Part 9

What a noble trout! His silver sides and belly gleamed in the light, his blood-red spots seemed to glow with indignation at his cruel death. He had long been a lordling over the other trout and now was strangling! Kill him! I cannot bear to see a trout gasping. Killed and scaled he weighs three and a half pounds. A credit to the angler: but at times, during the contest, it was a question to which the honor belonged; it was: “Splendid rod!” “Ah! how skilfully he handles his fish.” “Who would have dreamt that little thing would have stood such a strain?”

Gentle angler, let us leave our friend to the contemplation of the beauties of the fairest of all England’s garden landscapes, and the preserved trout streams, and plunge with me into an American forest.

By a beautiful lake in the famous State of Michigan a little settlement is springing up. Over in that bay is a trout creek emptying; it is full of trout—trout _galore_—trout by the hundreds can be seen. Come with me, I will show them to you. Let me drop a fly into this hole. Ah! there he is! see him dash for it. He won’t come again, let us push along.

Push along, you say? do you expect I am coming through that brush? Not much; I am not a crank. If you are so fond of trying to break your neck for a string of trout, why go. I go! am quite willing to be alone on this lovely little creek, for it contains some of the handsomest trout it has ever been my good luck to kill. Here and there I drop in a fly; sometimes a “Yellow May,” sometimes a “Professor,” sometimes a “Stone-fly”; once in a while an “Ibis” is fancied by some fastidious trout. How and then a “Floating May-fly” seems a favorite. Where the brush overhangs and is a darksome, lonely spot, I drop in a “Royal Coachman,” and out comes a big trout lusty and fighting; sometimes fancy flies are spurned and hackles of all colors kill; then a fly composed of alternate feathers, red and white, of no name, but a favorite with the writer, will kill when trout will not take any other fly.

I am enjoying the fun, and the creel is getting heavy. Half a mile of fishing and twenty-five handsome trout is doing good enough for mid-day fishing.

As the evening falls I take my split bamboo and the fly-book, pull on the wading hoots, and go down to the mouth of the creek, wading out until I am as far as the sand runs. I cast out more for practice than to expect trout. I have on a big bass-fly large enough for a salmon-fly. As it strikes the water twenty-five feet from me there is a commotion. “Ye gods and little fishes!” What was the fuss? I cast again, and as true as I am here if a number of trout did not jump clear out for that fly, big as it was! Hastily reeling in I put on a dun-colored fly, and cast again; the same jump and dash, but no trout. Changing my flies until at last I put on as a stretcher a “White Miller,” I flung out clear beyond any former cast into the midst of what appeared like a boiling spring. The fly dropped softly and out came a host of trout. School kept just then, for I certainly had struck a school of trout. Striking, I fastened into a fine fish; reeling in, I dried my fly and cast again and hooked again. The fun grew fast and furious; my little bamboo swished and bent; hooks were snipped off; I was excited and jubilant, when along came an itinerant parson. The twenty-five or thirty trout I had, set him longing; he must fish. Jerking off his boots, pulling up his pants, he waded into the icy cold water equipped with a stick cut from the forest. He had nosed out a line and some hooks from a supply I had left on the bank in my fishing-case, and without so much as “by your leave” began threshing the water as close to the school as he could get his line; this was baited with a piece of dead fish. To say that I was disgusted faintly expresses my feeling. I would have ceased fishing, but my friend with whom I was staying said, “Ho, don’t stop while sport is so good.” I put on a “Royal Coachman” and cast out again, hooking and bringing out trout every second or third cast. I began casting wide, the school followed my flies. I tried the “Professor’s,” “Dun’s,” “Hackle’s,” “Seth Green,” “Governor,” and “May-flies,” with good success. With one pure “Yellow May” I caught a dozen handsome trout, but in this event the evening shadows were fast falling. As they deepened, the “Royal Coachman” and “White Millers” were the killing flies. I cast until I could not see where my flies fell, and even then once in a while hooked and brought in a trout.

I had been thoughtless enough to leave my creel up in the house, never expecting to have this run of good luck. All my trout were taken from the hook and thrown twenty-five feet to shore. I lost many of them in this way. Thirty my friends claimed, yet when I came to count tails, I found forty as handsome trout as ever man wished to see, and all caught from 6 in the evening until dark, about 7.45. I had no net, no creel, therefore had to lead my trout into my hand. The friend at whose house I was staying claims I lost more than I caught by having them flounder off the hook while trying to take them by the gills, and by flinging them ashore.

I have used flies on this creek many times, but never had such luck before nor since. My experience has been that the fine fancy flies of the eastern streams are useless on these Michigan streams; the nearer the flies approach to a species of small moth found flitting amidst the foliage of the forest, the greater the success. A word, brother angler, and I have done. Learn to cast a fly, and you will never go back to bait fishing from choice. Get good flies, and you won’t regret the extra money they cost you; don’t buy cheap imitations or trade made flies—“they are frauds.”

Don’t buy a pole big enough for the staff of a Philistine Goliath; to fish for trout, buy a fine rod, take care of it, learn to use it thoroughly. Never buy a cheap rod; a rod fit for trouting must be as fine as it is possible to make them, and it should not make a shadow on the water. Cheap rods are like cheap guns, scham-dahms! Good trout rods cost a good deal of time and labor; cheap rods are turned out in a rapid-running lathe. They are a delusion. Get the best materials of everything you need, and buy of a good maker. Never be tempted to buy “cheap flies because they are bargains”—cheap rods because some one is selling out; “want to get out of the business, no money in it.” Remember you are the party who will be sold. Cheap things for trouting are a “fraud, a delusion, and a snare.”

Almost every angler has been bitten, but the prevailing opinion is: buy the best tackle your pocket-book can afford and take care of it. And my word for it, as an angler who learned to cast a line for pickerel at ten years old, you will love the sport and think it the best way to spend a summer’s vacation of any amusement under the sun.

“In using the fly the object is to imitate the movements of the natural insect as nearly as possible. To drop the line naturally on the water, and then to keep the fly endued with life, is the stratagem. From the moment the fly touches the water the angler should keep his eye on it. Trout often feed a little under the surface; they do not always break when they rise, but quietly suck in the fly.”—_Charles Hallock_.

“‘An angler, sir, uses the finest tackle, and catches his fish scientifically—trout, for instance—with the artificial fly, and he is mostly a quiet, well-behaved gentleman. A fisherman, sir, uses any kind of ‘ooks and lines, and catches them any way; so he gets them it’s all one to ’im, and he is generally a noisy fellah, sir, something like a gunner.’”—_Doctor Bethune._

[Illustration: 0148]

16. Silver Black.

17. Scarlet Ibis.

18. Stone Fly.

19. White Miller.

20. Fiery Brown.

21. Yellow Drake.

22. Grir. King.

23. Imbrie.

24. Soldier Palmer.

25. Cha

26. Portland.

27. Ethel May.

28. Pale Evening Dun.

29. Great Dun.

30. Whimbrel.

“Be stil moving your fly upon the water, or casting it into the water; you yourself, being also alwaies moving down the stream.—_Izaak Walton._

“When once alarmed, trout will never bite.”—_Seth Green_.

“Fly-fishers are usually brain-workers in society. Along the banks of purling streams, beneath the shadows of umbrageous trees, or in the secluded nooks of charming lakes, they have ever been found, drinking deep of the invigorating forces of nature—giving rest and tone to over-taxed brains and wearied nerves—while gracefully wielding the supple rod, the invisible leader, and the fairy-like fly.”—_James A. Henshall, M.D._

“It is generally true that if a trout is pricked by a fly-hook he will not rise to it again.”—_W. C. Prime_.

“Christopher North.—Would you believe it, my dear Shepherd, that my piscatory passions are almost dead within me; and I like now to saunter along the banks and braes, eyeing the younkers angling, or to lay me down on some sunny spot, and with my face up to heaven, watch the slow changing clouds!”

“Shepherd.—I’ll no believe that, sir, till I see’t—and scarcely then—for a bluidier-minded fisher nor Christopher North never threw a hackle. Your creel fu’—your shootin’-bag fu’—your jacket-pouches fu’, the pouches o’ your verra breeks fu’—half-a-dozen wee anes in your waistcoat, no’ to forget them in the croon o’ your hat,—and, last o’ a’, when there’s nae place to stow awa ony mair o’ them, a willow-wand drawn through the gills of some great big anes, like them ither folk would grup wi’ the worm or the mennon—buta’ gruppit wi’ the flee—Phin’s delight, as you ca’t,—a killen inseck—and on gut that’s no easily broken—witness yon four pounder aneath Elibank wood, where your line, sir, got entangled wi’ the auld oak-root, and yet at last ye landed him on the bank, wi’ a’ his crosses and his stars glitterin’ like gold and silver amang the gravel! I confess, sir, you’re the King o’ Anglers. But dinna tell me that you have lost your passion for the art; for we never lose our passion for ony pastime at which we continue to excel.”

THE LURE.

By “Bourgeois.”

Among the delightful summer resorts of Colorado Estes Park may be justly considered one of the most attractive. It is now easy of access. Seven years ago it began to be frequented, the trail having given way to the wagon road. Before the days of easy ingress, I had cast my lures upon the waters of the Thompson and Fall River, with gratifying success.

In the summer of 1875, the Governor, the Governor’s mother, and myself, determined upon Estes Park for a six weeks’ vacation. With this end in view, in the latter part of July, I sent off the team loaded with the camp outfit.

Two days after we took the morning train for Longmont, on the Colorado Central, and had an early lunch at the tail end of the wagon just outside the town. Before noon we were on the fifteen-mile drive into the canon of the St. Vrain, for camp.

By sunrise the following morning we had started, with twenty miles to make over a new road part of the way, and no road at all in places, and the places were many. However, we had to hitch on to the end of the tongue but once, to snake the wagon over an otherwise impassable boulder. The rock stood a foot out of ground, stretched entirely across where the road was to be, and at an angle of 45°. The team could barely get a foothold upon the top, when the traces were let out full, and the double-tree hooked on the end of the tongue. The horses understood their business, and upon a word settled their shoulders into the collars together, the breeching gradually lifted as their knees bent a little; without a slip their iron-shod hoofs held to the hard granite, and we were up as deftly as a French dancing master would raise his hat to a lady. In travelling in the hills there is nothing so gratifying as a team whose pulling powers you can swear by; a balky horse is an engine of destruction or death; if you know his failing, shoot him before you reach the foothills.

As the sun dropped behind the range, lighting up the high peaks with his golden rays, and the pines were beginning to take on tints of darker green, we reached the head of the Park, and within three miles of our camping ground. To the right of us “Olympus,” with the dying sunlight dancing on his granite head, to the left Long’s Peak, with patches of snow here and there, towering godlike above the surrounding giants. Before us, Prospect Mountain with its rugged front far reaching above its robes of green, while around its base and toward us came leaping the beautiful mountain stream for two miles through the meadow-hued park, with scarce a willow upon its banks. What a place to cast a fly! Aye, indeed it is; and what a place it was to catch trout. But we must move on around Prospect Mountain to Ferguson’s for camp, which we make on a little eminence near a great spring and close by the cabin where we know we shall be welcome.

A late supper disposed of, and the Governor stowed away in the blankets, Ferguson and I fall talking at his broad fire-place about Horse Shoe Park and Fall River; of course trout are plenty there; he had been up the day before and knew whereof he spoke; yes, there were quite a number of tourists in the park, but the streams were not “fished out.” He rather thought that with “a pole” to every rod of the stream the fishing improved; at least for him.

Our genial friend who obeyed Joshua in the long ago, was out of bed next day sooner than I. Dick, the pony, gave me a cheerful good morning as I put in an appearance and changed his picket pin. I received his salutation as a good omen.

Breakfast over and Dick saddled, it was eight o’clock. We had five miles to go. I strapped my rod and creel to the pommel, and with a caution to the Governor’s mother not to let him fall into the spring, Ferguson and I were off. There was no occasion to hurry; if we reached the beaver-dams in Horse Shoe Park by ten o’clock we would be just in time. Experience had taught me that the two hours before noon, and after five o’clock were the hours for success.

Our route was a “cut off” without any trail, but familiar; across the Thompson, up stream, westward for a mile, we turned up a “draw” to the right, for a swale in the ridge dividing the Thompson and its tributary, Fall River. By nine o’clock we had reached the summit of the divide. Before and below us lay a beautiful park, three miles in length, by a mile in width toward its upper end, where it rounded at the base of the mountain range, giving it the shape of a horse shoe, which no doubt suggested its name. To the north it is guarded by an immense mountain of rocks, where towering and impenetrable cliffs stand out against the background of blue sky, as though the Titans had some time builded there, and mother earth had turned their castles into ruins, and left them as monuments of her power. To the south a long, low-lying, pine-covered hill, while from the range in the west with its snow covered summit and base of soft verdure, comes a limpid stream winding down through the grass-covered park, its course marked by the deeper green of the wild grass and the willows. A mile away a band of mountain sheep are feeding; they have evidently been down to water and are making their way back to their haunts in the cliffs, and whence we know they will quickly scud when they see or wind us. Ferguson longed for his rifle; it was just his luck; he had the “old girl” with him the last time, but “nary hoof” had he seen. To me they were precious hints of man’s absence, and the wilderness.

Reaching the stream we picketed the ponies in the grass to their knees; the nutritious mountain grass, the mother of cream so thick that you have to dip it out of the jug with a spoon. The ponies were happy, and I became nervous; it seemed half an hour before I could get my tackle rigged. But after I had sent my favorite gray hackle on its mission and had snatched a ten-inch trout from his native element, my nerves were braced. A second and a third followed; I heard nothing from Ferguson except the “swish” of his old cane pole above the music of the waters. The trout struck and I landed them so fast that the sport began to be monotonous, and I followed up the sound of the cane. Going round a clump of willows I discovered the old gentleman upon the edge of the pool, and that old rod going up and down with the regularity of a trip hammer, the owner combining business and sport. I asked him what he was doing; he said he was fishing, and I thought he was.

Wandering up stream, taking it leisurely, I had by noon filled my creel, and was enjoying a sandwich under the shelter of some willows, when my companion came along with his sixteen pound lard-can filled, besides a dozen upon a stick. I asked him when he intended to quit. He said he had never seen fish “bite” so; he hated to stop, and yet had all he could carry, but concluded with me that enough was as good as a feast. Then he began to banter me about my ash and lancewood, and the excess of his catch over mine. I told him to wait till some other day. It came in the course of time, upon the same stream. The trout refused everything I had, grasshoppers included. Finally I fished up an old fly-book from the depths of my coat pocket, and in it were half a dozen nameless blue-bodied flies with a mouse-colored feather upon a number six Kirby. Upon sight, I remembered to have discarded them in disgust, but I thought I would try one for luck, and lo! the mystery was solved. I had been working industriously for two hours and had two trout. Ferguson had been no more successful, but was in sight when the trout began to rise to my cast-off fly. He came down my way, wanted to know what I was using, and I gave him one; he lost that and his leader in some half-sunken brush, and I gave him another. But his good genius had deserted him; I persuaded a trout right away from his lure, and he quit in disgust, while I said never a word. Though a little sensitive upon the score of success, he was and is a genial and companionable angler, and one who can make a good cast withal, an he have proper tools.

Willow Park, an adjunct to Estes Park, through which runs a branch of the Thompson, has afforded me many a day’s sport, and is nearer to camp. Upon a memorable occasion I had been fishing down stream, when, with a well-filled creel, I encountered a gigantic boulder on the hank. Just beyond it was a pool that was suggestive; to reach the base of the boulder it was necessary to get over a little bayou of about five feet in width and three in depth. To jump it were easy but for the willows, yet I must get to that pool. Selecting a place where I think the willows will give way to my weight, I essay the leap. My feet reach the opposite hank, my body presses back the brush, but I feel a rebound that assures me of my fate. I clutch frantically at the swaying bush; it breaks in my hand, and I sit down quite helplessly, muttering a prayer till the cold water bids me shut my mouth. Emerging I hear a well defined laugh, but not being in the mind to fear the spirits that haunt these wilds, I make for the base of that boulder and the coveted pool. A moment after I discover a face bedecked with glasses upon the opposite side of the brook, and recognize the smiling countenance of a genial member of the guild looking at me through the willows.

“Oh, is that you?”

To this lucid inquiry I reply in the affirmative. “Where’s Ferguson?”

“At home, I suppose.”

“I thought I heard him fall in the creek.”

I told him I did not think Ferguson had a monopoly of the bathing privileges of the Thompson and its tributaries.

“Well, I thought it was funny.”

“Thought what was funny?”

“Why, I heard the splash, and supposed it was Ferguson; then I remembered Ferguson was a church member in good standing.”

I took my revenge by competing with my brother for the contents of that pool, and beat him by one. But to this day he greets me with a smile. When I got back to camp I learned that the Governor had been trying to follow in the footsteps of his father, and had tumbled into the spring. He had been fished out by the combined efforts of his mother and Mrs. Ferguson, and I discovered him swathed in a blanket by the kitchen stove, mad as a hornet; I shook hands with him.