362 
FOREST AND STREAM 
March 23, 1912 
“Sho/’ he said deprecatingly; “I’ve knowed 
Jack ever since he was a boy—fact is we was 
boys together—an’ he allers was inclined to 
make out that the other feller was smarter’n the 
ol’ Harry. But, anyhow, seein’ that you’re a 
friend of his, I’ll ’blige you. When do you want 
to go?” 
“Just as soon as we can,” I answered. Then 
it occurred to me that nothing had been said 
about paying him for his services. “Pay,” he 
asked. "Didn’t you jest tell me you was a 
friend of Jack Murray’s. I ain’t in no pressin’ 
need of money as I knows of and-” 
“But,” I interrupted, “here I am asking you 
to waste a couple of days’ time on me and I 
think that I ought to pay you for it.” 
"I ain’t fishin’ for pay,” he replied shortly. 
“If you want to hire somebody. I’ll tell you who 
to look up, but if you want to go, friendly like, 
an’ willin’ to do your share, you can go with 
me.” 
“I want to go with you, sure,” I said, angry 
at myself for so unwittingly placing the affair 
in such an unfavorable light, “and I’m perfectly 
willing to go on your own terms.” 
“Now, that’s better,” he answered. “Jack 
had oughter told you that I wasn’t in the busi¬ 
ness for money. I’ve got a little somethin’ of 
my own an’ what troutin’ I do is for the fun 
of the thing. An’ as you say you ain’t got 
much time to waste, we’ll start right off,” he 
added. “Come on in the house an get out of 
them store clothes, an’ while you’re changin’ I’ll 
ask the missus to put us up a bite to eat.” 
A half hour later we were jogging along the 
road in his two-wheeled cart, and he was giving 
his views on fly-fishing in reply to a question, 
for I had been curious to know where he stood 
on that subject. 
“Fly-fishing’s all right,” he said, “an’ as far’s 
I’m concerned, I favor it. There’s all the dif¬ 
ference in the world catchin’ a trout on a fly or 
a baited hook. It’s a good deal like when you’re 
shootin’ quail an’ make a pretty double, right 
an’ left, slick an’ clean like. There’s no slob¬ 
berin’ work there. You’ve took your chance an’ 
made good, an’ that’s like catchin’ trout with a 
fly. Any fool can watch his float an’ when it 
goes under give a yank an’ jerk a fish out of 
the water, but ’tain’t every one can make some 
feathers hit the water in jest the right spot an’ 
in jest the right way an’ fool a trout into thinkin’ 
it’s a real, sure enough fly.” 
Which went to prove that Zimmy appreciated 
the fine points in the art of fly-fishing, and, as 
I later discovered, was at any time willing to 
sacrifice all chances of making a good catch 
with bait for the satisfaction of deceiving one 
or two nice fish with a coachman or miller skill¬ 
fully placed. And as we drove along I began 
to believe that here was a man who could in¬ 
struct men, and others I knew, who prided 
themselves upon being at least theoretical 
sportsmen, upon the practical side of the 
game. 
Finally we arrived at the little chain of ponds, 
hardly more in fact than a gradual widening of 
the brook that fed them, and as we were put¬ 
ting our rods together, I remarked, • “Jack said 
you never took a fish of less than eight inches. 
It don’t look to me as if this pond held any as 
large as that.” 
“Don’t eh,” Zimmy said. “See that ol’ stump 
over there. I’ll bet you, two to one,' that if 
you drop a fly ’bout two feet south of it you’ll 
strike somethin’ more’n an’ eight-inch fish. 
There’s a hole there that allers has one or two 
fair sized ones in it an’^—but here. What you 
goin’ to do?” he asked, for I had stepped close 
to the edge of the pond and made one or two 
preliminary short casts. 
“Going to put a fly over in that hole,” I 
answered. 
“Let’s see what you’re fishin’ with ’fore you 
do it,” he commanded. 
“Hm, what’s them things?” he grumbled, as 
he looked at the flies. “They might catch trout 
if they was -crazy or starvin’ to death, but they 
won’t catch the kind of trout that’s livin’ in 
this pond.” 
“Why not?” I demanded. I had on a coach¬ 
man with a queen of the waters above it. 
“ ’Cause they won’t,” he replied. “Them 
store flies does well enough sometimes. I use 
a few of them myself; but if you want to get 
fish, let me fix you with a couple of my kind 
of flies.” So saying, he removed the comfort¬ 
able old felt hat he wore and from inside the 
band pulled out an assortment of flies, some of 
which I recognized, and others entirely new to 
my experience. Selecting two, one a dingy- 
looking brown and white, and the other a long, 
thin-bodied fly with small black wings standing 
out at right angles to the shank of the hook, 
he replaced my flies with them. 
“Made ’em myself,” he explained, “an’ they’ll 
do the trick. That is, if you want to get big 
fish. The little ones won’t take ’em. That long 
black one I call a skipper, mebbe you’ve seen 
flies somethin’ like it slidin’ round on top of 
the water on still days like this, an’ the other, 
I never give it a name, but I’ve caught some 
big ones with it, or one jest like it.” 
“Well, Zimmy,” I said, after I had curiously 
examined the two flies, examples of home in¬ 
dustry and ingenuity, “you’re directing this ex¬ 
pedition. If you say they’ll catch fish, all right.” 
“They’ll get ’em,” he nodded. “Step over 
there—that’s right. Now you’ve got plenty of 
room for your back cast, an’ let ’em fall jest 
where I told you. ’Bout two or three feet south 
of that big stump. Don’t—gosh! What’d I 
say. That black fly hadn’t hardly hit the water 
’fore he took it,” he exclaimed as my reel 
shrieked and I gave the butt to the trout that 
had taken the lure. 
Twelve good ounces that first fish weighed, 
and I no longer had doubts of- the killing abil¬ 
ities of Zimmy’s flies, particularly after I hooked 
and landed another, almost as large, not five 
minutes after, and hardly fifty feet from the 
scene of the first capture. 
We worked our way through the string of 
ponds, wading with the current, I fishing one 
side and Zimmy the other, although when it 
happened that we would come to a particularly 
good hole or bit of deep still water where the 
prospects for getting a strike from a big fel¬ 
low were better than common, if on Zimmy’s 
side of the stream, he would call me over for 
the privilege of the first cast. 
Sometimes I would hook a fish. Then 
he would stand ready with the landing net, 
coaching me as the fight progressed, every whit 
as eager to make the capture as I, and then, 
when I had gradually gained foot by foot of 
line and each click of the reel was bringing the 
still fighting fish nearer, he would step beside 
me, waiting for an opportunity to put the net 
under him and lift him from the water. Try as 
I would, however, using every bit of skill and 
judgment that I possessed, and being always 
favored with all the choice bits of water as we 
came to them, I could not catch fish with 
Zimmy. It was something uncanny, how he 
could entice them to strike upon those flies, fac¬ 
similes of the two attached to my leader, and 
w'hen one struck, no matter how the water and 
despite snags and overhanging bushes and sud¬ 
den dashes of the trout endangered line and 
tip, Zimmy would always land him. He was 
more than a good fisherman, was Zimmy; he 
was an artist, and I no more wondered why 
he was recognized as the peer of all the trout 
fishermen in the surrounding villages. And later, 
when we were wading the brook itself, I had 
further evidence of his skill. 
Whenever the surrounding vegetation offered 
no obstacles for casting, for the brook 
ran through a swamp with high bushes and 
oftimes good sized trees growing close and over¬ 
hanging the water’s edge, and was in places not 
over twenty feet wide, I would do the fishing, 
sending my flies here or there by Zimmy’s di¬ 
rections. “Jest round that bend,” he would say, 
“you’ll see a shoal makin’ out from tJie bank. 
Land your flies about ten feet down stream of 
it an’ skitter ’em back toward you.” 
Sure enough, we would come to the bend, 
there would be the yellow shoal, with the water 
rippling swiftly over it into the deeper channel 
that lay beyond. I would make a cast and have 
a strike. Finally I fully expected to secure a 
fish from every spot that Zimmy advised me to 
try, and if I did not, disappointment showed 
so plainly upon my face that he would 
chuckle. 
It was after he had just succeeded in landing 
one of the largest fish of the day and was put¬ 
ting it in his creel that Zimmy turned to me 
and said, “That makes an even twenty I’ve got, 
an’ you must have fourteen or fifteen. Eighteen, 
’d you say? Well, now, that’s pretty good. 
’Spose we get out of this brook an’ try a pond 
for an hour or so ’fore goin’ home. It’s nigh 
sundown an’ they’d oughter be bitin’ good 
there.” So we struck off in the direction of the 
pond. 
“You won’t find ’em so big where we’re 
goin’,” he cautioned, “an you know my ideas 
’bout takin’ them little fellers. Some says they 
make the best pan fish, but that’s only an ex¬ 
cuse for catchin’ ’em. There’s my measure¬ 
ments. Anything smaller goes back in the 
water, an’ mebbe you feel the same.” 
He showed me two notches cut in the butt of 
his rod. “All right,” I replied. “You’re re¬ 
sponsible for the success of this expedition, and 
if you say nothing under a pound, all right.” 
The greenest kind of a greenhorn would have 
known that there were trout in that pond, for 
the conditions and surroundings were most 
favorable, and even if I had not seen them 
breaking constantly I would have needed no as¬ 
surance of the fact. They call it the Paper-Mill 
Pond, and although the mill has long since gone 
and generation after generation has fished its 
waters, the name still clings and the fish are 
there. Oftimes you will hook a big fellow that 
has been sulking in the shade of the banks near 
the upper end and then you will find a fight on 
your hands worth having. 
