Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1892-10-14
TROUT AND FLIES
SUPERSTlTIONS THAT ANGLERS M
VARlABLY FOLLOW.

An Angler DiScOurses on the IabOOS OF
the Sacred ~Fish-There Seems to Be No
Reason why Other Bait Than Flies May
Not Be Used in Hooking Trout.
Angling on the Itchen, the Test and all
other fashionable trout streams is governed
by a rigid law hat the fly is the only per:
Missile lure. No sportsman questions the
tradition, which indeed is so thoroughly
established that the very poacher in the
dead of night would blush al, the thought
Of using anything grosser than an alder.
Nearly all %etiquettes, howsoever difficult
it may be to perceive what originally gave
rise to them, are rational at bottom; but
this one seems an exception. There is no
obvious reason why worm or gentles or the
Alexandra fly or even minnow should be
tabooed. At least there is non that we
can see.
Perhaps if one were venturesome enough
to ask a Hampshire fisherman in what
respect a minnow is offensive, we should
be told that it falls into the water with a
shocking splash. Thu splash is undeniable;
but surely it is an inadequate explanation
of the taboo. A minnow is not the only
thing that splashes. We have seen the
lightest dry fly splash abominably, to the
OUNlOuS IcIIOf VI IL OIOlU, ttllI ~ 41uulp-
shire fisherman himself splashes, for he in
variably wades, and in that act disturbs
the water in half an our more h all
sibly do in a day.
1t is equally impossible to think that the
objectionable characteristic of the minnow
is that it is too killing. The minnow is not
killing at all. He who could do my good
with a minnow in the pellucid waters of a
chalk stream would be an artist of incom-
parable skill. The trout usually flee an
anglers minnow in a perturbation COM
pared with which the author of "Salome's"
displeasure with the lord chamberlain is
cquanimity. Can it be, then, that in Ia
boOing the minnow our fishermen are
making a virtue of a necessity, and not
c"ountenancing it merely because it is use
less? We might incline to this conjecture,
if it were not that the best managed dry
fly is usually useless too. Why are our
modern fishermen so fastidious as to the
means by which they achieve failure?
Illumination on the gentle makes the
| subject darker than ever. indeed gentles,
which may be defined as maggots, wasp
grubs, caddis or any other white creeping
things, are treated according to a code of
angling morals which is quite inexplicably
arbitrary. You must not use Il gentle
when it is a 'stone bait" but you do a
highly meritorious action when, ten min
utes afterward, he has taken to himself
the wings of the greendrake and you seize
him to adorn a tail. You must not use n
maggot from the butchers; but you are at
liberty to put u bit of white leather on a
fly hook, and that oddly enough is some
times a lure more deadly than the gentle,
of which it i. intended to be all imitation.
You must not use an Alexandra, but no.
body will hinder you from working with
a 2-inch Jock Scott if you are fool enough
to prefer that means of failure.
There is, however, a reason for this par
ticular taboo. 1t is founded upon a wis
dom akin to that of Theophile Gauuier's
cat, which, hearing a parrot speak, re-
marked reflectively: "This is not a bird.
This is a gentleman. Listen to his CONVEX
s%ation!" In the estimate of the conscien-
tious fisherman, the Alexandra fly is not IL
fly. 1t is a minnow. Its dressing of feath-
ers looks like wings; but there are three
hooks underneath, IN hen the thing ~
in the water it has the appearance of IL
green minnow.
Thus far the philosophy of the taboo is
unimpeachable; but we can go no further.
The Alexandru's resemblance to a minnow
is no closer than that of a brown hackle to
a spider, which is so little close hat we
have the audacity to doubt whether the
trout feels himself tobe rising ut a spider
when we feel that it is a spider we are Of
fering him. What cause indeed have we
to believe that fish take our lures in the
spirit in which they are given? Is it not
pretty we'll ascertained hat there is no fly,
no shrimp, no prawn which has any like
ness to the blue devils. the thunder-and
l%ightnings and other engines on which
salmon willingly impale themselves? What
can a trout be thinking of when it snaps at
a parr tail? Let US hope that anglers will
not allow this So called Nineteenth century
to pass away with the premises Of their
science unrevised. 1t is high time they
were considering the possibility that fish
take some lures merely for the fun of the
thing, or by way Of %resenting an insult,
and not<because the lures seem something
good to eat. ee.
Having gone SO far in heresy, we may rs
we'll say a word for the worm. Any one
caught in the act of fishing in Hampshire
with a worm would be promptly expelled
by his club. AS he would have broken the
rules, that would serve the rascal right;
but really the taboo of the worm is, like
crimes acts IN Inc eyes OF the LlDeral par
ty when it is the other party which has
passed them, a means Of turning innocence
into wrong.
The worm in itself is i~noffensive: Very
often. especially on a bright summer day
it would5b be less of a failure than a fly usu
ally is, but that should not be accounted
to its discredit. The streams on which Il
is forbidden are so well stocked that NJ
harm would be done. although all the fish