The Bass of the Killbuck 
Depicting the Thrills of Landing a Few Wary Ones on the Fly 
O write about the 
Killbuck has long 
been my desire—not 
however because I 
want to attract 
strangers to its 
Sh wr 6.9 9 tor ean 
afraid they would 
meet with disap- 
pointment. 
It takes time and 
patience to get re- 
sults in the Killbuck. You must go 
again and again, but to us few fly- 
fishermen who have ready access to it, 
it has amply repaid our efforts. 
A spring-fed stream it is, spring-fed 
from source to mouth, clean, cool water, 
its current cutting along its mud and 
clay banks where lie the two and three 
pounders. Long draws and pools filled 
with boulders, ripples a-plenty; swift, 
but not too swift. 
An ideal fly-casting stream is the 
Killbuck—open and approachable from 
both banks for its whole length. 
My friend Joe and myself dropped 
down to the stream one afternoon in 
early September to try out a new $50. 
fly rod we had just received. Our luck 
for the preceding two weeks had been 
very poor and Vic, the “Herringgut”— 
who is another nut on fly-fishing—had 
sworn vehemently that there were no 
more bass in the blamed creek. Joe 
simply smiled at this outburst and 
looked wise. The hope of hooking one 
or two of the big ones we know are 
there is what keeps you fishing the 
Killbuck. They don’t come easy and 
we are mighty glad of it. 
On this occasion we started in at 
Dunham’s draw, a long stretch of boul- 
der-filled water and a beautiful place 
for bass. Dunham’s has yielded many 
a fine old 2%4-pounder, a number of 
which got away afer fighting all over 
the place. It certainly does tickle us 
to have a game old fighter win his 
freedom. 

OE had the “rich man’s rod” and 
was ahead of me casting down- 
stream. We had about reached the 
ripples at the foot of the draw with- 
out stirring up anything, when he 
turned back and handing me the rod, 
told me to try out the “feel” of it. I 
took it and made a few preliminary 
casts and then shot the fly down to the 
head of the ripples in the middle of the 
stream, 
282 
By EDWARD TROLLER 
A huge water spout arose, made a 
mad rush and missed the fly by six 
inches. It was a clean miss; never 
touched it. 
We were both so surprised that we 
plumped down backward on the bank, 
speechless. “He won’t try that again 
for some time,” I remarked after we 
came to. 
“Oh, I dunno,” said Joe, “try him 
again just for luck.” 
I made a cast a little upstream. 
Nothing doing. Another cast a little 
farther up and—“He’s got it. He’s 
got it,’ I yelled. 
He did have it, hooked solid, and we 
landed a beautiful 2%-pound small- 
mouth bass. We rested this pool and 
beat it off downstream, full of joy, to 
the pool by the wire fence just below 
the big spring. 
Joe crawled under the wire and made 
a cast. I heard a yell and looked up 
just in time to see 1% pounds of bass 
twelve inches in the air with a fly in 
his mouth. A pretty fight and another 
small mouth was landed. 
AKING a cast at the head of this 
pool, I felt a dull thud on the end 
of my line and another beauty made 
two desperate leaps and was gone. An- 
other yell from Joe on the other side 
of the fence and again a dandy took the 
air in a succession of runs and jumps. 
This one soon joined his mate in the 
creel. 
Resting this pool, we dropped down- 
stream again to the big clay bank. 
This place would enthuse “Old Izaak” 
himself. A clay bank thirty feet high 
dropping sheer to the water, the shore 
fringed with short willows and the clear 
water strewn with large boulders, a 
perfect drawing-room for bass. You 
can stand on the opposite shore and 
drop your fly right under the willows 
among the boulders. 
It is this stretch of the Killbuck that 
calls you again and again, for here 
lurks that big one. Not many of them, 
two or three a season is all you’ll get, 
for this is supposed to be a fished out 
territory around this section of the 
country and to catch bass on a fly 
where there “ain’t any” is quite a trick. 
Of course this will make the 35 or 
40 a day boys up at the lakes, laugh. 
That kind of fishing is simply fishing 
and gets monotonous, but to pit your 
skill against the wary old bass of the 
Killbuck—and they are wary too—is 
sport. Thirty or forty nice bass landed 
during the fly season and every one 
fished for and fished for hard is sport 
enough for anyone. Then again we can 
take them home and eat them. We 
don’t have to force them on friends who 
tell you they just love fish—and then 
throw them in the ash can. 
Goa back again to the clay 
bank. Results this time were nil. 
After returning four or five “nubbins” 
to the water, we started back upstream. 
A “nubbin” on the Killbuck is a small 
bass, one too small to keep. We copped 
this name from one of the farmers 
along the creek, who when asked how 
the corn was this year, replied, ““Nothin’ 
but nubbins. Nothin’ but nubbins, ears 
too small.” A small bass thereafter 
was a “nubbin.” 
Now just to show you that you never 
can tell about bass fishing, I cast care- 
fully all the way back to the wire fence 
without results, thoroughly covering 
every foot of the water. Joe followed 
behind me, casting more for the fun 
of it and not expecting to get anything, 
because we had gone over this water 
twice. I stopped at the fence and 
waited. Hearing a yell, I looked back 
and there he was fast to another. This 
one put up a splendid battle and proved 
to be the largest one of the day, a fine 
old 234-pound small mouth. 
We now had four dandy bass which 
for a few hour’s fishing ought to satisfy 
anybody. 
Such is the bass fishing on the Kill- 
buck. It will fool the experts. 
The “Herringgut,” the man who 
swore there were no more bass left was 
down the next day. 

On the fly 
