FOREST AND STREAM 
891 
Any Village Boy or the Town Loafer Can Tell You Where Th^y Ars and When They Are Biting. 
Good Old Doctor Bullhead 
He Can Cure You Cheap’y and Economically—To Delay is Dangerous- 
Try Him Today 
By Carl Schurz Shafer. 
as is found on thickly wooded brooks and 
streams and they always will seek for it; the 
greater this protection the less liable are they 
to become frightened because they cannot so 
readily observe either shadows or moving ob¬ 
jects; and especially the careful angler. 
In trout life it is the unusual, the out of the 
ordinary happenings, which disturb their other¬ 
wise peaceful existence; not because they have 
become “educated” and have a more highly de¬ 
veloped brain, for in the order of things it was 
decreed that trout should act from instinct, not 
reason. 
Would it not seem then as if the term “edu¬ 
cated” as applied to trout found in special waters 
was “far fetched,” very misleading, if not mean¬ 
ingless, especially to the beginner at the game 
of fly-fishing? 
It is the conditions, and yet again the condi¬ 
tions, found upon our trouting waters that every 
angler, be he expert or tyro, has to contend with 
and try to understand (at least to some extent), 
in order to fish them successfully. 
All streams have their own peculiarities and 
no two streams are exactly alike, for Nature in 
her wisdom never duplicates her wonders. The 
angler who would be successful cannot fish all 
trout waters in the same way; and it makes no 
difference by what name the trout are called for 
he has to adapt his manner and method of fish¬ 
ing to the circumstances and conditions as he 
finds them. He would not fish to-day that old 
and justly noted stream, the Beaverkill in New 
York State, as his father and grandfather did 
many years ago; nor would he fish any lake as 
he would a stream. 
Part of the science of angling for trout with 
a fly, irrespective of where they are found, con¬ 
sists in the angler’s ability to use not his com¬ 
mon sense but his uncommon sense in conjunc¬ 
tion with his “fish sense.” 
It is time we did away with this expression 
“educated” trout as meaning nothing and bend 
our energies to helping the young and enthusi¬ 
astic angler to become a better fly-fisherman by 
impressing upon him that conditions, so far as 
the trout are concerned, govern in the first in¬ 
stance; and his ability to fish and handle his rod 
properly to meet these conditions, in the second 
instance. 
Just a word or two along these lines—four of 
the principal things to be considered by the be¬ 
ginner especially which are never overlooked by 
the experienced and successful angler when fly¬ 
fishing for trout are: 
First: Cast as few shadows upon the water 
you are about to fish as possible. 
Second: Cast the fly beyond any possible 
shadow you may make yourself or 
with the rod. 
Third: Judge the best places to fish by the 
brightness of the day, the character 
of the water and stream, likewise the 
kind and direction of the wind. 
Fourth: Keep your eye upon the fly and do 
not fish too rapidly and above all 
have patience. 
If these suggestions are observed by the nov¬ 
ice he will not fail to improve as a fly-fisherman 
and his efforts will meet with far greater suc¬ 
cess, while his interest in the scientific and de¬ 
lightful pastime will be measurably increased 
each succeeding day he tries to lure the “speckled 
beauty” with his artificial fly. 
F OR years I have been afflicted with a pe¬ 
culiar spring complaint which shows up 
just as regularly as my hay fever. It 
usually manifests itself about the time the apple 
trees are bursting into blossom and the home 
folks are down to the dregs of their spring 
tonics. 
When I suffered the first attack I tried one of 
these time honored concoctions of burdock root, 
black cherry bark and old cider, without result. 
Instead of effecting an immediate cure I grew 
steadily worse until my wife, becoming alarmed, 
insisted that I should go on a diet of health 
foods, warranted to restore childhood’s ruddi¬ 
ness to my cheeks and the vigor of youth to my 
step, but, I failed to improve. The malady pro¬ 
gressed until I could no longer enter the figure 
six in the office ledger without its reminding me 
of a sprout hook. Realizing that my case was 
desperate I consulted Good Old Doctor Bullhead 
with such wonderful results that my wife has 
never ceased to express her gratitude. Thanks 
to Good Old Doctor Bullhead I no longer dread 
these spring attacks. 
When a man reaches the eminence of a bald 
head, pays income tax and can afford a month’s 
vacation, he seldom thinks of bullheads, except 
as members of the opposite party elected to office 
by the plain people to enact reform laws with 
which he is entirely out of sympathy. 
Whenever he has an attack of this peculiar 
summer complaint he buys himself a quarter of 
a mile of railroad transportation, and packs up 
a fifty dollar split bamboo fly rod with a forty 
dollar reel and a pig skin fly book containing 
an assortment of flies costing enough to send a 
poor man’s daughter through college. For his 
personal comfort lie takes along a half length 
rubber combination suit for his lower extremi¬ 
ties and a long list of incidentals, including a 
change of silk socks, also a willow basket with 
a square hole mortised in the top which nobody 
to date has discovered a use for, except to plug 
with grass to keep out the flies. Being a man 
of wealth he includes a sportsman’s tailored suit 
of the latest vogue with a pocket of sufficient 
width and depth to hold a large silver-mouthed 
bottle of thirty year old High Rocky Rose Water. 
When his packing is complete he tears off the 
tinfoil from a real Havana, climbs into his limou¬ 
sine and goes salmon fishing. 
This is as it should be. The salmon is an 
aristocratic fish which summers in exclusive re¬ 
sorts where none but plutocrats and Indians can 
reach him. He is a fine flavored creature of 
Paul Nyron hue, bearing a John L. reputation. 
The only salmon the poor man eats his wife 
catches around the. corner with a two bit piece 
and lands with a can opener. 
The flesh of the bullhead may not be as deli¬ 
cately flavored as that of the salmon but it fills 
the stomach and makes a mighty agreeable 
change of diet. Nor is he a Beau Brummel in 
appearance. He is a low-browed, weasel-eyed 
individual who gracefully wears a Chinese Man¬ 
darin moustache, otherwise he looks like a slimy 
cross between a torpedo and a Conger eel. 
The bullhead is a home-loving fellow. He 
never takes it into his head that he needs a 
change of environment and goes on a prolonged 
sea cruise like the salmon. While he has a de¬ 
cided preference for weedy ponds and rivers 
without currents as a place of residence, he has 
no real objection to any old sort of lake or 
