The dry fly and fast water; fishing with the floating fly on American trout streams, together with some observations on fly fishing in general

Preface

To expound a theory into willing ears upon a trout stream is one thing; to put those same ideas into writing so that they may be intelligently conveyed to one who reads them is quite a different thing. Of this I am convinced. However this may be, my readiness to do the one induced in some of my angling friends the belief that I could do the other. They insisted that I try — and this book is the result. My experience in preparing these pages has filled me with the profoundest respect for those persons who may be truthfully characterised as authors. I began the work with a good deal of timidity, and, as it now appears to me, considerable temerity. After completing the task to the best of my ability I submitted the manuscript to some of my credulous friends. Strange to say, after reading it, even then they insisted that I publish it. By this decision it seems to me they proved two things — their friendship for me and their absolute unfitness to be literary critics.

vl PREFACE

Even so, under their instruction and guidance, the book is presented to the angling public with the hope that it may find some small favour among them.

G. M. L. L.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Early Experiences 3

II. The Value of Observation .... 22

Chapter I

From my earliest boyhood I have been devoted to the fly fisher's art, having been inducted into it by my father, who was an ardent angler before me. For more than twenty years I have fished the near-by streams of New York and Pennsylvania; not a season has passed without having brought to me the pleasure of casting a fly over their waters. Each recurring year I find myself, as the season approaches, eagerly looking forward to the bright days when I can again go upon the streams. In the early days of the season, however, I am content to overhaul my gear, to dream alone, or talk with others about the active days to come; for I have never enjoyed going upon the waters so long as the air still holds chill winter's bite.

During the early years of my angling I fished my flies wet or sunk. Such was the manner universally prevailing upon our streams and the manner of my teaching. I had read about the dry fly and knew that its use was general in England, which country may justly be said to be its place of origin. That this is true may not be gainsaid, yet it seems to me remarkable that with all the reputed ingenuity of Americans the present development of dry fly fishing for trout should be almost entirely the work of British sportsmen. That the use of the dry fly on streams in this country has not been more common may be due to a pardonable disinclination upon the part of expert wet fly anglers to admit the weakness of their method under conditions as they now exist. Their method has served them well, as it did their fathers before them, and perhaps they are loath to surrender it for something new. In the earlier days trout were much more abundant in our streams, and the men who fished the streams and wrote upon the subject of fly fishing in this country may have felt that a knowledge of the habits and haunts of the fish was more essential to success in taking them than the employment of any particular method. The merits of up-stream over down-stream fishing caused some discussion among anglers, and some of these discussions found permanent place in angling literature. The discussion, however, seems always to have been confined to the question of position and seems never to have been extended to the manner of fishing the flies. Individual characteristics or experiences led some to advocate a certain manner of manipulating the dropper-fly and others to recommend the sinking of the tail-fly to a greater depth; but the flies seem always to have been manipulated upon the theory that to be effective they must be constantly in motion. It seems to have been conceded by all that the flies should be always under the control and subject to the direction of the rod, thus enabling the angler to simulate living insects by twitching them over or under the surface of the water — a practice that is the exact opposite of the method of the dry fly fisher, who casts a single fly lightly upon the surface of the water and permits it to float with the current over or near the spot where he knows or believes a fish to lie.

Many expert wet fly anglers in this country have been using the floating fly for years, but most of them use it only on water where they consider it may prove more effective than the wet fly — usually upon the quiet surface of a pool or on flat, slow water. Contrary to the prevailing notion, however, the floating fly is not a whit more deadly on water of this character than the wet fly, when the latter is properly fished. The difficulty in taking trout on such water may be ascribed to two causes: (i) When the water is low and clear, or where it has little motion and the surface is unruffled, the fish is likely to perceive the activities of the angler at a greater distance than is possible in rougher water, and is thus sooner warned of his approach. (2) When the angler has been careful to conceal himself from the fish, the fly cast in the usual wet fly manner is likely to be refused because of its unnatural action, the wake made by dragging the flies across the smooth surface being sufficient at times to deter even small fish from becoming interested in it. The floating fly is far more effective than the wet, "jerky" fly, because, as no motion is imparted to it, it is more lifelike in appearance. When such a fly, properly presented, is refused such refusal may be due as much to a disinclination upon the part of the fish to feed as to his suspicion having been aroused. The wet fly fished sunk^ with no more motion given to it than is given to the floating one (a single fly being used in each case), will prove quite as deadly as the latter on smooth water; and where many casts with the dry fly may be necessary to induce a rise, the sunk fly may appeal upon the first or second attempt, because its taking demands of the fish no particular exertion. The effort of the angler to impart a *' lifelike" motion to the wet fly upon the surface will often be quite enough in itself to defeat his purpose. Such effort should never be made on clear, glassy water, for, while it may occasionally be successful, unseen fish are put down.

For many years I was one of those who firmly believed that only the smooth, slow stretches of a stream could be fished successfully with the dry fly. Experience, however, has taught me that the floater, skilfully handled, is applicable to any part of a swift stream short of a perpendicular waterfall. My unorthodox method of using it — which may be described as creating a whole family of flies instead of imitating an individual member thereof — may be characterised by some as "hammering" or "flogging," and condemned as tending to make fish shy because the leader is shown so often. My answer to this is that if the blows struck by the fly are light no harm is done. And, furthermore, if showing gut to the fish really tends to make them more wary, the sport of taking them, in my estimation, is pushed up a peg.

It is not my purpose to contend that the dry fly is more efl^ective than the wet fly, although I do believe that, under certain conditions, the dry fly will take fish that may not be taken in any other manner. I do contend, however, that a greater fascination attends its use. All game birds are pursued with the same weapon, but the more difficult birds to kill have the greater attraction for sportsmen; and my predilection for the dry fly is based on the same principle.

My first dry fly was cast over the Junction Pool — the meeting of the waters of the Willowemoc and the Mongaup — about fifteen years ago, and the fact that I cast it at all was due more to the exigency of the occasion than to any predevised plan for attempting the feat. Every day in the late afternoon or evening I noted four or five fish rising in the pool formed by these two streams, and repeated attempts upon my part to take one of them by the old method absolutely failed me, although I put forth diligent efforts. The desire to take one of these fish became an obsession, and their constant rising to everything but my flies exasperated me to the point of wishing that I might bring myself to the use of dynamite.

One evening in looking through my fly book I found in one of the pockets a cHpping from the Fishing Gazette, which I had placed there during the preceding winter. If my memory serves me, I think this article was entitled "Casting to Rising Fish." At any rate, the caption was such that it caught my eye, as it seemed to suggest the remedy for which I was searching. The article proved to be an account of the experience of an angler who used the dry fly for trout, and his exposition of the manner of using it seemed so clear that I determined to try it myself upon the pool over the rising fish in the late afternoon. Barring my inability to execute properly the things the author described and that I was called upon to do, the only stumbling-block in my way was the impossibility of my obtaining an artificial fly that resembled the insects upon which the trout were feeding, and the author laid a great deal of stress upon the necessity of using such an imitation. I remember that, in a measure, I was mildly glad of this, because I felt that I lo THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER

would have an excuse for failure if I were unsuccessful. I "doctored'* some wet flies into what I thought to be a fair imitation of the dry fly by tying the wings forward so that they stood at right angles to the body, and then sallied forth to the pool. On my way to the stream I went alternately hot and cold betwixt hope and fear. I rehearsed in my mind all the things I had to do, and I think I was coldest when I thought of having to float the fly. The writer had recommended the use of paraffin-oil as an aid to buoyancy, and this commodity was about as easily procurable in Sullivan County at that time as the philosopher's stone; in my then frame of mind the latter would probably have proven quite as good a buoyant. The pool was but a stone's throw from the house, and I arrived there in a few minutes, only to find a boy disturbing the water by dredging it with a worm. Him I lured away with a cake of chocolate, sat down to wait for the rise which came on shortly, and by the time I was ready there were a half dozen good fish feeding on the surface. I observed two or three sorts of flies about and on the water, to none of which my poor, mussed-up Queen-of-the-Waters bore the slightest resemblance. This did not deter me,

EARLY EXPERIENCES ii

however, and I waded boldly out to a position some forty feet below and to the right of the pool. My first cast amazed me. The fly alighted as gently as a natural insect upon the surface, and, watching it as it floated down toward the spot where a fish had been rising, I saw it disappear, a little bubble being left in its place. Instinctively I struck, and to my astonishment found that I was fast in a solid fish that leaped clear of the water. The leaping of this fish was a new experience, as I had never seen a trout jump as cleanly from the water. After a few flights and a determined rush or two I netted him — a rainbow trout just over a foot long and the first I had ever taken. This variety of trout had been placed in the stream a few years before as an experiment, and few had been caught. Stowing my prize in my creel, I prepared for another attempt as soon as the excitement in the pool had subsided. The fly I had used was bedraggled and slimy and would not float, so I knotted on another. My second attempt was as successful as the first, and I finally netted, after a tussle, a beautiful native trout that weighed a little over one pound. Four fine fish fell to my rod that evening, all within half an hour, and the fly was taken on the first cast each time. If such had not been the case I doubt very much if I should have succeeded, because I am certain that my confidence in the method would have been much weakened had I failed to take the first fish, and my subsequent attempts might not have been made at all, or, if made, would probably have ended in failure.

For several years after my first experience with the floating fly I used it in conjunction with the wet fly, and until I read Mr. Halford's "Dry Fly Fishing," when, recognising his great authority and feeling that the last word had been said upon the subject, I used the dry fly only on such water as I felt he would approve of and fished only rising fish. Some time later on I read George A. B. Dewar's "Book of the Dry Fly." Mr. Dewar says: "I shall endeavour to prove in the course of this volume that the dry fly is never an aff^ectation, save when resorted to in the case of brawling, impetuous streams of mountainous districts, where it is practically impossible of application." Here again I felt inclined to listen to the voice of authority and felt that I must abandon the dry fly. I was accustomed to fish such streams as the Beaverkill, Neversink, Willowemoc, and

Esopus, in New York; the Brodhead and Shohola, in Pennsylvania; the Saco and its tributaries, in New Hampshire, and others of similar character — all brawling, impetuous, tumbling streams — and it seemed to me that by continuing to use the dry fly on them I was profaning the creed of authority and inviting the wrath of his gods upon my head. Since then, however, I have continued the use of the dry fly on all of these streams, and a number of years ago abandoned the use of the wet fly for all time.

Since I began casting the fly over the streams of the region I have mentioned their character has greatly changed in many particulars, and conditions are not the same as they were twenty years ago. The natural streams themselves have changed; the condition of the water flowing in them has changed; the sorts of fish inhabiting the waters have changed; and the methods of taking the fish have changed, or should change; and it is to show why this last is true that the following pages are written.

The changes that have taken place in the character of our mountain streams may be attributed to many causes, chief of which, however, is the destruction of the timber which at one time covered the hills through which they have their course. During the frequent and long-continued droughts the denuded hills, baked hard as rock, shed the occasional summer showers as readily as the back of the proverbial duck; the streams become turbid torrents for a few hours, after which they run down, seemingly to a lower mark than before. So long as the forests covered the watersheds the rains as they fell were soaked up by the loose and porous earth about the roots of the trees, were cooled in the shade of the leaves and branches, and slowly percolated into the tiny brooklets through which they were fed to the streams for many days. Under present conditions the temperature of the streams is much higher than formerly, and, while the temperature has seldom risen to a point where it has been fatal to the fish, it has risen in many streams to a point that is distasteful to the native brook-trout {Salvelinus fontinalis) .

It is not unreasonable to assume that the heat of the water has a very deleterious effect upon the vitality of the fish during certain years when the droughts are long sustained and, should the condition have existed for a great length of time prior to the spawning season, that the progeny for the year would probably come into being lacking the vitality necessary to overcome the attacks of natural enemies and disease. A bad spawning season, of course, reduces the hatch for the year, but is ordinarily not noticed by the angler until two or three years later, at which time the unusually small number of immature fish taken becomes a matter of comment among the frequenters of the streams. A native angler who has made it a practice to visit the spawninggrounds of trout for over twenty-five years stated to me that during the season of 1910 the redds were occupied by trout, but that not a fish spawned on any of them in a stretch of nearly a mile of the stream which flows past his home and which was under his constant observation during the entire season. It is difficult for me to believe that such a thing could have been possible, yet I know the man to be a careful and accurate observer, and his statement must be given credence. He seemed frightened at the prospect and alarm.ed as to the future of the stream, and he besought me for an explanation of the condition — which I was unable to give. My diary for that year had been destroyed, so that I was then, and am now, unable l6 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER

to even theorise as to whether or not the failure to spawn was due to weather conditions prevaihng at that time. Let us hope, assuming that my informant was not mistaken, that the curious condition observed by him was confined to the stretch of the stream that he investigated. Let us hope, further, that the fish, even in that stream, will not become addicted to such an ungenerous and unnatural habit.

Great numbers of trout must be destroyed in the periodical freshets that carry masses of ice tearing and grinding over the beds of the mountain streams. When the ice breaks up gradually there is very little danger to the fish; but a sudden and continued thaw, accompanied by a steady fall of warm rain, washes the snow from the hillsides, swells the streams into wild torrents, and rips the very bottom out of them. Any one who has witnessed the forming of an ice-jam and its final breaking must marvel at the possibility of any fish or other living thing in its path escaping destruction, so tremendous is the upheaval. A few years ago a jam and freshet on the Brodhead, besides uprooting great trees along the banks, lifted three iron bridges within as many miles from their stone abutments and carried each of them a hundred yards down-stream, leaving them, finally, mere masses of twisted iron. These bridges were twelve or fifteen feet above the normal flow of the stream, yet, even so, they did not escape destruction. How, then, is it possible for stream life to stand against such catastrophe ? Furthermore, this scouring of the beds of the streams by ice and debris carried down during the floods undoubtedly destroys great quantities of the larvae of the aquatic insects which form an important part of the trout's food, and this, too, indirectly affects the supply of fish available to the angler's rod. After a severe winter and a torrential spring there is a noticeable dearth of fly upon the water — another of the many causes of lament of the fly fisherman of to-day.

Directly or indirectly, all of the conditions above described are the result of the ruthless cutting of the timber from the hills. Happily, there is reason to hope that these conditions are not going to grow worse, because the present movement toward the preservation of the forests seems to be gaining headway; conservation of nature's resources will come to be a fixed policy of our National and State Governments, and if the policy is pushed with vigour and persistence our children's children may some day see our old familiar streams again singing gaily through great woods like those our fathers knew. With the elements, man, beast, and bird all intent upon its destruction, it is a marvel that our native brook-trout survives. But live on he does, though his numbers constantly decrease. The great gaps left in his ranks are being filled by the alien brown trout — his equal in every respect but that of beauty. True, there is a wide difference of opinion in this particular, and there are some who will go so far as to say that the brown trout is, all round, the better fish for the angler. When feeding he takes the fly quite as freely as the native trout, leaps vigorously when hooked, grows rapidly to a large size, and seems better able to withstand abnormal changes in the temperature of the water, which are so often fatal to Jontinalis. No one deplores the scarcity of our own beautiful fish more than I do; but we must not be blind to the facts that the brown trout is a game-fish, that he is in our streams and there to stay, and that our streams are suited to him. He is a fish of moods and often seems less willing to feed than the native trout; but for that reason alone, if for no other, I would consider him the sportier fish. When both varieties are taking freely and their fighting quaUties compared, it is not easy to decide which is the gamer. The leaping of the brown trout is often more impressive than the determined resistance of the native trout, and the taking of a particularly active or particularly sluggish fish of either variety is frequently made the basis for an opinion. It seems to me that, in any event, the taking of even a single fair fish of either variety on the fly is an achievement to be put down as a distinct credit to the angler's skill and something to be proud of and to remember. Our native brook-trout is much loved of man. It has come to be something more than a fish: it is an ideal. It will always hold first place in the hearts of many anglers. I fear, however, that it must yield first place in the streams to its European contemporary, he having been endowed by nature with a constitution fitted to contend against existing conditions and survive.

My many years' experience upon the streams of New York and Pennsylvania have brought me to realise that changed conditions call for an expertness of skill and knowledge that anglers of the past generation did very well without. The streams now are smaller, the fish in them fewer and warier, and the difficulties of the angler who would take them greater. Three flies fished down-stream may still be a permissible method for those who pursue the trout of the wilderness, but the sportsman should now be willing to adopt the use of the single light surface fly when pursuing the trout of our domestic waters; and, if he does adopt it, as he gains in skill he will come at last to realise that it has a virtue not possessed by its wet brother. I can illustrate my point best by quoting an experience of my own that happened several years ago.

One day, while fishing an up-State stream, I met a dear old clergyman, who, after watching me for a long time, came up and said: "Young man, I have fished this stream for nearly forty years, and they will tell you at the house that I have been accounted as good as any man who ever fished here with a fly. I have killed some fine fish, too; but in all that time I have never been able to take trout as regularly as you have taken them in the few days you have been here. I am told that you use the dry fly and have some particular patterns. If it is not asking too much, will you be good enough to give me their names and tell me where they may be obtained?" I gave him the information he asked, and volunteered some instruction by pointing out that his gear was not suitable for the work, convincing him that such was the case by placing my own rod in his hands. We sat in the shade for a couple of hours exchanging ideas, and to prove or explode a theory of mine he agreed to fish a certain pool with me later in the day. He used my rod and rose and killed a brown trout of one pound five ounces, a little later leaving the fly in a heavier fish. He was an expert at placing the fly, but, not being used to the stiffer rod and lighter gut, he struck too hard, with the resultant smash. Being a good angler, he easily overcame this difficulty. He now fishes only with a rod of fine action and power, which enables him to place his fly easily, delicately, and accurately a greater distance than was possible with the "weeping" rod he formerly used. This he abandoned once and for all, and with it the wet fly. He came into the knowledge and enjoyment of the dry fly method, and he has since then frankly admitted to me that he greatly regretted having realised so late in life that the actual taking of trout constitutes but a very small part of the joy of fly fishing.

Chapter II

Several years ago I was looking on at a tennis match between the champion of America and one of the best men England ever sent to this country, and as I watched their play I could not help but marvel at the accuracy with which the players placed their shots. Their drives were wonderful for direction and speed. On nearly every return the ball barely cleared the net and was seldom more than a few inches above the top as it passed over. A friend who knew many of the experts told me how they attained to their remarkable precision. It was the custom of many of them, he said, when preparing for the big matches, to practise for accuracy by driving the ball against a wall. He said this was particularly true of the American champion, and that it was not unusual for him to use up a dozen or more balls in a day's practice. The wall had painted across its face a line of contrasting colour at a height from the ground equivalent to that of the top of a regulation tennis net, and upon the line were painted a number of disks about ten inches in diameter. Standing at a distance from the wall equivalent to the distance of the base-line of a regulation tennis-court from the net, the player would return the ball on its rebound from the wall, striving each time to so place it that it would strike just above the line. The accomplishment of a satisfactory score after a succession of drives would convince the player that he had good control of his stroke, and he would then turn his attention to the disks, against each of which he would drive twenty or more shots, taking them in turn and keeping a record of hits in each case. The accuracy developed by such practice was truly remarkable, and I hesitate to mention the number of times in succession one expert made clean hits — it seemed an incredible number.

I have seen golfers practising the weak places in their game for hours with as much zeal and earnestness as if they were playing a match, and a polo player of my acquaintance practises his strokes upon a field at his home, riding his ponies as daringly and recklessly as though a championship depended upon his efforts. The devotees of these and similar active sports are keenly alive to the necessity of constant practice, that spirit of competition which is so much a part of them making any endeavour that will aid toward high efficiency, or improve game or form, seem worth while. And in all sports, particularly those in which the competition is individual, whenever and wherever opportunity presents itself there will be found hundreds of enthusiasts following every play of the expert, keenly studying his method, observing his form, and absorbing and storing the knowledge so gained for their own practice later on court or field. So, too, even though competition has no place in fly fishing, and should have none, the angler ought to strive always to "play a good game.'* He should practise the tactics of his art with the same zeal as do the followers of competitive sports if he hopes ever to become an expert fly fisherman in the highest sense of that much misused term. The casual angler who looks upon fishing as merely incidental to his periods of recreation, during which his chief concern is the recuperation of tired brain and unstrung nerves, may feel that he is making a business of his pleasure by devoting much time to the study of his angling. In a measure, this is true, and it would be asking much, indeed, of him who thinks of fly fishing only as a pastime. But to him who realises that it is a sport — a sport that is also an art — there is no incident, complex or simple, that is unworthy of his attention and consideration. No sport affords a greater field for observation and study than fly fishing, and it is the close attention paid to the minor happenings upon the stream that marks the finished angler. The careless angler frequently overlooks incidents, or looks upon them as merely trivial, from which he might learn much if he would but realise their meaning at the time.