The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-10-30

brook for two hours with flies and
worms, catching but three trout for our
pains. The trout were there, but they
would not bite. The boy caught a
grasshopper and threw it into the
water and several trout rose together
for it.
Were only foolin' away our time
tryin EN- with flies and worms. mis-
ter, the boy announced. They've got
their minds sot on hoppergrasses, and
they'd swim away from a. fat grub
worm if twas before their noses
we walked to a stubble field a mile
away and went to catching grasshop-
pers. -Abner captured about fifty while
/ was catching seven With these for
bait we went back to our fishing and
in an hour had landed forty seven trout.
For weeks the fish would hardly notice
any other bait than grasshoppers. But
the insects were agile and hard to
catch, and it was difficult TO provide
enough of them for a days fishing.
Then, through Abner's experience, we
discovered that in fishing a pool after
beginning with grasshoppers, to excite
their appetites- the trout for while
would snap at almost any lure we Of
fered them. One day as we went to a
ilshlng hole with scant stock of grass
hoppers in our bait boxes, Abner
stopped to rob a buHblebees' nest of its
hoard, fighting the bees with his hat
and picking them up as they fell. When
ne caught up with me he offered me
half the honeycomb and showed me
twelve dead bees that he had slowed
away in his bait box. Batting our
hooks with these. after the fish had
been enticed with grasshoppers, we
caught a trout for every one.
Abner Shows His Ingenuity.
But the browning achievements in
my summers fishing, which l owed to
Abner's hopeful counsel was in taking
splendid catch of trout from the Al.
der pool. The stream was famous
one for the trout, but there was a
stretch of about a mile in it's course
that it was currently said had never
been fished, owing to the morasses and
thick underground that bordered il,
Somewhere in its course through the
swamp was deep pool, which it was
certain, in August, must be alive With
the biggest kind of brook trout, gath
cred there through the partial drying
up OF the stream above and below. 1
had given up the idea of trying to get
to this water, but the bow did some
exploring on his own hook, and one
day came to me with the announcement
that he had found a path to the pool,
and had a plan for fishing it. SO we
stocked up for the trip and went into
the swamp, following a deer path that
crossed the stream about twenty feet
above the pool. After an hours hard
fioundering we got to the stream and
could see the pool below us. as likely
place for trout as one could wish, but
with no way of getting nearer to it
than we We're. The bushes which over
of a line down to its waters, and to
leave that path meant that 1 would be
mired to the waist at the second step.
1 could think of no way to get line
and hook down to the pool from where
was, but unless a way were found
all the trout in its depths might as Well
be in Manila bay for all the good they
would do me. AS 1 balanced myself at
the crossing of the deer path it did not
help my feelings to hear now and then
the splash of a big trout down in the
black water below me.
But the boy had thought out the
points of the situation and was pre-
pared to meet it at every turn. He had
brought light ak with him, and there
was plenty of dead timber along the
path behind us. Abner went back and
heard him chopping. Presently ne
returned with an arnful of big chips
and pieces of dry bark stripped from
fallen spruces and heml ocks. LAYING
a piece of bark on the bank, he baited
my hook with worm, then, pulling
of some thirty feet of line from the
reel. he coiled it upon the bark, with
the hook resting at the bottom of the
coil. He launched the piece of bark
carefully in the stream and the cur
rent took it down to the pool, the line
unwinding from the coil as it fioated
down. II drifted out upon the pool and
then a little jerk of the rod yanked
the rest of the line from the bark and
the baited hook sank in the water. Be
fore it had got half a foot below the
surface a trout had it and l reeled him
up the stream, fighting every foot OF
the way, to opposite where l stood,
when the boy waded in with the net
and landed him. We had mastered the
secret of taking trout from the Alder
pool and for hours Abner and stood
there by the stream launching the coil
ed line on a chip or piece of bark and
drawing back trout from the still,
black water below. When at last
reeled up my line and unjointed my rod,
it was not that the fish had ceased to
bite. but because We had all we cared
TO carry back over the swamp trail
We brought home just 100 trout, which
weighed together more than forty
.NOun1Sn