_Salmo fontinalis._
This well-known and greatly prized game fish is found between the
parallels of latitude 50 degrees north and 36 degrees south, though
in Labrador, in latitude 54 degrees, and in the Appalachian mountain
ranges as far south as the northern border of Georgia and South
Carolina, it has been taken in abundance. Northwestern Minnesota is
its northern limit, and it is only occasionally caught west of the
Mississippi River, except in a few of its tributaries. Specimens
weighing seventeen pounds have been taken, the largest being found in
the Nipigon River, in Ontario, and on the north shore of Lake Superior,
where the seventeen-pound specimen referred to was caught. It is found
in the large lakes and in the smallest ponds, the tiniest brooks and
the largest rivers. The Nipigon River is forty-five miles in length and
has a depth, in places, of from one hundred to two hundred feet.
Although a bold biter, the brook trout is wary, and usually requires
all the skill of an experienced fisherman to capture it. The bait
commonly used to entice it to bite is artificial or natural flies,
minnows, crickets, grubs, grasshoppers, fish spawn, or the eyes or cut
pieces of other trout. Its period of spawning is from September to the
last of November, and it begins to reproduce its kind when about two
years of age, when it measures some six inches in length. In the early
summer the trout sports in rapids and swiftly running water, and in
midsummer finds a retreat in deep, cool, and shaded pools. In August
and September the females gather about the mouths of gravelly brooks,
whither they resort to make their spawning beds.
With age the habits of the trout change. When young they associate in
schools and play together constantly, usually choosing parts of the
brook where the bottom is muddy, in which, if startled suddenly, they
bury themselves for safety. This does not often occur, however, as they
prefer any little projection that juts out over the water where they
can hide until the danger is past. As they grow older they separate,
and each one chooses his own particular hiding-place, the larger trout
taking the deepest holes and largest projections and leaving the
smaller relations to shift for themselves. The older they grow the
wiser and more wary they become, hence the necessity of considerable
skill to land a wary old trout. Angle-worms are considered the best
bait for trout, but in the spring, after the usual freshets, which wash
vast numbers of worms and insects into the water, they bite better at
the more tempting bait of a fly.
Practice alone will enable one to catch this wary beauty. One must know
not only how to catch it but where to find it, and some knowledge of
entomology is essential at the very beginning. It is desirable to have
some acquaintance with the insects that live in the water, under the
water, and over the water, and whose habits in great part influence the
movements of the fish.
Miss Sara J. McBride, an accomplished naturalist of Mumford, New York,
in an essay published some years ago in the _Forest and Stream_,
taught the lesson of entomology we have referred to, as applied to the
angler's purposes, in the following words:
"There is a large order of insects that live the first stages of life
in water, where for weeks, months, in some instances years, they hide
under stones; carve an abiding-place in submerged driftwood; feed on
decaying vegetation in lazy, inert masses; burrow in the earth beneath
the current; weave together bits of wood, gravel, stones, and floating
debris, forming retreats that surround them as they swim or daintily
walk; spin of silken thread individual domiciles that they guard
from intruders with the valor of soldiers, or bodily and singly dash
out in the current, swimming with agile rapidity. These are all fish
food. But it is only when they assume the perfect form, when they cast
aside their aquatic nature, and with gossamer wings float in the air,
that they are of interest to the fly-fisher--as he seeks to deceive
the finny tribe with their imitations, made of feathers, tinsel, and
mohair. Insects are enfeebled at all changes in their life, and at
each successive moult, when the pupa case is broken, too weak to keep
guard, they flutter and rest on the water an instant before flitting
away. At this instant many are seized by the wary fish. Insects leave
the water mornings and evenings, particularly the latter, rarely at
midday, never during rain storms or heavy winds. It is at these times,
when they are leaving the water, their imitations are used to most
advantage. It is that insect floating off into a new element that the
fish are watching and waiting to feed on. At other times you may cast
with success your favorite 'brown hackle' with its golden ribs and
steel backbone--the bland professor, the modest queen of the water, or
the grizzly king with his gray locks and flaming sword. Things which
resemble nothing in the heavens above, the earth beneath, or the waters
under the earth--why fish take these, whether from curiosity, or by way
of dessert, no one perhaps will ever know, not fully understanding the
nature of the fish. But there is one thing we do know, that when the
countless myriads of these tiny creatures are entering a new life in
untried regions, the favorite flies will be thrown in vain. The fish
will regard with contemplative indifference every other lure but a
close imitation of that particular insect.
"One evening we sat on the bank of a creek, bug net in hand, watching
the trout and the birds of the air feeding on a neuropterous insect
that is constantly repeating the cycle of its life,
'As yet unknown to fame,
And guiltless of a Latin name.'
The stream was in eddying whirls of ripples from the constant 'leaping'
of the trout. Now and then one bolder than the rest would dash out of
the water its full length to seize its departing prey, which sometimes
escaped to become a precious morsel in the mandibles of a watching
bird. Many of these insects would float on with the current, never able
to unfold their soft, creamy-wings, and become easy victims. On the
opposite bank was an angler. For an hour in patience he whipped the
stream, now up, now down, with 'red hackles,' 'white hackles,' 'black
hackles;' he changed fly after fly in vain. At length he folded his rod
and passed away among the shadows of the night, without so much as a
bite, without so much as a chance to tell of the big fish 'hooked' but
lost.
"There are many aquatic insects double brooded, or under favorable
circumstances, of a succession of broods. Imitations of such can be
used throughout the summer months. There are many insects that do
not breed in water, yet are successful baits. As a rule, insects
that appear in large numbers, whether they belong to land or water,
are the proper ones for imitation. Solitary specimens, although dear
to the heart of an entomologist, are eyed by the fish with haughty
indifference. Water is a great attraction for all insect tribes.
The banks of streams constitute the favorite hunting-ground for
insect collectors, where they compete with the fish, those practical
entomologists, in collecting. Some insects come to drink, others in
search of prey, for insects are cannibals, while very many are the
sport of the winds. It is probably the bright sheen of the water that
draws the fluttering moths into its depths. All nocturnal insects
have a strange infatuation for glistening light. What the attraction
is for some is beyond the ken of mortals. A _Tipulidæ bibri marci_,
or in piscatorial language, the hawthorn fly, an insect whose life
is beneath the surface of the earth eleven months of the year, comes
crawling, creeping out of the ground on warm June mornings appareled in
new livery. After resting awhile on low herbage, all, as if guided by
one impulse, fly to the nearest stream. We have kept those insects for
weeks in confinement, and they would neither eat nor drink. But every
morning for hours they congregate over streams. Keeping time with the
ripple of the water, they hold a May dance; darting hither and thither,
occasionally touching the water to go down the current, or else down
the throat of a fish.
When these bright creatures are holding high carnival above, the trout
positively refuse other enticement. The larvae of moths is a favorite
fish food, and consequently successful bait. Hibernating larvae are
drawn from their retreats in warm spring days, and continue the
pilgrimage they commenced the previous fall. In their wild journeyings
on and on before spinning the pupa shroud, they fall victims in
attempting to cross streams.
Hairy caterpillars feeding on the trees are blown off by the winds,
or their silken thread is broken, as they hang under the leaves in
shelter from the rain. Imitations of those known to the American by
the familiar term of hackles are to be used after winds or during
rain storms; also that compromise between larvae and image known as
the hackle fly. No bait has ever been used that has given as general
satisfaction as this anomaly. It is a common remark that fish will not
bite before rain. The reason is probably that food is never offered at
such times. The natural instinct of the insect forbids its leaving
the water or flying abroad if rain is threatening. The breathing-pores
are situated on the outside of the body near the insertion of the
wings. They are soon clogged and closed up by the water, and the down
washed from their bodies; their wings draggle and become powerless,
and they suffocate flying in midair. This is the reason winged insects
on touching water drown so easily. Insects do not invariably appear
at the same times. A cold spring will retard their development for
months, while an unusually warm spring or summer will hasten their
appearance. Insects in the water are the most affected by changes of
temperature. Any guide for a fly-fisher would be almost useless unless
this important point were remembered. English works can never become
positive authorities for our climate. Insects which appear there
in vast quantities are rare here, and _vice versa_. Some that are
single-brooded there are doubled-brooded here. Some that appear there
in one month visit us at another, while we have many alluring baits
here that the classic waters of the British Isles would regard with
bewildering amazement."
In fishing with worm for bait, good fishermen say, it is better to
choose a still, cloudy day indicating rain, as the fish are then hungry
for insects. An expert trout-fisher will begin at the head of a stream
and fish down it, always keeping some distance from the bank to avoid
alarming the fish.
The speckled beauty, as the brook trout is universally called, as a
food fish is by many considered unsurpassed, the flesh being firm
and well flavored. Others, however, regard it as only an occasional
delicacy.