The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-07-20

of flies will spill out of him. But the
brook trout is not glutton. He eats
daintily and only such things as are tc
ibis liking He will not throw himself
into a half circle and Immediately shoot
back to the surface when he has missed
a strike He goes down even more
deeply and lies sullenly thinking, his
fins moving slowly to and fro and his
broad tail as straight as an iron bar.
Perhaps he will remain so for five min
utes while the broken rays of light
dance down to him through the sur
face, or perhaps he will remain so for
all of the day. There is never any tel
ling. 1t depends upon how he is feeling
and upon the science of the man who
wants him IF he has been scratched by
the hook ever so slightly it will pay the
angler to reel in and tramp to the next
pool The old man has enough for that
day. To great strength, great activity,
great endurance and great beauty, the
brook trout joins a singular ability to
distinguish between artificial bait and
something that is good to eat. There is
no fish whose persuit requires so thor
| ough knowledge not only of how q cast
should be made, bat also Of the fly that
should be used at certain seasons, at cer-
| tain hours and in certain weathers. 1t
is fish of moods beyond the certain ken
of any man. On a gIaring, still morning
it will rise to nothing save a sober, dus-
ty, brown thing which looks more like a
dead leaf than an insect. On another
glazing still morning it will rise only to
combinations of blue, green. yellow and
|
ache. Tt viii refuse all lures at $3.50 a.
m. and almost climb tree for an
angle-Worm at 1890 a. m. There are
| days when cast as light as the flicker
| of a maiden's eyelash will send the
brook trout to hide his crimson spots
in the deepest corner of his deep pool
There are other days when a bachana-
liam sportsman, who has emptied his
flask, may sit on the bank and troll
How Would You Like to Be the Under
taker?" at the top Of his pipe and hook
fish after fish With more beauty than
most women, with more whims than
any woman, with weathercock of an
appetite and a wonderfully discerning
eye, the brook trout continues to be the
puzzle and desire of every fisherman
who knows anything at all about his
art.
In the armor which his cunning has
thrown about him there is one crevice,
and strange as it may seem, it has
taken the anglers of this part of the
world a full century to find it. Even
now his weakness is known to only a
few of them; the discoverer, as all
true fishermen should has kept his find
for himself and a few intimates. That
weakness is temper. Three years ago a
man in central Wisconsin named Taylor
discovered that brook trout of GER
tain age may be made to strike purely
through irritation when every known
lure has failed. In Taylor's neighbor-
hood. which is too far south. there are
no old man trout of the northern pools
but his method Of working has been
tried by two or three fishermen and it
has proved success. The fact that
the fish must have long passed the adult
age is proved by the further fact that
not young trout has yet been taken by
this method They are supposed to lack |
the necessary Feasibility of courage or
whatever one may choose to call it. |
Taylor makes his captures in this way:
Walking down the bank quietly or
wading down the stream. as the case
may be, he selects a spot which he |
thinks is likely to contain trout of lar
ger growth and therefore of longer years. !
File makes an apparently bungling cast,
though there are few men more skill
full. The fly strikes the water with !
splash, floats downward for a foot or
two near the lair of the supposed vic
tim and is Immediately withdrawn.
Again the hard cast Is made and again
the splash follows This is repeated |
four. five, six or a dozen times. In the
end the result is almost certain to be
savage, swift rush, a strong, quick
wrist movement and a half hour of bat
te with a landed fish as large as they
are apt to grow In the middle of the
State. The theory is that the trout,
who may not be hungry at all but is
DESTROYS of a nap, loses his temper when
the annoyance is repeated and merely
5allies out to punish the intruder, just
as mother trout near her spawn will
lash at the legs Of a man who wades by
her. That is the explanation Taylor
gives of it, and no one can deny his
success. At the same time it Is rather
to those who have spent years
IN acquiring the proper delicacy of cast
to see a man throw fly as if it were q
prick and kill three fish to their one. A
man able to land his fly within a yard
circle at a distance of sixty feet and
hat so lightly that only a little ripple
spreads away on the waters shining
ace can be brought to use the Taylor
method with difficulty. Tt takes all the
,onceit out of him, and he is apt to de-
,lare that if the way to fish is to make
Is much disturbance as possible, a dry
goods clerk, with a cane pole and clothes ,
inc, ought to be able to give cards and ,
spades to the oldest hand at the bust
less. Taylor contends, however, that s
here is as much in knowing when and ,
where to make the irritating casts as
n knowing how to do it, so his method $
still has certain elements of science.
IN the deep pool fish Of the Lake Supe- s
Tor streams, the giant fellows, with r
pots of brightest red and backs of =
Iarkest green it has been found to work !
With efficacy. This is due to two facts: !
The fish are large and old and savage c
nd the pools have been little visited 6
n time, it is believed, the adaptabiity c
f the brook trout will enable him to
meet the changed conditions Of attack. :