Some Episodes of the Fishing Season. 
On the long winter evenings when the angler 
sits by the fire and reviews the events of his 
last fishing season, some of his exploits with 
the rod are likely to obtrude themselves with 
greater persistency than others. They are the 
high lights of the picture. Generally they are 
the adventures with his largest fish; occasionally 
they are the experiences of his most successful 
days. My last trout season furnished me with 
three incidents that I have gone over in imagi¬ 
nation again and again this winter with con¬ 
siderable interest and some pleasure. 
Early in the season, as has been my custom, 
I trolled for trout with a minnow'. I was ex¬ 
perimenting with a heavy rather stiff fly-rod and 
a light leader and small double hook on which 
I threaded the minnow. The rig was an ex¬ 
cellent one, light, easy to handle and not likely 
to frighten the fish; but it had at least two w r eak 
points: the double hook required a long and 
tedious operation to bait, so that it would spin 
well, and the rod was too pliant to enable me to 
strike hard enough to hook a large trout se¬ 
curely in swift water. 
Just after sunrise one morning in April when 
the stream was in the pink of condition, I went 
to Huckles Riffle with a bait can of fine min¬ 
nows to try out my new scheme of the little 
hook and the fly-rod. Now, Huckles Riffle is 
the outlet of the Mountain Hole, a pool a quar¬ 
ter of a mile in length and fifty yards in width 
and the riffle itself is a swift piece of water a 
hundred yards long and two rods in width. I 
usually fish this riffle from the head to the foot, 
going over it as often as five or six times, but 
many years ago the Old Angler showed me that 
occasionally the trout that wintered in the pool 
would drop down into the narrow rapid water 
just above the head of the riffle to feed instead 
of doing the ordinary thing of feeding at the 
upper end of the pool. To fish this place was 
like fishing the swift waters just above the open¬ 
ing into a chute. 
My first cast was over near the middle of the 
stream where a break in the smooth strong 
current disclosed a stump and the short trunk 
of a tree. The minnow whirled beautifully and 
was taken viciously before it had been pulled 
a yard. I never had a more vigorous yank. I 
knew it was a large fish and decided to give it 
time, but instead of dropping to the bottom and 
swallowing the bait as a fair-minded fish should, 
it went straight across to the other side of the 
current and the sag in the line prevented my so 
striking as to hook the fish. With a longer, 
stiffer rod, whose tip could have been kept well 
up, I could easily have accomplished this. I 
waded out to the shore, and with cold and nerv¬ 
ous fingers adjusted another minnow and re¬ 
peated exactly the first performance. Not fewer 
than four times did I wade out and renew my 
bait, wade in and get a bite, strike and miss 
my fish. Always the trout crossed over to the 
other side where I could not wade, and always 
my strike failed to hook because of the curve 
in the line. At the sixth cast I was desperate, 
struck hard when I felt the bite, and had my 
line come back minus the leader and hook. I 
reeled up, turned my minnows out into the creek 
and went back to camp. 
Near sunset I went back again to the head of 
the riffle and found a few trout rising to the 
fly. I caught four magnificently colored thick, 
broad fish that averaged a pound and a quarter 
in weight. These I caught with a fly after what 
I considered some rather skillful coaxing. They 
put up a strong fight in the stiff current and I 
was never sure of my fish until it was lying on 
the beach. But the big trout gave no sign of 
his presence, and I am hoping that he will be 
there to give me another trial at the opening 
of next season. 
My second adventure was somewhat more suc¬ 
cessful. Early in June when the creek was quite 
low I was spending several days at a cabin some 
distance above Huckles Riffle. The moon was 
nearly full and the trout began to feed about 
sunset and continued to feed late into the night. 
About 5 o’clock of this particular evening there 
was a dainty little shower that cooled the hot 
stones along the shore, filled the valley with a 
thin mist and brought out a swarm of flies. I 
was to fish the Gulf and the Cold Watch, long 
deep pools that could be fished only in the swift 
water at the head or in the shallow water at 
the foot, and I had started in shortly after an 
early supper. In the Gulf I found the trout 
leaping everywhere at a black fly that was danc¬ 
ing in little swarms a few inches above the 
water. But the trout that I could reach were 
not large, and after catching four or five ten- 
inch trout I passed on down to the Cold Watch. 
Here I expected to find my fish close up to 
and in* the foot of the riffles, but was disap¬ 
pointed and was forced to go on to the foot of 
the pool. By this time it was near dusk and 
the surface of the water was dotted with a black 
insect that in the failing light looked more like 
a hairy bumblebee than anything else. I had 
never before seen its like on the stream. It 
floated high on the surface and the trout were 
rising to it greedily. Fortunately my flybook 
was stocked with a half dozen large black flies 
and I soon fixed a cast that seemed to me to 
be a taking one under the circumstances. At 
the lower end of the Cold Watch pool, where 
I finally took my stand, I was compelled because 
of the trees on the one shore to take to the 
middle of the stream and net my trout when 
hooked. I had probably fished for an hour in 
this place, catching in all five or six twelve-inch 
trout, when I began to hear heavy splashes along 
the edge of the bar on my left. Again and 
again I cast in this direction without any result. 
The moon was just rising over the top of Cove 
Mountain, but because of the fog it was still 
so dark that I could tell that there were trout 
still feeding only by the noise they made as they 
rose in the shallow water and captured a fly. 
Finally after a particularly loud splash I cast 
in the direction where I thought the fish had 
risen and was rewarded by a tremendous strike. 
There was no struggle to speak of, but the trout 
immediately headed steadily and strongly for the 
depths of the pool several hundred yards above. 
This was my chance and I made no attempt to 
stop it until I had waded across to the bar, 
along which I followed the fish until it began 
to weaken. It was then only a matter of hold¬ 
ing it until I was sure it could be slid out on 
the damp stones of the low beach. This was 
successfully accomplished in time, and I found 
that I had a nineteen-inch trout about three 
pounds in weight. It was a well formed fish 
and I was thoroughly satisfied with my evening. 
At the cabin an hour later I displayed this trout 
with some pride as the largest and handsomest 
fish of the trip. 
My third experience came quite late in the 
season. I was fishing a stream new to me and 
well stocked with big trout. The stream was 
so clear that only after sunset could one hope 
to catch anything, and even then there was no 
certainty about it. I had found that at the head 
of a large dam a great number of big trout 
were accustomed to feed late each evening, and 
with Boyd, an experienced native fisherman, I 
had gone to this place one evening at sunset. 
The stream here was narrow, but quite deep and 
the casting was done from the edge of an open 
field. Near dusk the trout began to rise in al¬ 
most every square yard of this water to a fly 
so small and black and lying so close to the 
surface that it was invisible. From the head 
of the dam down to a bridge that crossed some 
200 yards below, the rings made by the feeding 
trout dimpled the water everywhere. Frequently 
one trout rose so close to another that the sec¬ 
ond ring broke into the first. I had the lightest 
tackle and the smallest sort of black gnats and 
would not have traded my chance for an auto¬ 
mobile; but I cast and cast until long after the 
sky was filled with stars and never got a strike. 
I was tired and out of patience and was just 
about to give it up when I heard a great splash 
up where Boyd was fishing. It sounded as 
though a dog had been thrown into the water. 
“Did you fall in, Boyd?” I shouted. “No,” he 
replied; “that was a fish.” When I reached 
him I found that he had abandoned his flies and 
had been fishing for an. hour or more with a 
sawyer which he skittered as he called it on 
the surface, and on which he had hooked and 
lost a trout that he said w'as “as big as a small 
boy.” He was terribly chagrined over his fail¬ 
ure and could hardly resign himself to his loss. 
He had three sawyers left, one of which I 
borrowed to experiment with. I removed my 
flies and on the end of my light leader I hung 
one of my small double bait hooks which I found 
to be an excellent thing to bury in the body of 
the big white worm. I returned to my t id 
place further down on the edge of the dam and 
at the third or fourth cast I heard something 
splash near where my bait was supposed to be. 
I gave line, and when I tightened up I found 
I was fast to a fish. There was little or no 
