452 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept. 16, 1911. 
on the line just above the leader. Rod holders 
and a large landing net will complete the neces¬ 
sary equipment. 
The best known bait is a smelt about four 
inches in length, but as these can only be kept 
alive for a few minutes at this season of the 
year, every fellow must catch his own bait on 
the fishing grounds with a hand line. 'This hand 
line fishing -is what breaks the monotony of 
waiting for a big one to come along and take 
your bait, for you are almost always busy pull¬ 
ing up smelt or small white trout. For this pur¬ 
pose a small caliber waterproof line, three-foot 
leader and a ten or twelve single snelled hook 
is used with No. 6 sinker fastened a little above 
the middle of the leader. This line is let down 
until bottom is reached, then drawn up so that 
the hook will be about two feet off the bottom 
and a slip noose tied in the line to mark the 
proper depth in order to avoid the necessity of 
sounding each time the line is again let down. 
As the bite of a smelt is hardly perceptible 
in seventy or eighty feet of water, the best 
method is to hold the line between the thumb 
and forefinger and allow (he elbow to rest on 
the gunwale of the boat, raising and lowering 
the line slowly until a faint nibble is felt, when 
the arm must be quickly thrown upward, and if 
you feel the least indication of anything moving, 
“'keep ’em coming” hand over hand without al¬ 
lowing the least slack. The knack of hooking 
and landing these smelt takes considerable prac¬ 
tice to become proficient, and it is an amusing 
sight when anchored among a fleet of a dozen 
or more fishing boats to see nearly everyone 
jigging away as if they were churning. 
As soon as a suitable sized smelt is taken, it 
is at once transferred to your rod line by hook¬ 
ing it just under the back fin, and lowered to 
from fifteen to twenty feet of the bottom, as 
most of the larger trout are taken at that depth. 
It is an excellent plan to have this line marked 
off in say forty and fifty-foot lengths by tying 
a small piece of thread around it at these points. 
This does not interfere with the line running 
through the guides, and if a fish is taken you 
will know just how deep down to let your line 
the next time. Always place your rod in a 
holder, for it frequently happens that the first 
savage strike of a fish pulls the rod tip down 
into the water, and if left lying in the bottom 
of the boat, is very often bounced overboard. 
You can now resume the hand line fishing, for 
you will need more smelt, and these can be used 
dead if kept fresh by wrapping in a moist piece 
of cloth. When sufficient of these have been 
taken, it is a good plan to bait this line with a 
small piece of flesh cut from one of the larger 
smelt, and to continue fishing in the same man¬ 
ner, for this is how 75 per cent, of the golden 
trout are taken, running as a rule smaller than 
those taken on the rod, but not infrequently 
one of several pounds is hooked and landed. 
In the summer of 1909 I saw a five-pound 
landlocked sa’mon taken on one of these smelt 
lines and a No. 10 hook. 
In taking the bait the white trout usually gives 
a few sharp nibbles, and then slowly runs off 
with the line. The rod should be left in the 
holder and the line fed out only as fast as taken, 
but be prepared to grasp your rod and strike 
quickly, for after going a short distance in a 
leisurely manner they suddenly dust out like a 
sprinter in a hundred yard dash. If a fish of 
three or four pounds be tested, for although 
they do not fight with the cunning displayed by 
many of the trout or salmon family, the amount 
of strength they exhibit in their determination 
to get to the bottom of the lake is equal to that 
of a salmon of twice their weight. Very often 
it happens that when you have fought the fish 
almost up to the surface it makes a frantic 
surge and cannot be stopped until it has carried 
out line enough to enable it to reach the bottom 
of the lake and renew its strength in the icy 
waters it loves so well. Indeed, it is much 
safer if possible to exhaust the fish thoroughly 
before working it to the surface, for as long as 
the water temperature is comparatively cool, the 
fish’s entire efforts seem to be downward, but 
once let it feel that its waning strength is in¬ 
sufficient to keep from being drawn up into this 
smothering, terrifying unknown above, then look 
out for an exhibition of acrobatic tumbling and 
aerial flights before which the most seasoned 
angler stands helpless, and at its mercy. This 
is not at all like the deliberate leap of the bass 
or salmon, calculated to throw the hook or to 
fall upon ihe line and tear loose, and no cut- 
and-dried ru’es will hold good as to what to do 
under the circumstances. 
If you have time, a prayer to old Sir Izaak 
might not be amiss, and if ’tis answered—and in 
the words of Dr. Quackenbos—“When you dis¬ 
engage him from the meshes of the net and 
place his icy figure in your outstretched palms 
and watch the tropaeolin glow of his awakening 
tones soften into cream tints, and the cream 
tints pale into the pearl of the moonstone as the 
muscles of respiration grow feebler and more 
irregular in their contraction, you will experi¬ 
ence a peculiar thrill that the capture neither of 
ouananiche, fontV'ialis nor naviaycush can ever 
excite.” 
While this method of angling is certainly the 
most successful in regard to results, trolling with 
a braided wire line or using a sinker heavy 
enough to carry your line well down is at times 
fairly productive. In using the wire line about 
200 feet of this is ample, letting out 150 feet 
and rowing the boat slowly so that the line will 
hang at an angle of about 45 degrees. For this 
trolling a silver soldier, enameled white on its 
concave surface, is one of the most taking lures. 
Archer spinners baited with small smelt or a 
double pearl spoon are also good; in fact, any 
fresh bait is acceptable to these fish at times— 
small frogs, a bunch of angle worms, pieces of 
beef or liver, and I heard of one man catching 
a good sized fish on a striped potato bug. 
The average size of the golden trout taken is 
about a pound and a half, and six fish over the 
legal size of ten inches is considered a fair day's 
fishing. They have been taken from both Lake 
Sunapee and Averill Lake weighing over ten 
pounds, but of late years they are running 
smaller, although they are more numerous than 
formerly, which is probably due to the energetic 
fish cultural operations carried on at these lakes 
by the Federal and State commissions, and to 
the efforts of the local residents and guides in 
seeing that the law is obeyed in regard to the 
taking of undersized fish. 
At Lake Sunapee the angling for these fish 
is at its best the last week in June, but July and 
August at Averill Lake are said to bring better 
results, as this lake is much deeper than Sunapee 
and the surface water is longer in warming up, 
making it more difficult to locate them, as the 
cool water allows greater freedom of range. 
Deep trolling at Averill would in all probability 
be more successful than at Sunapee, although 
you would be more likely to hook salmon or 
lake trout than saibling, as both of these species 
are more numerous here than the latter fish. 
In the artificial propagation of this charr the 
fish cuiturist finds many difficulties in his path. 
Their extremely short spawning season at a time 
of the year when heavy storms are usually in 
progress, making it almost impossible to net them 
on the dangerous reefs, the difficulty in strip¬ 
ping the eggs from these delicate fish without 
killing or injuring them, and the frequency with 
which the entire litter is lost through over-re¬ 
tention or hardening of the ova while the fish 
are being held for ripening in live boxes. In¬ 
deed, it is almost impossible to hold this species 
for any length of time without heavy losses from 
fungus, and it would be impracticable to attempt 
the domestication of breeders, unless pools were 
to be constructed especially for this purpose, hav¬ 
ing a depth of twelve or fifteen feet and sup¬ 
plied with cold bottom water of a low tempera¬ 
ture. And if the fish cuiturist employs the same 
methods of feeding that he does with the more 
familiar members of the trout family, he will 
be confronted with fish unquestionably dwindling 
away from starvation while fed with all appar¬ 
ent abundance. At the Nashua, N. H., station 
many large hatchings of golden trout had to be 
planted as fry before it was discovered that as 
the fish was at all times a bottom feeder, it was 
useless to expect it to rise to the surface and 
snap at floating particles of food, and that the 
only way to induce these fry to feed was to 
throw in considerable food, allowing it to settle 
thickly over the bottom, and to go away leaving 
them undisturbed, as they wou'd not even pick 
this up while anything was moving near or above 
the hatching trough. 
Another interesting peculiarity of this fish 
while being reared in captivity is that it makes 
a more rapid growth, and is most active during 
the coldest winter months when all other of the 
Sahnonidce are nearly dormant. 
The residents of the Sunapee and Averill re¬ 
gion are beginning to realize the almost incalcu¬ 
lable value of this fish as an angling attraction, 
and that its conservation for the future means 
an asset a hundred times more valuable from 
this standpoint than for its consumption as an 
article of food, and when thousands of under¬ 
sized fish were taken in the course of a season 
and not much attention paid to it a few years 
ago, a pot-hunter to-day is reasonably certain 
to receive all the unpleasantness that is his due. 
To the angler contemplating a trip in search 
of new thrills I can heartily recommend his 
journeying up to either of these lakes next sum¬ 
mer where, combined with good fishing, he will 
find pure bracing atmosphere, clean food and 
comfortable beds, and a people ever ready to 
meet him half way in making his stay enjoyable. 
Book Exchange. 
No doubt there are many of our readers who possess 
old books, and others who would be glad to possess 
them, and we are, therefore, making a special place in 
our advertising columns, which may be called a book 
exchange, where those who wish to purchase, sell or ex¬ 
change second-hand books may ask for what they need, 
or offer what they have. 
