936 
FOREST AND STREAM 
I Have Hung Him on My Study Wall, As My Better Half Says, "So You Won’t Study.” 
once tumbled into the stream now flow quietly 
and unobtrusively into the lake among the timber 
on its shores, and only the experienced guides of 
the region can tell which indentations in the 
shore-line are mouths of brooks and which are 
just blind bays. 
As one guide, a veteran of the neighboring 
Rangeley region, expressed it, this lake and its 
entering streams should in time become as fam¬ 
ous as those waters, if not for the number of 
fish, at least for their size. The lake is deep, 
and, unless one drop a line by chance into a 
spring hole, such as exist, for instance where the 
Magailoway once widened into the Big and Little 
Metallic Ponds, the fish are safe from anglers. 
Only a limited number at a time come to the 
mouths of the brooks or frequent, at least in the 
legal season, the Magailoway streams proper. 
Six pound trout were said to have been taken 
there this year, and bigger ones are looked for in 
the future. It should be a great breeding ground 
for these fish, brook trout being the only inhabi¬ 
tants except chub—the dear old chub, who goes 
with Fontinalis just as the circus clown patters 
along beside the beautiful bareback rider. 
I had been up to the junction of the two rivers 
once before with a small party, and all of us had 
had luck of some sort, but I, who went fired with 
the hope of big ones, once more had to be con¬ 
tent with the, to me, empty honor of leading in 
numbers. My father, however, had one day in 
about an hour taken five fish that weighed nine 
pounds, the largest, a three and one-quarter 
pounder of perfect form, as were nearly all these 
trout, filling me with fresh desires and fresh as¬ 
pirations. All our catch were taken with the fly, 
both through preference and because the Par- 
machenee Club, with headquarters on the lake of 
that name, has possessed enough influence to 
have bait or “plug” fishing made illegal in the 
nearby surrounding waters. It is done, however, 
of course. “Traout thinks flies is awful pretty,” 
said our cook, “but haow they do love to chaw 
them big night-walkers!” 
Some weeks later my uncle and cousin afford¬ 
ed me, as their guest, a second opportunity to 
try my luck. We started for a stay of two days 
and two nights—I resolved this time to “do or 
die or bust,” yet secretly feeling not in the least 
confident of success. We motored up the shores 
of the Androscoggin, the outlet of the main 
Rangeley group, and the Magailoway, its tribu¬ 
tary, to Azicohos Dam, where we boarded a 
launch and started on the run up the lake with 
the necessary provisions on board and with three 
canoes trailing behind. 
On the voyage we stopped and gave the mouths 
of the brooks a whirl, where the best sport had 
been found before. It was, to all of us, a 
strange setting for trout fishing. The guide in 
charge of the boat would shut off the power and 
the launch would glide in among the still-stand¬ 
ing tree trunks. To a good substantial one he 
would tie up, and the canoes would be paddled 
into what a few years since was forest, where 
the way the driftwood lay told the guides the 
location of the current of the brook. Casting 
space was restricted, to say the least, what with 
branches overhead and the fact that the fish lay 
usually in one, or at most two spots. A little 
way further up, the brook was too small, and a 
little further out the water would be too warm 
and, probably, too deep, were the fish there, fot 
them to be interested in surface matters. 
It looked hopeless, to say the least, to one who 
had never been there before or seen anything 
like it, and the sudden leap of a pound or two 
pound fish among the quantities of floating and 
standing brush was always a thriller. Luck was 
very poor, however, this time, and getting 
snagged very easy, so after trying two of the 
brooks we pushed on to a log camp situated on 
the spit of land between the two Magalloways 
and nearest to the larger stream. 
How good tasted the supper attacked at 5 P. M. 
Forty-five miles in an open car and thirteen 
in a launch, with only a pocket lunch, had sharp¬ 
ened the appetites to a razor edge. Long, long 
after the rest had finished, my cousin and I 
lingered. 
“I’ll tell yeou boys what’s good,” said a spec¬ 
tacled guide, the counterpart of Jacob A. Riis, 
as he watched our gastronomic efforts. “Ye take 
an’ pour a gob o' maple serrep on tbet cream o’ 
wheat, and she suttinly goes daown easy.” We 
tried it, and it was good. 
“Try dippin’ them doughnuts in the juice off’n 
them canned peaches,” was his next suggestion, 
but the beginning of a third brought a roar from 
the head guide who was outfitting the trip. 
“Good Gawsh ! Don’t give them boys no more 
recipes; they’re eatin’ us aout o’ haouse an’ home 
naow 1” 
To this guide, weak on names, my uncle was 
the “old feller”; I was the “young feller” and 
my cousin “the kid.” Hence his lumping us to¬ 
gether as “boys.” 
That evening one or two good fish were taken 
from what is called the “big eddy” of the Big 
Magailoway just in front of the camp, but we 
were told that few trout had run up there yet, 
its waters, coming from Parmachenee Lake, be¬ 
ing still warm. We were assured that if the 
trout were found anywhere they would be in the 
Little Magailoway. They were! 
Even the guides expressed surprise at the num¬ 
ber of sizeable fish that lay in the reaches on that 
stream next morning and that, about nine o’clock, 
began to “roll” in a way to send the heart into 
the mouth. But look at a fly! Not much. Not 
