Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1895-02-28
GEORGES SECRET.

- 49, 90 Ou lOoC SAAS ~'tSe
Rapids at the Care de Lyon, if you are
unwlse enough TO take the Ceinture
railway round Paris. But Tom and l
saw George in the full possession of
his secret for two, long June days,
that secret which set him on a pima
Gle higher than the kings of the earth,
and as Tom can never hear it alluded
to much less allude to it himself, with
out becoming blasphemous, it is left
for me to recount its manifestations.
1t was on this wise:
Tom is fonder of fishing than any
one else | have ever seen, and / am
much more devoted to fishing than
Tom. Therefore, it happened that one
long vacation we rushed away from
Cambridge as soon as term was over
to stream which l shall call Euph-
rates, because it is river of Paradise.
Pison, the first river of paradise is in
Ross-shire and the salmon of Pison are
as stron as bullocks and as pink as the
rosy fingered morn Gihon is in Nor
way, and the salmon there are as
strong as the four-year old bulls and
as nobly born as the Lady Clara We're
de We're, and the salmon trout are as
the sand of the sea for number.
Hiddekel is in Hampshire. and the
trout of Hiddekel are as shy as the
red deer on the mountains over Gil
hon; yet If you go like Agag. delicately,
! they will yield themselves over to the
dry fly, that giren in whose hands even
Ulysses would have been as wax.
But Euphrates in Devonshire, and
tho who NO ink m
pirates in June knows not the joys of
the rivers Of Paradise. Brawling down
between the knees and elbows of EX-
moor it goes, and it knows not drought
nor dearth. Here it burrows between
walls Of good bed rock, chatting for the
sea, and here it lies with a stretch of
meadow land on each side, and over
hung with alders and slim poplar trees
lettering along from shallow to wier.
in the fiat meadowy land. and all
down to the pool, and it is below the
wier in the fiat meadOwy land, and all
down the pools to where they begin
to break into foam and ripple again
that the big trout lie
Far be 1t from me to speak against
the dry liy-for have l not fished In
Hiddekel?-yet, in many moods. wet
fly fishing pleases me more. With the
dry fly, you spy your trout as ii he
We're stag, and then proceed to in
veigle him. What you gain in diplO-
macy you lose in mystery. But in the
Euphrates you may cast your fly upon
the waters blindly and at random.
There are many trout in all the pools,
and big ones in each, and who knows
but that each cast may not be Just over
the snout of some giant intent on feed
ing? But though the trout of Euph-
rates will take the wet fly well and
eagerly they are no fools.
The fly must be cast to their liking;
1t must touch the water with less
noise than the echo of a dream, its
touch must be as light as Titanias
kiss, or they will have none of it, and
the gut must be as fine as gut can be,
for there is nothing finer than gut.
Such at least were the demands of
Euphrates trout. before Georges Sc
cret revolutionized their habits. and
such are their demands now that
George has lost his secret But for
two days the laws of the Modes and
Persians were repealed. George re-
pealed them. and the annoying thing
about it is that he has not the least
idea what laws he substituted for
them
George had never fished before, he
told us, and when we saw him be-
gin we saw no reason to doubt his
word The first evening we were there
we rushed out for an hour or two,
but George said he would only come
and watch MS. He attached himself
to me and hardly took the trouble to
conceal his contempt when l caught
nothing for ten minutes. He also be-
gan pitching pebbles into the water
until he was stopped. However, in the
course of an hour | caught six, and
George said he thought it looked pretty
easy. Next morning after breakfast
we all went down to. the stream. |
was few minutes behind the others
and when | got down George had put
on his Waders and was just stepping
into the water. | asked him what
flies he had on, and he said he didn't
know their names. My horror was in
tensified, when | saw attached to a
rope of gut a blue bottle, a thing like
a hornet, and a sort of tOrtoise-shelI
butterfly. At the same time excused
him for not knowing their names, for
they were unnamable. He said he had
bought them in Manchester.
told him he might as well fish with
q couple or Kittens and q retriever
puppy; but he laughed scornfully. Next
moment the tortCise-shell butterfly
whisked by my nose. and it. the blue
bottle and the hornet fell sonorously on
the water. took off my boots in order
to get into my waders. Then / heard
George calling to me-
I've just caught something" he
said. What am / to do?"
cts a snag," / called out. eff your
flies won't come loose, you must wade
out and disentangle them"
/ heard him splashing about in the
stream. and thanked my stars / was
going to fish above him, and, having
got my waders on, / went into the
water to cross over to the other side.
George was just poking about with 4
landing net few yards below me- and
] waited.
Something splashed on the top of the
water, and George swooped at it as If
he were catching butterflies. / stun
bled down to him, seized the landing
net from him. and landed his fish. 1t
was one of the finest fish 1 had ever
taken in Euphrates. and it's upper lip
was firmly impaled ON the tortoise
shell butterfly.
How did this get here?" L asked