March 14, 1908.] 
FOREST AND STREAM 
421 
ANGLING FOR EARLY FISH. 
In Missouri the catfish opens the season. 
From a photograph by Charles Noble Smith. 
missed and Frazer scored in the fourth round. 
The scores: 
Perry D. Frazer till A. Humphrey.. 0 
G. Mitchell. Ill C. McCarthy.... 0 
A. J. Marsh.... 1 1 Chas. Stepath.. 0 
Dr. Held . 1 L. S. Darling.. 0 
EXTRA EVENTS. 
Then followed two impromptu events, the first 
one a miss and out, the second five casts for ac¬ 
curacy. The scores: 
Miss-and-out. Accuracy. 
A. B. Humphrey. 1111 007 10 5—22 
Harry Friecfmanv. Ill 0 7 7 0 0—14 
A. J. Marsh. 1 1 0 7 7 6 6—26 
Perry D. Frazer. 1 1 7 6 0 5 0—17 
C. J. McCarthy. 1 0 8 6 5 0—19 
L. S. Darling. 0 0 0 0 9 6—15 
E. B. Rice. 0 7 0 6 7 0—20 
G. Mitchell . 0 0 5 5 7 6—23 
Charles Stepath . 0 9 0 0 5 0—14 
Dr. Held . 0 0 0 8 0 0—8 
E. J. Milte. 5 0 0 9 0—11 
EVENT 29—FLY-CASTING CHAMPIONSHIP. 
The final event of the tournament was 
held Saturday night, March 7. It was open 
to all and cast with heavy fly-rods. King Smith 
won with 99 feet 4 inches, a big score under the 
conditions, which were even worse than on Fri¬ 
day night, as the crowd around the swimming 
tank interfered with the back cast and the leader 
caught on various obstacles. The scores: 
Feet. Feet. 
King Smith . 99 4 C. J. McCarthy. 85 
Perry D. Frazer.... 97 
Fly-Fishing For Bass. 
Philadelphia, Feb. 24. —Editor Forest and 
Stream: I have read the interesting article by 
Mr. Leonard Finletter of Philadelphia, in your 
last issue. Fly-fishing for small-mouth black 
bass in the deep waters of lakes, etc., has been 
to me a very interesting subject for the last 
three years, during which time nearly all my 
fishing has been for small-mouth bass in the 
deep water lakes of Pennsylvania. Having 
usually met with good success my experience may 
possibly suggest something to your correspond¬ 
ent, who inquires “as to details, such as kind, 
size and number of flies used,” etc. 
First, as to kind of flies: My best success in 
waters where I have fished has been with white¬ 
winged coachman, bucktail, Plenshall, white- 
miller, Reuben-Wood, and grizzly-king. When 
bass in these waters will not strike at some of 
these, they are not feeding. 
Second, as to size; for deep lake waters I like 
2/0 bass hook, sproat preferred. With this sized 
hook, which is too large for river fishing, its 
catch averages larger, and will not be as much 
interfered with by small fish. Use a good-sized 
hackle on the body of fly. 
Third, as to number of flies; I never use more 
than two; a tail fly and a dropper, three feet 
apart. 
The most important points, however, are the 
time and locality. It is useless to fly-fish for 
small-mouthed bass until dark, when these fish 
work up to shore in quest of frogs, crawfish, 
millers, etc., and along such shores as have 
gravelly and rocky bottoms, with shores more or 
less wooded. I have never had great success in 
moonlight and then only in making a cast too 
far to properly handle a large bass. 
The most important of all is to manipulate the 
fly which must be so handled as to make the 
dropper fly imitate a live insect kicking himself 
along on the water. 
If your correspondent will follow this out on 
some Pennsylvania lake stocked with small¬ 
mouthed black bass on some dark evening in the 
“good old summertime,” with a careful boatman, 
and casting ahead and inshore, keeping perfect¬ 
ly quiet, I will guarantee he will not go far be¬ 
fore he will have an experience which will soon 
require the use of a good-sized landing net. 
Frank. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The experience of one who has been fly-fish¬ 
ing for bass in the waters of Pennsylvania for 
the past twenty-five years may be some help 
to Mr. Leonard Finletter, so here it is. 
In my experience of fly-fishing for bass I 
find that most fish run in weight from l / 2 to 2 
pounds, in length from 9 to 14 inches, and that 
out of a possible dozen you may have one to 
weigh 2j4 pounds, and during a season’s fishing 
you may credit your score with two or three 
fish weighing 3 pounds or a little more. 
I prefer a high-grade lancewood, or a first- 
class split bamboo rod, about 10 or io l / 2 feet in 
length, to weigh not more than 8 ounces, not 
less than 6 l / 2 ounces. My line is a medium- 
weight tapered fly-casting line, about 75 feet in 
length; my reel a “Featherlight,” and my leader 
9 feet in length, of extra good selected gut 
with'dropper loops. I prefer flies tied on a 
No. 4 sproat hook, and when I send an order 
in for flies I usually send a sample, so that there 
may be no mistake as to the way they are tied. 
Every angler has his own opinion as to which 
flies are the greatest killers. I think I am 
fortunate if I have in my fly-book an assort¬ 
ment like this: Governor John Mann, Gov¬ 
ernor Alvord, Seth Green, queen of the water, 
coachman, brown hackle, black hackle (red 
body), gray hackle and orange-and-black. With 
this assortment I am perfectly satisfied to tackle 
any of the streams of Pennsylvania, where bass 
are reasonably plentiful, and feel confident that 
I shall have good sport. 
I consider the months of July, August and the 
first two weeks of September as the season for 
the most satisfactory results in fly-fishing for 
bass. When fishing the streams of this State. I 
prefer to wade, because in making the back 
cast you are usually so far out in the stream 
that your flies will not come in contact with 
high weeds or grass, and besides you are able 
to approach the most likely looking places for 
fish more quietly, and have more room to cast 
than you can from the shore. 
Mr. Finletter speaks of the kind of water one 
should fish with flies. My experience has been 
wholly on rivers and streams, but I like es¬ 
pecially to fish the deep pools along the stream, 
where the water runs off to one of the shores, 
so that one can wa'de in. In such places one oc¬ 
casionally gets a strike from an old bronze back 
that almost makes his hair stand on end. Some¬ 
times when you have hooked a good-sized fish 
and are playing him, you suddenly find his 
weight has very perceptably increased, and on 
getting things in shape, so that you can see, you 
are astonished to find not only one, but two, and 
sometimes three good-sized fish on your cast. 
I have often watched a second bass take the 
fly, and have seen as many as three and four 
following my flies when I had one hooked. 
Finally one would dart in and take a fly and of 
course get caught, for in his efforts to escape 
the first fish hooked made a sure job of hook¬ 
ing anything that took hold of the flies. 
If the moon is young, I prefer to fish from 
4 o’clock in the afternoon until 9 or 10 o’clock 
at night. When there is no moon, the best 
hours are from 6 A. M. until 11 A. M., and 
from 2 P. M. until dark. 
I have fished the Raystown branch of the 
Juniata; Kettle Creek, a tributary of the Sus¬ 
quehanna, from Trout Run to the iron bridge. 
These streams are among the best in the State 
for bass. The Auwick River, a tributary of 
the Juniata, is fairly good, and I think the fish 
run larger in size than in some other streams. 
Two or three years ago, while fishing on the 
Auwick River, I had a hearty laugh at the ex¬ 
pense of a man who thought bait-casting was 
the only way to successfully take bass. Our 
party, composed of Ed. R. Stewart, Chas. F. 
Bell, Dr. J. H. Glass, Denning Stewart and 
myself, met during a week in July on the banks 
of the Auwick to fish for bass. The doctor and 
