height of the water, only the men who 
have taken their M.A. (Master Angler) 
degree in the university of experience 
now being seen on the quiet pools and 
sparkling riffles, revealing in the love¬ 
liest period of the angling calendar. 
I N spite of this high falutin’ stuff 
that I have just unburdened myself 
of, I must confess to a great deal of 
pleasure in early spring fishing. I am 
much keener to catch a nice mess of 
trout in April than I am in June; by 
the latter time the thrill of hooking 
into a fish has lessened, and the intense 
satisfaction, of feeling the creel grow 
heavier and heavier diminishes as each 
month passes. Just to show that it is 
not all a matter of killing trout in April, 
let me tell you of the least satisfactory 
opening day I ever had. It was the day 
I caught seven brown trout, all over 
three-quarters of a pound, two of them 
reaching the salubrious weight of a 
pound and a half each. I was fishing, 
a lovely little stream that had been 
recommended to me by a very friendly 
game warden. A week before the sea¬ 
son opened we had motored to this 
water together, and my guardian had 
extracted a promise from me that I 
would surely go there on the first. For 
all of which I was and am very grate¬ 
ful. I started fishing in a cold drizzle 
at a pretty little bridge and followed the 
stream down through the hemlocks 
where it spilled from one fine pool into 
another. I fished every inch of a mile 
with a total catch of nothing. Then I 
returned to the 
bridge and started 
up stream. A few 
hundred yards of 
fishing in this di¬ 
rection and I de¬ 
cided to walk 
about a mile up 
into the hills and 
fish down, for the 
simple reason that 
the water was so 
high that nothing 
was to be gained 
by careful and ar- 
t i s t i c up-stream 
' work. So, just be¬ 
low a likely-look¬ 
ing b e n d, I left 
the water and 
walked through 
fields and woods, 
over barb-wire 
fences (the inven¬ 
tion of the devil, 
by the way) and 
stone walls, until 
I not only decided 
that I had gone 
far enough, b u t 
also that it was 
time to devour a 
sandwich. 
After a very pleasant interlude I 
started down-stream, putting my flies in 
all the little back-waters under the 
banks, where fish are liable to lie in 
high water, and letting them swirl in 
as alluring a manner as I knew how 
through every fishable cubic inch of 
Page 166 
water. Not a rise; not even an under¬ 
water tug; nothing. I was thoroughly 
enjoying myself in spite of the drizzle 
and conspicuous lack of action, for 
wasn’t it the opening day? Was there 
ever a true angler who didn’t enjoy 
every minute of the first day of the 
season, fish or no fish? Isn’t it remark¬ 
able how we can put up with numb 
llllilllillllllliiBIIIIIllllllllllllBIIllliilllli™ 
There are a few experienced anglers 
who declare that they find no incentive 
to fish until May has mellowed the 
weather and brought forth the ephe¬ 
meral flies. These men we pity. They 
are as unfortunate as the children who 
no longer believe in Santa Claus. How 
fortunate are they who on the last 
night of March go to bed with just the 
feelings they had as children when they 
retired on Christmas eve. 
... 
fingers, frozen feet, a boot full of water, 
and every other conceivable discomfort 
on that wonderful opening day. Just 
one rise and we are warm; another and 
we are comfortable. Well, there were 
no rises for me on that trip down-stream 
and I had not yet reached the com¬ 
fortable and warm stage when I came 
to the bend below which I had left the 
water some time before. For some un¬ 
accountable reason I had left my waders 
at the hotel, and was wearing boots; 
this prevented my crossing the stream 
above the pool so that I might get to 
the shallow, inside edge of the bend. 
Therefore I had to hang on to an alder 
bush with one hand, the water within a 
fraction of an inch of my boot tops, 
while I dropped the flies on the turbu¬ 
lent surface of what afterwards proved 
to be a very deep pool. About the third 
cast my fisherman’s instinct, or what¬ 
ever you wish to call it, suddenly told 
me that something was going to happen. 
It omitted to say in just what part of 
this bend the event would take place 
and I continued to work the flies in the 
upper section of the bend for some time, 
in fact until I got cramps from the un¬ 
comfortable position in which I was 
fishing. This forced me out of the 
water with the feeling still on me that 
something was going to happen in the 
near future. 
In a few minutes I had gingerly low¬ 
ered myself into another precarious po¬ 
sition, somewhat nearer the spot where 
the water turned sharp to the right. 
My second cast almost caused me to 
slip my mooring. Something had hap¬ 
pened; it felt as though it might weigh 
a few pounds. If you have ever had to 
cling to an alder bush with one hand 
and try to get hold of your line as it 
ran out about as fast as it could with 
your other, in which you are inciden¬ 
tally holding your rod, you will under¬ 
stand my allowing the fish to run out 
almost everything on the reel. And 
there we were. You can’t reel in a 
trout and hold a rod with the same 
hand, and you can’t—at least I couldn’t 
—get off the ledge of rock on which my 
feet were crowded, unless I could for¬ 
get my rod for a minute; and the par¬ 
ticular fish in question, with a flood of 
heavy water assisting him, was prevent¬ 
ing me very successfully from forgetting 
the rod. As I say, there we were. 
Every few seconds 
the trout would 
flop up on the sur¬ 
face and try to 
land me, which, 
by the way, he 
very nearly suc¬ 
ceeded in doing; 
and during the al¬ 
ternate seconds my 
heart was trying 
to come up for air 
for fear I should 
lose this fine big 
brown trout, the 
first fish of the 
season. 
I regret to say 
that I cannot sat¬ 
isfy your curiosity 
as to how I broke 
the deadlock; all I 
know is that final¬ 
ly my foot slipped 
and at the end of 
a very poignant 
minute, filled with, 
splashing, clutch¬ 
ing, stumbling, 
heaving and 
swearing, I found 
myself on the 
bank, with the fish still hooked. After 
that it was merely a question of doing 
the proper thing at the proper time, 
until I had the fish in the creel. 
It took very little mental activity to 
decide that there were some more trout 
in that bend pool; I had fished several 
miles of the stream, without a sign of. 
Released at last from the ice-bound fetters of winter 
