40. Hod.
41. Kingdom.
42. Oak Fly.
43. Gray Coflin.
44. Fire Fly.
45. Beaverkill.
46. Yellow May.
47. Black Jun.
48. Quaker.
“Often the whereabouts of a trend is betrayed by a break or a leap from
the surface, and the wide-awake angler will make it his business to toss
his fly over the spot sooner or later. Sometimes the trout rush at the
lure like a flash, leaping clear over it in their eagerness. They are
difficult to hook then.”—_Charles Hallock._
“No description of the brook trout, that has ever been given, does him
justice. It stands unrivalled as a game fish.”—_Theodatus Garlick,
M.D._
“The best flies to use are imitations of those which are born on the
water; for, though trout will often take land flies, and indeed almost
any insect you can throw on the water, yet it is on the water-flies
which he chiefly depends for his sustenance.”—_Francis Francis_.
“A trout does not always get the fly when he attempts to; it may be
lying against the leader, making it impossible for him to get it in his
mouth; you may strike too quickly, taking it out of reach; the strike
may be too hard, tearing his mouth. More trout by far are pricked than
hooked. Practice only can teach you when to strike; you see a faint
gleam under the surface, when you instinctively twitch, to find you
have hooked a beauty. Few fishermen can separate force from quickness of
motion. Never use your arm in making the strike, only your wrist; then
will the difficulty be overcome.”— _T. S. Up de Graff, M.D._
“Innocent stranger! Thou who readest these lines! perhaps you never
caught a trout. If so, thou knowest not for what life was originally
intended. Thou art a vain, insignificant mortal! pursuing shadows!
Ambition lures thee, fame dazzles, wealth leads thee on, panting! Thou
art chasing spectres, goblins that satisfy not. If thou hast not caught
a trout, this world is to thee, as yet, a blank, existence is a dream.
Go and weep.”—_Thaddeus Norris._
“On one occasion the writer was awakened at a very early hour, when, lo!
Mr. Webster, who happened to be in a particularly playful mood, was
seen going through the graceful motions of an angler throwing a fly and
striking a trout, and then, without a word, disappeared. As a matter of
course, that day was given to fishing.”—_Lawman’s Life of Webster_.
HOW TO CAST A FLY.
By Seth Green.
I am asked a great many times what is the secret of fly-casting? There
are three principles. First, quick out of the water; second, give the
line time to straighten behind you; third, throw. I will explain these
principles more definitely.
Raise your rod straight up, or nearly so, the inclination being
backward; then make a quick stroke forward. When you take the line from
the water it should be done with a quick jerk; then give your line time
to straighten behind; then give it the same stroke forward that you did
to get it out of the water.
Why so many fail in fly-casting is, they throw the rod backward too near
the ground behind them, and when they make the forward stroke, and the
line gets straightened out, it is some distance above the water and
kinks back, so that when it falls upon the water it lies crooked, and
is some distance short of what it would have been if it had struck the
water as soon as it was straightened out.
If a fish should strike at your flies at this time you are pretty sure
to miss him. By never throwing your rod back more than to a slight angle
from the perpendicular, and making the stroke forward, your line goes
straight out and the flies go to the point you desire.
Great care should be taken when you have thrown the line behind you,
that the line is given time to straighten before making the stroke
forward. I have thrown seventy feet of line against a strong wind,
first, by giving my rod a quick, strong back stroke, carrying my rod
but slightly back of the perpendicular, and giving my line time to
straighten behind me, then making the same stroke forward that I did to
get it back of me.
I nearly forgot to mention that it is more important to have your line
fit your rod than it is to have your coat fit your back.
You may think it strange that I should tell you three or four times over
in the same article, that in order to do good fly-casting you must
throw your rod back only just so far, and then wait for your line to
straighten behind you; and when your line is straight, to make a quick
stroke forward, without carrying your rod forward, even a little, before
delivering your line, but these movements are the essential principles
in flycasting. By observing them one may hope to become a skilful
fly-caster.
TROUT:
MEETING THEM ON THE “JUNE RISE” BY “NESSMUK.”
There is a spot where plumy pines
O’erhang the sylvan banks of Otter;
Where wood-ducks build among the vines
That bend above the crystal water.
And there the blue-jay makes her nest,
In thickest shade of water beeches;
The fish-hawk, statuesque in rest,
Keeps guard o’er glassy pools and reaches.
Tis there the deer come down to drink,
From laurel brakes and wooded ridges;
The trout, beneath the sedgy brink,
Are sharp on ship-wrecked flies and midges.
And of the scores of mountain trout-streams that I have fished, the
Otter is associated with the most pleasing memories.
It is, or was, a model trout-stream; a thing to dream of. Having its
rise within three miles of the Tillage, it meandered southward for ten
miles through a mountain valley to its confluence with the second fork
of Pine Creek, six miles of the distance being through a forest without
settler or clearing.
The stream was swift, stony, and exceptionally free of brush, fallen
timber and the usual _débris_ that is so trying to the angler on most
wooded streams. Then, it was just the right distance from town. It was
so handy to start from the Tillage in the middle of an afternoon in
early summer, walk an hour and a half at a leisurely pace, and find
one’s self on a brawling brook where speckled trout were plenty as a
reasonable man could wish.
Fishing only the most promising places for a couple of miles always gave
trout enough for supper and breakfast, and brought the angler to the
“Trout-House,” as a modest cottage of squared logs was called, it being
the last house in the clearings and owned by good-natured Charley Datis,
who never refused to entertain fishermen with the best his little house
afforded. His accommodations were of the narrowest, but also of the
neatest, and few women could fry trout so nicely as Mrs. Davis. True,
there was only one spare bed, and, if more than two anglers desired
lodgings, they were relegated to the barn, with a supply of buffalo
skins and blankets. On a soft bed of sweet hay this was all that could
be desired by way of lodgings, with the advantage of being free from
mosquitoes and punkies. The best of rich, yellow butter with good bread
were always to be had at Charley’s, and his charges were 12½ cents
for meals, and the same for lodging.
The two miles of fishing above the “Trout-House” led through clearings,
and the banks were much overgrown with willows, making it expedient to
use bait, or a single fly. I chose the latter: my favorite bug for such
fishing being the red hackle, though I am obliged to confess that the
fellow who used a white grub generally beat me.
But the evening episode was only preliminary; it meant a pleasant
walk, thirty or forty brook-trout for supper and breakfast, and a quiet
night’s rest. The real angling commenced the next morning at the bridge,
with a six-mile stretch of clear, cold, rushing water to fish. My
old-fashioned creel held an honest twelve pounds of dressed trout, and
I do not recollect that I ever missed filling it, with time to spare,
on that stretch of water. Nor, though I could sometimes fill it in a
forenoon, did I ever continue to fish after it _was_ full. Twelve pounds
of trout is enough for any but a trout-hog.
But the peculiar phase of trout lore that most interested me, was the
“run” of trout that were sure to find their way up stream whenever we
had a flood late in May or the first half of June. They were distinct
and different from the trout that came up with the early spring
freshets. Lighter in color, deeper in body, with smaller heads, and
better conditioned altogether.
They could be distinguished at a glance; the individuals of any school
were as like as peas in color and size, and we never saw them except
on a summer flood. The natives called them river trout. They came in
schools of one hundred to five times as many, just as the flood was
subsiding, and they had a way of halting to rest at the deep pools and
spring-holes along their route. Lucky was the angler who could find them
at rest in a deep pool, under a scooped out bank, or at the foot of a
rushing cascade. At such times they seemed to lose their usual shyness,
and would take the fly or worm indifferently, until their numbers were
reduced more than one-half. To “meet them on the June rise” was the
ardent desire of every angler who fished the streams which they were
accustomed to ascend. These streams were not numerous. The First,
Second, and Third Forks of Pine Creek, with the Otter, comprised the
list so far as I know. And no man could be certain of striking a school
at any time; it depended somewhat on judgment, but more on luck. Two or
three times I tried it on the Otter and missed; while a friend who
had the pluck and muscle to make a ten-mile tramp over the mountain to
Second Fork took forty pounds of fine trout from a single school. It
was a hoggish thing to do; but he was a native and knew no reason for
letting up.
At length my white day came around. There was a fierce rain for three
days, and the raging waters took mills, fences and lumber down stream in
a way to be remembered. Luckily it also took the lumbermen the same way,
and left few native anglers at home. When the waters had subsided to
a fair volume, and the streams had still a suspicion of milkiness, I
started at 3 P.M. of a lovely June afternoon for the Trout-House. An
easy two hours walk, an hour of delightful angling, and I reached the
little hostelry with three dozen brook trout, averaging about seven
inches in length only, but fresh and sweet, all caught on a single red
hackle, which will probably remain my favorite bug until I go over the
last carry (though I notice it has gone well out of fashion with modern
anglers).
A supper of trout; an evening such as must be seen and felt to be
appreciated; trout again for breakfast, with a dozen packed for lunch,
and I struck in at the bridge before sunrise for an all day bout, “to
meet ’em on the June rise.” I didn’t do it. I took the entire day to whip
that six miles of bright, dashing water. I filled a twelve-pound creel
with trout, putting back everything under eight inches. I put back more
than I kept. I had one of the most enjoyable days of my life; I came
out at the lower bridge after sundown—and I had not seen or caught
one fresh-run river trout. They were all the slender, large-mouthed,
dark-mottled fish of the gloomy forest, with crimson spots like fresh
drops of blood. But I was not discouraged. Had the trout been there I
should have met them. I walked half a mile to the little inn at Babb’s,
selected a dozen of my best fish for supper and breakfast, gave away the
rest, and, tired as a hound, slept the sleep of the just man.
At 4 o’clock the next morning I was on the stream again, feeling my way
carefully down, catching a trout at every cast, and putting them mostly
back with care, that they might live; but’ for an hour no sign of a
fresh-run river trout.
Below the bridge there is a meadow, the oldest clearing on the creek;
there are trees scattered about this meadow that are models of arborial
beauty, black walnut, elm, ash, birch, hickory, maple, etc. Most of them
grand, spreading trees. One of them, a large, umbrageous yellow-birch,
stood on the left bank of the stream, and was already in danger of a
fall by
“The swifter current that mined its roots.”
It was here I met them on the June rise.
I dropped my cast of two flies just above the roots of the birch, and
on the instant, two fresh-run, silver-sided, red-spotted trout immolated
themselves, with a generous self-abnegation that I shall never forget.
Standing there on that glorious June morning, I made cast after cast,
taking, usually, two at each cast. I made no boyish show of “playing”
them. They were lifted out as soon as struck. To have fooled with them
would have tangled me, and very likely have scattered the school.
It was old-time angling; I shall not see it again.
My cast was a red hackle for tail-fly, with something like the brown hen
for hand-fly. I only used two, with four-foot leader; and I was about
the only angler who used a fly at all in those days, on these waters.
I fished about one hour. I caught sixty-four trout, weighing thirteen
and three quarter pounds. I caught too many. I was obliged to _string_
some of them, as the creel would not hold them all. But my head was
moderately level. When I had caught as many as I thought right I held
up; and I said, if any of these natives get on to this school, they will
take the last trout, if it be a hundred pounds. And they will _salt them
down_. So when I was done, and the fishing was good as at the start, I
cut a long “staddle,” with a bush at the top, and I just went for that
school of trout. I chevied, harried and scattered them, up stream and
down, until I could not see a fish. Then I packed my duffle and went to
the little inn for breakfast. Of course every male biped was anxious to
know “where I met ’em.” I told them truly; and they started, man and boy,
for the “Big Birch,” with beech rods, stiff linen lines,’ and a full
stock of white grubs.
I was credibly informed afterward, that these backwoods cherubs did not
succeed in “Meeting ’em on the June rise.” I have a word to add, which is
not important though it may be novel.
There is a roaring, impetuous brook emptying into Second Fork, called
“Rock Run.” It heads in a level swamp, near the summit of the mountain.
The swamp contains about forty acres, and is simply a level bed of loose
stones, completely overgrown with bright green moss.
“Rock Run” heads in a strong, ice-cold spring, but is soon sunken
and lost among the loose stones of the swamp. Just where the immense
hemlocks, that make the swamp a sunless gloom, get their foothold, is
one of the things I shall never find out. But, all the same, they are
there. And “Rock Run” finds its way underground for 80 rods with never
a ray of sunlight to illumine its course. Not once in its swamp course
does it break out to daylight. You may follow it by its heavy gurgling,
going by ear; but you cannot see the water. Now remove the heavy coating
of moss here and there, and you may see glimpses of dark, cold water,
three or four feet beneath the surface. Drop a hook, baited with
angle-worm down these dark watery holes, and it will be instantly taken
by a dark, crimson-spotted specimen of simon pure Salmo fontinalis.
They are small, four to six inches in length, hard, sweet; the _beau
ideal_ of mountain trout. Follow this subterranean brook for eighty
rods, and you find it gushing over the mountain’s brink in a cascade
that no fish could or would attempt to ascend. Follow the roaring brook
down to its confluence with Second Fork, and you will not find one trout
in the course of a mile. The stream is simply a succession of falls,
cascades, and rapids, up which no fish can beat its way for one hundred
yards. And yet at the head of this stream is a subterranean brook
stocked with the finest specimens of _Salmo fontinalis_. They did not
breed on the mountain top. They _cannot_ ascend the stream. Where did
they originate? When, and how did they manage to get there? I leave
the questions to _savans_ and _naturalists_. As for myself, I state the
fact—still demonstrable—for the trout are yet there. But I take it to
be one of the conundrums “no fellah can ever find out.”
P. S.—A word as to bugs, lures, flies, etc. Now I have no criticism to
offer as regards flies or lures. I saw a Gotham banker in 1880, making a
cast on Third lake, with a leader that carried _twelve_ flies. Why not?
He enjoyed it; and he caught some trout. Even the guides laughed at him.
I did not: he rode his hobby, and he rode it well. Fishing beside him,
with a five-dollar rod, I caught two trout to his one. What did he care?
He came out to enjoy himself after his own fashion, and he did it. Like
myself, he only cared for the sport—the recreation and enough trout for
supper. (I cannot cast twelve flies.)
Now my favorite lures—with forty years’ experience—stand about thus.
Tail fly, red hackle; second, brown hen; third, Romeyn. Or, tail fly,
red ibis; second, brown hackle; third, queen of the waters. Or, red
hackle, queen, royal coachman. Sometimes trout will not rise to the fly.
I respect their tastes. I use then—tail fly, an angle worm, with a bit
of clear pork for the head, and a white miller for second. If this fails
I go to camp and sleep. I am not above worms and grubs, but prefer the
fly. _And I take but what I need for present use_. Can all brother
anglers say the same?
“It has so happened that all the public services that I have rendered
in the world, in my day and generation, have been connected with the
general government. I think I ought to make an exception. I was ten days
a member of the Massachusetts Legislature, and I turned my thoughts
to the search of some good object in which I could be useful in that
position; and after much reflection I introduced a bill which, with the
consent of both houses of the Legislature, passed into a law, and is now
a law of the State, which enacts that no man in the State shall catch
trout in any manner than in the old way, with an ordinary hook and
line.”—_Daniel Webster_.
“If you do not know a river it is always most desirable to have someone
with you who does.”—_Francis Francis_.
[Illustration: 0194]
49. The Teal.
50. Reuben Wood.
51. Red Spinner.
52. No. 68.
53. Hawthorne.
54. Dorset.
55. Widow.
56. Grasshopper.
57. Stebbins.
58. March Brown.
59. Shoemaker.
60. Orange Black.
61. King of the Water.
62. Gen: Hooker.
63. Gray Drake.
“The angler atte the leest, hath his holsom walke, and mery at his ease,
a swete ayre of the swete savoure of the mede floures, that makyth him
hungry; he hereth the melodyous armony of fowles; he seeth the yonge
swannes, heerons, duck’s, cotes, and many other fowles, wyth theyr
brodes; whyche me semyth better than allé the noyse of houndys, the
blastes of hornys, and the scrye of foulis, that hunters, fawkeners,
and fowlers can make. And if the angler take fysshe; surely, thenne,
is there noo man merier than he is in his spyryte.”—_Dame Juliana
Berners._
“Skill, and trained skill at that, does the good work, and the angler’s
score is just in proportion to his knowledge of ‘how to do it.’”—_Wm.
C. Harris._
“A gray-haired bait-fisher is very rare, while the passion for
fly-easting, whether for trout or salmon, grows by what it feeds
upon, and continues a source of the highest pleasure even after the
grasshopper becomes a burden.”—_George Dawson._
“It is not the number of fish he captures that makes the angler
contented, for the true angler can enjoy the mere casting of the fly
if he has only an occasional fish to reward his efforts.”—“_Random
Casts._”
“The great charm of fly-fishing for trout is derived from the fact that
you then see the movements of your fish, and if you are not an expert
hand, the chances are that you will capture but one out of the hundred
that may rise to your hook. You can seldom save a trout unless you
strike the very instant that he leaps. The swiftness with which a trout
can dart from his hiding-place after a fly is truly astonishing; and we
never see one perform this operation without feeling an indescribable
thrill quivering through our frame.”—_Charles Lanman_.
“There is nothing grovelling in fly-fishing—nothing gross or
demoralizing.”—_Charles Hallock_.
“Angling is a maist innocent, poetical, moral and religious amusement.
Gin I saw a fisher gruppin creelfu’ after creelfu’ o’ trouts, and then
flingin’ them a’ awa among the heather and the brackens on his way hame,
I micht begin to suspee that the idiot was by nature rather a savage.
But as for me, I send presents to my freens, and devour dizzens on
dizzens every week in the family—maistly dune in the pan, wi’ plenty
o’ fresh butter and roun’ meal—sae that prevents the possibility
o’ cruelty in my fishin’, and in the fishin’ o’ a’ reasonable
creatures.”—_James Hogg_.
WHY PETER WENT A-FISHING.
By W. C. Prime.
Never was night more pure, never was sea more winning; never were the
hearts of men moved by deeper emotions than on that night and by that
sea when Peter and John, and other of the disciples, were waiting for
the Master.
Peter said, “I go a-fishing.” John and Thomas, and James and Nathanael,
and the others, said, “We will go with you,” and they went.
Some commentators have supposed and taught that, when Peter said, “I go
a-fishing,” he announced the intention of returning to the ways in which
he had earned his daily bread from childhood; that his Master was gone,
and he thought that nothing remained for him but the old, hard life of
toil, and the sad labor of living.
But this seems scarcely credible, or consistent with the circumstances.
The sorrow which had weighed down the disciples when gathered in
Jerusalem on that darkest Sabbath day of all the Hebrew story, had given
way to joy and exultation in the morning when the empty tomb revealed
the hitherto hidden glory of the resurrection, joy which was ten-fold
increased by are interview with the risen Lord, and confirmed by his
direction, sending them into Galilee to await Him there. And thus it
seems incredible that Peter and John—John, the beloved—could have
been in any such gloom and despondency as to think of resuming their old
employment at this time, when they were actually waiting for His coming,
who had promised to meet them.
Probably they were on this particular evening weary with earnest
expectancy, yet not satisfied; tired of waiting and longing, and looking
up the hillside on the Jerusalem road for His appearance; and I have no
doubt that, when this weariness became exhausting, Peter sought on the
water something of the old excitement that he had known from boyhood,
and that to all the group it seemed a fitting way in which to pass the
long night before them, otherwise to be weary as well as sleepless.
If one could have the story of that night of fishing, of the surrounding
scenes, the conversation in the boat, the unspoken thoughts of the
fishermen, it would make the grandest story of fishing that the world
has ever known. Its end was grand when in the morning the voice of
the Master came over the sea, asking them the familiar question, in
substance the same which they, like all fishermen, had heard a thousand
times, “Have you any fish?”
* * * * *
The memory of this scene is not unfitting to the modern angler. Was it
possible to forget it when I first wet a line in the water of the Sea of
Galilee? Is it any less likely to come back to me on any lake among the
hills when the twilight hides the mountains, and overhead the same stars
look on our waters that looked on Gennesaret, so that the soft night air
feels on one’s forehead like the dews of Hermon?
I do not think that this was the last, though it be the last recorded
fishing done by Peter or by John. I don’t believe these Galilee
fishermen ever lost the love for their old employment. It was a
memorable fact for them that the Master had gone a-fishing with them on
the day that He called them to be His disciples; and this latest meeting
with Him in Galilee, the commission to Peter, “Feed my sheep,” and
the words so startling to John, “If I will that he tarry till I
come,”—words which He must have recalled when He uttered that last
longing cry, “Even so come, Lord”—all these were associated with that
last recorded fishing scene on the waters of Gennesaret.