Small Brook Angling. 
The same arguments that are valid for fish¬ 
ing up stream against the current with the fly 
for trout can be used for fishing a small brook 
with bait. The fish, when at rest, lie with their 
heads up stream and cannot see the angler 
clearly if he approaches from down the water; 
and it is also true of a small brook, as it is of 
a larger stream, that anything disturbed floats 
down into water already fished by the angler. 
It is, perhaps, proper to say that the use of 
bait in small brooks is regarded as legitimate 
by most fly-fishermen. In such brooks it is 
frequently impossible to cast a fly, bait being 
necessary if any number of fish are to be 
caught. I use the general term “bait,” for the 
lures may be of great variety, including insects, 
worms and fish. 
The worm is considered by many to be the 
best of all, and doubtless this is true at certain 
seasons of the year. The time for using this 
bait is in spring and the early fishing season, or 
when the brooks are discolored by heavy rains. 
It is important to remember that worms from 
clean, loose garden soil live longest in the bait 
box and are more pleasant to use than the 
short, black worm found in heavy, wet soil.. 
For fishing a brook in mid-summer no bait is 
better than the cricket, with the single excep¬ 
tion of the loach, as explained later in this 
article.' Crickets found on a rocky hillside 
under flat stones are best, being large, black, 
and so lively that a nimble small boy should be 
the hunter. But if you are fairly active, love 
sunshine and small outdoor excitements, go 
after crickets; you will get almost as much fun 
out of it as you will when you fish with them. 
There is a lack of responsibility that is delight¬ 
ful, for if a big trout is seen coming toward the 
hook in clear water the angler knows that it 
is probably the fateful moment; if he is lost, 
there will be a broad line of black sadness in 
the spectroscope of the day. Not so with the 
loss of a fat cricket; you are certain to find 
another cheerful leaper under the next flat 
stone. Grasshoppers can be classed with 
crickets, but are not as easy to use and lack a 
quality of attractiveness possessed by the latter. 
Memory takes me back a good many years, 
and I remember the big trout at the mouth of 
Gory Brook in the Pocantico, a half-mile above 
the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in the village of 
Tarrytown. That trout was—well, I am 
tempted to be profane. There were few trout 
in all Westchester county, and that fellow would 
rank up here in a trout country, where I am 
writing, a first-class fish. And he would take 
nothing. 
By sneaking behind a convenient birch and 
poking my head out cautiously, he could be 
seen on a little sandbar at the mouth of the 
brook. Doubting friends assured me I had 
spotted a sucker. And even a good pipe was 
wagered that I could never show him. I did, 
and caught him on a cricket. But before that 
happy afternoon I threw such a variety of flies 
at him that he must have become a savant as to 
conventional entomology. Resting on the sand¬ 
bar, he may have known what day of the week 
it was by the curious insects that began to flop 
below him, for I was a schoolmaster then and 
my afternoons were not always free, and some 
were assigned to other things than fishing. 
Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays I used to 
take my rod and stroll up the path at the edge 
of the cemetery and under the arched aqueduct 
beyond; until, arriving within range of my 
trout, began with long distance practice the 
artillery of the fly. But, in the end, being spent 
with my labors, and, it maybe, low as to am¬ 
munition, it being difficult casting and easy to 
hang a fly in the trees beyond hope, I would 
crouch on a log and use a worm. All was 
futile. There were times if I had been sure of 
hitting so agile a thing as a trout under water 
I would have cast a rock and broken the law 
with pleasure. 
At length June passed and the long vacation 
was at hand; if I did not get the trout then, it 
was likely I never would. So, going to the 
brook for almost my last opportunity, by chance 
I overturned a flat stone and a lively black 
cricket leaped before me. I had used crickets 
for bass, but never for trout. As other things 
had failed, the thing was worth a trial; and a 
little later I hung the sleek spotted fellow on a 
twig. I got my pipe, but gave the Sleepy Hol¬ 
low trout to the friend who had declared it a 
sucker. It was said his was no ordinary flavor; 
of that I do not know; the important thing is 
that when he would take nothing else he took 
a cricket. 
For August fishing and low water nothing is 
so deadly for small brook angling as the chub. 
I use this word because the country fisher has 
affixed the term, “chub fishing” to this method 
of angling. The bait should not be a small 
chub, but of that order of fishes scientifically 
known as Lota maculosa; being of the order of 
the fresh-water cod. But not like their salty 
relatives, they are very small. John Ridd in 
“Lorna Doone” speared loach, I believe, with 
a fork; I think I remember the fork, but have 
not the book at hand. The loach of the Ameri¬ 
can brooks are even smaller than those of Great 
Britain. They are a pretty little fish living 
under stones in shallow water and as slippery 
as an eel. 
The country boy has a novel way of getting 
this bait, but must have an active companion 
to help. A smaller brother is best, because you 
can boss him, he wishing to go to fish with you 
far up the creeks, a place he dares not go alone. 
A little side runway is chosen where a log or 
rock divides the brook in two parts. You order 
the small brother to go a few yards above, 
where he is expected to execute a wild dance 
in the water, coming slowly down stream, over¬ 
turning the stones with his feet, and being con¬ 
stantly urged to greater exertions. The loach 
are frightened from their hiding places and 
chased below, where the older boy holds a bent 
willow covered with mosquito netting. 
“Go it, old fellow; keep ’er churnin’! That’s 
it! Got a bully one that time!” and he swings 
the net out, slipping the darter, as I have heard 
them called, into his tomato can. 
One-half of the loach is used, the tail portion 
being considered best; and the angler, if new at 
this game, will be surprised at the eagerness 
with which the trout will rush at this bait. Very 
likely it is something like sweetbreads to the 
epicure and difficult for the trout to get. 
You will find, also, that the bait is difficult for 
the angler. The best plan is to offer a liberal 
price to two country boys, sit on a rock, smoke 
your pipe and watch them; it is more fun than 
going fishing, and you will not begrudge the 
price of admittance to the show. 
There are other baits that are good—I re¬ 
member a fat three-quarter pounder caught on 
a helgramite in the Bronx on the outskirts of 
the city of Yonkers—but those already men¬ 
tioned are the most satisfactory. Whatever 
the bait used, it should be thrown with an under¬ 
hand swing up the brook, the fisherman being 
careful to take advantage of every possible 
cover; a bunch of tall fern or a clump of bushes 
—anything will serve. A long light rod is best, 
and a plain cane pole has its advantages if 
provided with rings for the line and a reel. 
Do not use a leader more than two feet long, 
for there are many places in a little brook 
where the line must be shortened to the mini¬ 
mum and the bait dropped into a pot hole 
under overhanging leafy branches. How an 
eight-incher will dart from nowhere as if he 
had been waiting with impatience for your 
loach! 
As to clothing, that does not matter much, 
except it should be old and stout. But do not 
wear a big straw hat, and move as quietly up 
the bed of the brook as if you were stalking a 
moose. 
As my eye wanders from the page I am writ¬ 
ing through my eastward window this glorious 
morning, beyond the meadow the shadows from 
the clouds indolently move across a great hol¬ 
low in the mountains a mile away. A small 
brook comes down there and drops five hundred 
feet in two miles. That ravine to-day is so 
seductive—no other word will do—that as soon 
as the season opens the enthusiasm so begat 
will take me with my rod and basket, and I 
hope to get a few fair fish. 
Fringed with ferns and jewel weed and in 
places under small hemlocks and balsams, the 
brook everywhere is as sweet and pretty as a 
brook can be—and that is saying a good deal. 
And. then, presently the loose stones of the 
bottom give place to a smooth bed of rock, 
and beyond the brook slides down the first of 
the ledges of red sandstone. Here are little 
pools so clear that the bright pebbles in the 
crevices could be counted, although the water 
is five feet deep. 
Beyond the first of the pools the water slide 
is bordered with black-green moss, with yellow¬ 
ish-red rock for the bottom; while the sun sifts 
through the leaves, mottling the mosses and 
