The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-06-26
Hidden Tells Of Americas
 Greatest Trout Stream
Twenty sx-Mile Trip Down Flat Head River Requires Four Hours in Canoe Without Rowing-Novel
 Experience in Landing Big Beauty
Robert G. Hiden, in The Spur

Robert c. Hiden, in The Spur"
 Magazine.
 Walt a minute, I'll fix the bloat never seen it fail yet" Thus spoke Charlie Howe. an old time. ex- perienced guide and fisherman for well night loo miles up and down both forks of the Flat Head. The river one >of the best trout streams in the country rumples and roars down from the Northwest reaches of the Rockies, swishes alongside Bel ton, the western entrance of Glacier National park, and thence winds by circuitous route through Goram, Columbia Falls, and westward to water the productive southwest Mon-
 tara prairies in it's course to the Pacific. Howe knew the game, for he had studied the haunts, habits and tastes of these cold water trout some 20 years. His trick
 worked all right. and resulted in netting five-pound throat trout, as handsomely marked as ever slashed for a No Silver Doc tor-but I shall come to that in due course of time.
 Two of us-Hoke Smith of St. Paul. familiarly known as rOld Hoke" in the Twin Cities and who has whipped the hundreds of lakes and streams of Glacier National Park every summer for more than a decade, and myself, fisherman by preference in many climes for a generation-had reserved this prize trip until toward the last as the piece de resistance, the climax in s-I .I- speak. We knew the pleasure in store for us, having frequently filled our creels in Red Eagle, McDermott, Cracker and other lakes and had easily taken the limit of 20 fish each day from the St. Mary, Bearing, Swiftcurrent and dozen other per feet streams, all fed from the snow fields and glaciers, and cold, swift and clear as crystal-a yeritable riot of scenic picturesqueness.
 The fish to be found in this re- glon vary in species from eastern brook, rainbow and steel l-head to cut throat grayling and native black spotted with now and then flat trout, as they are called out there--dark gray back, shading into lighter tones on the side and touched with small brown spots and with faint suggestions of pink-and Dull" in local nomenclature, which are nothing more than mackinaw or lake trout Broadly speaking, they are all, of the salmon genus, with flesh varying from pink to dark pink, according to variety and size, They range from one to eight pounds in weight, our catches aver aging two and half.
 It is a sport worth while from rise to net for the trout are masters m the art of darting, leaping and pounding. And leaving the skillet under the management of one of these Rocky mountain campfire chefs well, you simply have to go out and put away" a pound or two, af- ter whipping one of these high -altiS tude low -temperatured streams, Co forget all about the high cost Of living.
 Coming back to that day on the Flat Head. 1t was an experience that should finger long in the memory of any real fisherman. With wagers settled, we were off, five minutes apart and in two staunch skiffs built for the swift currents and rapids of the Flat Head It is 26-mile trip to Columbia Falls, but, forum ately one in which little rowing is required, although careful guiding is necessary in order to avoid upset ting in water 10 to 30 feet deep and with a temperature down in the for ties. Flight o'clock found the two boats skimming over singing nipples, shooting across rapids that speed up the heart action of tenderfoot, or