June 22, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
785 
The Dry-Fly on the Rondout 
By WHIRLING DUN 
A t last I have seen the Rondout. a beautiful 
stream in Npper New York State, which 
certain associations have made me desire 
for a long time to visit. Rising among the beau¬ 
tiful hills, something like twelve miles from Sho- 
kan, its waters,- as clear as crystal, ripple and 
tumble down between the mountains far removed 
from any possible chance of contamination. And 
cold, as I had reason to know when one morning I 
stepped into a pool and discovered to my chagrin 
that a long slit had been cut in one of my 
waders, new only a few days before. 
Oh, Dr. Breck, of Nova Scotia fame! 
Where did you ever get the idea that brook 
trout, our good old Fontinalis, would not take 
the dry-fly? A veteran, who had fished this 
stream for over a quarter of a century, tried 
the floating fly for the first time during my 
visit and admitted that he had never seen these 
trout take the wet fly as they rose to the float¬ 
ing lure. Incidentally, having unlimited time on 
our hands, we made many tests of the compara¬ 
tive efficacy of the same fly fished wet and dry. 
I would stand below a stretch of good water, 
and for fifteen minutes fish a whirling dun, 
watersoaked and sunk. The water was gin- 
clear, and as a rule I could plainly see the fly 
come down toward me beneath the surface. 
Then the same fly would be dried and floated 
down. The number of rises averaged about six 
or eight to one in favor of the floating lure. 
The whirling dun, on a 10 or 12 hook 
seemed to be a prime favorite; in fact, toward 
evening, when past experience told me that a 
pale evening dun should be the correct fly to 
use, I soon switched back to the whirling dun 
with better results. I wish that Mr. Theodore 
Gordon, or some other angler who has made a 
study of insects on our New York streams, 
would classify a fly with yellow wings, flitting 
over the water at this season of the year in 
fairly large numbers. It is, I believe, a mem¬ 
ber of the Ephemcridce family. I saw many, and 
tried to catch them in my hands, but alas, they 
eluded me, and waders are not helpful to one 
trying to catch an insect rapidly flying up stream. 
Perhaps greater efforts would have rewarded 
me with a closer examination of this fly. I had 
in my box only one fly with yellow wings. I 
took with it a rising fish at the first cast. That 
was my last experiment with it. What is the 
use of telling just how one loses a fly? One 
never realizes how far he can cast until he 
makes connections with a tree apparently situ¬ 
ated in a neighboring county. This single speci¬ 
men came from England a few years ago, with 
eleven others like it, all evidently sent by mis¬ 
take, as I had not ordered them. I have 
searched Halford’s books and the works of 
other angling entomologists in vain for a de¬ 
scription of this yellow-winged floater. Last 
year I used it with success on another stream 
when these same yellow insects were over and 
on it. 
What a splendid idea it would be if ang¬ 
lers would examine the insects they see on trout 
waters and send descriptions of them to Forest 
AND Stream 1 We would soon have an Ameri¬ 
can entomology. Dr. Breck made this sugges¬ 
tion years ago, but without results. 
I found the Rondout trout rather -small, but 
plentiful. Many ran from eight to eleven inches. 
There must be larger ones there, but they did 
not happen to come up to my fly. I was told 
that the stream was much too high for dry-fly 
fishing. The field of my operations was at 
Peekamose, near the head of the stream. May¬ 
be the fish run larger further down. 
Foreign Camping Foods. 
Annapolis Royal, N. S., May 22 .—Editor 
Forest and Stream: To the minds of some of 
us the article by Mr. Lodian on foreign foods 
is a trifle aggressive. No doubt the foods he 
describes are the proper things in the places 
where they are to be found, but with very few 
exceptions we have substitutes for them already 
that better suit our needs; at least, for the North 
woods. His Chinese dried oysters are amusing, 
but not convincing, and as he himself remarks, 
"Their nutritive value is dubious.’ Rice is a fine 
food and is rightly becoming more popular with 
us, but the advantage of ‘'briqueting” it is small, 
since it is already dried and hard. Mr. Lodian 
worries about the profanity attendant upon a 
"dropped and broken bag of rice. It must be 
a very flimsy bag that would burst at a drop¬ 
ping. In a life time of carrying bags in the 
woods I have never known it to happen. Com¬ 
pressed dried fruits are no new thing with us. 
We have the most wonderful thing now m that 
line, the dried peaches and apricots and prunes, 
and especially the evaporated apples, most de¬ 
licious with a little lemon peel cooked with them, 
as well as healthful. Mr. Lodian s Chinese eggs 
"require getting used to.” According to reports 
I have had of other travelers, this is true wiA 
a vengeance. Unsalted foods are common in 
some places, but only where salt cannot be ob¬ 
tained. For example, the Indians of interior 
Labrador use little or no salt, for the good rea¬ 
son that it is difficult to obtain. Brooks Cabot 
rather easily fell into the habit of eating his 
caribou flesh without salt. Seaweed is a good 
suggestion, but we all know of it and have used 
it. However, it "fills no long-felt want, be 
cause we have substitutes that are bettei. Ex¬ 
cellent bricked teas are already on our 
market. 
Mr. Lodian conjures up a harrowing picture 
of a man trying to dry out his rubber boots with 
heated bran. “You have to have the bran or 
oats about camp” for this purpose, he says. Very 
odd I I have never seen either of these things 
in a camp of experienced woodsmen. Why? Be¬ 
cause Mr. Lodian is wrong when he opines that 
sodden shoes, and wet feet, are unsanitary. If 
woolen stockings are worn, this is not true. The 
old woodsman is most apt to let his things dry 
on him, and proper shoes or moccasins for the 
woods cannot really be wet, because they are 
full of oil. It is only necessary to let them 
drain, and put on dry socks. 
One of Mr. Lodian’s chief offenses is the 
decrying of the German erbswurst, or peameal 
with bacon, which he describes as mostly made 
up of “compressed powdered salt.” It is very 
evident that he knows little of what he writes, 
and has not tried out the erbswurst, say, after 
a tramp in the face of a November wind m the 
North woods. My only regret in regard to the 
erbswurst is, that no American firm has had 
the enterprise to make it on this side of the 
water. It is one of the very best emergency 
foods to be had. Edward Breck. 
[Mr. Lodian’s article is intended to acquamt 
readers with foreign foods as an item of in¬ 
terest, not with a view to practicability to 
A.merican campers. He has used all foods 
and treatments he mentions, and ^ of the 
former has exhibits to prove their existence. 
Editor.] 
ON THE RONDOUT, ULSTER COUNTY. 
Photo by E. M. Gill. 
