FOREST AND STREAM. 
[MARcH 24, 1906. 



On the Headwaters of the Lamoille. 
In the far north of the good old State of Ver- 
mont—so far that from any of the higher hill- 
tops you may see the blue mountains of Can- 
ada—to the east of the main ridge of the Green 
Mountains, lie the sources of that stream of 
pleasant memories, the Lamoille. As you drive 
northeastward from the little village of Greens- 
boro, perched with its charming lake on the 
high land that rises to the west of the valley, 
you cross one after another the feeders of the 
river, all within five or six miles of the village. 
Indeed the outlet of Greensboro’s own lake is 
one of the largest of these affluents, almost 
equal in size to the river with which it unites. 
But the proper sources of the main stream lie 
further to the northeast in several ponds which 
send down their waters through the tangle of 
cedar swamps to unite in the more open farm 
lands of the valley. These ponds are but three 
in number, yet even so they illustrate in a strik- 
ing manner the system of geographical nomen- 
clature, at once monotonous and uncouth, of 
the transplanted Anglo-Saxon. There is first 
the inevitable “Long” Pond, a pretty lakelet 
three miles from the village, then the equally 
inevitable “Mud” Pond, in this case fittingly 
named, for it has been gradually filling up with 
mud until there is scarcely a foot’s depth of 
water, and lastly, less commonplace but equally 
uncouth, “Horse’ Pond. This last source lies 
but a scant mile to the south of the famous 
Runaway Pond, whose waters fled to Memphra- 
magog a century ago. Here we are on the 
“height o’ land,” as the Vermonters say. The 
Lamoille represents the southern and western 
flow of things, while Runaway Pond and its 
present-day brook trend northward into the 
Barton valley. 
But the embryo Lamoille is not to be sought 
in the ponds alone. In this country of damp 
and boggy uplands every hollow has its spring 
brook. Some of these are mere trickles of icy 
water; others, as the Taylor Brook. are of 
larger volume and will repay with a fair string 
of six-inch trout the humble disciple of the 
worm who has the courage to force his way 
along their oft-concealed channels down through 
the cedars and the briers, and lastly the alders 
and the maples, to the river. 
But if you prefer to use the fly and risk the 
chance of nobler prey, come with me to the 
juncture of the big brooks, a few miles above 
East Greensboro, where the river proper may 
be said to begin. From this point down past 
the towns of Greensboro Bend, East Hardwick, 
and almost to within sight of the larger town 
of South Hardwick, a total distance of ten or 
twelve miles by road, you will find a stream 
nearly all the way ideal for fly-fishing and not 
without its rewards to patience and skill. The 
river finds its way at first down a narrow valley 
to the “Bend,” so named from the huge loop 
in the railroad at that point. Below the 
“Bend” the valley widens, larger and more 
numerous feeders come rushing from the hills 
on the north and east, and the stream rapidly 
increases in volume. ‘The reach of river above 
the “Bend” presents its difficulties to the fisher- 
man, for the current is retarded by several 
swamps where wading is precarious and cast- 
ing, amid the snarl of alders and cedars, often 
a matter of instinct and prayer (?). Moreover, 
there is a lumber mill at the very head of the 
main stream and, despite the State law, the 
course of the river for half or three-quarters 
of a mile is choked with sawdust and blocks 
of wood, and the fishing is not only profitless, 
but exceedingly unpleasant. It is with a grievous 
sense of personal injury that one makes a flying 
leap on to what seemed to be a sandbar and 
finds himself submerged to the hips in a slimy 
bank of decaying sawdust, or casts the ten- 
acious fly beneath a tempting alder only to hook 
a twenty-pound slab from the mill. And it is 
a blessing that the swamps are located just 
here. The sluggish current allows the sawdust 
to settle and in times of high water strands 
most of the floating debris, so that the stream 
comes forth from these bogs polluted, indeed, 
but nevertheless relieved of most of the actual 
refuse and possible as a habitation for the 
fastidious trout. It is tantalizing to consider 
what would be the result of a strict enforcement 
of the law upon this natural trout preserve. 
Even as it is, many noble fish manage to live 
in those polluted waters, although they are 
growing steadily fewer, and if the law could be 
enforced, there is little doubt that the stream 
would recover much of its former reputation. 
The swamps are too difficult to be seriously de- 
pleted by legitimate fishing and the many 
spring brooks afford excellent spawning 
grounds for the old fish and perfect nurseries 
for the young. Within the memory of man 
noble strings of trout have been taken from 
this portion of the river. Once as we lunched 
by an old mill on these upper waters, we were 
entertained by an old Scotchman, who had lived 
for more than fifty years near the river, with 
stories of the conditions of thirty and more 
years ago. Laying his rod with its home-made 
leaders and flies beside him, he accepted our 
proffered cup of coffee and told us, between 
puffs on his short pipe, how, many a time, on 
a wager he had upheld the honor of the fly 
against the bait over that identical mile of 
stream. “But,” he added with a sigh, “Ye can 
ketch on’y a few o’ them nowadays.” A rare type 
of Vermont fisherman, this; and only once again 
have I seen a farmer-fisherman wielding the 
flv-rod. The ordinary type is the fellow with 
a bean-pole rod—not a veritable bean pole, but 
the article sold in the country store as a “jointed 
rod’—a worm, and, dangling from his belt, a 
lard pail, the hole in whose cover suggests the 
native contempt for the six-inch law. When- 
ever I see one of these fellows splashing along 
through the stream—and they are usually good 
fellows enough save in their determination to 
keep all the ‘“‘little fellers’—I am reminded of 
the answer of one of the right sort to a friend 
who accosted him upon his return from an ex- 
pedition after mountain trout on which ‘he had 
gone much against his will, deserting his 
favorite meadow stream. 
“What luck, John?” said the friend. “How 
many did you get?” 
“O, ’bout a pint!” answered the disgusted 
John. 
Verily the average Vermonter measures his 
catch by the same means. Nor is this the 
prevalent attitude in Vermont alone. At North 
Woodstock in New Hamshire, not many years 
ago, I was directed by a farmer’s wife to a cer- 
tain brook where I could catch “any number 
of trout.” In high hopes I set out, and spent 
the day in removing from my flies and return- 
ing to the water forty or fifty fingerlings. When 
I returned to the farmhouse with nothing to 
show, it was clear that the good wife thought 
little of my skill and her convictions were 
strengthened when, a few days later, one of the 
hands returned from that very brook with a 
pail half full of slaughtered innocents. 
But as to the Lamoille, the old Scotchman 
was right: “You get few o’ them nowadays.” 
But if you bear in mind that the Lamoille is a 
“civilized” stream, exposed to depletion at the 
hands of the mill man, the bean-pole infanti- 
cide, and I am afraid at times of others who 
employ still more reprehensible methods, not 
to speak of the legitimate fishing natural to a 
stream flowing through a prosperous farming 
country, you will be content with a dozen or 
fifteen fair sized fish in a day. For when all 
is said, the trout are only one, albeit the most 
important, of the many charms that draw you 
to the river, and though your string may be 
small, as strings go, yet there is always the 
chance of a real trout to urge you on. For 
there are trout of size in the river in spite of 
all the abuses to which it is subject. Moreover, 
the fly is rather a novelty in this stream and 
the fly-fisherman runs rather a better chance 
than his brother of the bait. I well remember 
my original “discovery” that there were trout, 
and large trout, in the river. For several years 
we had _ been ’ spending our summers in the 
charming old village of Greensboro, only two 
or three miles from the river, but I had con- 
fined my fishing to the lake and the brooks. 
Previous experience had led me to doubt the 
existence of trout in a stream which ran through 
three good-sized villages, on whose banks at 
intervals of less than half a mile stood farm- 
houses, some of them so near that one could 
cast a fly from the steps into the water. And 
then there were the mills and at times the ap- 
parently polluted water. But one lucky day the 
thought came that it would do no harm to try 
the river; it was a beautiful place to practice 
casting anyway. And so we drove, my wife 
and I, to the beautiful stretch of water just 
below East Hardwick, and while the old horse 
ambled along the river road to the village where 
my wife was to wait for me, I jointed my rod 
and with no hopes at all waded in. But to my 
surprise I soon began to catch fish, little fel- 
lows of six or seven inches at first, then some 
a bit larger, and then—the shock. TI had 
reached a pool where the river turned sharply 
against a high bank. The water flowed against 
a huge boulder imbedded in the bank and the 
main current was dashed aside to pass between 
this boulder and another large rock lying al- 
most submerged in mid-stream. It was getting 
on toward lunch time and I made what was in- 
tended to be my last cast, dropping the flies 
in the swift channel just beside the sunken 
stone, when, snap! a large fish struck the tail 
fly and carried it beneath the rock. I was far 
more surprised than the trout. But my sur- 
prise soon gave place to worriment when it 
flashed over me that I was using a No. to fly 
and an old frayed leader and, worst of all, that 
I had no net. It was clear that nothing but 
luck and the most careful handling could save 
that fish. Up and down and around the pool he 
went, rubbing the already weakened leader 
against the rocks, while I kept all the strain 
on the line that I dared use. Finally he showed 
signs of exhaustion, and gently, very gently, I 
led him toward a bar of pebbles and sand, 
shortening my line gradually until I could al- 
most reach him. But the sight of my insidious 
hand sneaking toward his gills roused him to a 
final effort. He gave a tremendous flop and 
lo! the leader parted. 
That trout weighed two pounds if he weighed 
an ounce. I had ample time to take in his 
goodly proportions as he lay exhausted in the 
still water within ten feet of me, slowly fanning 
himself back to life before he sought once more 
the friendly shelter of his rock. I wended my 
way in silent thought up to the dam in the 
very center of the village. Still in a dazed 
condition I stood there in the very shadow of 
the mill and the post office and took two nice 
fish from the pool below the dam. Then we 
drove home—without the big trout. “T grow 
older ever learning something new.’ 
From that day I devoted myself to the river, 
abandoning the brooks almost entirely, and al- 
though I have never landed a fish as large as 
