f pattn r 0. OF t. S83AHA-SSASSFIUSH 
Trout Fishing and Berrying. 
On an August morning my wife wakened me 
with, “Why can’t we go berrying to-day?” 
“We can,” I replied, “if I may be allowed to 
take my fly-rod as well as a berry pail.” 
“A fly-rod!” she exclaimed; “whoever heard 
of a man taking a fishing outfit when berrying?” 
But I was obdurate, and when I led the horse 
up to the door, my fishing outfit was tucked 
away beneath the buggy seat, along with pails, 
lunch and camera, for we have acquired the 
camera habit; the lunch habit was born with us. 
To the acquired habit we are indebted for a 
pictorial record of nearly every trip taken dur¬ 
ing the last ten years, and to the natural habit 
we owe a debt of gratitude, for I am epicurean 
enough and honest enough to confess that I 
enjoy a dinner, especially a dinner out o’ doors. 
Never were lovers of God’s out o’ doors more 
pleasantly situated than we. A rural mail route 
passes our door, so we get the Chicago papers 
almost as soon as do the dwellers in that bee¬ 
hive, and north of us stretches a vast tract of 
cut-over land, and where once the tall pine and 
hemlock lifted their proud heads, there is now 
a sparse growth of soft woods and a tangle of 
raspberry and blackberry vines, the latter loaded 
with luscious fruit in season. Everywhere there 
are lakes which teem with bass, pike and perch. 
There are also creeks which contain trout, but 
only those who know how, and are possessed of 
patience, may capture them. 
We drove through the Kelley Lake resort and 
north of it plunged into the wilderness which to¬ 
day stands a mute witness to the destructive 
methods of lumbermen, but the time is coming 
when reforestry will clothe those hills with valu¬ 
able timber once more. Wherever the fire raged 
last year, fireweed ( Chamcenerion angustifolium') 
has rushed in to conceal the blackened logs and 
denuded soil. Where did the flower come from? 
Last summer we were compelled to search for 
a single spike, and only a twelve month later 
every opening was aflame with the pink blos¬ 
soms. 
Steadily our road climbed upward, then, the 
burned district behind us, we plunged down a 
steep hillside into a valley where the black and 
raspberry brush crowded up to the very road¬ 
side. The sight of the ripe fruit was too great 
a temptation for wife and girl to resist, so I 
left them at an abandoned lumber camp, promis¬ 
ing to be back in three hours with a mess of 
trout. Again I climbed a high hill and descended 
into a second valley, hitched my horse to a con¬ 
venient tree and plunged into the tangle of brush 
which all but conceals my trout stream. The 
time was 10:30, and I said to myself, “Now you 
can fish just two hours, for it will take you 
thiity minutes to drive back to those camps.” 
My first cast resulted in an eight-inch trout, 
3 splendid augury I thought. Then I failed to 
hook a single fish for some time, though I re¬ 
moved my flies and tried worms. I could hear 
the fish jumping as they fed, but that only added 
to my vexation. To know that a stream is 
literally alive with fish and yet be unable to cap¬ 
ture them is enough to make a preacher swear; 
I know. 
A half hour passed before I discovered that 
the key to the situation was grasshoppers. At a 
meadow I filled my “hopper coop” with the little 
insects and for a while enjoyed such sport as 
comes only when the conditions are right. The 
fish fairly tumbled over one another in their 
eagerness to seize my ’hoppers. Sometimes a 
voracious trout would leap front the water in 
its frantic endeavors to grasp the insect; once 
a fish did succeed in catching a ’hopper in mid 
air, but broke away. I returned to the hole 
afterward and, I believe, captured the fish. 
At last my basket grew heavy, so I counted 
my fish; I had taken sixteen. When I set out 
I told wife that I would be satisfied if I secured 
nine fish. “Sixteen trout!” I exclaimed, talk¬ 
ing to myself. “Old man, right here is where 
you stop fishing,” and I reeled in my line and 
unjointed my rod. Hard? It was like hoeing 
potatoes on circus day when I was a boy. How¬ 
ever, one of the first lessons an angler should 
learn is to stop when he has enough—a lesson 
which all find difficult and some never learn. 
How few anglers in the Middle West know 
the joys of fishing for trout with grasshoppers. 
’Hopper fishing is second only to fly-fishing. The 
adept fly-fisher would succeed with ’hoppers if 
he used the same methods as with flies; let him 
forget that he has a bait attached to his hook. 
I use the same outfit for bait-fishing with grass¬ 
hoppers that I use when fly-fishing, but I use 
only one hook—never larger than a No. 3 sneck 
—and a very short leader, sometimes not over 
a foot long. Nearly all my fishing is brush fish¬ 
ing, and there are times when one must reel the 
hook close up to the end of the rod. 
When fishing a meadow brook or wading an 
open stream I use a three-foot leader, never 
longer. When fishing a meadow brook from the 
bank I stand well back from the stream and cast 
out upon the water. At a bend of the stream 
or where the current has eaten a hole under the 
bank one is reasonably sure of a capture. At 
the foot of a rapid or, on a hot day, in the rapid 
itself, one is sure to find fish waiting for the 
’hopper that jumps by mistake into the stream. 
There lies the secret of success. Duplicate the 
actions of the live insect, make your bait appear 
to jump into the stream, and it is probable you 
will hook a fish. 
In fishing a brushy stream one must vary the 
methods to suit conditions, but slyness, plus a 
knowledge of fish and stream, equals success. 
Where the stream is well shaded fish are sure 
to lie, even though there be but a few inches of 
water. In such a place you will have to em¬ 
ploy all the stealth of an Indian to avoid alarm¬ 
ing the sly rascal. A parting of the brush or a 
sudden movement of the rod is usually sufficient 
to send him scurrying to shelter, hence advance 
your rod slowly and drop the bait upon the water 
quietly. I doubt very much if a slight noise 
upon the bank will alarm the fish if he does not 
catch a glimpse of a movement. When once 
you have seen a pound fish leap into the air and 
take your grasshopper on the downward swoop, 
you will agree with me that ’hopper fishing, when 
the solitary cardinal flowers are in bloom, is sec¬ 
ond only to fly-fishing. 
While I was untying the horse, back among 
the willows a hermit thrush began to sing with 
all the gusto of a June morning. There was no 
mistaking the rollicking notes, and I listened 
with open-mouthed astonishment, for it was 
the tenth of August and the air was fairly 
quivering with an excess of heat. Three times 
the bird sang its song through. I climbed into 
the buggy wondering what could have stirred 
the bird into a memory of spring time. I have 
heard thrushes sing in July, but never so late 
as the middle of August. 
I reached the old lumber camp five minutes 
ahead of schedule and was putting the horse 
out when wife and girl arrived. Below the camp 
we discovered a spring of clear, cold water that 
was very welcome on such a torrid day. Then 
while wife kindled a fire I prepared the fish for 
the pan and, lest some Thomas may think that 
they were fingerlings, let me say that the five 
largest just filled the frying-pan. I am almost 
ashamed to confess it, but we ate the whole 
catch for our dinner, but then we ate little be¬ 
side trout, not even bothering to cook the usual 
potatoes. When I dumped the little mound of 
backbones into the fire, I am sure that we looked 
at one another as Adam and Eve must have 
looked after they had partaken of the forbidden 
fruit. 
Wife and girl had picked five quarts of rasp¬ 
berries in the forenoon, so we went after black¬ 
berries, and in less than an hour had five quarts 
of them also. Then, our pails all full, we picked 
and ate, and that is the only way I care for 
berries, right from the vine to my mouth. There 
is a wildness about their flavor when so eaten 
that is very piquant, a flavor totally lacking in 
the marketed fruit. Perhaps, as wife asserts, j 
the flavor comes from the environment. Well, 
if that be true, may I ever eat berries in the 
proper environment. 
At 4 o’clock thunderheads began to roll up 
in the west and we thought it best to start for 
home. At the resort we stopped to see the 
doctor. 
“How many berries did you get?” the doctor’s , 
wife shouted from the door. 
“Five quarts of raspberries, five quarts of 
blackberries and sixteen trout,” I replied. 
“Let me see your trout,” exclaimed a doubt¬ 
ing resorter as he hurried across the lawn, but 
I patted my stomach as I replied, “I—I can’t 1 
show them.” 
“Oh,” he retorted, as his face lit up with a 
grin of unbelief, “you mean that you have eaten 
them all?” O. W. Smith. 
The Forest and Stream may be obtained from 
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supply you regularly. 
