Forest 
Vol. LXXXII. 
and Stream 
March 28, 1914 No. 13 
Along the Golden-Eye 
Being a Narrative of Small Stream Possibilities Where Planted Trout have been A 
to Propagate Unhindered 
By Robert Page Lincoln. 
(Photograph by Author .) 
For no particular reason in the world did I 
name it the Golden-Eye. But as a matter of fact 
the name stands just as well as another that has 
been attached to it, and which in itself 
is not very important from the high- 
ascended viewpoint. If I named it the 
Golden-Eye it was largely on account of 
the fact that here and there along its 
course were found pleasant little sug¬ 
gestive-looking pools, on each of which 
the sun cast a golden daylight glory; 
and also at night, in the moonlight, 
there were glints from each pool that 
led me to muse upon it, and finally to 
name it in my own quiet and unobtru¬ 
sive manner, after a fashion I have for 
inventing names of places to suit my 
fancy. 
I could have sworn upon a stack of 
Bibles that there were no trout in the 
Golden-Eye, but when I got hold of the 
report of the Minnesota Fish and Game 
Commission I noted with a singular 
surprise that this very stream had been 
stocked three seasons before. No sooner 
did I digest this news than I sat back a 
bit breathless, and in a twinkling I was 
forming my plans. If it were possible 
that the stream held trout, then surely 
the first thing I would do, at the open¬ 
ing of the season, would be to start in 
somewhere on its reaches and try and 
discover whether or no there was any 
truth in it. Now I realized first and 
last that while the stream may have 
been stocked, this, in itself, was no 
proof that the trout had gained in num¬ 
bers, or that they survived. But I had 
some faint sort of a premonition that 
it was the truth, every bit of it. 
It is the call of the little rivers that is 
the strongest in the heart of the pleas¬ 
ure-seeking angler. There are large 
rivers, and streams, famous where 
thousands have waded and fished. But 
it is these small streams, sometimes so 
inconspicuous that they are scarcely 
above notice, where a measurable success is 
found. The discovery of a perfectly fishable 
stream becomes remarkable in the history of the 
remembrance. Every angler, some time or an¬ 
other, sets out to find this bit of silver or gold, 
at the end of which, or in the centre of which, 
he will find his Arcady. I leave that to Warren 
Smith, whose account some time ago in these 
columns of finding a bit of water, hitherto 
thought inconsequential as a trout stream, made 
very good and interesting reading. 
I brought the report of this trout planting to Jim. 
Jim read and became so severely in earnest 
that his pincer glasses nearly slipped off their 
roost, pushed out of place by the advancing eye¬ 
brows. 
“But doesn’t that stream freeze solid 
to the bottom in the winter?” was his 
question. 
“I can show you holes up to my 
waist,” was my assertion. “Our win¬ 
ters are hard, but they never go that 
deep. I guess we better try her out, 
Jim, old scout.” 
“It is some nine or ten miles long, 
too,” added Jim, thoughtfully. “That 
will make a nice two days of it, won’t 
it? At least you have started my blood 
to working. If we catch the trout I will 
eat my hat!” 
"Which one?” I wanted to know. Be¬ 
cause I desired that it be a large broad- 
brimmed Stetson so that the feat be as 
cruel and as extended in its capacity for 
misery as possible. “Think well, Jim. 
You may have to have the honor thrust 
upon you.” Then, seriously: “We will 
go out right after the opening of the 
season, say two days after the begin¬ 
ning.” 
“All right,” promised Jim, without 
deliberation. “Understand that I don’t 
say but that there are trout there; I 
certainly hope so. You introduced me 
to one unthought-of surprise before. I 
guess this will prove equal to It, if we 
can go by this report.” 
The days dragged along slowly. It is 
that same old fever beginning its work, 
which gets worse and worse as the 
opening of the season tantalizingly 
gyrates before one. Here was some¬ 
thing that puzzled and excited me. 
Trout in my Golden-Eye! And I had 
washed my feet in its cooling waters 
many a time in my summer walks. 1 
had sat there at the bridge, for instance, 
and I had mused over those dusky pools. 
Why, I thought, is there no trout here? 
But, I considered, it cannot be the right 
sort of stream for the purpose. There I had 
been fooled. Did not the commission report say 
in black and white that thousands had been in¬ 
serted there with success. I half prayed that the 
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