Jan. 30, 1909.1 
FOREST AND STREAM 
wanted it to be as fresh from the water as pos¬ 
sible. Robert and I were alone at the time and 
I had little confidence that he would take any 
hand in replenishing the larder. The truth was 
the little old bachelor was rising very freely to 
a large, light-colored fly with golden hackle and 
a shirt waist, that was buzzing about the board¬ 
ing house. Coupling this state of affairs with 
the fact that we had already been on the stream 
three weeks and were ready to swap trout meat 
for ham and eggs on any terms, one will see 
that it was a time for me to cultivate self-re¬ 
liance. 
Knowing that human hopes, so far as fishing 
is concerned, do not always bear fruit on 
schedule time, I determined to be forehanded. 
If I could have a fish up my sleeve I was safe, 
anyway. Then if I could get a fresher one to¬ 
ward night, why, so much the better. Going 
to the creek soon after breakfast I clawed 
around with a fly until in addition to two or 
three smaller specimens I raked out a brown 
trout a shade over sixteen inches in length. In 
doing this, through one accident and another, I 
used up the last long-bodied Cahill which we 
had in stock. All of them were completely lost 
except the one on which I caught the largest 
fish, and I broke that in unhooking him. 
Naturally, I felt a good deal of satisfaction at 
having this substantial resource in the ice house, 
but I was considerably discouraged about the 
evening’s chances, on account of the loss of my 
trusted flies. 
I cannot say how long it had been there, but 
in the pocket of my fly-book I found a snelled 
hook of the proper size. Then I slitted the 
ruined fly from end to end, and peeling off the 
body, tied it around the bait hook with a bit 
of thread. It made a rather decrepit looking 
Cahill, but it was worth trying. The friend ar¬ 
rived a little earlier than we had anticipated and 
determined to test the fishing for himself be¬ 
fore supper. Robert tore away from his par¬ 
ticular lure long enough to accompany him and 
I went to the channel at the foot of a nearby 
rift. At the third cast the largest brown trout 
I have ever seen shot a full two feet up out of 
the roughest water and took my grouchy look¬ 
ing Cahill as he went. 
This was just the sort of fish I had been 
praying for, not only all day, but all my life, and 
now that I had him hooked I was almost scared. 
I splashed to shore as quickly as possible and 
we began a running fight up and down the creek 
for two or three hundred yards. Sometimes he 
had all of my line and I was plunging into the 
stream to relieve the strain. Then again he was 
very close to me. He must have been educated 
with his rainbow brothers, for he was one of 
the very few big brown trout that I have ever 
seen display their agility. Frequently he leaped 
clear out of the water and almost shivered my 
tackle by his savage shaking. 
It was about 5:30 o’clock when I hooked 
him, and after more than an hour he slowly 
came in toward the shore where there was a 
deep pool. In the bottom of this he sulked and 
bored as brown trout are wont to do. Three 
times he suddenly quit the boring and leaped 
well above the surface, within twenty feet of 
me, but as often he settled sullenly down to the 
bottom again. Had he been a little smaller, or 
had I been less anxious to show him to our 
friend, I should have adopted our regular tactics 
of dropping pebbles into the water to keep him 
moving. The truth is, I did not dare to start 
him going, for fear I would not be able to stop 
him. 
This sort of thing continued until a great 
black thunder cloud came up over the western 
mountains, and I could see the wind and rain 
rushing down into the valley. Sharp flashes of 
lightning and heavy peals of thunder were fre¬ 
quent, and I felt the fish dodge at each of them. 
A few hundred feet down stream I saw our 
friend and Robert go scurrying across the bridge 
to escape the shower. It was growing dark very 
fast, so I had to lean over and squint up against 
the sky to see my line. Heavy timber on my 
side of the creek came down to the water’s 
edge and it was not exactly the spot I should 
have selected as being lightning proof. How¬ 
ever, I was willing to stand any sort of a drench¬ 
ing and even to be struck just a little for the 
sake of that fish, so I did not try to hurry mat¬ 
ters, but gave him his own time. I had kept a 
steady strain on him for nearly two hours, but 
I cannot say that he had weakened perceptibly. 
When the first few big drops spattered on to 
the pool he gave one more leap into the air, 
shook violently, and was gone. The snell on 
that old bait hook had parted next to the wind¬ 
ings, and I had nothing but a frayed out piece 
of gut and a hard luck story to run up to the 
house with. Winfield T. Sherwood. 
Orange Rod Club. 
The Orange Rod Club was organized in 
Orange, N. J., the night of Jan. 22. It will hold 
fly- and bait-casting contests and assist in the 
work of game fish propagation and protection. 
The officers elected: President, W. Bradford 
Smith; Vice-President, D. Warren Poor; Secre¬ 
tary, Willet B. Gano; Treasurer, William G. 
McCurdy. 
Club contests will be arranged for the sea¬ 
son, to be held on the lake in Orange Park, or 
on Crystal Lake on Orange Mountain. 
S. H. Rollinson proposed and the new club 
endorsed a plan which will be submitted to the 
Legislature with the object of increasing the 
supply of game fish in State waters. This is 
that a rod tax of fifty cents per year be estab¬ 
lished, the fund accruing therefrom to be de¬ 
voted to the purchase of game fish for restock¬ 
ing State waters. 
Anglers’ Club of New York. 
New York City, Jan. 23 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: Thinking it may be of interest to your 
readers to know the names of the members of 
the committee of the Anglers’ Club having 
charge of the National and Madison Square 
tournaments, I send them as follows: Robert 
B. Lawrence, Dr. R. Johnson Held, Edward B. 
Rice, G. M. L. LaBranche, John L. Kirk, 
Nathaniel S. Smith and William J. Ehrich. 
The regular monthly meeting will be held 
Tuesday night, Feb. 2. The club representa¬ 
tives, National Association of Scientific Angling 
Clubs—being a member of the executive com¬ 
mittee. and a delegate to the annual business 
meeting—will be elected, and the committee hav¬ 
ing in charge the casting contests at the coming 
Sportsman’s Show at Madison Square Garden 
will make its report. 
Edward Farnham Todd, Sec’y. 
181 
Tournament Casting. 
Chicago, Ill., Jan. 23. —Editor Forest and 
Stream: I have been reading the articles pub¬ 
lished in your journal recently regarding pro¬ 
fessionalism in bait- and fly-casting. These 
articles are very interesting and will no doubt 
result beneficially to the National Association. 
That the average club member is badly in need 
of enlightenment on this particular point there 
is no doubt. 
The arguments offered by the National Asso¬ 
ciation of Scientific Angling Clubs have all been 
one-sided. Literature was sent out recommend¬ 
ing the adoption of the present rules and giv¬ 
ing reasons why they were desirable. As the 
so-called professional did not have any op¬ 
portunity to present his side of the argument, 
the average club member, not being affected 
personally, concluded that they were all right 
and let it go at that. 
I believe the National Association to be in 
grave danger of disruption if the present policies 
are continued. Only last week one of the oldest 
and most prominent tournament casters in the 
country told me that in his opinion the four 
Chicago clubs would bolt the association’s rules 
unless something was done. This is nothing 
new, as it was often mentioned to me by dif¬ 
ferent parties during the past summer, and I 
know of at least one club that has remained 
out of the association on account of the pro¬ 
fessional rules. I had a letter from the captain 
of this club asking me if I would not lend my 
assistance to forming a new National body. So 
it would seem that there is danger of a rival 
organization appearing at any time. Such an 
association would be very formidable, for it 
would not only attract quite a few clubs that 
are on the outside at the present time, but it 
would also very likely cause the withdrawal of 
a number of dissatisfied clubs from the National 
Association of Scientific Angling Clubs. So it 
is up to the National Association to take care 
of all classes of casters if it wishes to stand 
supreme. To do this the rules must be changed 
considerably and the sooner the better. 
As the National Association was organized 
by men both in and out of the tackle trade, I 
do not believe it is within its rights when it 
brands a member “professional,” and especially 
without giving him a hearing as has been done 
right along. According to my views, every 
member in good standing is both morally and 
legally entitled to all benefits. 
I was present at the organization of the asso¬ 
ciation at Kalamazoo and had my share in it, as 
did one other member of my home club, the 
Illinois Bait-Casting Club. We were the only 
members of our club present, and we thought 
we were doing something for the good of the 
game at large, not for a certain class. I have 
since been declared a professional and he will 
be if the new rule goes into effect. A number 
of others will also join the ranks here. They 
have been allowed to cast as amateurs up to 
the present time, while I was declared a pro¬ 
fessional almost immediately after the Kalama¬ 
zoo convention, although I was no more guilty 
than they; in fact, we were practically all in 
the same boat—engaged in the manufacture of 
tackle as a side issue. My business in that line 
has, however, grown considerably since that 
time. 
