119 
March, 1923 
during the daytime, and I see no reason 
why a fly fisherman should not try to 
take his share of them along with the 
men who fish for them with live bait 
and worms. Night fishing on smaller 
waters, for smaller fish which will rise 
during the day, is a horse of a different 
color, and to my mind one can well af¬ 
ford to leave these fish alone after dark. 
A WORD now as to the tackle for 
wet fly fishing. In general I like 
it to taper down to the stretcher fly— 
just as Walton recommends. A seven 
K or eight-foot leader, tapering from light 
trout size down to XXX drawn, with 
a dropper loop at least three feet from 
the lower end is my prescription. I 
use for a dropper fly one which is a 
size larger than the stretcher, or end 
fly. Thus on a clear May day, when 
the water has fined down, a size four¬ 
teen Greenwell’s Glory for stretcher, 
with a number twelve Olive Quill above, 
make a very useful tandem. Naturally 
the line is a tapered one. There is some 
theory but a great deal more actual ex¬ 
perience behind this desire to have the 
tackle taper: one makes a far neater 
cast with it, and the trout show their 
■ appreciation for neat casting by rising 
more often. Doubting Thomases must 
try it for themselves if they don’t believe 
me. To have a good taper, and use flies 
mounted with snells, is the source of 
some difficulty. Those responsible for 
the tying of most commercial flies are 
only too apt to disregard the necessity 
for very fine gut on small sizes. 
It is quite necessary to have the snell 
of the dropper match the gut of the 
leader at the point where it is attached, 
and even more important to have the 
snell of the dropper at least as fine as 
that of the lower end of the leader; 
otherwise it is almost impossible to lay 
the flies on the water neatly, and to have 
the point at which the fly and leader 
loop together look as it should. Of 
course one may use eyed flies without 
snells; this entails the use of tippets for 
the dropper, which are a nuisance, and 
means renewing the bottom link of gut 
on the leader every so often—another 
unmitigated nuisance. Just one more 
word on the subject of flies: they should 
tend to • be long and narrow of wing, 
with quite sparse hackles. The hackles 
should also be soft, instead of the stiff 
variety such as are used on dry flies. 
The proper wet fly hackles are taken 
from hen birds, as a rule, and allow the 
fly to be sunk easily. A wet fly which 
lies over on its side, floating on the 
surface, runs a very poor second to a 
nicely cooked dry fly; and we should 
see that our flies are wetted thoroughly, 
so that they will sink below the surface 
as soon as they fall. This does not 
mean that they must be fished a foot 
under the top; it means that they must 
just go under without any tugging at 
them. A generation ago anglers paid 
a great deal of attention to their hooks, 
today they appear to be content with 
whatever the tier chooses to use. Here 
again, although theory hovers about the 
outskirts of the subject, experience has 
shown that the hook can be either good 
or bad. I have found by actual trial 
that Capt. Hamilton’s hooks for large 
trout, as made by Hardy Brothers, Ltd., 
Alnwick, England, are not only the best 
for wet flies, but for dry flies also. An 
eyed hook is always preferable to a 
plain one, whether a snell is used or not. 
The old Sproat hook is a good one; also 
the Limerick in small sizes. To the 
angler who likes to land his difficult 
fish, and who is content with nothing 
but the best I strongly recommend the 
Hamilton hooks. There is a very good 
looking hook with flattened sides, known 
as a forged dry fly hook; I have had 
some very unhappy experiences with 
this in times gone by, and unless these 
hooks have been greatly improved in 
temper and strength since I used them 
they may be let alone with profit. 
How few anglers of today ever think 
of sharpening their hooks ! And how im¬ 
portant it is to have the very sharpest 
points. Illustrative of the almost total 
lack of interest that is exhibited in the 
(Continued on page L39) 
BIG-MOUTH BASS IN FLORIDA 
TUCKED AWAY AMID THE PINES AND SPANISH MOSS ARE 
MANY LITTLE LAKES TO TEMPT THE WINTER VISITOR 
By GEORGE H. MORROW 
■ 
1 RECENTLY made a trip to the back 
woods of Florida where numberless 
small lakes abound containing plenty 
of black bass. 
My companions consisted of a tall, 
lean - looking Floridian named Walter, 
and Paul, a young fellow lately arrived 
from Phoenix, Arizona. Walter was a 
native of the country and knew where 
the best fishing places were to be found 
and was thoroughly familiar with the 
habits and haunts of all the wild things 
that roamed the timber. 
It became evident, after we had pro¬ 
gressed some time into the woods, that 
we were getting into low ground. There 
were marshy lakes almost hidden by 
dense undergrowth and semi-tropical 
shrubbery. Towering pines fastooned 
with Spanish moss, green squatty oaks, 
flowers in abundance and each little pool 
of water entirely surrounded with a ring 
of dense vegetation. 
Arriving at a place somewhat higher 
than the surrounding ground, Walter 
? pulled up and announced the end of the 
journey. We clambered out and soon 
were ready for the offensive on the bass. 
Walter discovered the old boat lie had 
hidden some time before, and after we 
had bailed her out and got aboard the 
fun started. Paul and 1 were casting 
and Walter handled the boat. Paul got 
first blood by hooking a three-pounder, 
and from then on things happened “right 
pert,” as they say in Texas. It was 
seldom that we made more tharna half a 
dozen casts without getting a strike, and 
most of the fish were of good size, run¬ 
ning from a pound and a half to five. 
We had fished one little inlet of the 
lake and pushed through a narrow chan¬ 
nel between the mainland and an island, 
when we came into a large body of open 
water. This place looked particularly 
good, and Walter verified our opinion, in 
his characteristic drawl, by allowing, 
“I’m surprised if you all don’t hook 
some real trout in here.” He called 
bass, as do all Floridians, trout. We 
had not proceeded very far when I 
noticed a bunch of hyacinths which pro¬ 
jected some twenty or more feet out into 
the open water ahead of the boat. I 
made a mental calculation if there were 
any big fish in the lake they would cer¬ 
tainly be there. It was identically the 
right kind of a spot for some old veteran 
to be hanging out in. 
Shifting my position slightly so as to 
cast directly ahead, I made a try some 
ten feet past the point and three or four 
feet away. I pulled slowly across but 
nothing happened. I tried again with 
no result. The third time I resolved to 
get my bait as near the point as possible 
without touching. I made the cast and 
it lighted perfectly: about three feet be¬ 
yond and just so that in pulling up, the 
bait would be about six inches away 
from the edge of the projecting hya¬ 
cinths. 
Just as the red and white floater came 
abreast the clump there was a ripple in 
the water. I felt a sharp tug and the 
bait disappeared. Two seconds later a 
bass broke water ten feet off the shore 
line. It was then we all realized what had 
struck the bait. Coming up full length 
out of the water, shaking the hooks on 
the plug till they fairly rattled, that old 
battler looked as large as a Swift’s pre¬ 
mium ham. Paul let his rod fall into 
the boat and jumped up with a yell like 
an Indian, and Walter, losing his cus¬ 
tomary lethargy, broke into the bedlam 
of noise that Paul was making, with such 
advice as: “Give him time, suh; don’t 
pull too hard; careful with your line, 
suh; keep him in deep water." 
All this time 1 was thinking if I had 
only put on a new line. I couldn’t keep 
my mind off (he fact that the line 1 was 
using was two or three years old and 
1 was afraid it wouldn’t stand the rushes 
(Continued on page 140) 
