An Early Trip With Bait. 
It had been a long, cold winter and the Young 
Angler thought that real spring and the trout 
season would never come. Even on the first of 
April he could see big patches of snow on the 
north side of the Bald Eagle. Uncle Jim, who 
was always the consulting member of the trip 
and to whom the Young Angler resorted so fre¬ 
quently in his impatience, shook his wise old 
white head and said that spring was bound to 
come. He had never known it to fail, and went 
on preparing leaders, sorting tackle and getting 
things generally in order for the trip. Jake, 
who could go for trout only once a year, was 
getting so much pleasure out of the smoothing 
and fitting up of a new cane rod that he was in 
no hurry, and Flint, who would drive, hoped the 
spring rains would stop long enough to enable 
the mountain roads td become fairly passable. 
In spite of the Young Angler’s gloomy 
prophecy, the 14th of April found them on their 
way in Flint’s big spring wagon with canopy 
top, drawn by a team of big bays. Uncle Jim 
wrapped in his great storm coat rode with Flint 
and discussed familiarly the affairs of the 
families whose homes they passed. The Young 
Angler and Jake rode on the rear seat, the one 
still impatient, and the other still impassive. In 
the space between seats were piled rubber boots, 
creels, bait cans, suit cases and Uncle Jim’s old 
carpet bag. Under the rear seat was the lunch 
basket made of white oak splints and covered 
with a tightly-fitting oilcloth top. It was de¬ 
signed to fill snugly the place it occupied, and it 
carried food and utensils with which to prepare 
five big mid-day meals, if needed. From the 
rear of the wagon projected three long rods 
that proclaimed to the natives on the way that 
the fishing season would soon open. 
It had rained steadily all the previous night 
and there was still a cold rain falling that slacked 
up occasionally to give a wider view of heavy 
clouds hanging low over mountains from whose 
deep valley arose clouds of fog. At Hemlock 
Inn at the mouth of Wallis Run the half dozen 
fishermen who had gone in the day before to 
be good and ready for the opening, and who 
were much disheartened over weather and the 
water, grouped themselves on the porch and 
jeered as the party drove past. Uncle Jim was 
not disturbed. He said that Providence was al¬ 
ways on the side of the good fisherman and that 
the rain would keep the tenderfeet at home and 
give the seasoned anglers more room. 
Below an abandoned splash dam where the 
stream ran through shallow channels, Jake and 
the Young Angler donned rubber boots and 
filled the bait cans with several hundred min¬ 
nows. They were the real trout minnows with 
small mouths and silver-white bellies. To Jake 
this was almost as much sport as catching trout. 
At noon Flint drove into a farmer’s barn where 
the horses lunched from nose bags and the men 
from the basket. 
Near the midd'e of the afternoon the road led 
out to the top of a high ridge at the bottom of 
which the party could see the little tannery 
village through which they must pass and the 
broad main stream whose waters they would 
fish miles above. The view was a pleasant one 
to men who were tired of people and paved 
streets. When they reached the little town that 
was to be their stopping place for several days, 
the big landlord came-out to welcome them and 
to see that the wagon was unpacked and the 
suit cases carried to the proper rooms. Jake 
carried his minnows to some secret place where 
they would be kept in running water to be used 
only as needed. The long rods were handed up 
to be out of the way on the floor of the open 
porch that ran along the front of the second 
MISS DELONEY AND A TWELVE-POUND TROUT TAKEN 
BY HER IN SNAKE RIVER, WYOMING. 
Photograph by G. W. Ridge. 
\ 
story, and the fish baskets and boots found their 
accustomed places in the office. 
After a bountiful supper the party gathered 
in the office where Uncle Jim found acquaint¬ 
ances of many years’ standing, who knew that 
he would be on hand at the opening of the trout 
season. The landlord sat in an enormous chair 
near the door of the bar room ready to hook his 
cane into the collar of any man who in his judg¬ 
ment had drunk enough for one day. No man 
that neglected his family could drink at that bar 
and no man could buy a bottle of liquor on 
which to become intoxicated. When the log 
drive passed the village, the bar was closed for 
two weeks and no driver drank up his wages in 
that house, filled the air with profanity, and cut 
the carpets and floors with caulked boots. The 
landlord was so big and so determined looking 
that his decisions were final in every corner of 
his domain. Uncle Jim thought that if all hotels 
could have such landlords, the drink prob'em 
would be solved. After the landlord had shown 
the party his fishing tackle and had gone out to 
see that an early breakfast would be ready, the 
Young Angler wanted to know how so big a 
mati could possibly get along the streams. Uncle 
Jim said that they loaded him and his chair into 
a wagon and drove up the middle of the creek 
and the landlord fished over the tail-board of 
the wagon. 
It had been decided that the first day should 
be spent on the East Branch of Middle Creek 
near the mouth of Double Run, and here they 
found a shed for the horses and a structure re¬ 
sembling an Indian wigwam in shape made of 
new lumber, in which they could be protected 
from the storm when not fishing. In the center 
of this was a place for a fire. Uncle Jim went 
up the creek to the pool from which one day 
many years before he had taken seventy-five 
trout that averaged a foot in length. Jake and 
the Young Angler tried Double Run, and from 
each little pool they found they could get one 
and sometimes two nine-inch trout. In a deep 
pool at the bottom of a six-foot fall Jack got 
a vicious bite. His rule on such occasions was 
to fill and light his pipe before pulling, and when 
he landed a fourteen-inch trout with the minnow 
and hook in its belly, he was again confirmed in 
his practice. It was a broad heavy trout that 
had evidently spent its life in the rocky pools 
under the hemlocks of Double Run, and the 
coloring of its dark brown back, steel blue sides 
and pink belly was entirely different from that 
of the lighter colored trout of the main stream. 
At noon each angler reported nearly a dozen 
trout, a fair catch' for such a cold wet day. 
Uncle Jim had caught fewer than either the 
other two, but his trout ran a better size. While 
the Young Angler made a pot of strong coffee 
and broiled a slice of ham over the coals of the 
fire, Flint had kept going for his own comfort, 
Uncle Jim and Jake cleaned the trout and packed 
them in a splint basket to be placed in the ice 
house at the hotel. 
The afternoon was spent in fishing down the 
main stream to the village. The Young Angler 
at one place found some trout in the shallow 
water, a very unlikely place for trout so early 
in the season, and he had an hour’s good sport. 
Under the bridge a mile above the village in a 
pool of great depth Jake caught a number of 
good trout by dragging his minnow close to the 
bottom. In the beautiful oval pool just below, 
Uncle. Jim said, he had seen on a warm evening 
in June a hundred trout rising at one time and 
a fly-fisherman busy with big trout. 
That evening Shorty Russell who had walked 
in from miles back in the mountains to shake 
hands with Uncle Jim, told how in fishing be¬ 
tween Sandy Bottom and the Cove he had over¬ 
taken an angler whose bait at every cast was 
hitting the stream with a great splash. He was 
a man from the city who was too near-sighted 
to do much fishing, but who occasionally went 
out on such trips. His bait was a big stone cat¬ 
fish so attached to a large hook that no amount 
of slashing would throw it off. Shorty asked 
who had put it on, and when Tom replied that 
