154 
FOREST AND STREAM 
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ter to dry land, carefully leading the fish 
to quiet shallower parts. It is more com¬ 
fortable, you are safer while playing, and 
it is infinitely more easy to net at the river 
side, besides giving less disturbance to 
other fish, where yours came from. To a 
beginner in trout fishing, the details of 
how a fish should be played and netted 
are bewildering. Because the tricks of big 
fish are so varied no single description will 
suffice, experience and the loss of a few 
fish will be found the best teachers and 
guide to future success. 
T HOUGH there are sure to be other 
fish in this same pool, we must move 
on now to cover our prescribed 
ground. So we will cut off the dry fly, 
to fish with a brace of wets, tying a female 
shadfly to the end of the leader, with a 
redbug as upper. 
Stepping in the water, this time to the 
arrow’s point, we cast downstream fifty feet 
to those two fish lying at the mouth of the 
brook, between the two G’s. If a fish re¬ 
sponds, work it up towards you. net it, and 
cast again with an additional ten feet of 
line but without moving from the spot you 
first took. Let your flies swim under wa¬ 
ter at will, but mainly in the bubble line. 
Net all the smaller fish where you stand 
in the water, but go ashore to land a big 
one. 
Now step forward and wade to within 
casting distance of the whirlpool at G, 
casting right to the center, when the flies 
will be forced ’round and ’round till at 
last the current takes them further down 
towards the rapid deeps to a point at A. 
You may let out one hundred feet and 
work the flies from one line of bubbles to 
the other, to bring them slowly back again 
first on one side, then the other. In this 
favorable spot half a dozen fish should be 
creeled. 
After fishing the wet flies with more or 
less success you step directly to the bank 
at G on the right side of the stream, cross¬ 
ing the brook, walking along out of sight 
from the whirlpool and riverside till you 
arrive at the shallow sandbar, I. Then 
you change the wet flies to dry flies—brown 
drake or sailor drake, depending upon 
what you observe on the surface. In front 
of the pussy willows at I you make short 
casts to A on the right bank and to A on 
the left bank, having the rod tip follow 
the fly in these 30-foot short casts. You 
can afterwards make an effort of 60 feet 
from the shallows at I to the whirlpool 
at G, fishing up the rapid deeps thoroughly 
well. If you have been careful, the fish 
have not seen you and both runways will 
be certain to afford good sport. 
The rest of the plan should be fished in 
a similar manner. In all cases, you are 
wise to fish from the opposite shore for 
the runways, or if the river be too deep 
to cross, always fish them upstream, be it 
far or near casting. If you fish them with 
wet flies, take care to have at least fifty 
feet distance from you to the quarry. 
T HE plan shows a mile of the River 
Neversink in the Catskills region of 
New York, where I fish every year. 
All the water is fruitful, having been repeat¬ 
edly stocked by the late Dr. Tarleton Bean. 
State Fish Culturist. Unless the water is 
low it must be fished from the sides. Dur¬ 
ing July and August, big trout from 3 to 
5 pounds stay at the bottom of pools ten 
feet deep, to be captured only at evening 
when they will rise to flies, or by minnows 
during the day. 
Trout will never reside long in an un¬ 
fruitful situation, and should a favorite 
haunt, where food is concentrated, be rath¬ 
er crowded by their fellows, they prefer 
contending or fighting with each other for 
a share of it. I do not think brown trout 
molest brook trout after the latter attains 
to xo or more inches, as many instances 
prove, they being caught frequently within 
a yard of each other. 
Large trout will choose a favored spot 
and stay there during the entire season if 
not molested or caught. When they are 
caught, the place will speedily be taken by 
smaller fish. That is why, year after year, 
I catch fish in precisely the same spot. 
I shall conclude with a brief note on in¬ 
sects and flies, which, next to a thorough 
knowledge of where trout lie, needs the 
most careful study and many years’ ex¬ 
perience if we desire to be an accomplished 
angler and not a fish hog. If you have 
acquired a collection of the most well- 
known native and imported dry and wet flies, 
Halfords, Wests, and other modern pro¬ 
ductions, and intend to continue their use, 
your only course is to choose those you 
think similar to the insects in flight, trust¬ 
ing to chance rises. Quite a few Eastern 
anglers tie excellent flies, a famous one 
(and very good fly), tied by the late Theo¬ 
dore Gordon, may be purchased at the 
shops. Another, tied by G. La Branche, is 
also well known. George Cooper, of De 
Bruce, ties an excellent fly, as does Mrs. 
Harrington Keene. 
Naturally, your interest in them is merely 
that they are a lure of feathers—beautiful¬ 
ly tied, no doubt, and they may or may not 
be the trout’s fancy. Anyway, you are not 
personally interested in the higher form of 
fly fishing so much as you would be if you 
tied your own flies from the natural in¬ 
sects. But if you will refrain from fishing 
now and then (I know it’s difficult when 
time is short), you can profitably spend a 
few hours in the study of trout insect food, 
get familiar with the time each species rise, 
and then learn to tie imitations of them. 
This, to my mind—fishing with your own 
make of lures—brings you to the supreme 
height in the craft. You are as intimately 
connected with the fish as with its food. 
Your interest is doubled, and you get ad¬ 
ditional vim from the sport. If you cannot 
tie them yourself, you can purchase Amer¬ 
ican nature flies tied by the best British 
fly makers from colored insect pictures 
in “American Trout Insects.” 
Fly fishing can only be called an art when 
we take Nature into our confidence, study 
her aspects, and be familiar with her or 
part of her—not alone brutally bent on 
catching all there is, any old way, and then 
boast and brag of our prowess. We should 
school ourselves at all times, when asked 
by a stranger or friend: What luck, broth¬ 
er? to answer always cheerfully back: 
Nothing doing. 
That is the boldest, manliest stand a 
true angler can assume. 
But I confess it is much more pleasant 
to open the creel and expose to view half 
a dozen nice fat trout, wearing on one’s 
face an agreeable smile, and proving with¬ 
out needed comment that we know where 
trout lie, and the ways to capture them. 
HERE’S ONE THING OL* SIS 
TURTLE DON’T TARRY AT.’ 
The manner in which a turtle constructs 
her nest is both interesting and suggestive, 
it being one of the most expeditious opera¬ 
tions ever performed by that slow moving 
creature. 
After selecting a suitable spot, she begins 
digging out a hole with her hind legs, by 
moving slowly in a circle and throwing the 
excavated sand in a rim all around it. 
When that is about eighteen inches in depth 
and twelve in circumference, she drops her 
eggs into it, pulls the rim of sand over them 
and rising on all four legs, lets her body 
drop heavily on the covering sand until she 
has made it as compact as any part of the 
surrounding beach. She then makes a few 
false demonstrations on the shore to mis¬ 
lead inquisitive enemies, and hastens to the 
sea as fast as she can travel. 
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