The Press., 1893-04-13
(Hartford Courant.) THE USUAL LACK OF TROUT.

Trout are very scarce this year. They must be, because you read it in every pa per that you take up, and also because in those same papers you read of successful anglers having caught such large num- bers that the inference makes itself-that few can be left.
 Your true angler sometimes lies in wait for the "speckled beauty" but oftener he's in such haste that he can't wait, and he only lies. That is the sportsman from whom the public is most apt to hear. Some of the older country newspapers, with early notions of economy still inner ing in their methods, keep standing the regular spring paragraphs that these gen. tlemen like to read after they have shown the editor their fish, refused to tell him where they caught them, and assured him that they expected mighty good trout supper.
 Everybody knows how these go:
 Trout are very scarce this year. The drouth substitute excessive rains, if the facts require] of last fall put the brooks in such condition that few of the speckled beauties survived. However, our genial friend, Blank Blank, was out yesterday, and when he goes he gets lem. In two hours he caught sixty-eight, ranging from four ounces to 8 pound. He saw ten men on the brook ahead of him, but he knew how to fish. They didu't. The willy trout is no match for Blank in the matter oi cunning. -.-. :. Of course the angler has various strings to his Tyre, but this is about the tune they all play. People are as accustomed to the scarcity of trout as to the taste oi them. They expect as surely to heal there are none as to hear that the peach crop has failed in Delaware.
 Dealers in trout fishermens' supplies such as rubber boots, spades, m-boxes and the like, report no lack of inquiry this year. Livery men say horses bring them in as much this season as last Farmers boys say the demand for dead trout in fit condition to show at home is in customary spring urgency, The fact is even inexperienced youth catches o1 early to the meaning of things and sets out. No expert would say the fish were scarce unless they really were very plenty and he wanted to head off the crowd Such is the confidence felt in the leaders of the art. They are after trout, so course, but are expected to take in suck CTS as well at every opportunity.
 So, if trout are plenty, people go after | them in crowds, and, lest they be plenty people go after them in crowds, far after good thing, for it takes men out into the open, Now and then timid trout k scared, but oftener a half-dozen, witt theil sense of humor in fair condition, art amused by the earthquake on the bank l the splash in the stream, the shout across lots, the crack of the breaking fence-rail and the whisper of sulphurous scripture passages. It is said that in some of tht I more popular streams, where clubs con trol the fishing, and where the manners of gentlemen demand that the drinking cup be rinsed thoroughly before passing it to the next, there is developing amons 1 the latter day trout hilarity of tempera ment and an eccentricityi of conduct tha do not eomport with the cold water habit of their ancestors, but this story implies carelessness as to the drinking cup and disregard of it's contents that the average fishing club would consider a reflection upon the habits of it's members. It ii enough if for any reason the trout enjo, not being caught as much as the fisher men enjoy saying they have caught them