The reason trout congregate in pools 
just below rapids or waterfa!l!s, is that 
vast quantities of floating insects are 
driven round and round the pool cur- 
rents right under which trout lie poised 
constantly, swimming up for food. 
Le you take a handful of foam lying 
beside a sunken log or rock you will 
find it contains a large quantity of liv- 
ing and drowned insects. If you see a 
fair sized brook flowing into a large 
stream, the pool below its junction is 
bound to contain a number of trout, 
the situation being preferred because 
brook water is of lower temperature 
than the main stream, more especially 
during warm weather. When you see 
a rippling runway passing through the 
middle of a large deep pool, depend 
upon it, trout only lie directly under 
the runway and not in the wide placid 
waters at each side, however deep it 
may be. When the river dashes over a 
steep incline, the only trout situations 
are just below the quiet waters in the 
middle of two runways formed by large 
rocks. 
These runways contain a never end- 
ing supply of insect food, though the 
situation is commonly very difficult to 
fish, yet when caught the trout are more 
gamy, because the swift running food 
requires a like action to get it. Those 
trout which feel sluggishly are usually 
less gamy in action on a restraining 
line. When their food is taken on the 
* bottom, trout will hardly ever leap 
above the surface on a restraining line. 
If they rush and leap after their food 
they also do it to resist capture. When 
trout fail to respond to the anglers’ 
flies, cast on the surface, they are either 
feeding at the bed of the stream or near 
the midwater on the vast quantity of 
nymphs that continually rise from the 
stream bed to the surface and there 
development into adult insects. For 
such conditions it is best to fish wet 
flies just below the surface or nymphs 
at the bottom. 
Trout never habitually abide near 
or at the surface, they always stay near 
the river bed to dart up for food, then 
back to the bottom. Unless the water 
is fairly deep, they never stay near the 
stream side, except at night the larger 
fish roam the shallow sides after min- 
nows. 
WV HEN the river is in flood they 
move from the rushing torrent to 
quiet back waters where both insects 
and minnows take refuge from swift 
waters in places where the current goes 
round in a circle. If you drop a sunken 
bait or fly at the edge nearest the main 
rush of water you will get trout. Per- 
haps the most fruitful places to get 
large fish is at the foot of a runway, 
formed by the junction of two fair-sized 
streams, or a large tributary to the 
main stream. Trout are always to be 
found in highly aerated water, formed 
by large boulders half or fully sub- 
merged, though they prefer to lie just 
out or below the wildest rough waters, 
and at times they lie in quiet currents 
directly under the turbulent surface. 
TRICTLY speaking, trout are not 
gregarious, they do not congregate 
together like bass, in amiable relation- 
ship. Trout are decidedly unneighbor- 
ly, fighting savagely among themselves 
for a preferred situation, that when 
secured they valiantly defend from 
every invader, big or little. These 
chosen above are taken, first, for abun- 
dance of food nearby, second, for secu- 
rity and safe retreat from danger. It is 
true that several or a greater number 
will locate in large pools where they 
take a spot or situation and keep it 
generally in a line, one after the other, 
each fighting many battles to retain 
a chosen spot, and at those places where 
the flow of food is most abundant the 
strongest and largest are sure to be 
found. 
Should any one leave its place by 
night to forage elsewhere, and return 
to the same spot, if occupied by its fel- 
lows the fight is again resumed for pos- 
session, more especially if a good food 
situation. Should a 
large fish be cap- 
tured from under a 
rock in a quiet se- 
cluded pool, the fol- 
lowing day it will be 
occupied by a smaller 
fish. This remark- 
able feature of trout 
habits continues ex- 
actly the same, year 
after year. I have 
captured trout in 
identical positions 
every season for 
twenty years, though 
it happens some- 
times a certain 
stretch of water or 
large pool is sud- 
denly barren of fish, 
and the reason for it is the river cur- 
rent formation has changed by reason 
of floods, ice jams or other causes to 
remove the usual food supply, thus the 
angler will see the importance of a 
most careful study of currents and 
runways. 
Variations in the temperature of the 
water and the air exercise a great in- 
fluence on trout, as, indeed, it does on 
insect life. At early seasons of melted 
snow water, aquatic life is absent—the 
river is dead as yet, minnows, creepers, 
insects and other creatures are not seen, 


and until they move about in the water, 
trout are dormant lying flat on the 
riverbed or: covered under mud or sand 
to avoid the chilly water. 
Peek temperature induces all 
aquatic denizens to active life, and 
several warm days in April make a sud- 
den and wonderful change, very grati- 
fying to the waiting angler. Later in 
the season, on cold blustery days, in- 
sects are not moving and you find small 
success with your lures. This, of course, 
applies to large rivers. Small brooks 
are less affected—their rapid course 
through wooded districts is a protection 
from freezing, and in such places small 
brook trout may be captured through- 
out the cold months with the fly as a 
lure. Such conditions prevail in lakes, 
where the deeper parts never get such 
a low temperature that trout may not 
feed on bottom creepers. 
In the large rivers where pools are 
12 to 20 feet deep and a twelve inch 
covering of ice protects the under 
water, trout move and feed on what 
creatures they can find moving near the 
river bed. The impatient angler must 
change his attitude, first learn to know 
what food trout consume and where it 
exists, then learn what is best in lure 
and fly to entice fish to take it. In the 
past, when fishing failed, he placed all 
his faith and efforts in earth worms 
with more or less 
success, less I im- 
agine, if his knowl- 
edge of trout habits 
be scanty. At the 
present time, condi- 
tions are very much 
the same and that is 
why I hope the in- 
formation in this 
paper founded upon 
many years of pa- 
tient study and re- 
search will lead the 
angler to a new 
path of keener de- 
light in his recrea- 
tion. The alert up- 
to-date angler will 
far better accom- 
plish it if equipped 
with a supply of bottom lures, hand in 
hand with knowledge of how, when and 
where to use them, but he can only do 
so and do it rightly by some better 
understanding of the natural habits of 
wild trout. 
E have twenty-four forms of 
salmon trout in the waters of 
North America, to which should be 
added three important species—the 
brown trout, Loch Leven, and European 
trout, which were imported about 1880 
(Continued on page 305) 
267 
