302 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Sept. 7, 1912 
With a fish on, regulate the strain with the left 
hand, aiid when the rush is over, pull in the line, 
clamping it to the rod with the first finger of 
the right hand when reaching for another grasp 
with the left. The line can be drawn in far 
more rapidly in this manner than with even a 
multiplying reel, and fewer fish will be lost. It 
is merely tournament casting applied to fishing. 
If the fish makes a long hard dash, retard 
the line with the left hand until the coils are out 
and the line is then drawn directly from the 
reel. The nails will hold it in place. 
If you are wading, only a few yards of free 
line as a rule are necessary. On the left breast 
of your shirt, coat or sweater (all this assumes 
you are casting with the right hand) sew a small 
pocket large and deep enough to hold closely the 
lower flange of the reel. Over this sew a bit of 
elastic. Put the reel you intend to use in this 
pocket and mark where a loop of elastic is to be 
attached on the upper flange close enough to 
the barrel of the reel to hold it firmly and yet 
loose enough to let the reel be put in place. 
Your manly bosom will furnish an ample reel 
plate which will be movable in the sense that it 
will move whenever you move. Corpulent breth¬ 
ren with progressive “bay windows” can attach 
the reel to a different part of the anatomy for 
purely decorative purposes. 
Or a strip of whalebone, light wood or metal 
five or six inches long and an inch wide can be 
sewed in at the bottom, and then at the top after 
slipping it through a ring of metal or elastic, 
and the reel seat is then adjustable to any ordi¬ 
nary reel. 
When the reel is thus put in place, it is per¬ 
pendicular, with the handle to the right and easy 
to get at. If the handle is within the outer rim 
of the reel so much the better, and in casting 
or playing the fish the line is drawn off and 
either allowed to drop into the water or held 
in coils in the left hand. When it is desired to 
put the line back upon the reel, the rod is held 
in the left hand, the reel steadied with the fore 
finger and thumb of the same hand, while the 
right winds the windlass. 
If you wish to impart immortality to some 
staunch, beloved rod, don't put the reel on it. 
And turn it every few minutes both in casting 
and scrapping with your fish. 
Chas. T. Hopkins. 
From Olive to Biffed. 
Hohokus, N. J., Aug. 26. —Editor Forest 
and Stream: I intended to be truly what my 
name indicates, ephemeral; that is, “lasting but 
a day,” as one of the dictionaries defines it. But 
I cannot resist the temptation to ask why you 
headed the last letter from Mr. Ralph Bisbee 
"Biffed Bisbee.” Why not “Bisbee, the Biffer” ? 
Would not that be more appropriate? When it 
comes to hurling the English language in large 
lumps and with the utmost precision all “South 
Paw” artists might as well back off the stage 
when the “biffed” one, as you call him, or the 
“biffer,” as I call him, makes his bow before the 
footlights. The words that he hurls at the 
“buggy” one now writing are so overpowering— 
I might say so overwhelming in their poten¬ 
tiality—that I can only say, in a weak voice: 
“That’s good.” 
But seriously, I would like to say a few 
words to Mr. Bisbee, “bilious” and “buggy” 
though I may be. If he really thinks that I 
was attempting to “shy any bricks” in his direc¬ 
tion when I recently mentioned "fish hogs,” or 
spoke of “teaching a young man to be a fish hog 
in one lesson,” I am bound to believe that the 
strong intellectual force that makes possible Mr. 
Bisbee’s trenchant sentences must have gone back 
on him temporarily. To tell the exact truth, 1 
thought I recognized in Mr. Bisbee, after read¬ 
ing his first letter, something of a humorist. 
Surely, there could be no sting in his wildly 
absurd characterizations of some of our angling 
lights. A writer for the public press usually puts 
himself in a position where he is liable to re¬ 
ceive more or less good-natured ridicule. That 
is one of the penalties of being in the spotlight. 
So, too, does the critic in turn lay himself open 
to retort. 
Mr. Bisbee, it seemed to me at the time, was 
in a mood to criticize the fact that certain out¬ 
door journals have opened their columns to the 
dry-fly scribbler. Being much interested in the 
dry-fly I was impelled to ask why in the world 
dry-fly fishing should not prove fully as in¬ 
teresting to the angling reader as the constant 
stream of wet-fly stories that we have been ac¬ 
customed to reading for so many years. - Nor 
did I intend to convey the impression that our 
angling writers are “fish hogs.” But I do think 
that angling literature, which conveys the im¬ 
pression that the main idea of angling for trout 
is to catch fish in quantities by any means what¬ 
ever that is within the law, is liable to start the 
young angler on an undesirable path. All may 
not agree, but I have always been grateful dur¬ 
ing an angling career of at least several years 
that the one who taught me to fish for trout 
also taught me that the only sportsmanlike way 
to take these fish was by means of the fly. When 
referring to certain kinds of angling stories con¬ 
taining teachings of another kind, I had no in¬ 
dividuals in mind, but only certain types. Mr. 
Bisbee’s type was not among them. Probably 
1 was wrong in imputing Mr. Bisbee’s “attack” 
on certain dry-fly literature to a bad stomach, 
similar to my own—not a bilious one, by the 
way. I still think that many anglers have a 
habit of carrying a chip on their shoulder, not¬ 
withstanding the fact that they are tolerant. Is 
it not a fact that if one advocates the use of the 
dry-fly, many wet-fly fishermen “put up their 
dukes,” as they say in sporting parlance, in an 
uncalled for defense of something that has not 
been attacked at all—namely, the wet-fly. Who 
in the world has tried to shove down Mr. Bis¬ 
bee’s throat “a ten-foot rod” and told him he 
really must use it? As a man who has used the 
floating lure several years, and the wet-fly many 
years, I cannot remember once having had a 
member of any school try to “shove anything 
down my throat” like that, though arguments 
we'shall always have; and what whiles away the 
time better around the evening camp-fire? As 
a matter of fact, is the intolerance sometimes 
shown about lures usually exhibited by the ad¬ 
vocate of the dry-fly? 
And I have also been accused of hinting at 
“plagiarism,” merely because in an unfortunate 
moment I referred to the terms “bulging” and 
“tailing” as copyrighted English expressions? Of 
course T should not have used the word “copy¬ 
righted” in this connection, as this could mean 
nothing. The meaning that I intended to con¬ 
vey was that up to the present time, so far as 
my somewhat limited experience has taught me, 
these words are peculiarly English. I cannot 
imagine how anyone could think for a moment 
that the use of such common terms could con¬ 
stitute literary theft. Surely, if one is not a 
great word artist, he should be very careful in 
his choice of terms when mixing up in an ang¬ 
ling “controversy.” 
Having made amends to Mr. Bisbee (whom 
I still regard as a humorist), not for what I in¬ 
tended to say, but because of Mr. Bisbee’s ap¬ 
parent interpretation of what I said, I now trust 
that I may be allowed to become a true ephemera, 
"lasting for a day only,” and not be forced to 
become a perpetual dispenser of words. 
Olive Dun. 
Illinois Casting Club. 
Chicago, Ill., Aug. 27.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: The following scores were cast on 
Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 24 and 25. Weather 
on Saturday was clear, wind southwest, velocity 
about twenty miles per hour. On Sunday wind 
was south, about seven miles per hour. The 
light tackle dry-fly accuracy was deferred until 
the evening and was cast in a very light south 
wind. Scores: 
Half-ounce accuracy, bait: 
.... 98.5 
99 3 
Stanley . 
.... 99.3 
Swisher . 
. 99.0 
Spencer . 
.... 97.8 
Nicholson ... 
. 99.1 
.... 98.0 
98 7 
Cook . 
.... 97.5 
Huntley . 
. 98.8 
Heston . 
.... 98.8 
*Amman . 
. 98.7 
He (.arnio . 
.... 99.3 
*Spencer . 
. 97.3 
C W ( '.rant. 
.... 97.7 
"Stanley . 
. 99.1 
McFarlin . 
.... 90.3 
"Bauer . 
. 99.0 
McCandless . 
.... 98.8 
"Cook . 
. 98.2 
Kirk . 
.... 97.7 
*C W Grant.. 
. 97.3 
VVehle . 
.... 97.9 
"Pierson . 
. 98.9 
Whitby . 
98 0 
Asper . 
.... 98.0 
"Kerr . 
Pierson . 
.... 99.2 
"Nicholson .. 
. 99.2 
Hartstall . 
Salmon fly: 
Feet. 
Feet. 
C W (irant . 
. Ill 
Stanley . 
. 123 
W '\ (irant. 
. 112 
*C W Grant.. 
. 105 
Swisher . 
.102 
*W T Grant. 
. 104 
Amman . 
. 116 
"Stanley . 
. 125 
l)e 1 larrao . 
.125 
L. T. dry fly, 
accuracy: 
Linder . 
... 98.12 
"Lmder . 
. 99.2 
Whitby . 
.... 98.13 
*Whitby . 
. 98.9 
I >e (iarmo . 
... 99.5 
"De Garmo .. 
. 99.7 
Heston . 
... 99.3 
"Heston . 
. 99.2 
Stanley . 
... 99.10 
^Stanley . 
. 99. 
Pierson . 
... 98.8 
*Pierson . 
. 98. 
Swisher . 
... 99. 
*Swisher . 
. 98.11 
W T (irant. 
... 97.7 
W T Grant.. 
. 97.14 
Distance bait, 
one-half < 
ounce: 
De (iarmo . 
... 202 y 5 
McFarlin .... 
. 95% 
Amman . 
... 102 % 
*Amman . 
. 146% 
Heston . 
... 172% 
"Stanley . 
. 200% 
Stanley . 
... 117 
"Re-entries. 
While it : 
is impossible to give 
an entire 
resume of the 
scores, 
we will note 
a few of 
the honors won for our club. Mr. DeGarmo 
won the all around championship cup and also 
tied for first place in the salmon fly. Mr. Linder 
(whose honors we share with the Chicago Fly- 
Casting Club) was first in the quarter-ounce ac¬ 
curacy bait. Mr. Nicholson won first in the 
half-ounce accuracy bait. The championship 
pennant is a matter of a tie between our club 
and the Chicago Fly-Casting Club. This will 
make an interesting cast-off for some future 
date. 
Two of our club records have been broken 
during the last few days. Brother Stanley, in 
casting the half-ounce distance on Aug. 24 made 
a single cast of’226 feet, the best previous record 
in our club being 221 feet. Again in the light 
tackle dry-fly accuracy on Aug. 25, Brother 
Stanley made a score of 99.10, our best previous 
record being 99.9. A. F. Swisher, Sec’y. 
