March 27, 1909.] 
FOREST AND STREAM 
on the bank of one of our largest streams and 
was lulled to sleep by the murmurs of the water 
and awoke to the rushing sound made by the 
rapids above the house. I was expecting a 
friend who was to share my day's sport, and 
for long hours awaited him. The sun rose 
higher and higher and poured its strong rays 
upon the pool. Patience ceased to be a virtue. 
I grabbed a fly-rod and strolled down upon the 
rocks. When my man arrived an hour later 
I had taken three fish, a brown trout of 1954 
inches and two rainbows, one of 17 inches and 
the other 13 inches. The fly used was a very 
dark dun colored insect (I had seen a few 
duns the evening before) and the day and water 
were as bright as it is possible to conceive of 
their being at ii o’clock of a glorious morn¬ 
ing in the leafy month of June. A bright day 
and a dark fly. 
We now come to that old question, “Up or 
down?” A quarter of a century ago, in this 
country at least, the practice was to fish down. 
The devotees of the upstream cast were few. 
In fact, it was the custom of many fishermen to 
tramp long distances in order to work with the 
current and not against it. Nowadays you will 
have no difficulty in finding men who will walk 
just as far to fish up, even on fast streams. 
This is surely very hard work in many in¬ 
stances and it is labor spent in vain on some 
trout waters, particularly in the early part of 
the season when the water is high. The Esopus, 
for instance, is a case in point. It does not pay 
as a general rule to fish up the lower reaches 
of this large creek (or small river). Let us use 
our common sense in regard to this matter. The 
rule we must bear in mind is, “Keep out of 
sight. Don’t allow the trout to see you if you 
can possibly avoid it.” 
I am in the habit of fishing up, but there are 
a number of streams that I always fish down. 
Big creeks and rushing torrents may be worked 
downward; small streams and large ones that 
have become small by reason of drouth may be 
worked up. There is usually much water in the 
early part of the season, all the land is alive 
with the music of running brooks, a large body 
of water hides the angler from the trout, par¬ 
ticularly when it is much broken and he is wad¬ 
ing. Even in quiet water trout will often rise 
near at hand when one is in the water. 
It is cold in the early season and the trout 
are often slow to rise. Casting a fly over them 
again and again does not frighten them. One 
may be obliged to fairly hang the fly over the 
places where he knows they are lying. He must 
always be prepared to change tactics when neces¬ 
sary; not blindly follow along in one-rut. The 
best day’s sport I ever had on the Esopus was 
on high water, fishing down after a freshet; 
wind, southwest to west. 
Per contra, I drove to the upper Willowemoc 
one summer day with a friend who was an ex¬ 
pert angler. The road was bad at that time 
and we were a long time on the way. We were 
in a manner forced to fish down, as the water 
was posted above (he road where we left our 
horse. We covered a mile and a half of water 
and had just five trout between us. The best 
part of the day was gone and. trout appeared 
to be very scarce. We sat down disconsolately 
and ate our lunch. Then we smoked a pipe and 
felt rather better. My friend started back to 
view something more particularly which he had 
noted coming down. Presently I began casting 
again and working carefully up stream. By the 
time I caught my friend I had twenty-three trout 
and seeing these he was encouraged to fish. In 
a short time he had taken fourteen more. The 
light cast up stream was deadly and we could 
easily have filled our baskets, but time had been 
flying and we were obliged to begin our return 
journey quite early in the afternoon. 
I could relate many experiences showing the 
merits of up stream fishing, but why make hard 
and fast rules beyond that simple one, “Keep 
out of sight.” That is the law and the prophets 
in fly-fishing. In dry-fly work the up stream 
method is usually the most convenient and 
deadly, but there are exceptions even in that 
method of fishing. The third question I will 
leave for future consideration. It is a difficult 
one to answer. Sometimes you think you know; 
again you are quite sure that you know nothing 
about it. As a rule the angler of little experi¬ 
ence is more confident than one who has been 
longer in the business. If we could know it all 
we would not care so much about it. 
Theodore Gordon. 
On New Brunswick Waters—A Reply. 
,St. John, N. B., March ii. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: Mr. Hickox’s article “On New Bruns¬ 
wick Waters,” in your issue of March 6, may 
convey an erroneous impression in the minds 
of anglers intent on visiting New Brunswick or 
Nova Scotia in quest of salmon fishing which 
I wish to meet. 
During my many trips to and from Boston 
on the boat, over the Intercolonial Railway, and 
while staying at the Miramichi Hotel, I have 
been treated with the greatest courtesy, and 
have never lost a single piece of baggage, even 
on portage teams. The officials on the steamers 
have all taken post-graduate courses in patience 
and the baggage men will do anything in their 
power. They say they even check overweight 
baggage. The meals I have been served with 
at Mr. Whalen’s liotel were truly delicious, 
cle.an and well cooked, and I have telephoned 
wherever I wanted from my room and found 
the hot water always on tap. 
There are numerous salmon rivers to which 
the public may obtain access. Of these the 
Upsalquitch offers the best sport. It costs ten 
dollars a day for the privilege to whip over 
twenty miles of water. The fish run up to 
thirty pounds; the limit is five salmon a day, 
no limit on grilse; sea trout are plentiful. The 
second best river is the main Southwest Mira¬ 
michi from the forks to the head of the settle¬ 
ments at Boiestown. The fishing is free and 
the salmon average about eight pounds. Rod 
privileges may also be obtained on the Tobique, 
the Renous, and the fishing in numerous other 
streams only waits to be tried. After the club 
members have returned to their homes, fishing 
may be had on the Nepisiguit from Mr. Gilbert 
and Mr. Bishop, at Bathurst. 
The Brunswick government booklet, to be 
printed this spring, will furnish anglers and 
hunters with full information as to New Bruns¬ 
wick forests and streams. The Hon. W. C. Ii. 
Grimmer, Surveyor General, can forward copies, 
when published, if addressed at Fredericton, 
N. B. There is no rod license in New Bruns¬ 
wick, and those who have in the past paid for 
501 
such licenses have been defrauded. Good salmon 
fishing may be had at Mill Village, N. S., by 
applying to .Lawrence Mitchell of that place. 
Already fifteen fish have been taken on the fly 
up to the first of March of the present year. 
The very best of salmon tackle can be obtained 
in St. John, N. B. 
Douglas Wetmore Clinch, 
Secretary-Treasurer and Organizer, New Bruns¬ 
wick Fish and Game Protective Association. 
West Newfoundland Notes. 
Bay of Islands, N. F., March 14.— Editor 
Forest and Stream: A movement has been 
started by west coast guides to compel visiting 
anglers to pay a rod tax. The guides assert that 
they have been ignored by a large number of 
foreign sportsmen who come here during the 
fishing season. They would make it compulsory 
for every angler who visits this island to enlist 
the services of a competent guide, instead of 
relying on their own knowledge of the country 
to locate the proper streams. This agitation, 
however, is not taken seriously, and there is 
little likelihood of such legislation being en¬ 
acted. 
There is, however, good reason to believe 
that some sort of tax will be levied on those 
sportsmen who establish camps on the most 
favored streams and endeavor to prevent other 
anglers from “encroaching” on their preserves. 
This happened more than once last summer, 
and local sportsmen bitterly resent such an as¬ 
sumption of squatter rights. The waters of 
Newfoundland are free to every angler, and 
only the uninitiated are frightened by such 
threats. 
Charges of pot-hunting and wastefulness 
have also been made against these so-called 
sportsmen. In many cases, it is said, piles of 
salmon have been allowed to rot upon the 
ground, while the anglers were whipping the 
streams for further catches. 
We have some excellent guides in Newfound¬ 
land and some that are better acquainted with 
Father Neptune than with the pathless woods 
and mountain streams. The prospect of good 
wages has caused a number of fishermen to 
take up the calling, with, in many cases, dis¬ 
astrous results to the sportsmen. 
The coming season is expected to prove a 
most successful one in this part of the colony, 
and preparations are being made on an ex¬ 
tensive scale to receive visiting anglers. 
W. M. Dooley. 
A New Use for Snow. 
We have a plentiful supply of snow just now— 
a good deal more than most of us can find use 
for. A correspondent of the Oesterreichische 
Fischerei-Zeitung declares it to be a most ex¬ 
cellent vehicle for carrying live-baits in. He 
packed a number of minnows in a ball of snow, 
left them for several days, then broke up the 
ball and turned them out into water, when they 
swam about as merrily as possible. Any angler 
who requires snow for this purpose and finds 
a difficulty in obtaining it, is welcome to come 
round and dig it out of the drift in front of my 
palatial residence.—London Fishing Gazette. 
The Forest and Stream may he obtained from 
any newsdealer on order. Ask your dealer to 
supply you regularly. 
