1032 
FOREST AND STREAM 
The Chatauqua Muscalonge Leaps With a Sort 
of Bull-Like Ferocity. 
bass leap more often than do trout, both on 
fly or bait. Yet I confess to a preference for 
playing and capturing a trout. 
Of the three most popular trouts, the rainbow 
up to fifteen inches has proved to be far ahead 
in active resistance to either the brown or native 
speckled trout. So rapid are the rainbows, I 
have almost fancied a quick succession of three 
leaps in a second of time. There is also a bold¬ 
ness in the strike that one needs only to keep the 
rod tip upright to have the fish safe—no wrist 
jerk is required on a rainbow—its dash at the 
fly is a positive shock. 
This sudden shock is apparent, though in a 
lesser degree, with the brown trout, which I con¬ 
sider more active, gamy, and certainly prolongs 
the fight more than does the native trout, size 
for size. The brown is a more dashing antag¬ 
onist, and up to a certain age fights well to a 
finish. It invariably leaps, sometimes five or 
six times in quick succession. The worst quality 
of the brown trout is its erratic nature. It is 
not always responsive to your fly, but, if you 
are lucky, and come across one of fair size when 
on the feed, you are almost sure to capture it, 
either with fly or a floating “nature” artificial 
minnow. 
Of course, all trouts, and bass too, lie at or 
near the bottom, even when feeding; the rise 
and return are equally swift. They never stay 
near the surface, when on, or off feeding. 
The leaping traits of the speckled or brook 
trout are extremely varied. It all depends upon 
the size of the fish, the condition of the water, 
and the lure you offer to entice them. It is rare, 
indeed, for brook trout to leap when caught on 
worm or minnow, as compared to being caught 
on the fly. Yet one would imagine that the 
fish, after being impaled in the gullet instead of 
the lips, as with flies, the greater pain would 
induce more activity both under and above water. 
My own experience is exactly the reverse. 
On one occasion my fly happened to hook a 
large native trout through the tongue. Either 
from fright or extreme pain its actions were 
extraordinary from the moment after being 
hooked till I released it. The case was excep¬ 
tional, because my experience of brook trout is 
that they rarely do make a leap above the sur¬ 
face after taking the fly, but dash hither and yon, 
always under and low down, in short turns and 
quick darts. 
This spring, on private water on Long Island, 
I had a most unusual display of speckled trout 
leaping after capture on the fly. Out of twenty 
fish caught, averaging a pound in weight, twelve 
of them leaped above the surface, one or more 
times. They were all captured on one fly, a 
small black April nature fly I call needle-tail. 
My companion fished with worms and had no 
leaps with the fish he captured. 
My experience with muscalonge, pike and 
pickerel is a wide one in many waters. I never 
had the St. Lawrence muscalonge to leap above 
the surface, yet the Chatauqua muscalonge al¬ 
ways leaps many times in a sort of bull-like 
ferocity and fierce anger at the restraint of the 
line. When it leaps it is like slipping out and 
sliding along—similar to an arrow which has 
touched the water and glides along the surface. 
The long, heavy body of the muscalonge pre¬ 
vents making a graceful curve like that of the 
salmon, whose leap is sidewise, instead of the 
upward movement of the muscalonge. 
When fishing last year in the city water reser¬ 
voir, situated on the south shore of Long Island 
at Rockville Center, I was agreeably surprised 
to capture several large pickerel that leaped 
above the surface many times on being hooked 
with live minnows as bait, fished at the bottom 
with a sinker. It is the only place I ever re¬ 
member of the eastern banded pickerel leaping 
above the surface. 
In nearly all cases it is the fish which take 
their food at the surface that make leaps from 
the water after being hooked, and all species 
The Grayling—Their Silvery Bodies Flash in 
the Sunshine Like Iridescent Shells. 
have a strikingly different way in which they 
do it. The bass (small mouth) and ouananiche 
of Lake St. John, Canada, are very similar in 
the way of resisting capture. They both shoot 
straight out and, for a moment, their whole 
bodies quiver—then turning, dive back and dis¬ 
appear beneath the surface. By doing this they 
very often succeed in ridding themselves of the 
hook, especially so if the water is running swift. 
In such water it is next to impossible to land 
a fish that makes a run towards the angler and 
then breaks to the surface, close in. On the 
other hand, if it runs away to break, the line 
will have sufficient tension to keep the fish se¬ 
curely hooked. There is no doubt in my mind, 
that when the line is slack, they can gouge out 
the hook with their hard, stiff tongues. 
If he be a fair sportsman every angler looks 
on with admiration at the ingenious resistance, 
the brave effort, most game fish make to get 
away, and he should at all times with forceful 
calmness give them every chance to use their 
skill in getting off to fight another day, for we 
all know that most fish are very likely to be 
taken again in the same spot. 
My experience with the grayling has been con¬ 
fined to British rivers, the Dove and Derwent. 
It is a fish that should be more widely known 
in America. It has for centuries lived in amiable 
relations with trout in English and European 
rivers, and no doubt could do so in America if 
planted and allowed to get a fair start. The 
rivers Neversink, Esopus and Beaverskill in 
New York State are ideal grayling streams. 
They are an excellent table fish and though 
they never attain any great size (three pounds) 
they are as game as any fish that swims, taking 
the fly and bait with equal vim. They lie in 
shoals at the bottom of deep water to dart up¬ 
wards at the fly like an arrow; if they miss it, 
they go down just as rapidly; if they succeed in 
taking the fly then begins a fight under and above 
the surface equally aggressive. Time after time 
their silvery, slim bodies flash above in the sun¬ 
shine like iridescent shells waved in the sun- 
light. 
So very different is the bold, stockily built 
black bass, ugly in shape and color by com¬ 
parison, yet a born scrapper from only four 
inches long. To use a phrase of its champion, 
“he has come to his own,” for bass is now the 
most popular game fish all over our continent, 
north, south, east and west. 
But the “simon pure” method—that is casting 
the fly to capture it—has yet to gain a much 
larger number of adherents. I think this will 
be attained when proper flies are made more 
suitable to the fish—that is, nature flies, copied 
exactly from the insects most abundant where 
bass lie, and what they are familiar with. The 
monster commercial fancy flies are a grotesque 
farce, driving the angler’s art to a greater ab¬ 
surdity than plug line fishing, though not so 
brutal, because flies have but one hook, whereas 
plugs have as a rule fifteen barbs. 
The bass is not so ugly when observed sailing 
along in the water, and though very different 
in their mode of leaping, most all the game fish 
are in appearance trim and shapely—built, as it 
were, for swift movement through the water. 
They are equally capable of fighting and resist¬ 
ing capture, not only by quickness and cunning, 
but by strength and energy. Not the least of 
these fine qualities is their habit of leaping from 
the water on a slack line. 
The great army of true sportsmen—in which 
I humbly trust to be classed—should endeavor to 
discourage this everlasting desire to capture the 
biggest-big fish, and the customary tall talk about 
it. Big-fish prize competitions, indeed all such 
affairs, are neither a test of skill in the art of 
angling, nor are they edifying to our higher 
ideals. We should rather aim to make our be¬ 
loved recreation, first a study; then it will be a 
pure joy, so that we can truly say, “we fished 
for pleasure and we caught it.” 
The Graceful Curve of the Salmon Is a Picture 
Artists Love to Paint. 
