Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1916-03-23

man learns the bottom of the river
learns how to balance against 1t.
There Is quite an art In wading fast
water, and a skillful mountaineer
will cross river where tenderfoot
would lose his footing at once 1t is
enough to say that the successful
Rogue river angler must be game to
go in above waist-deep and be able to
stand securely enough to cast a very
long line, even when thus half sub
merged.
The fish have grown cunning of
late years. They lie entirely out of
reach from the shore. Wade your
best, you yet must do fifty, sixty or
seventy feet of line, and must keep
your wits about you all the time.
The fish itself has no mercy on the
angler; and in turn, the angler him
self feels at liberty to beach a steel
head whenever he gets the chance.
Sometimes large takes are made,
but of late days the man who kills
half a dozen steelheads in a day is
doing very well. His fish may run
from three to eight, ten, or even
twelve pounds. These larger fish in
this bold and rushing water are, un-
der the conditions that absolutely
govern the sport, almost impossible
to stop. Skillful anglers are content
if they kill one out of six that strike.
Indeed, take steelhead angling all the
way through, the angler rarely
breaks fifty-fifty with his quarry.
There are two schools of Rogue
river steelhead anglers-those who
stick to the fly and those who take
to the spoon. The spoon used on the
Rogue river is a singular affair, al
ways of copper and very large
about the size proper for muskellunge
angling in the middle west. Once in
a while a genuine salmon will strike
one of these spoons, and cases have
been known where forty-pound fish
have been killed by a trout angler.
This spoon is usually handled as the
frog fisherman for bass works his
frog bait-by means of a giant cane
pole and line about as long as the
pole.
You will see some of the local an
glers-once in a while mere boys
wading down the middle of this river,
at times making crossing from side
to side; and every moment you ex-
pect to see them rushed downstream,
and so an end of it. But they pick
their way along gingerly, slowly,
more than waist-deep very often,
sometimes supporting themselves
with the butt of the cane pole-the
reel is commonly put up five feet or
so above the bottom of the pole in
order to keep it dry AS such an
angler wades down the stream he
flogs the water on both sides as far
as he can reach, and is able to fish
very handily the fast waters and the
heads of pools lying below the rapids.
1t is perhaps true that more steel
heads are caught on the cane pole
and copper spoon than in any other
way Let no effete easterner sneer
at this sport, for the betting is ten
to one that he himself can not prac-
tice The art of holding ones foot
ing on the smooth rock or on the un-
even lava surfaces is one not picked
up in day.
The lesser school of stee,head an
glers stick to the artificial fly; in
fact, they are salmon anglers par ex-
cellent, though they are obliged to
wade in order to angle-they cannot,
as in the case of many Newfoundland,
New Brunswick, Quebec and Norway
salmon waters, fish from the shore
or from a boat.
The steelhead acts very much like