Fly Fishing in Wonderland Part 2

From a dozen states anglers have written testifying to the killing qualities of the Pitcher Fly, and the extracts following show that its success is not confined to any locality nor to any single species of trout:

"The Pitcher flies you gave me have aided me in filling my twenty-pound basket three times in the last three weeks. Have had the best sport this season I have ever enjoyed on the Coeur d'Alene waters, and I can truthfully say I owe it all to the Pitcher fly and its designer."

E. R. DENNY, Wallace, Idaho.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Following a Little River_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _At the Head of the Meadow_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Tongue River_

_Photo by N. H. Darton_]

"One afternoon I had put up my rod and strolled down to the river where one of our party was whipping a pool of the Big Hole, trying to induce a fish to strike. He said: 'There's an old villain in there; he wants to strike but can't make up his mind to do it.' I said: 'I have a fly that will make him strike,' and as I had my book in my pocket I handed him a No. 8 Pitcher. He made two casts and hooked a beautiful trout, that weighed nineteen ounces, down. I regard the Pitcher as the best killer in my book."

J. E. MONROE, Dillon, Montana.

"I determined to follow the stream up into the mountains, but as I neared the woods at the upper end of the meadow I stopped to cast into a long, straight reach of the river where the breeze from the ocean was rippling the surface of the stream. The gra.s.sy bank rose steep behind me and only a little fringe of wild roses partly concealed me from the water. I cast the Pitcher flies you gave me well out on the rough water, allowed them to sink a hand-breadth, and at the first movement of the line I saw that heart-expanding flash of a broad silver side gleaming from the clear depths. The trout fastened on savagely, and as he was coming my way, I a.s.sisted his momentum with all the spring of the rod, and he came flying out into the clean, fresh gra.s.s of the meadow behind me. It was a half-pound speckled brook trout. I did not stop to pouch him, but cast again. In a moment I was fast to another such, and again I sprung him bodily out, glistening like a silver ingot, to where his brother lay. In my first twelve casts I took ten such fish, all from ten to twelve inches long, mostly without any playing. I took twenty-two fine fish without missing one strike, and landed every one safely. I was not an hour in taking the lot. Then oddly enough, I whipped the water for fifty yards without another rise. Satisfied that the circus was over, I climbed up into the meadow and gathered the spoils into my basket. Nearly all were brook trout, but two or three silvery salmon trout among them had struck quite as gamely. I had such a weight of fish as I never took before on the Nekanic.u.m in our most fortunate fis.h.i.+ng."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Talking It Over_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Beaver Dam and Reservoir_]

"Walking back along the trail, I came again to the long reach where I had my luck an hour before, and cast again to see if there might be another fish. Two silver glints shone up through the waves in the same instant. I struck one of the two fish, though I might have had both if I had left the flies unmoved the fraction of a second. Three times I refused such doublets, for I had not changed an inch of tackle, and scarcely even looked the casting line over. It was no time to allow two good fish to go raking that populous pool. However I did take chances with one doublet. So out of the same lucky spot on my return, I took ten more fish each about a foot long. I brought nearly every one flying out as I struck him, and I never put such a merciless strain on a rod before.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_That Populous Pool_"

_Photo by John Gill_]

"I had concluded again that the new tenantry had all been evicted, and was casting 'most extended' trying the powers of the rod and reaching, I should say, sixty feet out. As the flies came half-way in and I was just about s.n.a.t.c.hing them out for a long back cast, the father of the family soared after them in a gleaming arc. He missed by not three inches and bored his way straight down into the depths of the clear green water.

'My heart went out to him,' as our friend Wells said, but coaxing was in vain. I tried them above and below, sinking the flies deeply, or dropping them airily upon the waves, but to no purpose. I had the comforting thought that we may pick him up when you are here this summer."

JOHN GILL, Portland, Oregon.

_THE BONNY RED HECKLE_

Away frae the smoke an' the smother, Away frae the crush o' the thrang!

Away frae the labour an' pother That have fettered our freedom sae lang!

For the May's i' full bloom i' the hedges And the laverock's aloft i' the blue, An' the south wind sings low i' the sedges, By haughs that are silvery wi' dew.

Up, angler, off wi' each shackle!

Up, gad and gaff, and awa'!

Cry 'Hurrah for the canny red heckle, The heckle that tackled them a'!'

Then back to the smoke and the smother, The uproar and crush o' the thrang; An' back to the labour and pother, But happy and hearty and strang.

Wi' a braw light o' mountain and muirland, Outflas.h.i.+ng frae forehead and e'e, Wi' a blessing flung back to the norland, An' a thousand, dear Coquet, to thee!

As again we resume the old shackle, Our gad an' our gaff stowed awa', An'--goodbye to the canny 'red heckle,'

The heckle that tackled them a'!'

--From "The Lay of the Lea." By _Thomas Westwood_.

NOTE--I am indebted to Mrs. Mary Orvis Marbury, author of "Favorite Flies," for copies of "Hey for Coquet,"

and "Farewell to Coquet," from the former of which the foregoing are extracts.

_GRIZZLY LAKE AND LAKE ROSE_

"And best of all, through twilight's calm The hermit-thrush repeats his psalm."

_Henry Van d.y.k.e_

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Grizzly Lake_]

GRIZZLY LAKE lies secluded among the timbered hills, four miles south--south and west--from Willow Park. The long narrow bed of the lake was furrowed by a glacier that once debouched here from the mountains to the west, and through the gravel and detritus that surround it the melting snows and rain are filtered till the water is fit for the Olympian deities. No more profitable place can be found for the angler to visit. The lake swarms with brook trout weighing from one to five pounds, and in the ice-cold water which is supplied with an abundance of insect and crustacean food the fish are in prime condition after July first. The best fis.h.i.+ng is at the southern end, near where Straight Creek enters the lake. A little investigation will discover close at hand, several large springs that flow into the lake at this point, and here the trout congregate after the sp.a.w.ning season.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Lake Rose_]

In order to reach this location conveniently, I, early in 1902, constructed a light raft of dry pine logs, about six by ten feet, well spiked together with drift bolts; since which time other parties have added a substantial row boat. Both the boat and the raft may be found at the lower end of the lake, just where the trail brings you to it. The canvas boat that was set up on the lake earlier, was destroyed the first winter by bears, but the boat and raft now there will probably hold their own against the beasts of the field for some time. If you use either of them you will, of course, return it to the outlet of the lake, that he who cometh after may also enjoy.

The route to Grizzly Lake follows very closely the Bannock Indian trail from the point where Straight Creek enters the meadows of Willow Park to the outlet of the lake. The trail itself is interesting. It was the great Indian thoroughfare between Idaho and the Big Horn Basin in Wyoming, and was doubtless an ancient one at the time the Romans dominated Britain. How plainly the record tells you that it was made by an aboriginal people. Up hill and down hill, across marsh or meadow, it is always a single trail, trodden into furrow-like distinctness by moccasined feet. Nowhere does it permit the going abreast of the beasts of draft or burden. At no place does it suggest the side-by-side travel of the white man for companions.h.i.+p's sake, nor the hand-in-hand converse of mother and child, lover and maid. Ease your pony a moment here and dream. Here comes the silent procession on its way to barter in the land of the stranger, and here again it will return in the autumn, as it has done for a thousand years. In the van are the blanketed braves, brimful of in-toeing, painful dignity. Behind these follow the ponies drawing the lodge-poles and camp outfit, and then come the squaws and the children. Just there is a bend in the trail and the lodge-poles have abraded the tree in the angle till it is worn half through. A little further on, in an open glade, they camped for the night. Decades have come and gone since the last Indian party pa.s.sed this way, yet a cycle hence the trail will be distinct at intervals.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Bighorn Range_

_Photo by N. H. Darton_]

By turning to the west at Winter Creek and pa.s.sing over the sharp hills that border that stream you will come, at the end of a nine-mile journey, to Lake Rose. The way is upward through groves of pane, thickets of aspen, and steep open glades surrounded by silver fir trees that would be the delight of a landscape gardener if he could cause them to grow in our city parks as they do here. Elk are everywhere. We ride through and around bands of them, male, female, and odd-shapen calves with wobbly legs and luminous, questioning eyes. As you pause now and then to contemplate some new view of the wilderness unfolding before you, the beauty, and freedom and serenity of it are irresistible, and you comprehend for the first time the spirit of the Argonauts of '49 and the n.o.bility of the paean they chanted to express their exalted brotherhood:

"The days of old, The days of gold, The days of '49."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Gorge of the Firehole River_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _A Wooded Islet_]

Suddenly the ground slopes away before us and Lake Rose lies at our feet, like an amethyst in a chalice of jade-green onyx. The surroundings are picturesque. The mountains descend abruptly to the water's edge and the snow never quite disappears from its banks in the longest summer.

Here in June may be seen that incredible thing, the wild strawberry blossoming bravely above the slush-snow that still hides the plant below, and the bitter-root putting forth buds in the lee of a snow bank.

A small stream enters the lake at the northwest, and here the trout are most abundant. They rise eagerly to the silver doctor fly, a half dozen often breaking at once, any one of which is a weight for a rod. Probably not more than a score of anglers have ever cast a fly from this point, and a word of caution may for this reason be pardoned. The low temperature of the water r.e.t.a.r.ds the sp.a.w.ning season till midsummer, consequently trout should not be taken here earlier than the third week of July. Again, nature has given to every true sportsman the good sense to stop when he has enough, and as this unwritten law is practically his only restraint, he should feel that its observance is in safe hands and that the sportsman's limit will be strictly observed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Bear Up!_]