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Where Barefoot Boys Look for 
Trout.—II. 
The members of the “Camp Don’t Hurry” 
crowd are all countrymen. We make no claim 
to be scientific anglers; probably because we 
could not support the claim if we made it. We 
have enjoyed what seems to us—now that we 
look back upon it—a great privilege. We have 
every one of us been barefoot boys in a hilly 
country where trout streams were abundant. 
All except Robert Bruce are natives of one 
neighborhood in the Susquehanna Valley. 
Robert was born on the Delaware; in fact, so 
literally was he born on the Delaware that his 
mother once had to take her baby in her arms 
and step on to higher ground while they watched 
their home go pitching and rolling down stream 
on the crest of a sudden freshet. 
Our fishing began while we were small boys, 
and then we used bent pins for hooks. We 
might have had “store hooks,” but our mothers 
were peevish about cutting the barbs out of 
our fingers. From this beginning we have 
passed by slow stages and clumsy experiments 
through all the approved forms of trout fish¬ 
ing mania. We have now arrived at a point 
where at least Robert, in his more exalted 
moods, would object to accepting an angel un¬ 
less she floated to him perfectly dry and with 
paraffin oil on her wings. When I say we, I 
mean to except Henry Fredericks — he is a wood¬ 
chuck expert. 
For a number of years it has been our habit 
to spend a month or two on some good-sized 
trout stream, usually the Esopus Creek, in the 
Catskill Mountains. Anything we might say in 
regard to tackle or methods of casting would 
be clumsy when contrasted with much that has 
already been written. If tbe beginner can gain 
anything from our experience it is in regard 
to where the trout are located in the stream. 
It has seemed to us that the last thing the 
young angler learns is where to look for the 
fish when he is actually on the creek. He may 
if he chooses take all the year to watch the 
shop windows and discuss the best tackle. He 
can make use of ponds or vacant lots to prac¬ 
tice fly-casting. But his opportunities to learn 
the lurking places of trout are confined to the 
. unfortunately very few days which are allotted 
to the majority of men for fishing. 
The time-worn jokes about the superior ang¬ 
ling ability of the country boy with his crooked 
birch pole have all had their origin in the one 
fact that the country boy actually knows where 
the trout lie. None of the credit is to be given 
to the crooked pole and its six feet of coarse 
line. On this point the country boy furnishes 
some very conclusive evidence himself. For in¬ 
stance, equip him with a good rod and line and 
one may watch a long time before seeing him 
go back to his birch pole. 
This lack of knowledge concerning the defi¬ 
nite location of trout is so common among 
young anglers that I fancy it accounts for some 
peculiar things which we have all seen them do. 
A very good example of this is their habit of 
bunching themselves near the heads of streams. 
Let fifty trout fishermen be on a single train 
from any one of our great cities, and forty-five 
of them will not leave the train until they reach 
the station from which the headwaters of the 
stream are accessible. Of course the claim will 
be at once set up that fish are more abundant 
in the upper waters, and I will grant this is 
true, particularly late in the season. But the 
superior abundance is seldom in the proportion 
of forty-five to five. 
A few years ago I attempted to fish the ex¬ 
treme upper four miles of a large and well 
known creek. During the time I counted fifty- 
three anglers. The next day I covered a simi¬ 
lar distance, but at a point ten miles further 
down the stream. Here it had spread out to 
a width of a hundred feet or more and was 
quite a little river. In this journey I met but 
four fishermen, although it was a better day for 
the sport and the locality was even more accessi¬ 
ble. It was early in the season, so there was 
no measurable difference in the temperature of 
the water between the two places. 
Many will say that it was only an instance 
where the anglers were working upon the best¬ 
fishing-in-headwaters theory with a vengeance. 
Flowever, I am of the opinion that there is 
another rather plausible theory which may in 
part account for the congestion—congestion of 
fishermen I mean. I found no noticeable con¬ 
gestion of trout. 
To the beginner it is a rather disheartening 
task to stand upon the bank of a broad, turbu¬ 
lent stream and undertake to pick out the spots 
where trout are located. His limited experience 
has already taught him how many spots they 
are not located in, so that hunting for little fish 
in big water begins to take on something of a 
needle in the haystack. I am only applying 
righteous judgment when I suggest that much 
of this flocking of anglers to the heads of creeks 
is caused by a possibly unrecognized and wholly 
unexpressed feeling that in the smaller streams 
they have the trout partly cornered to begin 
with. I happen to know this because the first 
week I ever spent by a large stream was mainly 
devoted to hunting for little tributaries where 
the fish would not have so great an advantage 
over me. 
Mark Twain has said that “Inherited ideas are 
curious things.” Every trout angler since time 
began has believed that trout were more plenti¬ 
ful toward the heads of streams, and he has 
taught it to his sons. All my friends and ac¬ 
quaintances believe it, and I have myself ad¬ 
mitted it within the past few paragraphs. But 
for all that, the actual count, as I think back 
for twenty years, stands like this. By far the 
greatest number of good catches, both numeri¬ 
cally and in point of pounds, which either my 
friends or I have taken, have been made at 
long distances from the headwaters. Sometimes 
I am led to wonder if the whole headwaters 
theory is not a mistake, brought about by the 
fact that one covers the narrow stream thor¬ 
oughly in his casting and so catches by chance 
what in the wider water he must look for scien¬ 
tifically. This observation does not apply to the 
summer time, when the locations of trout are 
largely regulated by the temperature of the 
water. 
In order to learn where trout are apt to lie, 
it is necessary to study quite carefully the 
peculiar features of streams. Upon first thought 
one would say that no two streams are alike 
and that no two parts of the same stream are 
alike. But a little closer consideration will show 
that many streams where trout live are very 
similar, and that each stream in its journey to 
the sea is constantly repeating its own phases. 
Each stream has its own little peculiarities which 
are governed by the nature of the country 
through which it flows, but these peculiarities 
are not more marked than those of men. We 
can say that men are not all alike, and in a 
measure this is true. But for all that their legs 
and arms and heads are usually put on in about 
the same spots, although in some instances it 
would seem that their hearts were not in the 
right places. It is on account of this striking 
similarity between streams that an experienced 
angler can go to unfamiliar water and at once 
begin taking fish. 
Trout streams in sandstone regions have about 
seven phases which, like vaudeville artists, they 
do over and over again. By phases I mean 
features like rifts, still pools, rushing channels, 
and the like. When the angling student has 
studied a typical specimen of each one of these 
several phases or sections of a creek and has 
learned to locate and catch trout in them, he 
will be able to work similar stretches of water 
with a chance of success, no matter whether he 
is on the same stream or some other. 
In order to point out the likely looking spots 
for fishing we will select a stream familiar to 
many and make an imaginary trip along its 
banks. Probably no two creeks within easy 
reach of the large cities are better known than 
the Beaverkill and the EsopuL We have fished 
on both of these, but since that past master of 
flies and fly-fishing, Theodore Gordon, has writ¬ 
ten charmingly of the Beaverkill, I shall select 
the Esopus as a typical stream. 
Of the two I consider the Beaverkill the more 
natural habitation for trout on account of its 
food supply, but the Esopus still has some rain¬ 
bows in it which will serve my purpose as illus¬ 
trations; that is, it had some last season, but 
no one knows how few or how many fish have 
survived the frightful drouth of August and 
September, 1908. 
For the sake of distinctness, let us use a sec¬ 
tion of the creek far enough down from the 
source so that it has grown to a width of some¬ 
thing more than a hundred feet. Here its 
peculiar features will come out more plainly and 
the lessons it teaches can be applied even to the 
sniallest brooks by a process of reduction. 
Being now ready to start, suppose we go with 
the young angler to the Hream, shaping our 
course so that we shall arrive at the head of 
