken 
in winter at Alligator Lake are usually full of 
pond smelts. At Branch Pond in Ellsworth, 
Maine, the trout late in March come into shal¬ 
low water at the mouth of brooks to feed on 
pond smelts, and some of three to four pounds 
are caught in only three to four feet of water. 
These are caught on live bait. 
My son saw a 'fontinalis come into a pool on 
a small brook where there was a smaller one. 
The large one chased the small one, as a cat 
would a rat, until he captured it. He had about 
the same difficulty in swallowing it that the 
Spectator describes, but finally succeeded. There 
is no question of this being a fontinalis, as there 
are none but our native trout in this brook or 
any connecting water, and, moreover, this same 
trout took my son’s hook in the same place less 
than an hour after. M. Hardy. 
Brewer, Me. 
Englewood. N. J., Sept. 6 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: I see Mr. Flint raises the question 
whether or not the ordinary brook trout eats 
minnows. I have taken at least two genuine 
specimens of fontinalis here in northeastern New 
Jersey with their stomachs containing the partly 
digested remains of what are known hereabouts 
as “darters,” the little stiff-finned fellows from 
one to two inches long, which move so suddenly 
from place to place along the bottom. The first 
of these fish was taken on opening day, 1905, 
and weighed slightly over a pound. He was 
lying at the head of a deep pool just below an 
old broken dam in a small swamp brook, which 
contains a plentiful supply of the little minnows 
in question, as well as many caddis. On landing 
the fish, 1 opened him to see what he had had 
for his dinner, and found among the mass of 
worms, caddis and other matter, parts of three 
darters, the largest about inches long. 
The second trout was caught in the same pool 
a couple of weeks later, and weighed 7 ounces. 
As the hook was being removed, 1 noticed part 
of a small fish in his throat, and on investigat¬ 
ing, found the.stomach to contain the remains 
of nine darters, a couple of them having evi¬ 
dently just been swallowed. Naturally the fish’s 
belly was much distended by the mass of food. 
The trout in this particular stream are almost 
exclusively bottom feeders, very seldom rising 
to the fly, which may account for the kind of 
meals they seem to be in the habit of making. 
Robert S. Lemmon. 
The Young Angler’s Complaint. 
The Young Angler was exceedingly anxious 
to win out. He knew that he could not hold 
with his delicate tackle the very large trout that 
lay in the swiftest water or in the deepest pools' 
and that were the special game of the Old 
Angler, but he hoped to have a run of luck some 
day and to bring to net a fair proportion of the 
big trout he hooked, and may be beat just once. 
He was a very skilful fisherman, and had re¬ 
peatedly, when fishing with his father, caught 
more pounds of trout than the old gentleman 
had caught, but never, on any occasion, had he 
been able to equal his father’s catch for size of 
fish. If he could only for one evening sit among 
the other fishermen at the supper table of the 
little mountain hotel where they made their 
headquarters on their fishing trip and be able 
to crow a little over the Old Angler, it would 
make up for a good many hours of secret 
chagrin. 
The Old Angler fished with a minnow and 
caught only the largest trout. He had a sort 
of half-concealed contempt for a fly-fisherman 
who hooked little trout, and who led them 
around, as he said, with a reel and limber rod 
and finaly scooped them up with a net. He had 
never fished with a reel, and when he hooked 
a trout less than a foot long on his stout rigging, 
he threw it out; and if less than 15 inches long, 
he towed it out. “Prying them out with a lift,” 
the Young Angler styled it. It was only very 
large trout that he condescended to fool away 
any time with. The merry twinkle in his sharp, 
old, gray eyes, his own invariable success as an 
angler, and his shrewd comments on fishing that 
yielded only small trout made him a wonderfully 
entertaining but not always pleasant companion 
for a fishing trip. For years he had held the 
season’s record for large trout, and he would 
not yield it now if he could possibly help it, 
