Theodore Gordon Flyfishers

...

Emergence Under the rock in the sand

and the gravel run; In muck bank and weed, at the

heart of the river's edge: Instar; and again, ins tar, The wing cases visible. Then Emergence: leaf drift

and detritus; skin split, The image forced from the self.

And rests, wings drying, eyes compressed, constricted

Beneath the dun and the watershine -

Incipient spinner, set for the take-off ...

And does, in clean tear: imago rising out of herself

For the last time, slate-winged and many-eyed.

And joins, and drops to her destiny,

Flesh to the surface, wings flush on the slate film.

From Bloodlines, copyright by Charles Wright, 1976. Wesleyan University Press. Reprinted by permission.

-Charles Wright

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NUMBER TWELVE

Random Casts is published by THEODORE GORDON

FL YFISHERS, Inc. 24 East 39 Street

New York, N.Y. 10016 Established 1962

PRESIDENT Paul T. Shultz III VICE PRESIDENT Lou Rossi SECRETARY

CONTENTS 1980

3 EMERGENCE Charles Wright

5 TROUT FISHING MEMORIES Theodore Gordon

Richard L. Aronstein 10 NEITHER CURRENT NOR CONVENTION TREASURER Walter M. Kaufman

John Merwin

DIRECTORS 15 IN DEFENSE OF LA TIN NAMES Peter J . Alcaly Larry Solomon Richard L. Aronstein 17 FISHING CAN BE HAZARDOUS Ronald C. Barnes Ted Baron TO YOUR HEALTH Rudolphe L. Coigney M.D. Bennett J. Mintz William Claiborne Donald A. Ecker 21 THE VALLEY OF THE BEAVERKILL Francis J . Fallon M.W.S. Tobey Clement H. Fullerton Robert F. Goldstein 24 THE WALTON OF TIMES SQUARE Gardner L. Grant Joe A. Pisarro Anthony Jansic Walter M. Kaufman 27 RECOLLECTIONS Joel F. Olesky Leo J. Clapsadle Richard Olguin

31 THE INFALLIBLE, ALMOST Joe A. Pisarro Lou Rossi Frank Garisto Ulf W. Runquist

32 MINUTES OF THE IMAGO SOCIETY Mark B. Ruza Robert Schwartz 36 CAST A FLY William J. Sheridan Paul T . Schultz III Neil Strother Shiela G. Schultz 37 WHEN THE COWS CAME HOME Lawrence Solomon Henry H . Sternberg G. H. Caddis Joan Stoliar 40 THE FISHING IN PRINT Barbara P . Worcester

EDITOR Joe A. Pisarro

Copyright © 1980 by Theodore Gordon Flyfish-ers, Inc. Use of any material contained herein without prior written permission prohibited.

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Theodore Gordon

T rout Fishing Metnories

In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of fishin'! In fact, the enthusiasts begin to think and talk about their anticipated sport in the early days of January, and stimulate their im-aginations as to what they will do, by reading all the angling literature they have leisure for.

The accompanying article appeared originally in Forest & Stream in 1915, shortly after Gordon 's death. Gordon had been a regular contributor to that magazine.

They remember past days lovingly: not a big fish landed or lost has been forgotten. I honestly believe that I have a feeling of depression NOW, when I recall the loss of certain great trout in my early youth; and at the time I was inconsolable.

I have always been thankful to the Gods of rivers and brooks for allowing me to live in a trout country, and near a number of fine streams during those early years of development into the sportsman; from about 11 to 19 years of age.

I was introduced to the game by an old fisherman whose standards were none too high. He was really a good hand with the artificial fly, but usually preferred bait, as it was easier fishing and he claimed was responsible for larger trout. With such coaching I naturally began my fishing for trout with worms, and fished the tributar-ies of the fly-fishing waters, or followed some of the rapid streams in the mountains north and south of our valley. Those to the north were the Blue Mountains of Penn-sylvania, the South Mountains were lower, but held one very fine brook, which found a way down a rough, thickly brushed valley; where occasionally deer, ruffed grouse and woodcock were started by the angler. I saw one woodcock deliberately swim across a quiet pool on one occasion, but that is another story and might not be valued as the truth deserves.

One afternoon after I had caught nine trout of barely takable size on bait I met a well-known sportsman named Jim -M-., a handsome man who presented a natty ap-pearance in his well-cut fishing clothes. He was using an exquisite split-bamboo rod that had been presented to him, and all of his equipment was of the very best.

The time of day was near the end of the evening rise and trout of two or three ounces to three-quarters of a pound were rising lazily. The scene of action was a meadow where the stream was broad, and slow; moss and clean green water weeds grew in the pure spring water, and there was always a heavy stock of trout in this meadow, but they were very hard to catch; nothing could be done with bait in about a mile of the stream.

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Mr. -M- had not brought a creel, but a clean white canvas sack, which he thrust into the big inside pocket of his coat. When he lugged this out to deposit a fish therein, I was astonished to see that it was filled with trout.

The angler was kind and patient with the boy; answering his questions as they walked homeward together, and presenting him with one of the artificial flies that had killed all those fish . It was a favorite pat-tern in Southern Pennsylvania as tied by a dresser in Philadelphia, and resembled a March Brown with guinea fowl wings . It failed after the old flymarker died, as it was never tied true to pattern.

I resolved to become a fly-fisher, and by splicing I made up a light rod that would cast a fly, using all the bits of old rods I had at my disposal. The next Saturday I caught 22 small trout on the fly that had been given to me, and was tremendously elated; imagining myself to be a born flyfisher. But my ethical standards were weak, and I am afraid that the boy thought more of get-ting the trout, in any old way, than of re-ducing them to possession in a scientific manner. I was an excitable little wretch and had a perfect genius for smashing fly rods . Pocket money was saved for months for a new weapon, which was probably broken in a few days . The hardware store at which I traded took advantage of my ignorance and sold me rods built of poor materials at long prices. However, I was learning, and what was more, teaching myself to tie a good fly .

I will never forget the holiday when, after working all morning tieing five flies , I went to the nearest stream and killed 13 beautiful native brook trout, from Y4 to Yz lbs. in weight. The flies had not been securely finished at the head , or they would have endured more hard work, and taken more trout. Always use the whip finish; as half hitches are the lazy man's makeshift.

There was a stretch of about 1 Yz miles of ancient canal; dug in the days of the ear-ly settlers to feed a grist mill, and in the long years it had become more of a natural stream than a canal. There were great deep holes under giant weeping willow trees, and the roots of these created safe cover for big fish.

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Poceeding up stream one dark day toward the end of April, I met a lean fish hawk, with his home-made rod and three trout. I had seen no sun fish in those waters, up to that time. The smallest full 1 Y4 lbs. and the largest over 1 % lbs. The man was communicative and said that these trout only fed on such dark days; the weather must be dismal with overcast skies and a light rain was favorable. I said the eddies and current in the big holes were very uncertain and often threw the worm to the surface. He warned me that I must use

little lead, and gave me the correct weight In tea lead to use. A large worm was to be the bait, and the head hidden, while a long end was allowed to wiggle. He told me that he had killed trout up to 2Yz pounds and that few people knew of the heavy stocked trout hidden in a mile of the old canal. Even men who were advised of their presence rarely creeled one of these larger fish.

Of course, the boy developed an inci-pient case of buck fever and began to dream of monsters in the night. It was evi-dent that the patched up fly rod was no weapon for the contemplated attack, so we visited the hardware store, and paid $3 .00 for a four joint bait rod which 1 presumed to be well made. I felt competent to deal with any fish in the country but had to wait for the weather and the day to join hands before I could hope for success . But the day came quickly and 1 walked off im-mediately after breakfast. At the. point where I met the canal there had been a set of gam biens and an old forebay, an" below a set of piles that stood in the water, there was quite a wide deep pool. Above the piles a handsome trout took the worm savagely and was quickly landed as it did not exceed 314 lb. This was big in boyish eyes. A fresh worm was adjusted and allowed to trip along the bottom of the pool. Presently the line stopped and quivered a bit, outside the end of a rotten pile, and on striking I found

that I had hooked a heavy fish . Not realiz-ing its weight I tried to swing it out over the low, rounded canal bank; the rod broke in the middle close to a defective ferule, the trout got slack line, and in a moment was free of the hook. I can not describe my dis-appointment, it was too keen.

In a few minutes I rallied my energies and built a little fire or dry wood, with which to burn out the ferules, refitting them to the best of my ability. I made the next swim in exactly the same line as the last, and strange to say the line stopped and quivered at the same spot. Controlling myself rather better I landed this trout, a lovely 1 \14 pounder, a native, in perfect condition.

Walking up stream a short distance I found a deep swirling hole, near a big stump, and shaded by huge willow trees . Here I killed a still finer trout, and, boy-like, I could contain myself no longer. It was one of the good days and there was plenty of water to fish, but I must march home as soon as possible, to show those wonderful trout to my mother and family. After reaching town I used the main street, carrying the trout on a willow forked branch, and they attracted much attention, to the delight of the small boy.

My chief need at that time was to see some really first rate work, but I pro-gressed quite rapidly through reading and practical fishing on all holidays . I learned of the best flyfishing waters and several times a fine old angler, who had never caught trout with other than artificial flies came for me with his team of trotters, just to have company. He made his own split-bamboo rods and was an accomplished angler.

Saving up my Christmas money I bought another rod. This time one of Con-roy's, and made of what was considered the best woods. I think the butt was of ash, middle joint of lancewood and the tip of lancewood, topped with jungle cane. It was rigged with preposterously large rings, on the plea of reducing friction.

I discovered that there was a large well-stocked stream not more than an hour by rail from town, and with a friend opened

the season there in April. The near-by hotel was crowded with anglers from New York, Philadelphia, Harrisburg and other places, and in spite of a rough day, with snow squalls, the trout fed freely. There were many fishermen in the village and they were proud of their stream. No anteseason fishing was allowed.

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were many grist mills and dams, and much slow flowing water, with deep channels, and in between, short runs, known locally as "riffles", but full of trout. There was much variety and plenty of trout for all hands, although we estimat-ed that one hundred men were concentrat-ed on two miles of water, considered to be the best on the stream. The total catch of the day was reported in a Philadelphia newspaper, but I had no means of checking the number, which was immense, for prac-tically two miles of water.

A village youth who had his wits with him, rose very early; as he knew that some of the "duds" would catch few fish. In all he killed three long strings, enough to fill a good sized creel, in each instance; and he sold those trout at $5.00 per string. He was a poor chap and needed the cash badly.

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I was obliged to go West for a few weeks, but returned by the first of June. I knew that the trout in that water quickly acquired an education; only a short time was required, but there was a good hatch of natural flies, and the fish were sure to rise at intervals during the day. The evening rise rarely failed, if the weather was at all de-cent. I packed my grip, and arrived at the small hotel in time for the afternoon and evening fishing. The weather was cool and conditions seemed promising.

I began fishing at the head of a riffle where many trout had been killed in April, but in those days, it seems to me, that I was always doing something ill-advised, to say the least of it. Because of a light breeze I sought the wrong side of the stream, where a high snake fence was situated at precisely the correct distance to interfere with the back cast. I steepled the back cast well enough, until I began to take fair trout; then forgot, and broke my two tips at the ferules .

I made repairs after a fashion, and began again on the side from which everyone fished, working slowly upward . Presently a native angler joined me, rigged in the old fashioned way. A heavy, home-made hickory fly rod in two joints, painted green, and with rings and reel lashed on. A good waterproof line and gut leader, with but a single fly at the end of the latter. It re-quired a powerful arm to handle these rods, which, I should say, weighed nearly two pounds, but the work done with them was a deft and pretty as anyone could desire.

He addressed me, and said: "Why don't you move on to one of the dams where the trout run larger? You rarely catch a large fish here." I went with him willingly enough, and saw him kill one or two half-pounders; then he hurried on and I was left alone.

This dam was peculiar; beginning some distance from the upper end, a deep wide channel wound down all the way to a point directly above two low bridges, which crossed the dam a long cast from its breast. At this point the channel divided into two, and swept deep and slow through the bridges. The sun was rather hot here but knowing the weakness of big trout for

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bridges, I lay down on the eastern one and studied the water carefully.

Sure enough a short distance above the lower edge we noted a very large fish, for that country, in about 10 feet of clear spring water. There was absolutely no chance with the fly, but I fancied that a large worm, properly presented, might bring results. I did not forget that fish.

Proceeding up stream I discovered much perfect water. The western side of all the upper portion of the dam and a long riffle of good depth was shaded by a line of willow trees. They threw a pleasing soft light on the water; a little breeze was rip-pling the surface gently and here and there a rising trout was absorbing every fly that floated over it. I must have spent at least three hours on possibly 200 yards of water at this place . It was to me the perfection of flyfishing and required delicate and careful casting.

On my way down to the dam I took several fine trout from the channel. One could just manage to command it by exer-cising the gratest care, as the water reached within an inch of the tops of one's stock-ings.

When there was a good rise of natural flies the trout left the channel and spread themselves all over the dam. In the evening every square yard of water would be dim-pled by a rising trout.

At a marshy spot some distance up stream I had grubbed out a few worms with a sharp stick, and prepared to tempt the big trout under the bridge. Again proceeding carelessly I used the same old leader, mere-ly attaching a snelled bait hook to the end of it, and baiting with the largest worm I had. A small piece of lead from a tea chest was pinched on above the snell.

Drawing off an abundance of slack line from the reel I threw the bait well above the bridge and allowed it to sink and travel slowly through the bridge which was cer-tainly not more than two feet above the water. I gave much time and lots of slack line; then reeled up and struck as well as I could. The big fish was on. It was hooked, but it was a deuce of a job to bring it up from a depth of ten feet and through a bridge that seemed to rest on the surface of .the stream.

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At last the trout appeared near the up-per edge of the bridge, apparently pretty well tired out by the struggles to remain in its haunt. It looked to be well hooked, but there was no place to strand it, and I had lost my small landing net away back up stream, while peering under a mill .

I threw the rod into the hollow of the left arm, took the line in hand and gently worked the trout from under the planking. It seemed in my hands and an easy matter to quietly swing it upon the bridge; but as soon as the weight of the fish was on the leader the trout gave a little flop with its tail, the gut broke two feet from the hook, and the "buster" (that should have been mine with care and good judgment) slowly sank beneath the bridge, too tired to swim away. I was very young and for a time was quite heart broken. The worst of it was that I knew that I had been a fool, not a plea-sant realization. I had no stomach for the evening rise so returned to mine inn for my supper. I was a trifle consoled when I saw the porter putting away my fish, as they were some very fine native trout.

The next morning was cool and sun-shiny, and as I walked upstream I noticed trout feeding below the mill, in the edge of a slow stream of great depth, the bottom was mostly gravel and coarse sand, and I

soon realized that small members of the stocked family were the attraction.

By approaching the stream from below and placing myself in the proper position, I could see everyone of those that which were feeding in water only a few inches deep, I don't think I had more interesting flyfishing as I had to cast accurately and delicately to individual trout and there were no small fish. Of course there were not the big Brown trout to fill up the creel, but they were lovely native trout. Well fed, hand-some natives, averaging a half pound each -were good enough for sport. I had a fine basket and remembered that friends of mine were giving a little dramatic entertain-ment that night at which they wished me to be present. I was satisfied that I had enough trout for a special purpose, which was this. The principal of a young ladies boarding school was a good friend of mine and I wished to give all these pretty girls a trout supper. The catch of the day before was on cold storage and was hard and fresh, and when all these fish were turned out on a large tin waiter we counted 47 very beautiful trout, as the spoils of a morning and afternoon's fishing . A good plain din-ner was served before our departure at 3 o'clock PM and we arrived home even a trace of fatigue. 0

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Neither Current nor Convention

John Merwin

M pond makes no sense. The questions it posed last summer and fall bite me deeply this winter, and I am impatient for spring and for answers. At times it was generous: fat wild brown trout that rose freely and to almost any fly. At others an enigma: those days when I neither saw nor raised a fish. Because its occasional re-wards are so great, the puzzle continues to pull me. The volumes of stream-trout theory are many, but the obvious lack of information on stillwater trout makes speculation exciting. The Beaverkill and Madison have no mysteries on so grand a scale.

The essentials of our flyfishing techni-ques for trout in general are based on the physical fact of current in a stream or river. The current is the most important factor governing the behavior and location of trout in a stream, and as such has become the most important factor in our presenta-tion of a fly. We have grown up learning a river's currents to learn our flyfishing. Techniques are established. They are com-fortable. But in my pond there is neither current nor convention.

And so it is discomforting. Long famil-iar trout-stream insects are absent; new forms and species - many unique to still-waters - must be learned. Names, habitat, behavior, hatching times ... all new. The fish must be found; not in eddies and swift-water pockets, but over weedbeds, in sub-merged channels, along ledges often invisi-ble below the pond's unspeaking surface. A rise. A fish. We've found one, finally, and

Adapted from Stillwater Trout (Nick Lyons Books/Doubleday & Co., N. Y,), edited by John Merwin.

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then more rises. But then is it one fish that's cruising, rising three times in a row, or is it three separate fish, each rising once. The simple task of a river angler casting to a rising fish has been a fun-house game. Now you see it; now you don't. A hall of mirrors.

There is a little pond down the road -quiet, and with summer houses all around - that holds a few small brown trout, which I've caught, and a few very big ones, which I haven't. I fish it often in early spring, because like many small ponds, its fish became active earlier than in the snow-swollen river. I was pushed to the pond then, because I could no more bear to fish the freezing river than I could bear not to fish at all. There was an occasional rise on the calm surface along the opposite shore. The April air felt good. I was ready.

The canoe drifted near the point of an earlier rise. I waited but there was nothing more. Once in a while, a small insect pop-ped off the surface and flew away with the characteristically steady flight that dis-tinguishes a mayfly from a more erratic caddis. A small mayfly nymph is the logical choice, and another break down the shore-line gives me a target on which to test the · theory. There is a lot of fruitless casting during which there are no more rises. Nor any hits.

I have read much and caught less. That which I've read tells me I'm seeing a cruising trout taking emerging mayflies, and that it's a simple matter of intercepting the fish's cruising pattern with the ap-

propriate fly. These surface breaks are very random; there's no perceptible pattern to the rises. The emergence is very sporadic; it's apparently too sparse a hatch to pull trout to the surface and to keep them there. I am tired of frantically paddling and casting, tired of chasing something I don't really understand. I anchor, chew on a Milky Way, and wish the river were warm enough to fish.

I pull out a fly box, open it and sit won-dering the same things we all have wonder-ed at such times: What to do when you don ' t have the least idea what to do. Final-ly, a two-fly cast, a pair of size 12 Lead-wing Coachman wets on a longish leader and the same floating line that has so far yielded nothing. The wet flies are old friends; I'll enjoy fishing them if nothing else. I cast and sit; they sink, drawing the leader down slowly until the whole affair is held suspended by the bouyant fly line.

The line is pulled down suddenly. I can't believe it - don't believe it - and so don't strike. I twitch the flies carefully back, but nothing happens. Another cast, a slow sinking, suspension, then another twitch, and I am ready. A brown trout -embarrassingly small, but a still trout -flips around next to the canoe. I have dis-covered the secret. The river is forgotten, and I cast again. And again. I think I have learned something, but I don't know what it is.

During the few years since that inci-dent, I came to research, edit and partly write an anthology on flyfishing for still-water trout. In that book, a number of well-known anglers described various lake-fishing techniques that happen to work at some times in some places. With only a few exceptions, it still strikes me as significant that most of those technical explanations centered on how something should be done, rather than why it should be done in the first place. It is something like a doctor's occasionally curing a symptom while having no knowledge of the disease. In medicine, that's no more than a partial answer, and while the stakes are certainly lower, the same reasoning applies to .stillwater trout. I am not satisfied with

something that works only some of the time. And I now find, having distilled in my own mind the work that went into that book, that several questions keep coming back. I feel no constraint to avoid specula-tion here, and because these questions will affect such stillwater fishing as you may do, we can speculate together.

I would like to know how to avoid fruit-less days by picking a good trout pond to try in the first place among a choice of several. I want to know how the trout in that pond behave and why - and whether or not in a pond with three trout species (Le., brown, brook and rainbow) if and how each of the three behaves differently. I want to know more about the pond's en-tomology from an ecological standpoint; that is, not technical nomenclature and generic classifications, but rather behavior, habitat preferences and relative quantities of various trout-food organisms, insects and otherwise. That sounds, I admit, like a great deal, but it is no more information than many stream fishermen have had for years and now take for granted. The mere fact of our now fishing in stillwater doesn't mean such information is unattainable, on-ly more difficult because we can't look it up before a weekend trip.

It becomes all the more frustrating when we do try to look something up, something on lake ecology that might be of value to fishermen, because a large body of technical knowledge has evolved without us. The terms are strange, frightening, perhaps, to a stream fisherman who has never encountered them. And they can be misleading, too.

Biologists and fisheries managers, for example, describe a "good" trout lake as oligotrophic, which I find irritating be-cause our very best trout lakes and ponds are not. Oligotrophic is a term used in lake typology that is generally synonymous with our North Country lakes: clear, deep, cold, relatively little aquatic vegetation, in-habited perhaps by landlocked salmon, brook trout, and smelt. Because their year-round water temperatures remain cold enough for trout, they are habitually class-ed as trout waters.

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Curiously those lakes usually classed as being suitable for bass and other warm-water fishes are known as eutropic, the next stage in a lake's ecological succession measured in terms of geologic time. These lakes are generally warmer and support much greater quantities of aquatic vegeta-tion. The life forms in such lakes are typically more abundant, both in terms of individuals and variety of species. They are more productive, but are often too warm for trout.

From a flyfisherman's view, oligo-trophic lakes - the "good" trout lakes -are often difficult to fish. Relatively low fertility and steeply sloping shorelines often mean that insect populations will be sparse. The ideal, perhaps, is a lake or pond that is eutrophic in every sense except water temp-erature, a fertile lake with abundant vege-tation and where water temperatures re-main low enough all year to support trout. Some of these lakes are legend: Henrys Lake in Idaho is one such which is abun-dant with vegetation, cold water, a wide variety of organisms on which trout feed, and a substantial population of good trout that come well to flies. There are numerous small ponds in the Rockies and West that are generally comparable to the Henrys Lake example; fewer in the Midwest and Northeast.

There are two trout ponds within a fifteen-minute drive of my home. One is relatively barren of vegetation, has sparse and inconsistent insect hatches, and a small population of trout that rise rarely. The other is the same size, but weed-filled and cold, and has a substantial population of well-conditioned brown trout that are like-ly, I've found, to be surface feeding during the day every day all season long . Those ponds are extremes, but their basic dif-ferences are matters of fact to me now, and I use them to judge other ponds I might en-counter.

Thus consistency has become a primary pond critereon in my own mind, but those same ponds lead me to other lakes that , while not consistent enough for year-round flyfishing, have a special hatch or other event that makes them worthwhile. There is, for example, a fine hatch of the giant

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Hexagenia mayflies that place on many trout lakes from northern Connecti-cut north to Canada for a few days each June or July. There is one such hatch on Lake Memphremagog, straddling the border between Vermont and Quebec, and about which Jerry Gibbs, a friend who lives on the lake, has told me often. That lake has a substantial population of rainbows over five pounds that do surface-feed on that twilight hatch. But the hatch lasts only a few days and my timing must be exact. So far, it has not been. For the rest of the year, the rainbows belong to the people who spend more time fighting trolling rigs than fish.

I am still uncomfortable, even with all of that rather conventional advice. On a trip to a new area, I would still probably try any available stream before trying a pond. I am used to learning streams and can often do so quickly. I am still unaccustomed to learning ponds, but I have learned enough to no longer avoid them, as many people do, solely for that reason.

Ionce lived next to a small Northern trout stream and spent an hour or two every day all season for several years fish-ing the short stretch nearest the house . It held all wild fish, a mixture of browns, brooks and rainbows. After a while, I start-ed to realize that there were significant dif-ferences in behavior among the three species in the same stretch of water, even in the same pool. Things finally reached a point at which I'd look at a pool and then determine which of the three species I'd catch by deciding where to cast. It even-tually became a game I played with myself, like calling balls and pockets in a pool game. Brown in the prime feeding lie. Rainbow in the riffle. Brookie back in the slough. Eventually we moved away, and the game was something I forgot until I started fishing trout ponds.

During one recent season, I happened to concentrate on a pond that held, among other fish, both brown and rainbow trout. The pond had occasionally heavy caddis

hatches, a very few mayflies, good midge hatches, and heavy flights of ants in early fall. There was, in other words, plenty of surface food to which both kinds of trout often rose. It wasn't until the end of that season that I began to notice a dramatic difference in the way in which the two kinds of trout were surface feeding . I often encountered the rainbows - both singly and in small groups - as they strung their riseforms together across the entire width of the pond. At other times, and depending on what was hatching, a pod of them might concentrate their feeding in a single area of the small lake. Rarely were they in the same place either all day or on two consecutive days. That was really what I expected to find. Rainbows, after all, are wanderers and surface-feeding trout in a lake are sup-posed to be cruising.

But there were other rises, too. In a lit-tle shoreline cove, off a certain hemlock,

near a special rock, and in other places that I started to notice. Evening after evening until ice locked the lake away, the same fish appeared to be rising in the same places, much like the favored feeding lies of trout in a stream. When I caught these fish, they were invariably brown trout. They were feeding in well-defined beats, rarely over-lapping, and each covering an area of the pond no more than twenty yards square. Yes, I have seen browns cruising, and yes, I also realize they'll follow schools of forage fish (especially in large reservoirs and big lakes). But in this and in other small ponds I have raised a brown trout in a particular spot - defined within a range of a few feet - and then done so again both on the next day, and the next week. Always a brown, never a rainbow. That is central in my fishing thoughts now, and the problem compounds itself.

There is. a pond in the middle of our

village that holds both native brookies and an occasional rainbow. The water is quite clear, and I sometimes bring my small children here to watch the trout swimming around. I finally noticed that while the rainbows never seemed to stop cruising -even without a hatch - the brook trout cruised only when actively feeding, which was seldom. Most of the time the indi-vidual brook trout suspended themselves just off the bottom, motionless, in the shade of a bankside bush or overhanging grass . If I flipped a twig on the water near-by, they would swim over, investigate, then swim back to the same place and rest once again. If we were careful, we could do this without spooking them, and last year we had fun making a game out of it.

But it was also puzzling. Do all brookies in lakes act this way? Do the brown trout in the pond I often fish do this? I haven't seen them do it, but some-times, when they appear from nowhere to take a fly, it seems as if it might have been this sort of thing, an attack from ambush. All of a sudden, it seems to me that fly-fishing for stillwater trout, so long regard-ed as a random pursuit, is not the least bit random. The possibility is exciting.

In the last few years, much research has gone into the spatial requirements of trout, especially brown trout, in streams. In-dividual fish have been reported to have something analagous to "character." Anglers seem to have known this for some time; scientists are discovering it. Ter-ritoriality of a sort has been demonstrated in some trout populations. But these obser-vations have all been made with regard to trout in streams, where the current exerts an influence on the distribution of trout. Does a similar sort of reasoning apply to stillwater trout? Trout living where there is no current? It is easy to understand why a trout holds behind a boulder in a rapid stream. That makes not knowing my pond more difficult to bear.

The last day of the season is a special day, the fishing closest to the midwinter recollections that follow. Trout ponds have been more in my fishing for the last couple of years, and thus become my last day, as well. Our Vermont season ends in late Oc-

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tober. It has snowed three weeks before, but the ground is again bare, brown. The flush of grouse season is a month old. The mad invasion of deer hunters is two weeks off. The ski boom hasn't started. Things are quiet, and on this day the pond is quiet, too.

A cold misting rain doesn't blow but rather sits on the pond below the moun-tain. The air and water temperatures are the same: fifty degrees. My hands are cramped by cold around the paddle shaft as I slide over the water. Incredibly, when the entire world seems to have stopped, the trout are still rising in the pond. Not many rises, but a few gentle swirls. The ever-present hatching midge is pinned to the sur-face by the cold . Wet wings stay wet. The little insects are unable to fly and unable to get back to the warm security of the weeds and mud.

My hands are too cold and stiff for fine tippets and small flies. I can't tie the knots. It is the last day, and I must catch a fish, my trout for the winter. I gnaw the leader back and awkwardly tie on a white Mud-dler. Cast and strip. Cast and strip. Work hard. Try to keep warm. And finally a fish comes from I don't know where. A lovely brown trout, bright and hard and sharp, thumps against the canoe and is released. And I'm satisfied because I have done what I set out to do. Because I can master the pond. Sometimes. 0

In Defense of Latin Names Larry Solomon

MODERN flyfishing for trout has created a desire to learn more about the be-havior of the insects that trout feed on. This in turn has resulted in the angler learn-ing the proper identification of these in-sects by their Latin names such as Sten-onema vicarium. Many of you may be say-ing to yourself right now, "What the heck do I want to get involved with that junk for? I can't even pronounce it. Even if I could, what good would it do me?" Well, when you are just a beginner flyfisherman, it is best just to concentrate on the basic understanding and function of the sport itself. However, as you progress, you begin to desire more knowledge to help you understand what the trout are doing at selective feeding times-why they wouldn't take your fly while the guy next to you was hooking them left and right, or the time you saw three or four different mayflies on the water at the same time and wondered which one the fish were feeding on and why. You may have fished imitations that looked just like the real insect, but you only hooked two small fish while you felt that you should have had a dozen good ones. It's times like those that make you want to . know a bit more of what is happening in that mysterious world of "Mother Nature." Sometimes knowing just a little bit more can make a big difference. The reason for the Latin names is simply for proper communication and understanding,

Adapted from The Complete Book of Modern Fly Fishing, (DBI Books, Northfield, IL), edited by Larry Solomon.

not to show off with some fancy pronun-ciation.

I will admit that every now and then some recently-book-learned anglers abuse the use of these names. While trying to im-press others, some writers haphazard-ly strew Latin names about m attempts to create an image of expertise. This is not at all beneficial. However, when appropriate-ly used, proper insect classification can be a definite asset to your angling and enhance your understanding of fish and insect ac-tivity. .

There is a difference between an msect and a fly in the world of fly-fishing . The in-sect is the real live natural bug that crawls and flies, the fly is the artificial that you buy or tie yourself to imitate the natural. The natural insects have specific names that classify them in the science of en-tomology, while the artificial flies have names that were given to them usually by the person who first created the pattern. It could be named after the person himself, or for a particular color combination, like the Blue Winged Olive or any other crazy name that someone dreamed up such as the "Royal Coachman" or the "Rat Faced McDougal. " Anyway, the artificial names very rarely have any correlation with the names of the natural insects.

What happened over a period of time, was that the fisherman referred to the natural insects using the names of the flies that were tied to imitate them. For exam-ple, an insect that hatches in the East around. the beginning of May is the Ephemerel/a sub varia. The artificial fly that is used to imitate it is the Hendrickson named after A.E. Hendrickson. If you were on an eastern stream about the first of May and asked what hatch to expect, some-one would most likely tell you that the

15

Hendricksons would be coming off at about 2:00 PM Well, actually that is im-possible, because the Hendrickson cannot hatch, it has to be tied.

LET me give you an idea why this can be confusing and misleading. The ar-tificial called the Blue Winged Olive is one of the most popular patterns ever created. Why? Because there are many insects that have bluish wings and various shades of olive bodies. Whenever one of these insects would hatch, most fishermen would simply say that the Blue Winged Olives (B.W.O.) were coming off today. Now in a sense they were right because of the coloration similarity, but that did not tell you any-thing about the behavior of the insect, how the fish feeds on it, what the color shading of the insect was or what the correct size of the insect was. You could ask him what the size was, but sometimes three different people will give you three different sizes and opinions. Some insects do have two size variations, but if you know the insect, you know this.

Many of the insects that the B.W.O. imitates have specific characteristics that differentiate them from their cousins. For example, if a knowledgeable angler heard that the Ephemerella attenuate was hatch-ing, he would know. (1) the hatch was com-ing off in the morning usually around 10:00 AM; (2) the insect emerges from the bottom as a partially winged insect, therefore an emerger or wet fly pattern is effective at the beginning of the hatch and the dry fly later; (3) the color of the body of the emerging in-sect is a bright, yellowish olive which, upon reaching the surface and coming in contact with the air, turns to a darker grayish olive; (4) the insect has three tails and the wings are dark, almost charcoal gray; (5) the fly is usually tied on a size #16 hook. Or, if the angler heard that a #20 Baetis was hat-ching, he would know that the body is a dark olive with dark gray wings and two tails. He would also know that the nymph often floats in the surface film for a con-siderable amount of time before hatching, therefore, a floating nymph might work better than the adult dry fly imitation. All of that knowledge is conveyed by using the

16

correct identifying name of the insect-in-formation that Blue Winged Olive just could not ·convey.

A more significant example concerns the imitation called the Sulphur or Pale Evening Dun. This fly has pale grey wings, a creamy body and cream hackle and tail. It is used to imitate several different in-sects ... two of them are the popular Ephemerella dorothea and a not as well known specimen of the Heptagenia family. Both of these insects hatch or emerge at about the same time of the year (late May -early June) and at about the same time of day (late afternoon &nd evening). On sever-al occasions, I have seen them hatching simultaneously. The insects looked almost identical...about size 16 or 18, with pale grey wings. The dorothea has a pale apricot tint to its body, while the Heptagerria body is a pale sulphur yellow. The way to tell them apart is by the tails: dorothea has three, Heptagenia only two. Not too much of a difference there; by now you're pro-bably saying, "So what!"

When the dorothea hatches, the dun usually floilts on the surface and is an easy prey for the trout. Then, that sulphur dun dry fly in the right size is quite effective. However, the Heptagenia emerges be/ow the surface and comes up as a wet fly. The trout feed on it in this stage. Consequently, the dry fly imitation that was so effective for the dorothea is usually ignored by the trout at this time. But, a Little Marryatt size 16 wet fly can be just deadly. In this case, a little knowledge does go a long way.

The significance is that if you were in-formed that the sulphurs were hatching, and you fish the dry fly imitation, you might be frustrated at taking only one or two fish. But the angler who knew they were Heptagenia might hook eight or ten fish because he had the proper understand-ing and knew what the trout were doing.

I'm not saying that you have to learn the Latin names of the insects in order to be a successful trout fisherman, but you should not look down at their use as snob-bery when you hear them. You may find that as you progress and learn more about this fascinating game, you may be asking someone how to pronounce Ephemera gut-tu/ata or Para/eptoph/ebia adoptiva. 0

Fishing Can Be Hazardous To Your Health

Bennett J. Mintz

RAIN beat down drearily as we ap-proached the Fountain Flats area of the Firehole River in Yellowstone Park. We had been fishing another stream in the Park with a dazzling lack of success and the guide had suggested we pack up and head for the Firehole. There was generally a good afternoon hatch in the Fountain Flats area, he'd remarked and allowed as how a small male Adams dry could do some damage. We'd agreed it couldn't be any worse and might possibly be better than where we were and had reeled in.

He had parked the station wagon at a pull-out and.as we made our way to the river, the rain turned into a wall of water and hail, making it virtually impossible to see more than ten feet or so.

What had been eagerly anticipated as a dream fishing trip was rapidly turning into a sodden nightmare. A group of 18 or 20 of us from the Los Angeles area had signed on

for a fishing excursion to Yellowstone Park, sponsored by Western Airlines and an angling travel group to promote jet-set vacations to some of America's great fishing resorts. At West Yellowstone; we had been split up into teams of three or four and assigned guides to sample the Madison, Firehole, Henry's Fork of the Snake in nearby Idaho and other renowned lakes and streams in the region. It was to be a long, idyllic weekend of brown trout snapping tippets and flashing rainbows leaping to the fly.

In fact, what greeted us when our jet touched down at West Yellowstone airport was numbing cold and torrents of rain mix-ed with sleet. Hardly an auspicious begin-ning.

Some hours later, at the Firehole, the rain was still beating down and the temper-ature hovered at the freezing point.

"Well, to hell with this," I thought, and decided to sieze the opportunity to go ashore to do some leader repair, tie on an Adams and attend to an urgent personal matter. The most likely-looking spot to take,care of all those things in relative com-fort seemed to be beneath the overhang of a large, rain-blackened boulder 30 or 40 feet from the bank. I hunched deeper into my rain suit and pulled the hood tighter for as much protection as I could get, a futile gesture since I was already as wet as I could possibly get, waded ashore and headed for the shelter of the boulder.

17

It was as if Mother Nature herself had carved a nook in the granite just large enough for me to hunker down out of the storm, take care of my personal needs and tend to my terminal tackle. By the time the Adams was secured to the end of a new 12 foot leader and well dapped with floatant, the downpour had practically stopped, having turned into little more than a fine mist. With a grateful feeling of relief at the sudden change in the elements, I stumbled out from my shelter under the overhang of the friendly boulder .

I took a step or two and then, for some unexplained reason - a sound I thought I heard, a feeling, something intuitive, most likely - I looked back at the boulder and, suddenly, it wasn't a rock anymore! The damn thing had sprouted horns attached to a huge head set on massive shoulders! Even a city boy like me could recognize that the black, rain-drenched hulk was a buffalo. The buffalo, bison or whatever the hell it's called, had been scrunched down in the pelting rain in such a way that, with water cascading down my glasses and my hood obscuring what little peripheral vision I had, I had mistaken its bulk for a rock for-mation . The animal, in its own misery, hadn't bothered to dissuade me.

When I got home, I told my wife about it. All she had to say was, "Very funny."

BUT there . was nothing amusing about an incident that occurred at Med-icine Lake in mid-October. I was working on a recreational vehicle story for Trailer Life Magazine and, as research, was testing a snappy new van conversion in Northern California. The vehicle and all its compon-ents had performed well and I had done equally well fishing Fall River, Pit River and Hat Creek. I decided that as long as I was in the area, I'd have a crack at the Medicine Lake brook trout, and drove the 40 miles or so to the lake over an unpaved, pot hole-sprinkled road.

Medicine Lake is a natural lake formed in the cone of an extinct volcano. It sits at an elevation of about 8,000 feet, northeast of Mt. Shasta, on the south side of Lava Beds National Monument 50 to 75 miles

18

south of the Oregon line. It's well worth a visit for anyone who likes to fish for brook trout in a lake.

When I arrived at Medicine Lake, I spotted a small general store - since burn-ed down - at the lakefront. What I didn't realize at the time was that it was the Thursday before the opening of the deer hunting season. Actually, it wouldn't have thrilled me had I been aware of it; deer hunting doesn ' t rank high on my list of favorite pastimes. Which just goes to show how wrong a guy can be: that day damn near became Black Thursday for me.

A wisp of smoke from the store's fire-place chimney greeted me as I parked the van. Inside, the store keeper told me that all the boats had been pulled out of the lake. But, he assured me, if I was a fly-fisher I could catch my fill of brookies by casting to the weed beds all along the shore-line and in the coves .

"I don't think you'll need anything esoteric," he said. "Gray hackle peacock or brown hackle peacock, about size lO or 12 should do it."

Well, it isn't often you find a guy using words like "esoteric" out in the woods, 40 miles from nowhere. I knew we'd be friends. With that thought in mind , I went out to fish.

Hunters who had come up to scout out their deer before the season opened were killing time at the lake. They stood clustered in packs around stoves and open fires, trying to catch trout on doughballs, cheese balls and salmon eggs. The tempera-ture was in the low 40s. As I pulled on extra socks and waders, unsheathed my fly rod, fitted a reel to the seat and pulled the line through the guides, I could hear men around me swearing and exchanging earthy jokes. When I grabbed my wading staff and stepped off into the freezing waters, it was too much for them and my ears burned with derisive male humor.

On my first cast to the weeds I took a lovely eight or nine inch brook trout, all decked out in his brilliant Fall colors . Behind me, on the bank, I heard someone say, "Sombich got a fish already." I turn-ed slowly, bent over and released the trout under their very noses, making sure they saw me carefully slip the fish back into the

water, alive and hardly any the worse for wear.

I caught a couple dozen more in the same spot, not moving more than ten feet. At about the twelfth or fifteenth fish they stopped saying, "Sombitch's got another one." But you could cut the hostility with a dull knife.

Walking past them on my way to the bank, I quipped brightly, "Hey, you guys ought to get out your fly rods. Man, I just released 25 fish."

I waded out from a spit of land and my first cast paid dividends. A lovely rainbow - perhaps 18 inches - was all over the place in grand style. As it neared my net, I became aware that one of the would-be hunters was saying, "Hey, buddy, don't let that one go ... come on, toss it over here." I figured it was time for a truce (after all, they had the guns, I joked to myself) and gave them that fish and nine others as I caught them - mostly pan-size brookies -as well as another rainbow that went about 14 inches. It was near dark when I returned to the store.

"How'd'jado?" my friend greeted me .

I told him I'd released about 100 brook-ies and 'bows, given away a sackful and kept three for my dinner. The storekeeper was properly impressed.

"Anything I can do for you?" he ask-ed.

I told him I'd like to call my wife in Los Angeles and wondered whether there was a phone I could use. He told me the nearest phone was 42 miles away, which he seemed to think was very funny.

'Anything else?" "Well, I'm damn near frozen to death

and I sure would find some comfort in a glass of brandy. Any chance?" I pleaded.

"It just happens," he smiled, "we're a legal liquor store."

He fished around under the counter for a minute and came up with a new bottle of California brandy. It was Christian Brothers, and I blessed them silently. The storekeeper-turned-bartender cracked the seal and poured about two fingers into a coffee cup ... paused ... and added another finger -and-a -half.

"How 'bout one for yourself," I in-vited.

We stood there - he behind the counter /bar - and I in front and drank our drinks. It was warm to my toes and, at 8,000 feet altitude, the alchohol zoomed right to my head. A short, fuzzy time later, I fumbled down through my waders for some crumpled bills.

"Two drinks will be a dollar .. . half a dollar each," said the barkeep.

As I paid him the buck, he poured another round, saying, "Let me buy you one."

We needed that second shooter like a moose needs a hatrack. Like a shark needs teeth, or an Arab needs oil. On the fourth drink we killed the bottle. We were roasted.

During the drinking, the conversation had turned to hunting. Meantime, we'd been joined by another couple of guys. For some reason, the barkeep was getting steadily blurrier.

"You gonna getcher deer with us Satur-day morning?" he asked me, the words slurring out.

"Can't do it," I slurred back. "I gotta get this rig back to Los Angeles and finish my story. I'm right on deadline," I lied.

I wouldn't go hunting with those drunks if my life depended on it. We argued about whether I could get back in time if I hunted Saturday morning, then left. I kept insisting I had to leave no later than Friday afternoon. One of the hunters, weaving a little, became belligerent, accus-ing me of being "chicken" and thinking I was "too good" to go hunting them. My bartender friend came to my rescue.

"Hey, look, if he says he's gotta be back in L.A., he's gotta be back."

That slowed them down, but it didn't stop them . Why couldn't I stay the extra day, they persisted. And how come I hadda be back? What would it hurt if I stayed? And on and on .. .

Then I made my second mistake (my first was ordering the brandy in the first place), when I had a flash of inspiration and pointed out that I didn't have my hunt-ing rifle with me, so I sure as hell couldn't go shooting.

The barkeep reached under the counter and hefted out a rifle.

20

"Take it," he commanded. "I know if you say you gotta be back, you gotta be back. But you're a damn good fisherman and a good drinking buddy and we gonna get you a deer tonight!"

The combination bar and store was lighted by propane lamps and the glare was intense. More than an hour had passed since I'd entered and the dusk had given way to pitch black night, so that when we went weaving out into that ink, it was im-possible to see for a few minutes. We all stumbled about a bit from the darkness and the brandy and I realized I was still in my waders.

My bartender, flyfishing authority and new-found friend led us up a narrow trail behind the store to an apple orchard.

"A little 01' deer comes down here every night an' we gonna git 'im, 01 buddy," whispered my companion.

He raised his giant flashlight and there, like a bad painting, stood a magnificent seven-point buck.

"Take him," he urged. I raised the rifle and sighted down the

barrel. My mind raced, desperately seeking a way out. I had no license. It was out of season. And I was going to shoot a jack-lighted deer within 30 yards of a building! And if I didn't, either my barkeep "friend" or one of his buddies would prob-ably consider me some kind of Los Angeles freak and feed me a knuckle sandwich. To hell with it, I thought , I won't do it.

"I will not shoot a deer out of season," I stammered as I lowered the rifle.

"Good thing," said the barkeep. "I'm the game warden." 0

The Valley of the Beaverkill

QUITE far away - perhaps 35 or 40 miles from the hamlet of Beaverkill in a small town called Big Indian, is a tiny rivulet that ripples cheerfully along, grow-ing gr;dually wider as it wanders. on its way - cutting a gravelly bed for Itself after awhile and with many crooks and turns reaching the town of Hardenburgh. Here it is a very noticeable stream, as it flows for miles through various little towns and villages . Miniature falls, rocks and deep pools, mark its way. And wonderfully sparkling water - the home of of speckled trout of various speCIes. A bIt of the valley through which this stream flows is coveted by hundreds of fishermen for it is the valley of the justly famous Beaverkill!

In the early days, before trout-fishing was such a universal sport, the settlers along the valley did not stress to any great extent the advantages that were theirs be-cause of their ownership of land bordering the Beaverkill. At that time the stream was used for various purposes, beside angling for trout. There were several saw-mills -the largest of which was owned and operat-ed by the Jones Brothers - John and Robert. And Beaverkill itself, boasted a tannery.

Lumber was plentyful, and many trees were cut down simply for the bark, and the logs were left to decay in their own good time. In those days if one got ten dollars per thousand for sound hemlock, he was doing well. And though many logs were left where they were cut down, there was still much lumbering done. In the Spring when high water came, thousands of feet were

Beaverkill Valley --

To most TGF members, the Beaverkill is a special river. Too, the Beaverkill occupies a very special niche in the history of fly fishing in America. It was a favorite river (along with the Neversink) of Theodore Gordon and many of his pioneering efforts in stream entomology and fly development were carried out there. The Beaverkill figured prominently in the ex-periments and writings of many of America's earliest fly fishers, ranging from Thad Norris, Reub Cross and Preston Jennings down to pres-ent day innovators, such as Harry DarlJee, Schweibett and Larry Solomon.

The accompanying article by M. W.S. Tobey appeared originally in the printed program at tlie time of the dedication of the Beaverkill Church on November 25, /883. TGF members who regu-larly fi:;h the Beoverkill will find this early history of the fiJmous river ahd the valley it flows throu h of)lIt t. 0

rafted down the river to Philadelphia, where better prices were obtained, and the cost of getting them there was almost nil. One of the most prominent men to do this sort of thing, was Mr. Thomas Davidson, who owned the farm where Mr. Jay David-son lived for so many years. Mr. Thomas Davidson was a Scotchman, son of a shepherd, and they - his father and him-self - emigrated to this country when much of it was forest primeval. Rude cabins, pole beds, pinebough mattresses, were a foregone Their love for sheep came with them. And they always kept a flock.

Another prominent man associated with Mr. Thomas Davidson, was Mr. James Murdock, who, besides being a lum-berman, established one of the first board-

21

ing houses along the Beaverkill above Sfiin Creek, as Lew Beach was then called.

The mail came three times per week by stage, and the men who drove the stage were the J ones brothers - John and Robert. They also did a thriving business in their saw-mill, having taken advantage of a point in the river where there are beautiful falls - the most picturesque on the Beaver-kill. The force of water there, furnished power for the mill. In the year, 1886, Mr. and Mrs. Jay Davidson moved from Ros-coe to Beaverkill on the farm which was afterward theirs. In that same year and month Miss Martha Stone, of Elmira, N.Y., came to Beaverkill, bought Clear Lake, and to the ridge of the mountain back of it, and built a little home there. Then was started the first boarding house between Livingston Manor and Lew Beach or between Roscoe and Lew Beach - the first in Beaverkill. Lew Beach was re-named after one of our representatives.

The following year, the Ellsworths, who had kept the post office for many years, and who had a commodious house, took a few boarders; and so the boarding business was started in that portion of the valley where the Beaverkill post office was located .

The Davidsons opened their boarding-house around the year 1892 or 1893. Many changes have come since the small begin-nings of forty-odd years ago. The small club "Salmo Fontinalis" on the Leal farm, has been swallowed up by a very large one, of which Mr. More, of New York City was at one time president. And which at first had its headquarters at the home of Mrs. Towse, which is a beautifully built board-ing-house some distance up the river from Lew Beach. Since then this club has built a fine club-house on the William Sliter farm. The members of this club bought most of the upper part of the river this side of Turn-wood.

The "Weaver" farm was bought by young Jay Gould, and held by him for some years. It is now sold to some other wealthy people who have built a fine sum-mer home. The "Flint" place was bought by Mr. Knapp, a member of the large club. The old "Murdock" farm was bought by a

22

family from New York City, by the name of Bourke. The son, a doctor, practices in Livingston Manor. Along down the valley and nearer Lew Beach, was the Sprague boarding-house, established nearly fifty years ago by Mr. and Mrs. Ed. R. Sprague, and held by Mrs. Sprague until within a very few years. The "Royal Voorhies" home was used for a boarding-house for many years, by descendants of that family, but is now the home of another club. The next place to be bought for a club is the "Barnhart" house, which is opposite the old "Elsworth" place, and which once was the post office. The "Davidson" place is in other hands now, and Clear Lake Cottages, have changed ownership . The "John Cam-mer" place is now the home of a club. In Beaverkill now there are only two people who were here forty years ago. Nearly every home has changed ownership . Many cottages and bungalows have sprung up whose owners spend only their summers here.

As I look back upon the people whom I met in the old days, I remember many of them as most interesting. There are those who stand out vividly in my mem-ory. Some for their peculiarities, other for their sterling qualities. Few were educated according to the . standards of the present day - but many were keen, shrewd busi-ness men and women, and kindly neigh-bors. Among the women, the name of Emi-ly Bulkley stands out prominently. To her we owe the ability to carryon our little Beaverkill Church, for she left us her farm. And the income from this, pays a little over half of the salary of our minister. But we of the valley who knew them then, know them no more. Mr. and Mrs. Flint; the Jones brothers; Mrs . Dusebury, -who settled on the farm now belonging to Mrs. Towse; Mr. Ed. Sprague; Mr. and Mrs. William Hardie - all have passed into the Great Beyond! Some years ago Mr. and Mrs. Ed. Sprague celebrated their golden wedding, and at that party Mrs. Hardie wore a black silk basque, which she wore fifty years before when the Spragues were married.

Notably among the older men were Mr. James Murdock, Mr. Henry W. Ellsworth and Mr. Thomas Davidson. Men with won-derfully keen minds, and good business ability in their respective lines. The tan-nery, together with a general store and post office were run by Mr. Ellsworth. When I came to Beaverkill, they were elderly men, and the younger ones were taking their places. Notably among these was Mr. Jay Davidson. His father, Mr. Thomas David-son conferred a lasting benefit on the peo-ple of Beaverkill when he gave to them the land for the cemetery and church. The very carefully worded deed of this gift has made it possible for the little church to maintain its rights against all would-be assailants.

Many curious incidents occur in the life of any community, but perhaps none more so than among the hundreds of fishermen who throng the valley during the all-im-portant season. There have been writers and actors - singers and artists. All these have found the attractions of the Beaverkill and the long valley up to Hardenburgh an incentive to buy and build - almost palaces - and plan little bungalows. Wealthy men have spent money without stint. One of these was Mr. Dundas, who built what is known as the "Castle." It is said that he copied as nearly as possible an old castle in Scotland, and spent $150,000 making this copy. It proves to some extent the theory of evolution, when one looks back at the beginning of that castle.

Forty years ago or more, Joe Cammer, whom we all remember, owned a farm along the Beaverkill which included the site of the Castle. Mr. Cammer boarded a few fishermen each summer. They came up from New York City and surrounding towns. Among these were Mr. Frank Liv-ingston Clark, and Mr. Cass Gilbert, a well known architect of that time. These men, with three others, conceived the idea of building a little log cabin on the Cammer property. With this end in view they bought a little plot of land on the bank of the Beaverkill, where a wonderful view up the river was obtained; and the log cabin was built, with a fine large fire-place of stone. After a year or two, Mr. Gilbert bought out the other gentlemen, enlarged the cabin

and brought his wife there. He bought more land and made many improvements. Then he in turn, sold out to a Mr. Stern-back, of New York City for $15,000. Dur-ing Mr. Sternbach's occupation of the place, he spent another $15,000, outside and inside. Nearly all the land in the region was swallowed up by him. Then having failed in his New York business he sold to Mr. Dunda, whose daughter now holds the property. Beyond this property, down the river toward Rockland, is another club with its headquarters on the B.F. Harden-burgh farm. This is one of the oldest on the Beaverkill. It is called "The Fly Fisherman's Club". It was established when many men fished with worms and other bait besides. For many years there has been a growing feeling against any bait, save flies. The etiquette of the stream now demands them.

There is one more club that I have fail-ed to mention - that belonging to Mr. James Marble - established on the "John Cammer" farm. This is a very prosperous club, with good fishing advantages.

The roads up and down the valley are now in very good condition, owing to the almost universal use of automobiles. Our neighbors are now fifteen or twenty miles away.

In looking back over the years of my living in Beaverkill, I find it altogether a new community. But the everlasting hills are here, and the beautiful, winding river: - and the little mountain lake nestled in the side of Mt. McGuckin. These are here! And no matter what alien feet may tread the roads and pathways; or what changes may yet occur, they will always give happy thoughts to the generations that follow.

o

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The Walton of Times Square Joe A. Plsarro

be fine art of Hudson River fence fishing, Manhattan's unique contribution to the noble sport of angling, was im-mortalized by Nick Lyons in his book Fishing Widows. Lyons explained that Hudson River fence fishing has a tradition at least 70 years old. Some angling histor-ians, however, claim it dates back to the days of Nieuw Amsterdam when the good Dutch burghers passed many a pleasant summer evening dangling baited lines into the Hudson at the foot of Manhattan Island. Of course, that was before the British Grenadiers expropriated the Dotch,

24

renamed the island for the Duke of York and introduced fly fishing into the New World .

In his account of a day at the fence, Lyons records three captures in the Hud-son: an eel, a tennis ball and a hat that was blown into the river. He notes that the hat, hooked on a deftly executed roll-cast, went about two pound wet weight and put up a respectable fight on his light-weight fly rod . Modestly, he doesn't include in the day's creel count half a dozen clumps of grass he hooked on backcasts.

Still, for all its antiquity, Hudson River fence fishing remained unheralded until Lyons brought it firmly into the main-stream of angling knowledge. Now, fisher-

men are lined up almost solidly along the riverside fences every dy.

Lyons' success has encouraged me to reveal still another branch of angling uni-que to Manhattan. I discovered it early one evening in September while walking thtOugh Times Square on my way to catch a subway home. Just off Broadway, in the shadowy corner of a side street, I sighted a man seated on a folding camp stool he'd set up in the street a few feet from the curb. This in itself ordinarily wouldn't have drawn even a glance, the bizarre being the standard for behavior in Times Square. But something about the man's posture and in-tensity compelled me to slow down for a closer look.

He sat hunched over on the low stool, his head thrust forward, legs bent at the knees and drawn back. His body seemed coiled as if he were ready to spring forward any moment. His eyes were riveted to the

tip of what was incredibly but unmistak-ably a fishing rod; a battered spinning rod he was clutching. Heavy monofilament line fed from a closed-face spinning reel ran through taped-on guides, out the top guide and straight down into an open manhole that could only lead to a sewer below.

I stopped and stared, and blinked several times in disbelief. No, I thought, this can't be., Not in the middle of Times Square, for Godsakes. The man sat obliv-ious to the steady stream of pedestrian and motor traffic that flowed around him. I stood there incredulous but intrigued. I'd seen kids with fishing rods trying to fish up coins through sidewalk gratings with chew-ing gum on lead weights. But this guy sat hunched over an open sewer manhole as if

he were sitting on a fishing pier at Sheeps-head Bay.

Still, he seemed harmless enough - a pudgy, middle-aged man, his face shadow-ed by the bill of aN. Y. Mets baseball cap, wearing a too-tight T-shirt that advertised Rockaway Playland, a tan work shirt and pants to match and a pair of heavy yellow work shoes on his feet. A short, unlit length of cigar was clamped in his teeth. With his head thrust forward, the cap's bill gave him the appearance of a large, squat bird poised to pounce on a worm.

He gave no sign of being aware of my presence. I moved closer and stumbled against an upturned manhole cover I hadn't seen in the shadow alongside the stool he sat on.

"Quite," he rasped.

On Broadway, raucous taxi horns blared without letup. A loudspeaker mounted over the doorway of a record shop thumped disco music at full decibels, competing with ·the steady roar of street traffic and the elephantine rumble of sub-ways underground.

"Uh ... what're you doing?" I asked, fearful that the reply would confirm the suspicion that was forming in my mind.

The man gave no indication he'd heard me. Seconds passed. Finally, without tak-ing his eyes from the rod tip, he grunted a reply.

"Fishin', what else." Oh, boy, I thought, one of those. This

town is full of loonies and it looked like I'd stumbled on a prize exhibit.

"Uh, what're you fishing for?" I ven-tured .

This time he lifted his head and gave me a long piercing look, as if trying the fathom the depths of an ignorance that would prompt such a question. He shrugged and his eyes returned to the rod tip.

"Eels, what else." Huge multi-colored neon signs along

Broadway spattered· the area with their garishness. Along 42nd Street, sleazy X-rated movie houses were ablaze with banks of lights winking erotic invitations. High atop a building a block-long

25

electrically-lit sign advertised a forthcom-ing blockbuster movie. The display was consuming enough energy to light a small town for six months. Times Square was a pulsating psychedelic light show playing to its own sub-world.

"You ever catch any eels?" I asked, in-stead of getting away from there as fast as I could.

The man replied by kicking the side of a metal pail alongside the stool. Instantly, there was an angry churning inside the pail and wild thumpings against the sides. Water splashed out the top.

Suddenly, the man's rod was jerked downward by a sharp pull on the monofila-ment line, then the rod began bucking and bouncing. The man gave the rod a quick yank upward and began cranking the reel handle. The rod took on a deep bend and continued jerking spasmodically. He reeled steadily for what seemed like five minutes. I'd seen good trout come to the net in less time and not put up half the fight.

Finally, the man lifted the rod high and swung it away from the manhole opening. Impaled on the hook was an eel, about 18 inches long and nearly black. He dropped the eel to the street, where it went into a frenzy , squirming and thrashing wildly, rolling over and over. The man slammed a shoe down on the contorting body, pinning it against the asphalt.

The man reached over and grasped the line near the hook and reached into the eel's mouth with a pair of long-nosed pliers . He worked the pliers, twisting the hook to dislodge it. The eel went into renewed fury, writhing madly and slapping against the man's leg.

"Hold still, you . .. " the man grunted. Finally, he gave a sharp yank with the pliers and the hook was wrenched free. He picked up the eel and flung into the pail. At once, there was a wild 'churning and thrash-ing inside the pail.

Overhead, a jet bound for LaGuardia Airport thundered over Manhattan, its landing lights slicing through the smog and gathering darkness. A police car came hurtling down Broadway, its siren shriek-ing and dome light whirling. Crowds of people, ignoring the small drama being

26

played o!-'t in the street, were funneling of Broadway and heading for theaters in the side streets.

" You eat those eels?" I asked. "Outta there? You think I'm nuts or

something?' , "Well, what do you do with them?" "Sell 'em to Chinese restaurants, what

else. " The man wiped his hands on a ragged

piece of toweling, brought out a book of matches and lit the stub of cigar which had never left his mouth. Then he settled him-self on the stool and returned to his preda-tor-like crouch, his eyes again riveted to the rod tip.

"Well, good luck and ... uh ... tight lines. "

I headed uptown toward the 50th Street entrance of the Broadway subway. Several blocks up I passed the statue of Father Duffy keeping a disapproving but hopeless eye on Times Square and its denizens.

Maybe it should be a statue of St. Peter standing there, I thought as I walked by. Or maybe St. Patrick, snakes being more in his line. ,

Descending the subway stairs I won-dered if a pit cast into the manhole 'opening could be managed and whether the eels would take a fuzzy brown nymph. 0

Recollections Leo J. CIa psadle

[took up serious flyfishing about 25 years ago but have one recollection that goes back nearly 70 years. This memory bothered me for years because it was just a scene, with no incident seemingly con-nected with it. The scene was quite familiar as it was that of a long wooden bridge on our next door neighbor's farm that ran across a small stream and connected his house and barn. One day I asked my mother about this memory.

"I remember that very well as when your dad was alive, he and I had many a good laugh over it," she answered. "When he was helping Claud put on a new roof on his barn, and you were about five years old, he took you along one day. He put you on the bridge by the creek, gave you a cedar pole with thread for a line, a bent pin for a hook, a can of worms, and there you stay-ed until time to go home."

My trout fishing covered about as wide a range of methods as one could imagine: worms, minnows, salmon eggs, spinners etc. Once, when I was 16, I took a 16 pound steelhead in Washington State, on salmon eggs, which won second prize in

our local contest. The winning fish, a 21-pounder, made mine look like a min-now. I never released a trout in all that ear-ly fishing, and likely killed thousands. Now, I have been a long time supporter for releasing all but a few to eat. I am just as much against float fishing as I am for release. I have seen it badly abused in the West where they had to close much of the Madison to float fishing. In the past year or so, there seems to have been an explo-sion in numbers of commercial floaters. While this may do minimal harm to very large rivers, it is something that should be controlled before it gets as bad elsewhere as it once was on the Madison. It has been years since I have fished weekends on float rivers, especially where fish and fun floating are combined. It certainly puts the trout down so far as dry flyfishing is con-cerned. I expect the floaters have as much right to the water as others, so I let them have it on weekends.

As I got into the flyfishing act, the ex-citement of the surface take soon turned me into a dry fly addict. I know that more and larger trout can be taken on wet flies, nymphs, and streamers, if used at the right time. The trouble is that I may start out with the best of intentions, but as soon as the first trout rises, the dry goes on and away I go. Anyway, I have found it easier

27

and more fun to fish dry than wet. Besides, it is possible to take enough trout to!satisfy me even under adverse conditions. For ex-ample, we came to Montana. one year after a very late snow fall in the mountains, followed by a rapid thaw. Result: most of the streams were at flood stage and muddy. I knew of one stream that might be clear and we went there. It was clear but also bank full; so much so that it could only be approached where the highway it followed the stream and was protected by a trap rock fill. Since I had a bad case of spring fishing fever and was hungry for a mess of trout, I finally decided it was worth a try along that trap rock bank. I managed, with my favor-ite dry fly, to take a mess of eating size trout by fishing about a foot out from the bank. As I had figured, the small ones had to find some protection from the high water.

I hope all fishermen get as much en-joyment from developing their ability to select and handle dry flies as I have. My first favorite was the Adams, and for a year or more used it almost exclusively, and I still use a modification of this fly. The results of long years of fishing and fly tying have led me to the firm conclusion that col-or is by far the least important aspect of the dry fly. I have listened for hours to men I consider top fly tiers and fishermen, argue the relative merits, or even necessity, of certain shades of hackle color for specific flies. This is pure rot, but fun when there is nothing better to do. The really important things are presentation i.e., casting, fly placement, fly size and fly shape. I also want a fly to float well in rough water and to land upright most of the time. One treat-ment with dry fly floatant should last for hours, except of course on some low sur-face tension waters. After years of trial and mostly error, I think I have found a fly of best shape, floatability, and which lands mostly rights ide up. In fact, if it should land upside down it may turn over on its own accord, or a slight twitch of the line will cause it to right itself.

28

The fly that I have come to depend on for most of my fishing I developed as a modification in several patterns, of the old western "Trude" which Dan Bailey's Shop in Montana sold for years. In its present form it looks something like an elk wing caddis without the body hackle and a tail and forward hackle added. The best hook I have found for this fly, sizes 10 to 18, is a Mustad #9671 which is standard wire, 2x long, model perfect bend, with turned down eye. This provides the longer shank helpful in tying this fly for good mayfly, caddis, and stone fly imitations. It is not a bad grass hopper either; in fact better than some. The standard wire helps lower the center of gravity, which helps the fly land upright and holds the body in the film to better represent a fly that has just emerged and may soon take off.

This fly floats almost entirely on the wing and consequently only a very few materials are satisfactory. The material should be fibrous and crinkly so that a lot of the fibers or hairs cross each other. It is these contact points that collect and hold air bubbles, provided the filaments have an oily or other coating that is water repellant. This entrapped air is what really floats the fly upon the water in a most effective way. The two best materials I have found are crinkly calf tail hair and polypropylene yarn; calf tail for sizes 10 to 14 and the yarn for sizes 16 and 18. I use them in natural white for good visibility. Dyed gray is also good for visibility, and can be used as an alternate color if for no other reason than to avoid too much of the same. For the tail I use a good bunch of brownish stiff spade hackle on the Royal Trude, keeping the bar buies parallel and tied in so that the tail forms a pencil-like extension of the hook shank. This tail acts as an axis on which the fly can rotate should it land on its side or upside down.

I use two hackles, except possibly for the smallest fly, either a combination of brown and cochy, dark brown, and brown and grizzly. The brown and grizzly I use with a gray wing and a gray body, dark muskrat, the Adams Trude. The browns I use with the old royal coachman pattern and fish this most of the time. What trout see in this pattern is beyond me. It could be

that because of the many colors, they tend to see what they want to see, food. There is one thing I feel sure of and that is the single wing of this Trude, which I slant at a 20 to 30 degree angle from the horizontal, does a much better job of simulating a mayfly dun than the traditional upright wing. It is a busby fly that is a departure from Eastern preference for sparsely tied patterns and I

bERE was a time when I was con-vinced that the Trude was just a rainbow dry fly, but results on Maine's Grand Lake Stream proved it to be equally effective for landlocked salmon. The reason for my

Tying the Trude F-lies

Tying instructions The Royal Trude is a variation of the Royal

Wulff The chief difference is a single, undivided wing tied in at a 20 to JO degree angle ratlier than upright, and use of hackle fibers for the tail in-stead of hair.

The Adams Trude is a variation of the standard Adams, the ehief difference, again, is in the single, undivided wing tied in at a 20 to 30 degree angle rather than split and upright.

Both patterns can be tied following the u:sual procedures for tying these flies, except for the wings. To get tlie proper angle jor the wingS, Clap-saddle suggests the following steps.

Tie in a small bUlleh of ealf hair, with tips even-ed, near the hook eye. Trim the butts at aflat angle for a neatly tapered head. With the wing hair an- . chored (a drop of cement helps), lijt the wing hair by its tips ana take a turn or two around the base of the wing with the tying thread. Pull the wing toward the upright position and take a couple more turns around the wing base, t his time passing the thread under. the hook shank. Pull thredd tight to elevate the wing.

Royal Trude

Moek:

Now wrap the thread around hook, behina the eye and in front of the wing. Keep wrapping toward the wing until it is brought down to tlie proper angle. Tie in hackle and whip finish.

have yet to show it to an Eastern trout fish-erman who didn't observe or imply that it "may catch fish out West, but that it wouldn't work here." I have news for them, it does work in the East, though not when #20 or smaller sparse flies are needed.

earlier thinking was that everyone said that it had to be that 'Yay, because brown trout were more selective feeders than rainbows. However, as I spent more and more time on eastern streams I found that under similar conditions browns were no more

29

selective than rainbows, even though they are different in behavior. The summer of '79 was the clincher so far as I'm concern-ed. I spent the season on New York streams and caught more than enough browns under all conditions, as did my partner, to convince us that the Trude was also a fine fly for brown trout. I have taken many western cutthroat with the Trude, also brook trout East and West though I must confess that a small muddler may have done as well.

The first time I became completely con-vinced that the Trude was a good imitation of a mayfly was on the Clarks Fork River, about 30 miles down stream from Mis-soula, Montana. Here, a two mile stretch in this large stream cooled by springs, is deep, swift, full of bolders , and holds three varities of trout. It is difficult and even dangerous to wade and there are few spots where one can wade more than 10 feet off shore. Upstream, near the head of this stretch, there is an old slue where great numbers of mayflies hatch. In late sum-mer, the hatch may become so great as to produce a continuous slick of drifting flies 10 feet wide and extending a mile down-stream. These dark blue flies are of all sizes, from midges up to #10. This day I found a good trout feeding at rather long intervals from such a slick in an eddy about where the eddy curent and main stream current coincided. The area was protected downstream by a large tree that had fallen into the river and a 20 foot cut bank along the near side. I tried to approach the trout from the upstream side but only managed to put him down. After an hour's rest he was back in business and this time I found a position on the cut bank that was free enough of brush and trees allow me to cast. From this position, I had to make a slack line cast and place the fly just short of the line of demarcation between the two cur-rents, in order to get just a short float. The fish took the Trude #12 I was using, ap-parently in preference to the many mayflies around him. As often happens, when you have a long view of a big trout rising slowly to your fly, I hit too hard and broke him off.

That was all for the day as I had a long, slow trip back on one-lane dirt roads and

30

bridges. I had a chance to return a few days later and found two fish feeding this time. One was feeding in the same place as before while the other had his station about 30 feet downstream. It looked like I might take both fish so I went for the downstream fish first, again with the #12 Trude. He took on the first float but pulled lose on the first run, which happens often do downstream floats: besides I was a bit fast on the strike. So I turned to the second fish, while giving myself a short lecture on how I must slow down in setting the hook. He too took on the first float, which was lucky as a bad drag would have developed after a very short drift. This trout took off downstream and across in a long run, removing about 20 feet of backing. He didn't jump as rain-bows usually do, and seemed to give up after that first run. I soon had him back in the eddy and under control. I found a place where I could scramble down to a narrow shingle along the cut bank, and a moment later beached him. The reason for the single run and no jumps was immediately evident, he was so gorged with mayflies that every movement caused large quan-tities to be expelled from the throat and vent. He may have taken my fly because he was just sick and tired of mayflies, but I doubt it. He was a nice trout, chunky and about 22 inches long. My original fly, the one broken off, was still embedded in his jaw. This mayor may not prove that the Trude looks-like a mayfly to a trout; but it has kept me working with it for over 15 years. o

The Infallible, Altnost Frank Garisto

SCREEN lights up ... signals Ready: begin input data ., . 2: CIS ... 4*MeM* .. . sbj Trt fshg ... Apr/ 22/ 80

6 let 1 to 100 = wtr tmp ... 8 go 44 . .. 10 input A .. . 12K = .03-14 input R

14Dt.4 4 (5* 7) ... input YB ... .09/ 31-L . .. msr flo rt .047 .. .. . .

Six years of this data; now let's see what happens. Hit button for readout .. ..

Apr/ 22/ 80 .. . Bkl! . .. Hrtn ... Cmtry PI .. . 11:27 A ... 5X tpt ... upstrm cst ... # 18 hk ... Fmly, Philopotamidae . .. Gns, Chimarra Dolophilodes .. ..

So, that's it: Caddis, black body, medium grey wing and legs of dark brown or bronze. OK, I have time to tie up a few

Not too much traffic on the West Side Highway this early .. . over the George Washington Bridge and on to Roscoe .. . .

8:50 AM; time for coffee at the diner .. . Past the Darbys ... Junction Pool ... look at that crowd. won't they ever learn ...

must stop at Antrim Lodge after fishing, haven't seen Doug or Fred in a while ....

Horton exit . .. left turn into Cemetery Pool road ... wonder if Old Torsburg is fishing the Big Trout Stream in the sky .. . park beyond Russells house ... waders still wet, socks still damp ... why in hell don' t I just go to boot-foot waders ... stretch tip-pet . .. what did readout say? .. . oh, yeah, 5X ... .

11 :05AM ... into the stream ... water cold and a bit high ... try the other side next to bank where current runs stronger ... up-stream, too hard ... make a few casts first to get loosened up ... hey, not bad for a weekend fisherman . .. OK, tie on a size 18 black Caddis ... I gotta admit that com-puter' s pretty smart ... everything' s Ready ... just like the computer said .. .

11:26.30 ... start working out line .. . 11:27 ... cast! .. . a good one .. . strip in slowly, slowly ... a hit! ... wow, it's a big one ... easy, easy ... what a fish! ... must be 22 inches . .. don't rush it ... give him an-other minute and then .. . Jesus! the leader let go! ... damn, must teach that computer to tie better knots. 0

31

IMAGO SOCIETY Minutes of Annual Meeting

As prescribed by the By-Laws, the first of what threatens to become an An-nual Meeting of the IMAGO SOCIETY, a non-incorporated, quasi-organization of past presidents of Theodore Gordon Fly-fishers, was convened on the banks of the

32

Beaverkill at Grant's Lodge on Saturday, May 3, 1980 at 12:30 PM, EDT. The meet-ing was called to order by the Chairmen, and the following members were recorded as being present in person:

Edward G. Zern Edgar O. Bottler Joe A . Pisarro Kenneth E. Bay

Robert Neal Johnson Lawrence Solomon Gardner L. Grant

T

In Absence There's a Void

Since SOCIETY member Mr. Theodore R. Rogowski was not present in person, it was s'uggested that it might be appropriate to record him in absentia. It was pointed out this could not be dun, inasmuch as this was an imago gathering. It was further pointed out that the SOCIETY's Constitu-tion & By-Laws stipulate that any action must be by unanimous approval of the en-tire membership and, since Mr Rogowski was not present in person to approve his being recorded in absentia, no action could be taken.

Members of the TGF Imago Society gath-er at the river - the Beaverkill, that is -for their first conclave. Theflowers of fly-fishingdom, they are shown preparing for an assault on the river's finny denizens. Note their delicate tackle and elation at receiving their favorite pattern - terris-trial annelid of the Lumbricidae family. In gleeful array, they are shown (front row - I to r) Bob Johnson, Ed Zern and mentor Lee Wulff Middle row: Gardner Grant, Larry Solomon, Joe Pisarro, Ken Bay. A t rear is Ed Bottler. Missing from the photo (and the conclave) is Ted Ro-gowski, whose absence created some par-liamentary problems.

For Want of a Corkscrew

On the other hand, Mr. Lee Wulff, by invitation of the SOCIETY, was present in person. It was explained to Mr. Wulff that the SOCIETY was desirous of persuading him to accept the role of SOCIETY (1) Guru, or (2) Coach, or (3) Sommelier. The question of which of the three roles to offer Mr. Wulff provoked desultory debate. Mr. Bottler opted for "Guru," arguing that the members certainly were in dire need of up-lifting and spiritual guidance. .

Mr. Pisarro stated that he, personally, could benefit from some coaching, par-ticularly in fishing nymphs, and declared for "Coach." Mr. Grant delivered an im-passioned oration in favor of "Sommelier." Mr. Bay pointed out that since all the members stuck to Gallo red, there appeared to be little need for a Som-melier. Nevertheless, Mr. Grant's soaring rhetoric appeared to be on the brink of pre-vailing until Mr. Wulff mentioned, some-what abashedly, that he didn't own a cork-screw.

As a result of failure to arrive at the re-quired unanimity due to the absence of Mr. Rogowski, there was no choice but to have Mr. Wulff assume all three roles either by default or by acclamation, whichever was easier.

Zern Spurned

The next item on the agenda, at the re-quest of Mr. Johnson, was a reading of the SOCIETY's Constitution & By-Laws for the purpose of re-ratification. Mr. Zern took exception to Article I, Section 1 of the By-Laws. This specifies that the SOCIE-TY's Annual Meeting shall be held at a site known as the Gardner L. Grant Estate or simply as Grant's Lodge, not to be confus-ed with Grant's Kennebago Camps in Maine. Mr. Zern stated that the By-Laws also should specify that Grant's Lodge is not to be confused with Grant's Tomb. Since Grant's Tomb also overlooks a river,

34

the possibility of confusion is ever-present and preventive steps should be taken, Mr. Zern declared, and called for an amend-ment to that effect. However, it was point-ed out by the SOCIETY's parliamentarians that Article VI, Section 2, prohibits any amendments to the By-Laws, whereupon Mr. Zern went into a sulk. Until then he had been in a chair.

A Word to Wonder at

Another non-action stemmed from a debate that raged over the pronunciation of the word" Imago". Mr. Grant insisted that the correct pronunciation was e-MAH-go. Mr. Solomon stated firmly that he'd been pronouncing it EE-me-go all his natural life (reference to his un-natural life was ruled inadmissible under Article II, Section 1 of the By-Laws) and he, by God, was not about to change now. The other members made equally helpful suggestions . Finally, it would have been agreed, had Mr. Ro-gowski been present to provide the required unanimity, that for purposes of the SOCI-ETY, the accepted pronunciation would be A YE-may-go, as in yes, I may go fishhlg.

How to Make a Buck

Next order of business was the Treasur-ers' Reports. Mr. Bottler suggested that it

might be wise for the SOCIETY to put its funds into the money markets to take ad-vantage of the high interest rates. being paid currently. His recommendation was met with- enthusiasm until Mr. Bay pointed out that the accrued interest on the SOCIETY's present balance of $000,000.14 would bare-ly pay for the paper work, and the Treasur-ers' Reports would have been approved, except for the absence of Mr. Rogowski, again depriving the SOCIETY of the man-dated unanimity.

How to Bug a Meeting

The next item on the agenda concerned hatches for the afternoon fishing. Mr. Grant assured members that either Ephe-mere/la subvaria or Paraleptophlebia adop-tiva, or both, would emerge promptly at 2 PM EDT. Mr. Johnson disagreed, stating that his streamside logs for the past six years showed sub varia due at precisely 2:33 PM EDT and adoptiva appearing at exactly 2:47 PM EDT. Mr. Grant rebutted, declar-ing his streamside logs confirmed his 2 PM prediction and, besides, since it was his water, he guessed he ought to know.

Mr. Solomon, awakened by the loud ar-guing, declared the members were beating a dead horse. Subvaria and adoptiva, he said, were nothing but old Beaverkill myths and hadn't been seen on the river since the days of Reub Cross. The only insects to be found now on the Beaverkill were Trichop-tera, he asserted, and it was futile to look for anything else. Mr. Pisarro inquired how he was expected to try Choptera when he didn't even know the lady. Besides, he said, he didn't go for Italian women.

Mr. Solomon advised the members that if they wanted to catch trout, they'd better become informed on the relationship be-tween the caddis and the angler. Fortunate-ly, he said, an extremely informative book on the subject has been written and by sheer luck he just happened to have a car-ton of them in his car and would be delight-ed tosell copies to the members at slightly

above list price. When Mr. Johnson re-minded him that SOCIETY meetings were zoned against commercial enterprises, Mr. Solomon said he was going into a sulk. However, Mr. Zern was still occupying the only sulk on the premises and Mr. Solomon was forced to go into a pout. When Mr. Johnson pOInted out that a pout, particu-larly the horned variety, is a member of the catfish family, Mr. Solomon recoiled in horror.

Mr. Pisarro declared that all those Latin names were Greek to him and that he would stick with a good, old fashioned (ac-tually, he prefers martinis) American size 4 Muddler Minnow. (Mr. Pisarro was able to report later that not only had hatches of sub varia, adoptiva or Trichoptera failed to materialize, but there was no Muddler hatch, either.)

An Invitation

Mr. Zern, having left the sulk and re-joined the group, announced that he felt it was time to introduce a non-sequitar, which he proceeded to do. He said he had been invited by "Polly" Rosborough to fish the Williamson River in Oregon in mid-June. Mr. Zern said he would be pleas-ed to have someone else go along and ex-tended an open invitation to any member wishing to do so.

There being no further business, a mo-tion would have been made extending the thanks of the SOCIETY to Mr. Grant for his hospitality. Unfortunately, due to the absence of Mr. Rogowski, no official ac-tion could be taken and Mr. Grant was forced to accept the SOCIETY's gratitude by default. Whereupon, the Meeting broke up and everybody headed for the stream.

Respectfully submitted, The Secretarys

35

Cast a Fly Neil Strother

T is this business of flyfishing, anyway? Why do flyfishers journey far, to mountain streams To probe for salmon and trout with feathered hooks?

In the Stone Ages , mankind roamed, looking, learning. Ever alert. Each day and hour spawned new challenges. No workaday world numbed the mind and senses. Time since then is only a moment in Man's lifespan.

By campfires, poets honed legends of the tribes. Discovered the joy of music, of solving problems. So our physical, mental, spiritual being evolved.

Icecaps waxed and waned; fish flashed in the rivers. Along the bank, fishers looked, and looked again . Upstream, downstream, at the bottom, the sky, The weather, the wind, the foliage, the water.

The fly fisher , too, ranges the landscape; Discovering, with each cast of the fly, something About the web of life and his place therein, Wisdom lost to him during recent millennia.

In flyfishirrg, the odds greatly favor the fish, Demanding study of which fly to cast, and how.

The flyfisher is content, learning to be awake, To see, to understand; regaining a birthright. Discovery requires a prepared mind.

Whe·n The Cows Catne Hotne

G. H. Caddis As told to Ted Schultz

A COUPLE of friends of mine used to fish West Canada Creek. That was years ago and it presented an interesting pro-blem. Maybe it's the same today. I wouldn't know; it's been a long time since, but in those days, and maybe it's still so to-day, they used to hold back the water at Trenton Falls until they wanted some juice and then they'd let it go with a whoosh and the level of the stream would rise maybe three feet.

There were big trout in the West Cana-da then, and maybe there still are today. I wouldn't know; it's been a long time since, but I remember one day in early September back in '57 when, at high noon or therea-bouts, I took a 30-inch, 3 lb. brown on a Gordon fly. Not a Quill Gordon but a Gor-don, and dry at that. The water was down at the time, which was an advantage as the trout had to congregate. When the river was full the trl")ut might be anywhere and the flow too fast and furious to do any bus-niness.

But I am digressing. To get back to those two friends of mine. Jim was an ar-dent angler, but Joe was a fanatic. He'd keep at it until the last feeble light had fad-ed in the West. But Jim was amenable, which meant he'd stay with it till Joe would finally quit, though he himself would have

been more than willing to rack up hours be-fore.

Well, there was one stretch of the West Canada below Poland that Joe liked parti-cularly well. The only trouble was that it was on the far side of the river. Time and again Joe waded over, got into position to fish and just as he was all set, they'd pull the plug at Trenton. The river would rise with a swoosh and Joe would get a ducking and have to swim back in his waders. That wasn't too bad as he always carried a set of falling-in clothes to change into. But it was disconcerting.

After about the fifth time that happen-ed to him, Joe happened to notice there was a farm and a pasture and some cows right above where he was standing in the stream. Right then, he had an inspiration and his cerebral processes went into high gear. Where there are cows and a pasture and a farm, there probably is a farmer, he reasoned, not unreasonably. Now, if one could contrive to win the farmer's confi-dence and permission, maybe one could work one's way to the desired stretch from that side and never have to worry about a dunking. The "one" Joe had in mind, of course, was himself. But how to win the farmer's confidence - assuming there was a farmer. At once Joe thought of Jim. Jim had that quality of transparent and good-ness and trustworthiness that immediately inspired confidence in all who met him; the far-away look of a man accustomed to

scanning the water in hopes of sighting feeding trout. This, of course, as you well know, always inspires confidence in the mind of the beholder.

So, upon reaching home after his latest ducking, Joe lost no time in phoning Jim and throwing the proposition at him. Jim, of course, was amenable. They drove the 80 miles to Poland, they crossed the bridge over the river, they found the farm and found the farmer. And the farmer was more than amenable.

"Why, sure," he said, "you can cross my land to the creek. In fact, why don't you drive down across the pasture and park right by the stream?" This was far more than Joe had dared hope for and once again he thanked the inspiration that had led him to have Jim confront the farmer.

So, with high hopes and eager anticipa-tion, they drove across the pasture, pleased to note that there were no cows there. They parked at stream side and as they climbed into waders and strung up their rods, Joe remarked that the farmer certainly was a nice guy. They tied on flies and ventured into the stream. The water was down and that made Joe happy, because it meant the trout would be congregated. This should be the day, he mused, as he worked out line and shot a faultless cast. Nothing happen-ed. So he changed flies. Nothing again. No-thing happened on the first five casts. On the sixth, a fish swirled at the fly and miss-ed. Joe turned to Jim.

"I think I'd better wait before I try him again. Seems I read somewhere that in this kind of a situation you ought to wait 13 minutes before you try again . What do you thing, Jim?"

"Well," replied Jim, who was an avid reader of trout literature, "Cotton recom-mends 15 minutes but Halford opts for 11. So, splitting the difference, I would agree that 13 is about right."

So Joe started to wait 13 minutes. At M minus 7, he noticed the water on his right leg had risen an inch. He looked at his left leg; it was up two inches. The Trenton flood was bearing down on him, but Joe

38

valiantly stood his ground. At M minus 5 the stream level was one foot higher. At this point, Jim quitely remarked that he thought he'd climb the bank for a breath of air. Joe stood his ground. The water rose and rose. Finally, the 13 minutes had elap-sed and it was time to try again. But, to Joe's consternation, what had been a likely lie beside a rock was now a mill race. Still, not one to give up, Joe cast his fly at the spot where he thought the rock was and continued to cast until the stream overflow-ed his waders. Fortunately, Jim was on the bank above him with a coil of rope, which he threw to Joe and hauled him out of the creek before any further damage could be done.

MEANWHILE, the westering sun had westered and dusk lay upon the land, and the water, too. The gloaming merely put new l,ife into Joe, now clad in his after-the fall-in dry clothes.

"The evening rise should begin shortly," Joe announced, "and maybe that big one will rise again." So, the two com-panions, protecting themselves against pneumonia with doses of Old Stump-blower, reclined on the pasture grass and waited for the river to drop and the trout to rise. Jim did give a passing thought to the long drive home, wondering if they shouldn't think about starting back, but he put the thought aside. He knew from long experience it would be useless to suggest it to Joe. Finally, Joe stood up.

"I think I'll give him another try." "Ok, but do me a favor," Jim said.

"Tie this around you." He handed Joe one end of the rope; the other end he tied around a tree. The rope around his midriff and rod in hand, Joe descended into the stream, which by this time had dropped some. Jim stood on the bank unable to see anything because of darkness and the fog that had settled in, as Joe groped his way to a position where he could cast to the spot where he'd seen the selective trout swirl. He false cast until he figured he had the right amount of line out and then let it go. In-stantly, he was rewarded with a strike!

..

"I've got him!" Joe yelled, as he pre-pared for a long, drawn-out battle of wits and brute strength. He was puzzled when the fish came in with no struggle and was at the.net in a matter of seconds. Joe lifted the net but there was nothing in it. The-leader had gone through the mesh and he could still feel the fish at the end of the line. Joe couldn't see a thing in the dark and, thor-oughly bewildered now, he lit a match. Clamped to the fly was a 5 inch dace.

It was now 10 PM, the night was shrouded in dense fog and Stygian black-ness, and they were 80 miles from home_ The weary anglers packed up, climbed into the car and started the homeward journey_ The pasture in fog and darkness , they dis-covered, was not the same as the pasture by day. Moving slowly, they drove blindly in the direction of the gate. Suddenly, a la(ge shape loomed in the headlights' breams. They stopped as the shaped materialized in-to a cow. Evading her, they moved along to another cow, then another and then a fence. Was the gate to the right or the left? They turned right and fence led to an-other fence and that fence led back to the

river. So they turned to the left; more fence. They carefully scanned the fence for some indication of a gate. There was none.

So, they continued driving from one fence to another for what seemed like hours until at long last they spotted a flick-ering light on the other side of a fence and it turned out to be the friendly farmer with a flashlight. He guided them to the place where he'd strung wires across the opening to enclose the pasture. He'd forgotten them, he said, until he saw strange lights going around and around in the fog-en-shrouded pasture. So, at about an hour be-fore midnight, they finally headed for the highway that would lead them home.

I don't know whether Joe and Jim ever went back. I do know that after they told me about their harrowing misadventure, I presented them with a ball of string and re-minded them how Theseus had found his way out of the Labyrinth with the aid of a ball of string. Somehow, it seemed to me, they weren ' t as grateful for my gift as I thought they should have been.

People can be so unappreciative. o

39

The Fishing • Print In Fly-Tying Helen Shaw John Wiley & Sons, New York

R Y- TYING by Helen Shaw is back in print. And about time, too . There's no way of knowing how many fly tyers learned their craft from this book, which first ap-peared in 1963, most of them indirectly. The number of copies printed and sold bears no relationship to the number of anglers who have benefited from it. And for the same reason that today's dry-fly fishermen owe much of their interest and skill in that branch of fly fishing to Frederic Halford, though most probably never read any of his books .

In that sense, F/y- Tying was a landmark book. It established a pattern of combining clear, concise verbal instructions with "over-the-shoulder" step-by-step photo-graphs, a technique adopted by all the bet-ter instruction books that have followed. If Helen had had her way, husband Hermann Kessler's name would have appeared as co-author, for he is the innovative photog-rapher who first used the camera as the "eyes" of the tyer. Shooting over the

40

shoulder of the tyer, Kessler's photos show the tying steps from the tyer's point of view. Old stuff now, but he was the first.

This is strictly a meat and potatoes book. It deals with basics and the level of teaching is professional. The emphasis is on mastering every aspect of constructing a fly . It instructs in a simple, clear fashion how to put together a fly, piece by piece: Tails, body, wing, hackle, even knots. Each piece is dealt with individually, step by step in words and photos. When each of these steps has been mastered, the resulting fly is bound to be as good as any you can buy, and better than most.

The book also covers materials and tools, information particularly helpful to beginners. But lest you assume this is a book for beginners only, take another look. I don't consider myself an advanced fly tyer, though I've been at it for a couple of decades. Yet, on first reading, I discov-ered at least half a dozen bad tying habits I've developed over the years . This book, along with the exquisite flys she ties, dem-onstrates why, some years ago Helen Shaw was called "The First Lady of Flydom" . She still is. - jap

The Masters On The Nymph Edited by J. Michael Migel and

Leonard M. Wright, Jr. Nick Lyons Books/ Doubleday & Company Garden City, N.Y.

IT used to be that fishing the dry fly was considered the most esoteric and diffi-cult method of angling for" trout. Nowa-days it ' s pretty well conceded that dry fly fishing is the easiest, if not the most pro-ductive, method of angling for trout, rela-tively speaking, of course. With the dry fly, all the cards are on the table and the moves are out in the open. The angler can see at a glance how his fly is behaving, where it's traveling, make any corrections needed and when the strike comes it's clearly visible and signals the angler to react. For many fishermen, fishing the dry is just more fun.

To a large extent, the mystique and dif-ficulty once ascribed to the dry fly have been transferred to the nymph and nymph fishing. The fisherman who ignores nymphs is ignoring the fact that 90070 of the time a trout opens his mouth to feed he does so underwater, and what he swallows most of the time is a nymph. It would seem simple logic, then, that trout fishermen would school themselves in nymph fishing. But too many anglers accept the myth that nymph fishing is beyond them, requiring highly advanced skills along with some mysterious sixth sense and is limited to a few experts. Dave Whitlock writes that when he became interested in nymphing, 25 or 30 years ago, he was told catching trout on nymphs was almost impossible unless the fishing angler possessed ESP.

The Masters On The Nymph goes a long way toward dispelling the myths, helps place nymphs and their use in per-spective and suggests that. fishing nymphs sucsessfully is well within the ability of any moderately competent angler. In his chap-ter, Al McClane states firmly that "the most sophisticated trout ... can be taken on a nymph sooner or later. The versatility of the fly is remarkable."

If McClane is correct - and 17 other authors build a strong case for his claim -then clearly any fly fisherman who is inter-ested in catching trout has to give serious attention to those subaqeous artifices . The 18 contributors to the book represent as knowledgable a collection of "nympholo-gists" as could be assembled anywhere. They deal with every conceivable aspect of the subject, from Schwiebert' s history of the evolution of nymph fishing to the pro-jected demise of the traditional wet fly by Ed Zern. Covered are the beasties them-selves, from Sid Neff's dandruff-sized mini-nymphs to Charles Brooks's mon-strous maxi-nymphs and Steve Raymond's "pseudo-nymphs," which aren't nympths at all, but shrimp, scuds and sow bugs. In all, descriptions, dressings and stream-use tactics are offered for some 95 patterns.

For the inexperienced nymph fisherman or the one who is doubtful about his ability to master it, Al Troth's chapter, "How to Read the Water," will prove invaluable. Troth says up front that "many trial-and-error experiences are necessary to develop a workable nymphing expertise," and that there "are few shortcuts." Nevertheless, a study of his chapter will profit the novice nympher. For one thing, it will help dispell the mystery that has surrounded nymth fishing and assure him that it is, after all, merely another and effective method of fishing for trout and can be learned by mere mortals.

Besides debunking the myth that ESP is a prerequisite for successful nymph fishing, Dave Whitlock also takes .the mystery out of the proper tackle to use. Not suprisingly, there's nothing esoteric or exotic about the tackle he prescribes, and a practicing fly fisherman will be familiar with most of it. He does advocate longer rods - 8' to 10', depending on water size and type fished -as the most efficient for nymphing. Lines, reels, leaders, etc. of course, are geared to the rod.

"One of the world's great truths," writes Brian Clarke, "is that no one is mak-ing rivers anymore" ... another is that "men have dedicated themselves for cen-turies to the relentless desecration of those clear streams they once had." Those two facts, Clarke adds, "have led to the great-

41

est revolution in fly fishing that the United Kingdom has ever known, and they will in-evitably lead to a similar revolution in the United States: the emergence of fly fishing on lakes as the most widely practiced form of the sport." The lakes Clarke referred to are both the natural and man-made varie-ties.

In view of Clarke's prediction of lakes as the primary arenas for future trout fly fishing, his chapter, "The Nymph in Still Water," takes on added significance. Clarke is probably the best-known, and perhaps most expert, exponent of still-water nymph fishmg in the United King-dom. His book, The Pursuit oj Still Water Trout, has been compared to the work of G .E.M. Skues - the father of nymph fish-ing - for its observations and depth of thought about the subject. In his chapter, Clarke provides a remarkably comprehen-sive body of information on fishing nymphs in still-water, including sound, practical reasons for their use in the first place, despite space limitations. The key difference between rivers and lakes, Clarke points out, is the lack of current in lakes, eliminating any natural movement of either natural or artificial nymphs. Any move-ment of the nymph must be imparted by the angler, a significant difference between

-- river and still-water nymph fishing. This chapter will provide readers with an intro-duction to an important subject, as well as to an author who writes with wit, charm and humor. -donovan

The Salmon Fly - How to Dress it and How to Use It George M . Kelson The Anglers & Shooters Press Goshen, CT.

hE SALMON FL Y was first pub-lished in 1895 and immediately became the salmon-fly "Bible" of its time. Despite its popularity, the book went through one edi-tion only and was allowed to go out of

print. Prior to this new printing - a fac-simile of the original, including eight color plates illustrating 52 patterns - copies of the first edition were to be found only in private collections. When available, copies were commanding as much as $400. At $57.50, this new edition clearly was not in-tended as a mass-market product. On the other hand, this book is a reminder of qual-ity bookmaking as we used to know it; it's a beautiful piece of craftsmanship .

Kelson was indisputably one of the foremost contributors to the evolution of the salmon fly . As Poul Jorgensen explains in his Foreword to this edition, Kelson's work was relatively unknown until he be-gan a series on salmon fly dressing for the English Fishing Gazette in 1844. In those articles he introduced revolutionary meth-ods of dressing, particularly in winging. The Gazette pieces resulted in great pressure on Kelson to write a book, but it was eleven years before he published The Salmon Fly, in 1895 .

Today' s salmon fly tyer will find much of Kelson's writing on fly dressing tech-niques still valid and useful, despite the trend to more sparsely flies and the use of hair in contemporary patterns.

-ssb

"

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