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THE TROUT STREAMS OF AROOSTOOK 
AMONG THE FRATERNITY OF ANGLERS, THEY ARE CONSIDERED 
THE HAPPY HUNTING GROUNDS FOR SPORT AND HEALTH 
A T the time of the honeymoon of 
Spring and Summer, nature’s calen¬ 
dar is marked by the budding of the 
sweetbrier, the blossoming of the straw¬ 
berry, the flowering of the meadowsweet 
and white and blue violets. So, when the 
tulips are in full bloom in the city parks, 
the announcement is always cheerfully re¬ 
ceived by -fishermen that the ice has all 
gone out of the lakes in Aroostook County, 
Maine. 
As soon as I heard it. I promptly 
got my things together and bought 
a ticket for Masardis, a little rail¬ 
road station on the Bangor and 
Aroostook. On our arrival there we 
were swiftly conveyed to the village 
of Oxbow, six miles away on the 
Aroostook River. There are two 
comfortable woods hotels there, 
where we had dinner. And, hurried¬ 
ly arrayed in the vesture of the 
woods, we stowed our stuff in a 
canoe and commenced the trip up 
the river. 
We reached the first camp in the 
evening and caught a few trout in 
a salmon pool, where a brook came 
into the river in front of camp. So 
here we had our first meal on the 
outskirts of the wilderness—for the 
shores of the river there are seldom 
trod by any foot but that of the wild 
deer, the moose, the otter or the bear. 
In the vast fraternity of anglers, 
the name Aroostook is synonymous with 
the finest fly fishing for trout and land¬ 
locked salmon in the United States. In 
no other country is there a greater number 
of ponds, lakes and streams containing the 
regal game fishes. The waters are ideal, 
and their rocky, gravelly or sandy bottoms 
are particularly suited for propagation. 
“It is not all of fishing to fish.” That 
makes fly fishing for game fish worth 
while. The rod and tackle in themselves 
are things of artistic beauty. Undoubt¬ 
edly there is some pleasure in a good 
The Joys of Contemplation Are Only Less- 
By WILLIAM SIMPSON. 
catch or a well-filled creel of the 
speckled beauties with their sparkling iri¬ 
descent bodies, and they are good to eat, 
and the act itself of fishing gives pleasure 
and often thrilling excitement. But it is 
the environments, the out-of-doors, the 
free life of the streams and the woods, 
to be in the open where nature is shown to 
the best advantage, smiling her sweetest 
smiles and ministering to us with her 
sweetest flowers, that make it all worth- 
mother bird proved that heroism does not 
mean the absence of fear but its conquest. 
How splendidly the old bird forgot her¬ 
self in her efforts to protect her young. 
And after she saw her young ducklings 
hidden in the alders and reeds, she flut¬ 
tered off, making a great noise and com¬ 
motion on the surface of the water to at¬ 
tract attention. Then when a good dis¬ 
tance away she flew off and circled to 
where she had left her young brood. 
To get close to it all is not only 
pleasing to the sight but it is thrill¬ 
ing to the innermost part of the nerv¬ 
ous system of our bodies. It is the 
indefinable something within, that one 
enjoys and takes away with him from 
the trout stream or the woodland 
pond or lake, that makes angling a 
unique sport. 
A Good Outfit and a Good Catch. 
while. Here the air is pure and ladened 
with natural perfumes, the birds are bub¬ 
bling over with joy, the beautiful hepaticas 
with their pink and blue flowers creep up 
through the carpets of green moss and the 
wild strawberry invites us to partake of 
the most delicious of all fruits. We see 
the most graceful of all wild creatures, the 
white tail deer, step out into the open to 
drink and to feed on the tender succulent 
grass in the bottoms of the ponds and 
streams. Partridge are • likely to flutter 
across your path, to remind you of 
the lusciousness of 
the banquet that 
awaits you in the 
fall of the year. I 
think that game 
birds, in spite of 
their natural ti¬ 
midity, are the 
bravest creatures 
that live. I prob¬ 
ably will never 
forget the first 
time I saw a wild 
wood duck with 
her brood, from 
our canoe, gliding 
along a placid 
mountain stream. 
How grandly the 
OTWITHSTANDING the pres¬ 
ent craze for speed in the water, 
under the water and in the air, 
the building of speedways and the 
contests for speed on them, the canoe 
has made tremendous strides in im¬ 
provement since John Macgregor 
built the Rob Roy and travelled a 
thousand miles in it in perfect safety. 
At the report of his achievement 
American ingenuity soon got busy 
and every device that could increase, 
strengthen and lessen weight was 
adopted. Cruises have been made in 
Maine-built canoes from Lake George to 
the Gulf of Mexico and from Bangor to 
the Arctic and frozen north. A Maine 
canoe is one of the most graceful and most 
serviceable things that the skill and ingenu¬ 
ity of man has ever produced under the in¬ 
spiration of the wilderness. It is seem¬ 
ingly frail, yet with the master hand of a 
Maine guide it will survive in the roughest 
water and will ride the heaviest waves 
like a duck. 
Canoeing has never been more popular 
than it is at the present time and this surely 
an Those of the Day’s Big Moment. 
'W ' 
