» 416 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept, ix, 1909. 
THE TOP RAIL. 
Here is a picture that will remind the angler 
of many an exciting moment when trout that 
seemed as large as this one rose to their flies. 
In a certain stream there is an old brown trout 
that must be almost as large; at least, that is the 
recollection of Winfield T. Sherwood, who play¬ 
ed him for more than an hour at one time, and 
as I saw him jump, my impression is similar, 
although I was fifty yards further down stream 
at the time and may have formed an exaggerated 
impression, for 
“distance lends enchantment to the view” 
in fishing, as elsewhere; hence the fish yarn. 
Sherwood told me after¬ 
ward that he had heard 
this old trout “bellow,” 
but had not seen him 
again, and knowing the 
fish was such a whop¬ 
per, I was not inclined 
to dispute this state¬ 
ment either. 
Seriously, lots of 
amusement can be had 
with a good camera in 
making fake pictures 
like this one of Mr. 
Conradi’s—pictures that 
are offensive neither to 
the angler’s friends nor 
to those who hold that 
it is wrong to use a 
camera in anything but 
straightforward work, 
and who will tell you 
that the camera cannot 
lie, when in fact it is 
almost as deceptive as 
an army mule. By “of¬ 
fensive” pictures I have in mind the strings of 
fish and racks of game so many amateurs photo¬ 
graph and later on exhibit the pictures with 
pride. But pictures of this sort are no longer 
made or shown by those who have been con¬ 
verted in the cause of fish and game protection. 
There are so many other good subjects pro¬ 
ductive of real pictures, too. Little incidents of 
camp life, all with action in them, are given 
more attention, and they are lasting mementoes. 
That is one of the legitimate uses of the camera. 
* * * 
One of the so-called outdoor magazines con¬ 
ducts a department devoted to information for 
its readers. Inquiries and replies are both pub¬ 
lished. The following is a sample: 
A correspondent asked where he could find a 
quiet place to camp within an hour and a half 
ride of New York city. 
The reply was that there is no such place; 
that “there are no trout streams within an hour 
and a half of New York city”; that the best 
thing to do would be to go to the Delaware 
River, within three hours of New York city, 
“where you would find first-class bass fishing, 
but no trout.” 
Why is it that some men are so eager to 
flaunt their ignorance in the press? The in¬ 
quirer did not mention fishing at all, and that 
“information” might have been left out, to the 
credit of the magazine. 
Let us look about and see what can be found 
near the city that may interest a man seeking 
quiet and rest. 
I know a man who establishes a camp on a 
wooded hilltop early in the summer. He goes 
there on Saturday and leaves on Monday after 
tying his tent-flaps. That tent contains his en¬ 
tire outfit, and no one watches it from Monday 
morning until Saturday afternoon, yet it is there 
all summer and is never disturbed. The tent 
is visible from its owner’s office by means of 
field glasses. It is within an hour's ride by 
train of New York city. 
Four of us camped for three weeks in autumn 
not long ago within an hour’s ride of the city 
and within a mile of a large village, but during 
that time we saw less than ten persons, and 
most of them were anglers who passed up or 
down the stream. 
Under the shadow of the Palisades one can 
camp from Monday until Saturday without 
being disturbed, unless the passing of river 
craft, the faint sound of trains passing along 
the opposite side of the Hudson, and the ap¬ 
pearance now and then of pedestrians or small 
boaters constitute disturbing elements. Further 
back in the woods on the Palisades a camp can 
be pitched beside one of the brooks where no 
one will be seen at all, yet there are supply 
points within a mile. 
There are scores of places along Long Island 
Sound where one can camp in peace, though 
other persons may pass by at times. These, I 
have always noticed—and I have camped in such 
places every summer during the past fifteen 
years—respect the camper’s wishes to be free 
from interference in his outing, and they—to 
use a homely but expressive term—mind their 
own business. 
Further up the Hudson, and still within ninety 
minutes by train, there are dozens of places, 
both alongshore and on the heights, where one 
can find quiet camp sites. Two favorite places : 
are Jim’s Cove, just below Peekskill, and along 
Popolopen Creek, at old Fort Montgomery, 
where there are also several ponds deep in the 
woods, with fair fishing. 
In New Jersey and that part of New York 
lying just west of the Hudson there are num¬ 
berless out-of-the-way places where one can 
camp, fish and rest in quiet, all within ninety 
minutes’ ride of town, with hundreds more 
within two hours’ ride; in fact, I can stand on 
the railway track and shoot an arrow into por¬ 
tions of the woods where footprints are as 
scarce as arrows, and one can pitch his tent be¬ 
side a brook and be sure no one will discover 
his retreat. 
I live in a village of 4,000 inhabitants, twenty- 
two miles from City Hall Park; average time 
from home to business, one hour. I can stand 
on my lawn and shoot an arrow into a brook 
containing trout; I have seen anglers fishing 
for trout in that brook; I have seen trout in 
it, but have never cast a fly there, for the rea¬ 
son that these trout are 
small and should not 
be taken. 
There are many trout 
streams within two 
hours’ walk of that vil¬ 
lage, and all within 
thirty miles of New 
York city. One of 
them was full of trout 
the last time I visited 
it. In a morning I 
caught seven, let as 
many more get off the 
hook without striking 
them, and had a dozen 
or more rises in which 
I jerked the fly away 
to prevent injuring the 
trout. In one instance, 
while I was standing 
under a large hemlock 
tree, I cast above a lit¬ 
tle fall, and the tip of 
my rod fouling a low 
branch, the fly floated 
swiftly toward me and was taken by a trout less 
than three feet in front of my brogues. All of 
these were brook trout and I saved none, as I 
am not proud of trout measuring five to eight 
inches in length. 
From a hill near my home I can, on a clear 
day, see the towers of the Singer and Metro¬ 
politan Life buildings in New York city, and 
can also trace several well-known streams from 
which brook trout are taken during the season. 
From that hill one can walk in any one of three 
directions, and in an hour’s time will cross sev¬ 
eral streams containing brook trout. And there 
are more of these fish in these streams to-day 
than there were ten years ago, showing the 
beneficent results of restocking and the respect 
in which people hold the fishing regulations., 
This I say with the reservation that at the same 
time there are altogether too many men who, 
when they catch a trout, cannot overcome their: 
selfishness and put it back. To them a trout 
and a live wire are alike; they have no use for 
it, they do not want it, but once it is in their 
(Continued on page 434.) 
A BIG ONE THAT DID NOT GET AWAY. 
From a photograph by G. A. Conradi. 
