FLY-FISHING FOR TROUT

"The variety of rivers require different ways of angling."—Izaak Walton, The Compleat Angler.

The art of catching fish with artificial lures in imitation of natural insects is the most chivalric of all methods of angling.

Fish, particularly trout, often hook themselves when they seize the fly of a fisherman using a pliant rod that will yield and spring freely. As the game strikes, the Angler strikes, hooking the fish swiftly but delicately by a simple turn of the wrist. The trout is not flaunted up in the air by force, as some coarse perch fishermen lift their catch. The trout fisher does not use his arm at all in hooking a trout beyond aiding the hand in holding the rod for the wrist to do the work. A practiced troutman can secure his fish by moving his hand five inches—a little backward nervous twist of the wrist.

Trout often snap a fly and spit it out so quickly that the tyro does not have a chance to strike and hook the prize. At other times they take hold more slowly, and afford the beginner more opportunity to hook them, and, as I have said, they very often hook themselves.

The beginner will have some trouble in overcoming the excitement or "trout fever" that always accompanies the trout's rise and strike, but experience will gradually make him more calm and active at this important moment. The tyro trout fisher is often more frightened at the rise of the trout than he would be at the flush of a noisy grouse or the springing of a surprised deer.

When you have hooked the fish, always handle him as if he were but lightly secured. Do not attempt to lift him out or yank him up to you. Keep the line gently taut, and softly lead the prize out of rough water or away from stones, grasses, logs, or tree branches. Do not let him come to the surface until he is pretty well exhausted and you are about to put him in the landing-net. If he is a large fish, tow him ashore if the water edge will permit. Where there are overhanging banks this cannot be done. Do not be in a hurry to get him out of the water. Be calm and work carefully.

If the fish is large enough to overcome the reel click and run off the line, let him do so, but check him and guide him according to any obstruction there may be.

When he has rushed here and there for some little time with his mouth open and with a constant check—the line should always be taut—he will become tired, and when he is tired he will not rush. Then softly reel him in, being careful not to let him come in contact with a stone or weed, which is sure to arouse him again. Reel him up quickly, without making a splashing swoop, and he will soon grace your creel.

Several persons have expressed an objection to a list of flies I once named, saying a good Angler might kill just as many trout on quarter the number.

Any Angler can take even less than one quarter of the enumerated list and catch fully as many brook trout as one who might use all of the flies mentioned—if he can pick out the ones the trout are rising to without trying them all until he discovers the killing ones. A chef might please his master with one or two of the forty courses billed, if he knew what the man wanted.

Sometimes an Angler can judge the appropriate fly to use by observing nature in seeing trout rise to the live fly; but, there are times when trout are not rising, times when they are tired of the fly upon the water, and times when the real fly is not on the wing. Then the Angler is expected to take matters in his own hands and whip about quietly until he discovers the proper patterns. It is better to try for the right flies with a list of twenty-nine than whip over a list of a thousand or more. I have learned from experience that trout, like human beings, are in love with a variety of foods at different times. Their tastes change with the months, the weeks, the days, the hours, and, under certain conditions which I will presently explain, the minutes.

"... fish will not bite constantly, nor every day. They have peculiar, unexplainable moods that continuing favoring conditions of water, wind, and weather cannot control" (Eugene McCarthy, Familiar Fish).

When I mention twenty-nine different patterns as being seasonable at a stated period, I do not mean to say that the trout will rise to them all and at any time and under all conditions. In the first place, the person using them might be a tyro unfamiliar with the gentle art, the streams might be dried up, there might be an earthquake, the flies might be too large, too coarse, and for that matter a thousand other conditions might interfere. I fish dozens of streams in different localities several times every month during the legal season, and I have been a fond Angler—if not a skillful one—since my tenth birthday. Experience on the streams, a true love for nature, and a careful attention to my notebook enable me to separate the artificial flies into monthly lists. No man can class them into weekly or daily lots.

"When a fly is said to be in season it does not follow that it is abroad on every day of its existence" (Alfred Ronalds).

The Eastern gentleman who said if he could have but one fly he would take a yellow one, is probably a good Angler, for a yellow fly is a fair choice. If I could have but one fly I should take a—ah! I cannot name its color; 'tis the quaker, a cream, buff, grayish, honey-yellow shade.

Beaverkill, Seth Green, Ashey Montreal, Dun. Wickham's Fancy, August Brown are killing patterns in the Pennsylvania streams.

Trout change in their tastes by the month, week, day, hour, and minute. There are flies among the list given for this or that month that they will not rise to to-day or perhaps to-morrow, but surely there are some among the list that will please them, and you have to discover those particular flies, and so, as I have said before, 'tis better to search among twenty-nine than twenty-nine hundred.

In July of a certain season I waded a stream in Pennsylvania and had these flies with me: Quaker. Oak, Codun, Reuben Wood, White Miller, Yellow Sallie, Hare's Ear, Iron Dun, Brown Palmer, Cahill, and a few others. The first day I killed eighteen trout in fishing fifty yards in a small stream running partly through a large open field and partly through bushes, fishing from the left bank. Twelve were taken on a brown palmer, four on a dark-gray midge, and two on a tiny yellow-gold-brown fly. I fished three hours, in which time I received exactly two hundred and fifteen strikes; eighteen, as I have said, proved killing. I fished stealthily up and down the stream, hiding here and there and making the most difficult of casts at all times. I went up and down the little stream a half dozen times, never going into the wood, but merely fishing from where the stream came out of the wood to where it hid itself again beyond the field. Part of the water I fished, as I say, was in underbush, but I did not leave the field.

Now I am going to show you how the tastes of trout varied by minutes, in two instances at least, and I desire you to know every little detail. To well convince you that the casts I made were difficult, I will say that my line became fastened in twigs, leaves, and bushes every other toss. I had to put the flies through little openings no larger than the creel head and take chances of getting the leader caught while on the way, and after it was there and on its return. I sometimes whipped twenty times at a little pool before I reached it. There were logs, branches, mosses, cresses, leaves, and grasses to avoid. The water in parts was swift and still, narrow, shallow, and deep, sometimes being four feet wide and three feet deep, and then ten feet wide and three inches deep; sometimes running smartly over bright grasses or pebbles and light in color, and in other places lying dark and still in pools made by logs and deep holes.

A tyro would have fished the ground in ten minutes and caught nothing; some Anglers would have gone over it once in twenty-five minutes and taken a half-dozen fish. I had the day to myself; I had nowhere else to go; I was out for sport, recreation, and study,—not fish, for I am a lover of nature in general,—and so I took three hours at the play, and fished and observed inch by inch like a mink, the king of trouters.

I say I had two hundred and fifteen strikes, out of which I killed eighteen trout, and you are surprised. You think you could have done better, much better, but I know you could not—you could not have done as well as I did and I wish that I could put you to a test. I have seen a fontinalis rise to a small coachman twenty-six times, snapping apparently at the feather each time, but never allowing himself to be hooked nor hooking himself. He was playing. He was a young trout, but an educated one, and well knew there was no danger if he kept his wits about him. I have witnesses to this performance who will substantiate my story, and I can easily further prove the truthfulness of the statement by taking you to a stream where a similar performance may be enacted. And I have seen an uneducated trout rise and snap at a fly without taking it. The first one rose in play, this one in curiosity—and there are trout that will rise in anger. All of them may know the bait is not food. It is a mistake to think that all brook trout will spurt from a fly the very second they discover it is not real food, as it is an error to believe that all brook trout will take the fly when they know it is the living thing. All trout are not alike; they vary in their tastes and antics as they do in color and size. Mind you, I speak only of one species here—the true brook trout, Salvelinus fontinalis, and thus the material should be interesting.

AN UNUSUAL WAY OF TAKING THE FLY

The day I took my creel of eighteen was a fair one; we had rain the day before; the water was clear and the stream was in ordinary condition. The brown hackle which killed twelve of the eighteen was on a No. 8 hook; the other two flies were tied on No. 16, as the hackle should have been, for the fish were small and the stream was in a small-fly condition and quite right for the daintiest leaders and the finest midges. But the hackle seemed to please the trout; all sizes appeared to jump at it. I hooked many that were not over three inches long! Several times when taking my flies from the water for a new cast, I lifted a poor little trout up in the air back of me, like the scurvy fisherman who makes a practice of landing all his fish by yanking them out. So you see it pays to be patient on the stream and try all sorts of gentle tricks with fontinalis. You must not hurry; you must not be coarse; you must not be careless and untidy with your fly-book. Take your time, fish slowly, surely, and delicately. Be not weary of the play: banish the thought of discouragement, keep at the sport for sport alone, and study as you angle.

A little trout will rise to a fly he has missed one or more times; a large trout will seldom do so. When you miss a big trout do not give him back the fly for ten minutes, and then if you miss him again, change the pattern, wait a little while, and he is once more ready for the rise—if the new fly suits him.

I never raised a trout on the scarlet ibis fly. I believe it is a poor color on the well-fished waters, just as I believe that all flies are killing on wild streams. New trout will take old flies; old trout love new ones and many old ones. Personally I like the sober colors in flies for all seasons on all water, though I well appreciate the old rule: "When the day is bright and where the water is clear, small flies and plain colors; in deep and dull waters and on dark days and in the evening the brighter and larger ones." Trout do not in all cases show their liking to flies in accordance with any condition of weather or water, though as a rule it is advisable to use lighter colors when the day and water are dull, which is not saying, however, that fish will not rise to loud flies on bright days or sober flies in dull weather, for the tastes of trout vary like the tastes of other living things, and nothing can equal them in erraticness when fly-feeding.

You must give fontinalis sport, for he very often strikes for play more than food, and, like every other living thing, loves a choice of variety.

There is an old story that if the Angler's book has a pattern of fly in exact imitation of the real fly upon the trout water, he has but to join it as the stretcher to fill his creel. Ogden tells us in so many words: "Give not the trout an exact imitation of the real fly upon the water, for your artificial fly will then be one in a thousand. Something startling will please them better—loud gold body, strange-colored wings—and an odd fellow may take it for sport if nothing else."

While this is a good bit of advice, it does not seem right to me to send it forth in such a sweeping manner. The question of whether we should imitate nature in general fly building has long been in vogue. Some say we should do so, and others that it does not matter. Both are correct—there are times when we should copy the living flies, and times when we should use those artificial things that have no resemblance to nature's insects. I have come upon a water where the trout were rising to the small dusky miller, and have, by putting on the artificial fly of this order, taken a dozen beauties in good play. It was because I arrived just in time; the trout were not tired of their course. Perhaps twenty minutes later they would not have done more than eyed my cast. In that case, even if the water were covered with a species of the real fly, it would have been better to have offered something different. Copy nature if the fish be devouring—not alone because the fly is on the water; they may be tired of it. Sometimes there are flies being taken that are not seen by the Angler, for trout can snap a fly upon the wing. Fly-fishing is not an easy pursuit; 'tis a real science. Rules are good, but we must not fail to suit the rules to conditions.

No; you are not supposed to use the entire list, for to-day the trout may not favor over two or three of them; to-morrow he may take six of them—all different from those he may show a liking for to-day. It is all very well for an Angler to take but three dozen coachmen and brown and gray hackle for the Western trout, or any trout that is not educated up to the standard of the trout that is fished for incessantly, but I should not like to make a month's trouting trip and take along only three kinds of flies, even if I had dozens of each of the three and if my favorite quaker were one of the trio, no matter where the stream—East. West, North, or South.

Some days after my catch of eighteen I visited the field again and fished from the point where the stream entered the wood down to a beautiful little waterfall. I took twenty-one of fair size—one on a yellow Sallie, one on an oak fly, four on an Esquimaux dun, five on a hare's ear, and nine on the quaker. This day I had ninety-three rises—not as many as on the day I took the eighteen and had two hundred and fifteen rises. The day was dark, the water very clear and shallow, and there had been no rain for ten days.

This was the occasion of learning more about striking the Eastern brook trout than I had ever before enjoyed. The old rule is to strike on the second of the rise, and, while I do not think this electric quickness should be practiced in all cases and under all conditions. I found it was the rule this day, especially in the one deep pool I found. In other places—one in particular, where I saw six of my catch make every move in taking the flies—I found it necessary to depart from the old rule and strike not upon the second of the rise. I very often gave wrist too quickly. It all goes to prove that rules are not to be exercised at all times and under all conditions. We must make allowances. I came upon one quiet piece of water that was as clear and still as glass; I could see every detail of the pebbles at the bottom. Eight pretty trout were in this bed of silent water, resting without a perceptible movement—not even that delicate wave of the tail so common with the trout in his balancing in running water. They did not see me; a bush hid my form. When my slender rod tip moved over the water and the leader with the flies went down gently upon the surface, the trout thought (all animals think) the wind had stirred the frail branch of an adjacent tree and swept into the water upon a cobweb three insects for their feeding. Four rushed for the deceit and two were hooked quietly and quickly. I landed them and went away to return to the same spot a half-hour later. Seven trout were there this time. I flailed gently over them, but received no rushing rise; one little fellow came up deliberately, broke water two inches behind the little dun, and then returned to his old position. Then two others did precisely the same as their companion had done, excepting one that chose the oak fly for his inspection. Then they sank themselves, and a fourth gamester spurted up to the dun and took it in his mouth much as a sunfish would suck in a bit of worm. I struck him, and he made a splash that nearly drove a near-by-perched catbird into hysterics, and sent the other trout up, down, and across the stream like so many black streaks of lightning. Now, had I cast at these fish from above or below and not just over them, where I saw every move they made, I should have given them wrist on the second of their rise—as I did in the case of the first two that made the first rush—and lost any chance of success.

No, I say, we must not always follow rules regardless of conditions. We must not judge all trout alike, even if they be of one species. Men, though of one race, are not all alike in their habits any more than they are in their sizes and colors.

I found in some parts of the stream that as long as I changed the flies I had rises; in other parts no trout took the fly, no matter how I worked it. Perhaps there were no fish hereabout; perhaps they saw me; perhaps they were not hungry, and perhaps there were hundreds and thousands of other reasons why they were not to be taken in these certain places.

No man can strictly follow rules in all cases and take trout upon every occasion of his trials. Conditions govern, and must be studied—conditions, conditions.