
Where brook meets river—the favored feeding place of trout. 
To Know 
a ; 
Trout River 
Intimately, One ~ 
Must Tarry — 
a While 
on 
Its Shores 
Camping on the Stream | 
HE persistent angler fishes a 
oe stream often and carefully. He 
soon finds that some parts are 
productive of fish while others are not. 
He thinks he knows the stream. A 
better acquaintance with it gained 
through camping on its bank would 
teach him otherwise. It would be a 
revelation. The first night would be 
unforgetable. Let me tell you. 
I too had fished on a certain famous 
trout stream in the foothills of the 
Catskills for a row of seasons with 
varying results. Most of the trips had 
been hasty, forced and too short. I 
had longed for more intimate knowl- 
edge of the stream and at length found 
sufficient leisure for a camping trip. 
Arriving one evening at the railroad 
station with my. outfit and with two 
boys, neither of whom had been on 
such an adventure, I acquainted a na- 
tive with my purpose. This man had 
often led me through these mountains 
in former years and was supposed to 
know every foot of the ground. He sug- 
gested a certain grove of sugar maples 
on the farther side of the stream about 
six miles distant. 
An old Ford car soon brought us to 
the home of a farmer who readily 
granted consent. We began to carry in 
our luggage for about a thousand feet 
through a plowed field to a ford in the 
stream and waded knee deep for about 
thirty yards to the other side. Just 
below to the right lay the grove of 
sugar maples on the water’s edge. We 
scrambled along in the dusk on a cow 
orvAe 
J42 
Byee BBE Rooms 
path skirting the stream through a 
tangle of driftwood and up and down 
over decayed moss-covered trunks of old 
hemlocks, and finally found the only 
place level and large enough for a tent, 
close to and high over the water. 
Darkness overcame us erecting the 
tent poles and we stretched our canvas 
by the light of the campfire. We wanted 
a secluded spot and we found it. A 
sprawling water birch and the branches 
of huge maples hid us from view of the 
other shore. I shall never forget that 
night. The stream sang a new song. 
Often I heard it again, having since 
camped on the identical spot half a doz- 
en times but never since have its notes 
been so varied, so clear and human. 
Like sounds of distant sleighbells, now 
here, now there, now farther on, now 
with a louder moan it seemed. And 
from above the ford, where rocks re- 
strain the swirling surges, a hum of hu- 
man voices meets the ear, like a crowd 
in approbation. From down _ below, 
around the turn, where in the “glide” 
the waters leap and tremble, their 
angry protests rise, now sharp, now 
low like sonorous distant thunder. 
TTENTION leaps from sound to 
sound endeavoring to encompass 
all in one vast symphony, when splash, 
a trout at our very feet, adds joy to 
hope and wonder. The music of the 
stream now fades away. We are asleep. 
Too soon again we awake and draw 
our blankets close and closer still, but 
we can not keep it out, that insinuating 
cold. Over we roll over again, but we 
are colder still. A twig breaks and tne — 
sound of scampering tiny feet waxe up 
a forest songster. One soft low note, 
half drowsy, plaintive as though he ie:t — 
like we, and from afar there is a cheery © 
answer. The day has dawned. Though — 
in the month of May, the meadow near 
by is white with frost. Strewn with — 
diamonds, it sparkles in the rising sun 
which floods the stream with gold. 
XAMINING the water for some dis- 
tance above and below the camp, 
I found familiar places. On the oppo-— 
site bank about a hundred yards be- 
low, where later in the summer a mass _ 
of forget-me-nots hides its mouth, a 
small cold streamlet enters. Here I re- 
called having encountered a few years” 
before, a school of brook trout. Several 
were then caught and returned to the 
water. Above the ford where the 
stream hurls itself through a narrow 
channel against. the rocky shore and 
turns to form a wide expanding sheet, 
I had seen my first dry fly. A solitary 
rhododendron there one evening cast. 
dark on the water which 
showed a rising trout. From afar two 
anglers were endeavoring to reach the 
spot, making casts of thirty yards and 
more with ten foot rods. Their lines 
seemed coarse and heavy but when the — 
fly shot out, paused in mid-air, and like | 
some dizzy falling insect fluttered down, 
it was an inspiration. I saw one catch 
the trout. ; 
shadows 
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