
FOREST AND STREAM. 




SILA, ANNID TOTWIBLR TETISTBMING 




A Sea Angler Ashore.—VI. 
One would hardly think that Santa Cruz, with 
its mountains tumbling into the sea, its splendid 
red woods, its many trout streams, born in the 
shadow of giant trees, which doubtless sprang 
into life before the Christian era, needed ally 
speciai allurement to attract the angler. Yet 
when I entered one of its inns, one: cool night 
in the spring long after midnight, almost the 
first object my eyes fell upon was a leaping 
“orilse,”’ not a mere fingerling, but a lusty fellow 
of comely shape and fair proportions. 
Observe the coincidence. A _ belated traveler 
intent on fishing enters the inn. ‘There are sev- 
eral, possibly a score or more in Santa Cruz, so 
the late arrival might possibly be on a tour of 
inspection; he might take exception to some- 
thing in his pre-registering glance about the 
apartment, but at that moment the trout leaps, 
the boy seizes his rods, the die is cast, a man 
so fond of trout must know where they are to 
be had, a logical conclusion, and so the traveler 
becomes an inmate of the Steelhead Inn. ‘This 
is not the name over the door, but it might well 
be, as in the office, confined in a roomy tank, 
were twenty or thirty of the most interesting 
steelhead salmon trout it was ever an angler’s 
good fortune to see. 
Some landlords are particularly and unduly 
sensitive, as when I asked the steelhead host if 
this trout was trained to leap as guests came in, 
and were trying to decide whether to stay, he 
resented it and said the fish were tame and his 
pets, and to prove it introduced me to them, as 
it were, handed me some meat which I held over 
the tank while the trout sprang out of the water, 
and took it from my hand, then crowded about 
the front of the tank and eyed me in friendly 
fashion. The innkeeper then asked me to indi- 
cate a fish to be taken out. J picked out a large 
fellow, whereupon, thrusting his arm into the 
tank the fish submitted and allowed him to take 
it out of the water, and more, reclined in his 
palm without a_ struggle. Indeed, this trout 
lover, for such he was, said the fish rather liked 
it, and when he replaced it the fish rubbed against 
his fingers, and my fish in the tank would submit 
to this handling, displaying to me at least a re- 

markable docility. The secret was that he had 
raised them from the eggs, which had mostly 
been taken from the little streams that came 
down the deep cafions of the Santa Cruz range. 
Every time I passed through the office these trout 
crowded to the glass, faced me in long silvery 
green and spotted lines, and begged for some- 
thing more substantial than flies for which they 
leaped and snapped with avidity. 
The Santa Cruz mountains are a spur of the 
coast range which reaches out into the sea, form- 
ing the northern boundary of the bay of Mon- 
terey. They are not very high, but are deeply 
wooded with splendid forests of sequoia (Semper 
virens) which a century ago covered every hill, 
dale and cafion, and which to-day present one 
of the most inspiring pictures of tree growth in 
the world. Cousins of the great sequoias of the 
Mariposa region in the Sierra Nevada, they rise 
to sublime heights and assume proportions that 
place them among the wonders of the land. The 
range is cut, pierced, furrowed by deep cafions, 
which are the beds of little rivers like the San 
Lorenzo, the Soquel and others, mimic cafions 
of the Colorado cutting knife-like down through 
the rocks of ages until the walls rise hundreds 
of feet from the stream or slope down with 
gentle incline, the sides and summits dark with 
giant trees, rich with forests of fern and brake, 
a natural park through which I was carried to 
the upper range, as I proposed to fish the San 
Lorenzo down stream and follow the gulch or 
cafion to the sea. There are few more accessible 
places in America, as this forest is penetrated 

by a narrow gauge railroad which skirts impas- 
sable canons, crosses minor ones, shelves built 
one thousand feet up like the paths of the cliff 
dwellers, carrying you up until you look down 
on the giant trees. Again there is a mountain 
road smooth and well watered up to the sum- 
mit; or, you can walk up the San Lorenzo and 
creep into the very heart of the cafion. 
I compromised by trying it all ways and found 
each had peculiar charms of its own. On the 
fishing trip we climbed the range by carriage, 
going slowly that we might enter into the full 
enjoyment of it all. 
“T reckon you can reach the river through that 
brush, mister,’ said the driver, pulling up as 
a big ten-in-hand of oxen and bulls came along 
hauling two teams of shacks, the bulls bearing 
bells which chimed in a melodious fashion. So 
on, following the sound of rushing waters, I 
made my way down to the little river born of 
the big trees and still cutting its way down into 
the rocky heart of the Santa Cruz range. 
The canons of the southern sierras are fairly 
open, but this little stream seemed very much 
shut in by contrast with a turquoise top, across 
which vagrant fog flecks were running. The 
San Lorenzo is a hard river to fish. One is more 
than apt to forget fishing and look at the scenery, 
but the lure is tied on with that magic knot 
where the eyed hooks are used, a diminutive 
royal coachman made for dark nooks and corners 
of redwood forests. A look behind to navigate 
the line, a bend of the wrist, and the fly drops 
languidly into the long musical ripple among the 
amber shadows, back and down again a foot or 
two, then over into a little snug harbor where 
a vagrant sycamore leaf has dropped and sailed 
away back, and then a silver band catches a bril- 
liant sunbeam, the reel sings an answering note 
to the brassy-throated bluejay that is following 
you down stream, and as you instinctively strike, 
up into the air goes your trout, a glorious fellow 
built for these chambered halls, these alcoves of 
green. He carries you around a turn where a 
new vista spreads away, a little series of moun- 
tain lakes, held by the cafion, and here in the 
open, the trout makes its fight, hammering on 
your line like a salmon with the wonderful 
strength of a grilse and its sea-born vigor, leaps 
to show you its beauties and to lure you by its 
charms to some open stretch, circles the pool, 
comes in on you faster than the line can be 
reeled, then up into the air in a splendid leap 
he goes and deftly flips the fly from his mouth, 
and sends it whirling at you. 
Beyond the next turn in a deep and dark pool 
I lured a fish which went into the air so quickly 
that I was sure it was a rainbow, but the glint 
of the sun on its silver sides told the story of 
another steelhead fresh from the sea, a fall run- 
ner full of life, a ground and lofty tumbler which 
went head over tail into the air, three pounds 
of animated silver that lunged, rushed, tumbled, 
laid broadside on and played so many tricks with 
the four-ounce rod that I could not but believe 
that it would escape. 
You may know the trout at its best, the sudden 
rush, the extraordinary power for so small a 
fish, the exuberant fancy of the game, as it leaps 
high into the air, striking at the line with its tail, 
and you will agree with me that compared to 
it the rainbow is a laggard and the brown, cut- 
throat or even the brook trout a gay deceiver. 
I gained ten feet to lose twenty, and having 
a very delicate tapered line and a long slender 
leader, I played it gently, and so was taken down 
the stream over little rapids, around bends and 
almost lost it a dozen times before I came to 
serious work and hegan to reel. 
How it laid back and hammered on the line 
and tested my tackle a score of times are facts 
engraved on my memory as I slowly brought it 
to the net, yet I almost lost it, as when it saw 

the corded menace creeping toward it, that mys 
terious something without body, soul or shape 
which everyone knows but does not understand} 
the fish was away again seemingly all its vigoi 
unimpaired, making a gallant rush that nearly) 
carried it out upon a little beach of shining sandk 
then back it came into deep water, and when || 
dropped the net and rounded it up into the ai 
it sprang again to fall and surge, fight and ham 
mer at the bending rod; then, my net at the bot, 
tom, I slowly dragged in until I reached thy 
shallows, then brought it struggling up the sands §; 
There is no question but that the salt water | 
its fierce winds and the consequent extremes 0}} 
temperature put extraordinary life into the sal-j, 
mon and their cousins. fF 
Those I caught off Capitola several miles all, 
sea could have towed two landlocked or rive 
habitués of the tribe in any water. A _ steelheac 
in the Russian, San Lorenzo, Santa Ynez O14, 
other river is a match for a landlocked rainbow \} 
two to one, at least in my estimation, with ali 
due deference to others who may not think so h 
I lost another large fish near here and laid it} 
to a split leader, and after fishing down the), 
stream a mile or more with varying luck, climbee F 
the bank to pass the noon under the trees while ¢ 
all self-respecting trout in the San Lorenzo were h 
taking a siesta. 
Curiously enough the wind was in the east,|, 
as off shore—at least in summer or before Octo-|, 
ber—the waters are clear and calm, and instead ¢ 
of a climatic siesta at noon the wind rises, blows ; 
heavily for several hours, generally bringing in : 
the fog, the friend of the redwoods, which range|f 
from here north into Washingtou and far along; 
shore. 



the wind, and most of them 
through the anglers of old, Du Bartas, Denys 
and others to the classical myths; anglers who 
doubtless visited the Temple of A£olus, which 
had upon its hexagonal sides flying figures of 
the winds. Eurus was the east wind, and even 
to-day in bad repute, and was shown as a “young 
man flying with great impetuosity.”’ Auster 
was the southwest wind, an old man of gloomy 
visage, “a head covered with clouds, a sable| 
vesture, and dusky winds.’ He can be counted 
on to-day in California at least to ruin the fish- 
ing and send with his sou’wester the same to| 
the four winds of Heaven. All sudden and! 
heavy showers the ancient angler laid at the 
door of Auster and still does. A mild and 
gentle wind, the kind which ripples the pools| 
of San Lorenzo, coming through the big red-| 
woods with gentle touch, is from Zephyrus. 
a 
0 
“Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows, 
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows.’ 
It was Zephyrus who wedded Flora and visited | 
all lands according to the old Athenian belief. | 
Surely they tarried on the San Lorenzo where 
flowers and gentle winds are always found. In 
December, when storms come rolling in, the 
dark forests are beaten and bent. Corus, the! 
northwest wind, is the cause. Aquilo gives the | 
west wind, and Boreas, which the San Lorenzo 
knows but little of, garbed in impenetrable fogs, | 
does but little harm in the Santa Cruz moun- 
tains. Indeed, he had his own range, the hyper- 
borean mountains from which he occasionally 
ventures forth to ravage less favored lands. All | 
these gods of wind had a firm hold on the fancy 
of the anglers of old and they have meaning | 
to the angler of to-day, and by the angler I mean 
the fly-fisherman, the imaginative, impracticable 
dreamer (for the day at least) who haunts the 
streams, brooks and lakes of all fair countries. 
The slopes of this deep caficn seem especially 
designed for a mid-day angling siesta, but in 
lieu of this I climbed the grade among gigantic 
redwoods where I could see fifty trees from 

6 ee a eee 
] 
“ ee 4 ( 
Anglers have various superstitions regarding |; 
can be traced), 
) 
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