May 25, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
G 6 I 
A Talk About the Cost of Tackle 
By THEODORE GORDON 
T he cost of a good equipment for fly-fishing 
is a matter that has to be considered by 
many anglers who are not over well sup¬ 
plied with the root of all evil. 
In an English contemporary of Forest and 
Stream one of the favored specialists in dry-fly 
gear recently published a list of the articles which 
he considered necessary for the dry-fly man on 
the first day of May in the year of our Lord, 
1912. 
After noting that no mention was made of 
wading stockings and brogues, I got out a stubby 
pencil and proceeded to change pounds, shillings 
and pence with dollars and cents at $488 to the 
pound sterling. The items listed totaled some¬ 
where near $71.32, and we must add at least $10 
for brogues and waders. Now, $80 is a tidy 
sum to invest in these days when we all talk of 
the high cost of living. 
The English dry-fly rod cost $25.50 and the 
other articles mentioned were the line, fly box, 
landing net, bag (for lunch and fish), reel, 
leaders, flies (about $9 worth) and a steelyard 
to weigh the trout, after they are caught. 
We all desire the very best of tackle and love 
a costly rod of fine action, but owing to the 
great improvements in the design and finish of 
low priced rods, we can secure a really service¬ 
able tool for $5 to $10. Many articles are mar¬ 
keted in small tin boxes which make a good 
enough fly box and one should carry another 
little box to place the used and wet flies in. One 
can buy a net for twenty or thirty cents and 
make the bow and handle for himself, or in a 
pinch he can strand his fish and do without a 
net. If his time for fishing does not arrive until 
after June i, he can put on warm woolen drawers 
and socks and an old pair of shoes and wade 
just so. The constant hard exercise keeps the 
blood in circulation and prevents a chill. In May 
and earlier the water is usually icy cold and it 
is dangerous to wade without protection. I am 
afraid that the wading shoes and stockings will 
have to be bought and $10 is about the least we 
can allow for those items. Shoes, $4; stockings, 
$6. Thoroughly well made flies or eyed hooks 
will endure a good deal of whipping and many 
trout may be killed with one of them. One 
should be able to purchase a small assortment 
of the patterns suited to the water he fishes for 
about $5: not less than six flies of each pattern. 
Six-foot leaders are long enough for practical 
purposes and need npt be thinner than fine natu¬ 
ral gut next the fly. The gut may be quite stout 
where it joins the line. It is a saving to buy 
a hank or a few dozen strands of.the finest un¬ 
drawn gut to point the leader with—one, two 
or three of these may be used as the condition 
of the water and shyness of the trout may seem 
to require. Three leaders at thirty cents each 
should suffice to begin with. Then there is the 
reel, and one can buy a serviceable featherweight 
for $1.50. The only weak point about this reel 
is the wire spring which is sometimes of poor 
temper and breaks easily, 
I sent one of these reels to one of the English 
masters of the dry fly and he was pleased with it. 
I hate to put trout in a bag, so we must allow 
$i to $1.50 for a basket. I like a big creel cost¬ 
ing more money, big enough to hold the wading 
gear in traveling and long enough in the bottom 
to lay out a two-pounder without doubling up. 
One wishes the trout they have worked hard for 
to look attractive when turned out of the creel. 
BEFORE BREAKFAST. 
Photo by Lalla Bedford. 
It is a great pleasure to give trout to people who 
appreciate them. I had to eat too many in camp, 
and an occasional one satisfies me. 
A good level waterproof silk line casts very 
well. Though not suitable for tournament work, 
it does as well practically for stream fishing as 
the tapered line, and twenty-five yards of F or 
E can be bought for $1.25. 
Fortunately there are but few men who have 
not a few articles in the tackle line to begin 
with in the spring, and once a fisherman has his 
bearings and a little experience, a small yearly 
expenditure will keep him going. Even if you 
add the cost of all the articles together and make 
a lump sum of it, the amount is not very large. 
I handled rods the other day at $3 to $5 that 
would have been considered good enough for 
anyone when I was a lad. Our fishing is mosfly 
free and good sport can often be had without 
taking long and expensive journeys. 
The fishing in the chalk streams of the south 
of England, of which so much has been written, 
and where the cult of the dry fly has reached its 
highest development, is very expensive. 
A couple of miles of really good water com¬ 
mands a high rental. There is a good deal of 
expense in maintaining the fishing and a keeper 
must be employed. The least costly method is 
to join a small club of dry-fly fishers if you have 
an opportunity, or one of the larger angling so¬ 
cieties that rent a stretch of trout water for the 
fly-fishers, as well as providing sport for those 
who angle for ‘ coarse” fish, chub, roach, pike, 
etc. I think we can have the counterpart of the 
chalk stream fishing in this country if we stocked 
seme of the streams I used to fish with brown 
trout iSalmo fario). Food was very abundant; 
there was much slow water with clean moss and 
weed that made harbors for the larva of insects 
and other forms of life. I forget whether the 
fresh water shrimp was common or not. Had 
no occasion to look for them and did not study 
conditions closely. In the South of England 
streams the average size of the trout is very 
large, and this is due^ to the abundance of the 
food as well as the strict limits placed upon the 
size of the fish killed and basketed. This limit 
is as high as one pound and a pound and a quar¬ 
ter on Itchen and Test. Also, no bait-fishing is 
allowed, and fly only is the rule. 
If one had full control of several miles of a 
large stream well supplied with fish food, I have 
no doubt that as good an average could be main¬ 
tained, provided the same rules were enforced, 
and that restocking was carefully attended to 
with a strain of good, fast-growing trout. The 
head of trout to the mile of water was formerly 
very large, and they were fine native trout. Some 
time in the near future I hope to revisit several 
of the large streams which were so well known 
to me many years ago. Only the other day a 
traveling salesman told me that large trout were 
still found in one of them, but I fear that by 
this time all the good water may be preserved 
by clubs or individuals. I wish to discover what 
the conditions are to-day. Formerly small flies 
were the rule, and it was often necessary to get 
the color of the fly on the water. 
Black Bass Season in Lake George. 
Albany, N. Y., May 15.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: Conceding the justice of the complaint 
against the black bass section of the new “uni¬ 
form” fish and game law, the Conservation Com¬ 
mission has made an order changing the date of 
the open season for this species back to Aug. i 
in Lake George. The new law made the season 
open on June 16, and as the bass do not leave 
their nests in the clear cold waters of this lake 
until toward the latter part of July, the Lake 
George Association, through its president, Henry 
W. Hayden, made a vigorous protest. 
On this the commission gave a hearing last 
week which was largely attended by anglers and 
residents of Warren county where the lake is 
situated. Men who had fished the lake for years 
and were thoroughly familiar with the habits of 
its fish life testified that the new law did not 
give the necessary protection, and that the old 
statute was far better for this body of water 
and the several other lakes similarly situated in 
adjacent territory. 
Commissioner Fleming and Attorney Decker, 
who held the hearing, asked many questions. 
Among them were: “Is it good policy to have 
exceptions to the general law?” “Would it be 
fair to fishermen to make this change?” “Must 
