92 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[July 15, 1911. 
country which debouched into the proper road 
after I had jolted and jarred over ruts and 
cobble stones and been chased by two ugly dogs 
in passing between a barn and a stable. I hen 
two other dogs took up the chase at the next 
house, but I did not waste more breath in swear¬ 
ing at that pair, for it was on a steep hill down 
which I coasted much faster than was prudent 
for an old fellow who has grown a bit cautious 
of sprains and contusions from falls. I did not 
care, for I heard the voice of my brook nearby, 
the dogs tired of chasing a streak with a creel 
standing out behind, and I fished out my leader 
box and soaked the pads in the first spring I 
came to that was big enough to satisfy my thirst. 
Hemlocks shaded the road, the leaves of the 
hazel were bursting and the pussy willows mak¬ 
ing haste to bedeck the mountains with green. 
The brook was full but clear and cold as a 
spring. Of natural flies there was an abund¬ 
ance, for it was the first warm day of spring, 
and I was not to become forgetful of the fact, 
as the climb to my cache called for the shedding 
of my coat, and gnats and other insects buzzed 
about my head. 
So impatient was I to be fisliing that I did 
not attempt to hide the bicycle, but pushed it 
under a hemlock tree out of the hot sun, covered 
my lunch with leaves, donned waders and slip¬ 
ping down to the brook behind ledges, climbed 
a roaring rift and dropped a tiny coachman and 
a hare’s ear on the placid surface of a little 
pool. What a relief! You know just how a 
fly looks on the water, and that you can place 
it there without conscious effort, and yet in its 
effect on your mind the mere action is not un¬ 
like the blowing off of a boiler’s mud pipe. It 
steadies one’s over-wrought nerves and soothes 
the muscles that a moment before were all a- 
tremble. Anticipation had spread over months. 
Satisfaction came from casting a tiny fly on the 
surface of a little pool, and in a jiffy the cur¬ 
rent snatched the fly and hurled it back at me. 
Yet the longed-for moment had arrived. The 
initiation was complete. No, one important rite 
remained. 
In the land of the Osages there are many fine 
streams. There they tell you that, if you love 
a stream and hope to return to it again, and 
yet again, you must drink of its waters on com¬ 
ing and going. And this I did, from that moun¬ 
tain stream, kneeling at the brink of a fall. The 
water was indeed coid, and although there were 
caddis flies about, no trout rose to them nor to 
my flies. 
As always, I looked about to see if other ang¬ 
lers were on the stream. No; two boys fishing 
in the early morning were all I saw that day, 
and local anglers told me later on that few per¬ 
sons “from town” visit the brook. The reason 
is apparent: it is five miles from one railway 
station and eight from another, uphill either 
way, and at the place where the railway crosses 
it, it flows over sand flats and bears no resem¬ 
blance to a trout stream. Yet it is excellent 
brown and brook trout water and is less than 
forty miles from Manhattan. 
Down to a gorge blocking further progress 
in that direction, then up I went, covering every 
likely eddy and searching around boulders and 
ledges. It is a hard brook on leaders, and one 
was lost with its two flies in a swift chute be¬ 
yond my depth. The tail fly caught on a sub¬ 
merged log, but a step that filled one wader with 
ice water persuaded me to part with the flies. 
Next I tried a quill Gordon and a leadwing 
coachman, fishing wet, but the pool below the 
lone pine rift, generally good water, produced 
nothing, so a change was made to a hare’s ear 
for dropper and a queen of the water for 
stretcher. No result, so I crept along the face 
of the cliff to the long rift above, in which the 
queen was lost and replaced with a coachman. 
This brought me to the “grand staircase” lead¬ 
ing to R. S.’s favorite pool. So strong was the 
volume of water pouring over the mossy steps 
that it was difficult to maintain a foothold mid¬ 
way, where there was space for the back line 
in the long casts necessary to cover the pool 
without showing myself. 
The water nearby produced nothing, so I 
crossed below the fall, crept into the pool on 
that side, and scarcely breathing, dropped the 
flies over the ledge where the big brown trout 
had so often shown his crimson spots. Then 
the huge boulder blocking the inlet was searched, 
and the eddy at the far end of the pool, but no 
luck, though the flies were retrieved slowly under 
the surface. Again I tried the ledge, and had 
stripped two yards of line in working the fly 
diagonally across the current when with a swirl 
and a splash a trout took the hare’s ear and I 
struck as sharply as the little rod would permit. 
At once I realized the predicament I was in. 
The trout’s first rush was toward me, compell¬ 
ing me to strip more line and back out to the 
shallower water on the brink of the fall. Even 
then he did not stop, and the strain on the rod 
was so acute that I feared' the middle joint 
would snap. It was a moment of suspense as 
he hung on the lip of the fall, the current aiding 
him, then the tiny wand triumphed and he, with 
a skittering rush, made for his home under the 
ledge, taking all the line that had just been a 
useless thing in my left hand, and giving me a 
moment’s time to snatch the landing net from 
its snap behind my shoulder and grasp the ring 
in my teeth. 
Down came the captive while I reeled like 
mad, wading across stream at the same time in 
the hope that the fuss made would turn him if 
the rod failed. He circled back, broke water 
twice, but did not leap, and tried his ledge again. 
This time I felt full confidence in the rod, and 
put on the strain until it told. Down again came 
the trout, prolonging the agony lest he reach 
the broken rift below the fall and be certainly 
lost, but this time I crossed the tail of the pool 
diagonally, over waders, to secure better pur¬ 
chase with the rod, and in this way turned the 
trout. 
I wondered if this was really the brownie R. 
S. had lost. Certainly he was big enough, and 
I was fearful lest I had made a mistake in bring¬ 
ing the three-ounce rod, which was so much 
handier for brooks than the five-ounce. If R. 
S. could have been there he would have ap¬ 
plauded his favorite, which had been master of 
the situation so far; indeed, he remained master 
for a long time, and it seemed that he only rushed 
up the pool to try to outwit me and finally gain 
the fall. Once again he almost succeeded, and 
luck alone enabled me to prevent it. By reeling 
fast I had him on a short line when he was 
opposite, and holding the net deep in the water 
with the righ hand, swept the rod sharply away 
with the left, turning the trout abruptly. A 
quick swoop with the net and a slackening of 
the strain from the rod were nicely timed, though 
it was a desperate chance, and he dropped back 
in the net and was mine. 
Above the average size, as brown trout run, 
he was far above the average for that brook, 
and more brilliant markings are seldom seen on 
the sides of his kind. But on a three-ounce 
rod less than eight feet long, and a gossamer 
leader, he was indeed a worthy prize. True to 
his kind he had ignored the coachman and taken 
the hare’s ear, on a No. 12 hook, and when he 
had been dispatched and wrapped in evergreens, 
he was a trifle longer than the creel, which is 
not a small one. As I ate lunch I watched the 
pools on either hand for rising trout, and specu¬ 
lated on whether I had robbed R. S. of his long- 
sought prize. I hope not, but another year must 
pass ere we try conclusions once again in com¬ 
pany on that lovely brook. 
Are they worth while—these blank days and 
others when the creel gains weight but slowly? 
You who count it a poor day on which you do 
not fill your basket will say, “No,” and yet you 
cannot laugh to scorn he who is content with a 
single good trout or a few of legal size. I have 
filled a basket in an hour on mountain brooks as 
beautiful as this one. Still, those are the days 
that stand out less prominently on memory's 
calendar; that are printed in small black type. 
As for the others—the days of poor luck but rich 
in pleasure—they are writ large in the colors 
that mark the trout we love to lure from their 
hiding places ’neath ice-worn boulders in the 
shade of the ancient hemlocks. 
Where is this brook? I cannot tell you, for 
a promise is a promise, and I have given R. S. 
my word not to mention it publicly. But if you 
will come with me at sunrise on a day when the 
wind is right, rain or shine, I will show you 
the brook and its trout. 
Since this was written I have had a letter 
from R. S., penned at an altitude of about 11,000 
feet in the mountains of Ecuador, South America. 
He was in camp about seventy-five miles south 
of the equator. The mercury stood at 98 de¬ 
grees as I read his letter, in which he said, 
among other things, that the temperature was not 
uncomfortably high at any time, averaging about 
78 degrees. He was in his element, collecting 
natural history specimens, and enjoying to the 
full the days of exploration in a new and in¬ 
teresting region, and yet he longed for a day 
on the very mountain brook of which I have 
written, proving that for two anglers at least, 
these little day-trips are worth while. 
The Inlander. 
I never climb a lngh hill 
Or gaze across the lea, 
But, oh, beyond the two of them, 
Beyond the height and blue of them, 
I’m looking for the sea. 
A blue sea—a crooning sea— 
A gray sea lashed with foam— 
But, oh, to take the drift of it, 
To know the surge and lift of it. 
And ’tis I am longing for it as the homeless long for 
home. 
I never dream at night-time 
Or close my eyes by day, 
But there I have the might of it, 
The wind-whipped, sun-drenched sight of it, 
That calls my soul away. 
Oh, deep dreams and happy dreams, 
It’s dreaming still I’d be. 
For still the land I’m waking in, 
Is that my heart is breaking in, 
And ’tis far where I’d be sleeping with the blue waves 
over me. 
—Hampton’s Magazine. 
