For instance, the male _ spent-gnats 
were on the water in the mornings, but 
never at night. I cannot explain this, 
but a friend who fishes the Cana- 
dian waters has made the same ob- 
servation. 
[8 the mornings from 3:30 until Old 
Sol poked his head over Mt. Katah- 
din at 5:15 and all action, piscatorially 
speaking, ceased, I found nothing so 
taking as Spent Gnats, Halford’s Spent 
Gnats or Mills & Sons’ Spent Gnats, in 
fact, several other patterns of Spent 
Gnats, all with delicate hackle-point 
wings, for the water was full of 
the male H. bilineata (let’s call 
the imagos Brown Mays or 
Brown Drakes), which had per- 
formed their procreative function. 
Anglers of wide experience with 
Maine waters have said _ that 
Daicey Pond and its near neighbor 
Lost Pond contain more big trout 
than any other body of water in 
the State, and this statement can 
well be believed after an experi- 
ence with the Green May Fly 
Hatch. It is to be hoped that this 
will put the quietus to the loose 
talk which we heard last summer 
from irresponsible novices about 
petitioning the Fish and Game 
Commissioner to restock Daicey 
and Lost, and other Sourdnahunk 
waters. It is simply 
impossible to fish 
them dry, and _ re- 
stocking, with the 
inevitable hybrid 
trout resulting there- 
from, would indeed 
be a calamity. .Far 
better would it be to 
stock these waters, 
especially Lost, with 
various ‘aquatic in- 
sects, aS was success- 
fully done in Adiron- 
dack waters some 
years ago (Marbury: 
Favorite Flies, 1896, 
page 281). 
A fall of spinners 
is quite as interest- 
ing as a hatch of 
duns, but these inde- 
scribably beautiful 
little creatures seem 
to select the evenings 
or other inconvenient times for ovipo- 
sition when the eye of man is not upon 
them. 
Gee sultry July afternoon during 
the time the smoke from the forest 
fires up Quebec way obscured the sun 
and gave us five days of artificial twi- 
light, when the whole camp was rest- 
ing and everyone said it was useless to 
Page 263 
fish in such heat, I took my rod and 
box of Halford’s to Hyde’s Pool on the 
Sourdnahunk Stream to practice slack- 
line and up-stream loop casting, if 
nothing more, for the Pool offers a 
wonderful opportunity for acquiring 
skill in overcoming “drag.” When I 
reached the Pool, the light being sub- 
stantially that of late evening, I ob- 
served a few little white spinners, too 
delicate to preserve, flying over the 
water, and very shortly afterward 
more appeared, seemingly coming from 
the woods, until the air was soon filled 



















A gurgling, joyful, boulder-filled trout stream 
with the gracefully-gyrating insects 
moving with almost military uniform- 
ity back and forth throughout the 
length of the deadwater, the individual 
flies dipping at intervals into the 
Stream and instantly bounding up 
after depositing their eggs, and even- 
tually dropping to the surface with out- 
stretched wings and floating away. 
The trout were on the rise long be- 
fore the fall was at its height, and 
created a commotion which, consider- 
ing their size, was quite commensurate 
with that made by their big brothers of 
Daicey during the Mayfly hatch. 
PAE TER my half-dozen Halford Pale 
Watery Spinners, male and female, 
No. 15’s, had been worn down to the 
horsehair, I tied on, with great reluc- 
tance, Halford Iron Blue Spinners, 
male, No. 15’s—with great reluctance 
because this, the most beautiful little 
fly ever tied, with its tri-color body and 
delicate white hackle, seemed al- 
most too dainty to use. But one 
after another, they were bitten to 
pieces and I returned to camp 
with three compartments of my 
Halford box quite empty—Nos. 16, 
17, and 20. How many trout? 
Not more than four dozen, cer- 
tainly not less than two—one 
doesn’t keep accurate count under 
such circumstances. I saved six 
one-half to three-quarter pound 
fish. Some of the fish put back 
were as large as those I kept, 
many were smaller. What odds? 
Is it not harder to take a half- 
pound trout with No. 15, dry, then 
a four-pounder with a No. 6, wet, 
and a heap more interesting? 
Once, on Kidney Pond, I ran 
into a fall of “grannom,” possibly 
not Limnephilus stri- 
atus, probably not, 
but an exact dupli- 
cate in size and color, 
green egg-sack and 
all, of Mills’ No. 15 
Grannom, and while 
it lasted, my only fly 
of this size and pat- 
tern was well taken, 
but strange to say 
my No. 12 wasn’t. Is 
this an argument for 
the formalists? The 
fly had a_= greyish 
body, dark thorax, 
green egg-sack and 
grey triangular 
wings, one of the 
Phryganidae certain- 
ly, but my formalin 
so changed its color 
as to make positive 
determination impos- 
sible. 
During the first week of June we 
found on Daicey and Slaughter Ponds 
large numbers of gigantic winged 
black-ants, quite like Ronald’s Great 
Dark Drone, so like it, in fact, that we 
may as well call it Dolorus niger. 
This was not exactly a “fall” in the 
usual sense of the word, for the ants 
were on the water much against their 
(Continued on page 306) 
