334 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Sept. 13, 1913. 
•guests, anglers, miners, prospectors, “old-timers,” 
men and women, all lovers of mountains, and 
nearly all old visitors at Follows’, dating back 
for twenty years. On the return we went out 
on horseback, and starting early I determined 
to fish leisurely down stream from the saddle. 
I do not claim to have invented this de¬ 
lightful pastime, nor do I commend it on other 
dulcet rivers with meadows reaching down to 
the edge where nodding flowers are reflected in 
the water, and the air currents ring invisible 
bells among the aspens and pines, as it does in 
places I know, but just where does not signify. 
But on the San Gabriel, when walking over 
rounded boulders becomes tiresome, the angling 
horse is a scheme to be counted on. 
How I happened to select this angling horse 
I do not know. It may have been a special dis¬ 
pensation of Isabu, as we did pass a Japanese 
angler. Be this as it may, if that venerable horse 
had been trained for ages to stand where put, 
trained not to mind the hissing line, and the rod 
moving up and down like a whip, he could not 
have done better. I suspect this horse was an 
equine philosopher that in the early stages of 
the game recognized that the work laid out con¬ 
sisted mostly of standing in the deliciously cool 
water, keeping perfectly still and going to sleep. 
What more could a horse want? Be this as it 
may, this horse, sane in all things else, never 
turned a hair, and certainly enjoyed the sport, 
and that we both created a mild sensation among 
the natives and stagers goes without saying. 
It evidently struck some people as very 
funny to see a man and a horse both fishing, 
and the first time I tried it in the Arroyo Seco 
in 1887, I so astonished a tenderfoot from 
“Ioway,” as he called it, that he sat on a rock 
an hour watching me fish. I remember he took 
notes, and I, like all anglers, provided him with 
fact and fiction well shaken up. I told him my 
horse was so fond of angling that he would go 
out and wade the stream alone as a consuming 
passion, and that all I had to do was to fasten 
some flies to his tail, upon which he would wade 
along, whisking his tail back and forth after the 
fashion of horses, and of course hook trout and 
toss them upon the bank. He could not help it. 
Later in the cool of the evening I would go out 
with a basket and pick up the fish the horse had 
tossed ashore. 
“Remarkable,” said the tenderfoot with the 
note book. I agreed with him it was remark¬ 
able, but then the angler is always meeting re¬ 
markable things in his passage up and down the 
streams of fact and fancy in California and any¬ 
where else for that matter. 
This was long, long ago, as all strange 
things are. My angling horse of 1913 of the 
Follows’ Angling Inn did not, that I could dis¬ 
cover, possess this habit of catching trout with 
its tail nor did I suggest it, but he did have a 
patience which passed all understanding. All I 
had to do was to steer him to the edge of a pool 
where he promptly fell asleep while I cast to my 
heart’s desire. 
At first he walked slowly down the bed of 
the stream contrary to the ethics of dry-fly fish¬ 
ing. I unreeled slowly and gradually increased 
my casts until I got out forty feet or so. There 
was rarely a spot in which the water touched 
my stirrup. It was clear as crystal, melted snow 
that had left the slopes of San Antonio ten or 
twelve thousand feet up in the air, perhaps to¬ 
day or the day before. It had a slightly magni¬ 
fying quality, and I could see small trout far 
away headed up the stream and retaining their 
position by the gentle undulation of the body 
which gives the cold stream trout vigor, life, 
exercise and makes him of the tribe valiant, 
another fish than his kinsman of the deep cur¬ 
rentless deeps of the lake. 
These trout seemed to consider the horse 
a part of the game. Even in the pools they 
swam up to him and did not recognize me as 
other than a part of the big thing that was al¬ 
ways wading across their preserves or trying to 
drink them up. 
Down we went slowly hedged in by the big 
walls of green, a glorious and inspiring sight, 
as ridge after ridge seemed to go rolling away 
in every direction, telling of marvelous canons 
the knife cuts of eternal centuries. 
There is something about a great mountain 
range that has a peculiar effect upon me. I think 
it stimulates my reverence; at least, I see it or 
seem to feel it in that way, as always on a high 
mountain I have a strong desire to take off my 
hat, and I believe that if I had a heathen friend 
or brother and desired to convert him, I should 
take him up on to some great mountain range 
like the Sierra Mad re where the powers of the 
infinite have created abysmal depths, and merely 
ask him to look out over the world and realize 
what it was—that he was standing on the out¬ 
side of a ball that was rushing through space 
held in place by another body of inconceivable 
size and attractive power, that its every move¬ 
ment was mathematically correct. I cannot un¬ 
derstand how any human being seeing this, feel¬ 
ing it, knowing it, can deny the existence of the 
power that in the beginning started the evolution 
of the worlds, the stars and suns in infinite space. 
Exactly what this diversion has to do with ang¬ 
ling the reader may well inquire, but it may at 
least suggest that real anglers are reverential per¬ 
sons. They are sane nature lovers in their pure 
and rational enjoyment of the mountains, 
streams, lakes that have been given them. 
Never a strike did I get in the open runs 
of the San Gabriel, though I saw fish in the 
riffles here, there and everywhere. 
At last I came to a big pool where the wild 
winter rush had cut into the rock, polished it 
high above and sculptured the sandy bottom into 
classic shapes as the river poured into the basin. 
Sitting on a little ledge was a water ouzel and 
down into the clear icy water he plunged, flying 
through it, then I caught the figure of shadow 
on the bottom, and searching the depths with 
my eyes I at last located several trout poised 
near the surface. Ah! the delight of that cast. 
My Mexican saddle was modeled something after 
the sumptuous fashion of a rocking chair. It 
was a veritable sea of comfort, and from it I 
began to cast, stripping the line carefully, pay¬ 
ing it out to the musical click until at last I 
dropped a little coachman fairly over a trout. 
Bang! he broke water, my click sang loudly, the 
horse awoke so suddenly that he almost lost his 
legs; they gave for just a second, then slipped. 
It was a good imitation of an earthquake shock. 
The rod was bending, and away across the pool 
a half-pound rainbow leaped for its life. Even 
the horse became interested and took a drink, 
giving me more room to pass the rod to the 
left. How it took line in a fine rush down the 
stream, came up again and went into the air, 
now down, hunting the deeps of the pool, now 
coaxed out to try an up-stream excursion to 
leap and leap again are all part of the story 
played to the music of rippling waters and 
caressing leaves above. So I played him from 
the saddle, and I laughed as I wondered what 
the trout thought. Doubtless it has seen a hun¬ 
dred men casting for it that season, doubtless 
someone had hooked it, but to be caught by a 
casting horse, this was too much. I led the fish 
to the bank carefully, and my young friend who 
held the net did his duty in clever fashion, and 
when the trout was in the creel we laughed, as 
it was really a tremendous joke on the fish, and 
I am not quite clear but that we took an un¬ 
fair advantage, but someone at home was ex¬ 
pecting broiled trout. 
This comfortable indolent twentieth century 
angling was continued for ten miles or so, and 
had I continued and been satisfied with small 
fish, I could have filled a small creel. As it was, 
I came out with four fairly good fish and four 
or five hours of delight. Surely, this is a lazy 
man’s paradise, and I am prepared to defend 
it against all critics, as I found it absolutely com¬ 
fortable, easy to accomplish, and I am prepared 
to fish for a trophy against any mere foot angler. 
There are certain things to bear in mind, if 
my fishing discovery is to be taken up seriously. 
In engaging a horse from the stable at the little 
orange town of Azusa, it would be well to ask 
the owner if he is “rod broke.” Just to hear 
what he will say, if nothing more. 
I am inclined to think that the angling horse 
is not made; he is like all geniuses, born, as we 
are led to believe, are poets and anglers. It 
is only fair to say that the average broncho has 
strong objections to having a big March brown 
or professor hook him on the haunch. He imme¬ 
diately associates it with a horse fly. He will 
try to kick it off, then try to seize it with his 
mouth, at which the line will foul his ear, and 
he will think another horse fly or a wasp has 
struck him. At this stage the broncho decides 
that it would be better to get rid of angler, saddle 
and all incumbrances. This operation is com¬ 
monly known as “bucking,” and I have seen it 
in its variety, but I have never yet been separ¬ 
ated from the saddle. What the future may 
have in store I know not, but I am still fishing 
from the saddle when the opportunity affords. 
The moral to this is that when engaging a horse 
it is well to ask if he is an angling horse, rod 
and royal coachman broke. I regret that I do 
not recall the name of my horse that entered so 
fully into the game that day in the San Gabriel, 
as horses rarely die in California, and he will 
probably be on the line for years to come. We 
called him the “Sleeper Awakened,” as he was 
always asleep and always being awakened. 
L T sually this canon with its main branches, the 
west fork extending up the back of Mount Wil¬ 
son and the Carnegie'Astrophysical Observatory 
and others was cool and delightful, but this day, 
due to a desert storm, was fierce in its heat in 
the open spaces. The doctor had gone on, lured 
by the big willows and fragrant bay trees lower 
down, so he missed the vital and transcendent 
beauties and excitements of the trip, though 
doubtless he will claim that he was really the 
discoverer of this great solace to rod lovers— 
the angling horse. 
Another time I represented the club in the 
San Gabriel Canon, and Dr. Henry Van Dyke, 
