Accordingly with 
spirits high we tried 
the mouth of that 
streamlet, but found 
no trout. Also a wide 
expanse above the 
ford, and it was bare 
of fish. The greater 
part of the day had 
been spent in vain en- 
deavors and I was 
thinking of a famous 
pool half a mile above 
and the ruins of a 
dam more famous 
still, a half a mile be- 
low when things be- 
gan to happen. My 
son who was of the 
party had prevailed 
upon me to take along 
his chum, a lad of 
some fourteen years 
who had not before 
been in the mountains. 
I rigged a rod and 
line for him and presently found him 
| sitting on a rock in the middle of the 
stream, beating about the water with 
| a worm. 


EXPLAINED to him that he would 
_“ not thus catch any trout if he tried 
all summer, that trout were shy, that 
they could see, that he must hide to 
catch them, that this sort of fishing was 
different from throwing a sinker into 
the tide. I showed him how I would 
do it with the finest leader and smallest 
fly. He stared and left me. When he 
‘found me again a few minutes later he 
_ had a brown trout, thirteen inches long. 
I asked him how he caught it. “Just 
that way,” he said, “my way.” 
Now for the triumph of art, I thought. 
_I was then about a hundred yards be- 
low the camp and without a landing 
| 

net: Asking the boy to go and pre- 
THE AUTHORS CAMP SIT 
Scale: ¥ Inch = 250 Foot 

Deep, dark waters—the haunt of leisure-seeking old trout. 
pare supper I said “when you hear me 
shout, bring the net—I will catch a 
larger fish.” 
On the other side of the stream there 
lay an old tree trunk lodged there by 
some freshet. It was imbedded there 
in such a manner, jutting out into the 
current, that from the best vantage 
point a cast upstream of about forty 
feet would just reach one end while the 
other could almost be touched with the 
tip of a three ounce rod. I had with 
me a small white miller, tied without 
wings, on a number fourteen hook. 
This was a sample fly submitted for 
a fly casting tournament and was given 
me for good luck by Mr. A. R. Hanners, 
the president of the New York Anglers’ 
Club. Standing in water almost to the 
top of my waders I began to cast in 
proper fashion at the farther end of 
the log, allowing the current to take the 

fly along its side, at the same time re- 
covering the line almost up to the leader 
and then again with a few false casts 
laying out its full length. 
I believe it was Mr. George La 
Branche who advised this procedure in 
order to make the trout surmise that 
not only one, but a whole flock of white 
millers were floating down the stream. 
I made fifty casts or more, but it was 
useless. Reluctantly I retreated toward 
the shore and stood on the very rock 
where I had given gratuitous advice to 
the boy. I felt discouraged but was 
loath to leave and began to toil again 
in the same manner, listening and 
watching the fly in its course along the 
log, when just about as I was going to 
lift it for another cast it was taken by a 
large brown trout. Though suddenly, 
he seemed to rise deliberately. He ap- 
peared to be in no great hurry, closed 
his mouth over the fly with an audible 
smack and turned tail down without 
great trepidation, only then he felt the 
hook and rushed down stream. I played 
out line and yelled like a mad man. The 
boys tell me that I executed an Indian 
war dance on that rock. I could see 
their faces through the trees in blank 
amazement. Now the trout was coming 
toward me. I reeled in furiously and 
howled louder. At last they under- 
stood, came running and one of them 
jumped knee deep in the water and 
netted the fish in front of me. This 
trout was over twenty inches long and 
the largest I had ever caught. Art 
had triumphed; the boys called it luck. 
A SHORT distance above this spot 
the stream is about thirty feet in 
width and impeded by large boulders. 
(Continued on page 374) 
3043 
