The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1896-05-14
THE HuMBnE ANGAEWoRm.
Don't pospise This wrigsllng Bait VIII

III ~ ~ UMbIE iNULE WORMs
Don't Despise This Wriggling Bait When
You A-FIshing Gothic Patrician Fly
IL All Right, but Sometimes You Get
Hungry for Fish-Then Happy Is the
Man with Bait Box-And There are
Other Fish Besides Brook Trout and
Black Bass.
(From the New York Sun)
THAT fiy-fishing for trout is the very
poesy of angling, calling for the exer-
else of the finest artistic instinct, there
can be no doubt" said a veteran an
gler, but If you are going fishing let
me whisper in your ear that you
mustn't despise the humble angleworm.
1t is the proper thing nowadays among
scientific fishermen, 1 know, to affect
horror at the mention of killing a trout
with an angleworm or a black bass
with any lure not coming under the
head of feather but he Is a foolish and,
short-sighted fisherman who goes on
his outing without his bait box and n
good supply Of the real old-fashioned
wriggling fish worms of the garden
SOIL particularly If he is going into
camp.
There are often times in camp when
fish are needed, and If the camping
party feels itself above the angleworm
or other plebeian bats, there will be
times a-plenty when fish will be a
scarce article and hunger will abound,
Especially is this true of black bass.
One day this game fish will take your
flies with an eagerness and sportive
grace that are simply balm in Gilead
to the troubled soul of an angler. The
next day you may trail every fly you
have in your book-and the chances are
that you will have a dozen or so too
many-whipping with all the skill you
can employ, and the bass will pay no
more attention to them than If there
wasn't a bass in that water.
IF you are of the guild of true
sportsmen, you will, of course, return
to camp disguised and disappointed,
and go fish-hungry to your bunk If
there is not some one in your party
who does not fear your scorn and will
go out and try the bass with a dcbson,
or big, acrobatic angleworm, or even
a strip of fat pork from the camp lard
er. That day will be sure to be the
black bass day for one or the other of
those bats, and the fisherman who is
your true sportsman In the proper
sense of the term will hit the capricious
appetite of the fish before he gives up,
and will have his reward in a good
catch. No one knows what a black
bass will take one day after another,
and the only way to find out is by ex-
perimenting The man who fishes only
with fly should remember that 1t re-
quires not only just as much skill to be
successful with bait as it does with
flies, but also great deal more study
and observation of the fish's ways.
Brook trout are queer, too, but not
as queer as the black bass. The angle
worm seems to be natural bait for the
trout Some days this royal fish will
refuse the fly, no matter what kind is
offered, but will take the angleworm
with avidity Other days he will favor
the fly, but he never entirely ignores
the worm. The very large brook trout
are the only ones that seem to ignore the
angleworm habitually, except early in
the season. Then even the biggest
ones will accept it, and appear to be
glad of the chance. The largest trout I
ever saw, taken from a mountain
stream, was captured with worm i'm
mediately after one of the most expert
fly fishermen in the country had
whipped the pool
The trout weighed over four pounds.
Then, again, have known large trout
81, NI,o a.. \. a.
turn their backs on the wriggling an
gleworm, and promptly succumb to fat
white wood grubs presented to them in
an artistic manner by anglers who
know there is something in fishing be-
sides effigies in feather of nondeseript
insects. Trout know what they want
better than the nattiest sportsman that
ever flashed a hundred dollars worth
of tackle on stream can tell Them no
matter If he can cast fly ninety-nine
feet. In deep pools there are always
big trout that will neither rise to a fly
nor take worm or grub If live
minnow, or the pink belly fin of one of
their own kind, trolled through their
haunt, will not tempt them to your
hook you may as well give up all hope
of taking those trout by any legitimate
means.
1T is good thing to remember, if
you are going to a fishing camp in the
woods, that water may yield you min
nows, dobson or crawfish; the woods
and the forest soil will provide you
with various grubs; but neither water
nor woods nor forest soil will turn out
to you an angleworm. SO never go into
camp without good supply of these
Take two quarts at least. Keep them
in damp moss and in cool place. |
know a club of fishermen in western
Pennsylvania whose members go annu-
ally to their quarters in the Georgian
Bay region, Canada. Every member is
an expert angler with the fly. For