Lake and stream game fishing: a practical book on the popular fresh-water game fish, the tackle necessary and how to use it

Front matter

LAKE AN2ST REAM GAME FISHING

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DIXIE CARROLL

Preface

In writing this book of fish, fishing, tackle and how to use it, as well as incidental remarks on equipment it is not the intention of the writer to set it up on a pinnacle as a " hollier than thou " book. Opinions on tackle and the method of using it are varied and at times wonderful. There are purists in every angle of the sport and by each method of angling the purist in that particular line will swear by the nine gods and at times swear at all other methods.

I have never allied myself to any one particular part of angling. I can have equally as much enjoyment from tossing the plug, live bait or feathery fly. As long as it is fishing in a sportsman-like manner with line, rod and reel and playing the fish until it comes up to the net or gaff, white-side up, I consider the game true sport and worthy of just consideration.

As to the methods of angling and the handling of tackle advocated herein, they are the methods that I have found to be successful from actual experiences of my own or from the experiences of other fishermen with whom I have cast and whipped lake and stream.

As to the information on the habits and peculiarities of the different game fish, this I have accumulated since my early fishing days passed on the Potomac

PREFACE

and its tributaries, and from close association with keen guides and woodsmen of the North Woods country.

I feel that the fishing game is on the verge of becoming the most popular of out-door's sports and it can be made so, not only for the present day, but for the years to come, if the fishermen will follow the creed of the American Anglers League of which I have the honor of being president. This creed follows and I earnestly hope all fishermen will burn this thought into their memory and in time of need, observe it.

Our Creed: to encourage the re-stocking of lakes and streams; to advocate the observing of all fishing laws ; to throw back uninjured the under-sized fish; to catch game fish in a sportsmanlike manner with rod, line and reel, in order to make the sport of fishing better in the years that follow.

To the keen followers of the call of lake and stream with whom I have passed many pleasant hours and learned much, I wish to express my thanks. Particularly to Earny Wendt, Guide Extraordinary of the North Woods ; to Albert Jay Cook, sportsman, poet and apostle of the great out-doors whose verses are used in this book; to Robert Hurt Moulton, fisherman, journalist and photographer for a selec-

PREFACE

tion of photographs used in this book; to James Keeley, fisherman, sportsman and editor for his loyalty to the sport of fishing and his mental storehouse of fishing lore from which I have drawn many facts as fishing editor of the Chicago Herald and for writing the Introduction of this book; to Jack Lait not a fisherman but a writer of human interest stories with a kick in every line and thoughts between the lines, for writing the Foreword of this book; to W. W. Stehle, " Buck " to his many out-door pals, fisherman, hunter and soldier, to whom these chapters were originally written as a series of letters on fishing and who preserved and returned them to the writer for revision and use in this book.

If this book makes the sport of fishing more enjoyable and quest of the game fins more successful for the reader, then it will have accomplished the end for which it was written.

If it makes of the uninitiated, a lover of the great out-doors and a follower of natures water trails and takes him out where he can get a close-up of old Mother Nature, then its writing will be doubly blessed.

McNaughton, Wis.

October, 1916.

Introduction

The would-be teacher of the art of angling must ever be a pupil. Every day on stream or lake, in waters or in boat, is a lesson, and though one accumulates the experience of a quarter of a century his education is not complete and never would be complete if he lived to be as old as the prehistoric fish we find in neolithic rock. Each cast may present a new problem. Each strike a situation for which there is no " rule " or precedent.

Experience is the real teacher and to the novice generally a costly one.

Nevertheless there is a field for instruction and the experience of an " old timer " will be of value to those who are new to the sport and even to veterans of the rod whose range of effort has been circumscribed.

If a man has, year after year, tramped little-frequented trails, and blazed new ones for himself; if he has sought out and found the streams where the brook trout rises most readily to the fly, the pools where lurk the largest salmon, the favorite haunts of the bass, the wall-eyed pike and the muskellunge, and if he has matched his wits against all of these

INTRODUCTION

under every condition of weather and with every kind of lure and tackle, then he is qualified to impart useful information on the subject.

In the whole field of sport there is, perhaps, no thrill comparable with that which comes of doing fair battle with a gamey fish; he is a worthy opponent for any man, and through all the stages of the contest, from the first fierce strike to the final sweep of the landing net, the red blood surges and the nerves tingle in wholesome exhilaration.

But, while victory is sweet to the angler, and naturally is his first aim, the mere catching of fish is not all of fishing by any means. The true fisherman does not measure his success either by the size or number of the fish he gets, and even if he gets none at all, his days still are full of profitable pleasure. To him every minute in the woods or on the waters offers something of interest, whether it be merely watching the wild people of the forest, the sunsets and sunrises, the starry map overhead at night, or listening to the call of birds, the wind in the trees, or the musical lap of waters.

Chicago, February 24, 19 17.

J. Keeley.

Foreword

Dear Dixie:

They tell me you're doing a book on " Lake and Stream Game Fishing." Since I never fished for game in either lake or stream, and since one of the best things I do is to write learnedly on that which I know nothing about, let me give you a little advice :

In writing fishing stories one should follow the mechanics of story-telling, just the same as in writing love stories. Fish are more human than the people about whom romances are written, though, of course, they fall down when it comes to " problems " or " triangles," for I never heard of a scandal under water except the famous submarine controversy.

Look at the latitude you have, though, on other standard topics for stirring tales — motherhood, for instance. Motherhood is the most sure-fire of all the subdivisions in the selective acreage of story-stuff. And a mother-fish, I am told, has a yield at each conception that would stagger Roosevelt. Can't you see the possibilities here for racking tales of Mrs. Fish and her brood — or are children of a fish called a " flock"? In either event, the maternal muskellonge or the parent bass or the like holds forth, in my

FOREWORD

I see that the prospectus announces " Not a dry line in the whole book." Of course not; you can't hook fish-story-readers with dry lines. Therefore, I pray you, get off the conventional themes such as how to take the spear out of the ribs of a gar when what you wanted was a pike, or how to properly bait with live frogs when the guide forgot the pail of frogs on the pier. What you want to do, I fancy, is to go into the psychology, the sociology, the temperament, the emotions, the heart-throbs, the ambitions, the disappointments, the better nature of the fish.

What do we know to-day of the mental progress of the fish? Little if anything. Are we then to presume that the wily bass and the ferocious musky of 19 17 are as benighted as the sucker of the year of the big wind? Is there, then, no Bryan of the finny realm, no Mrs. Pankhurst of the angled deeps, no wall-eyed Lloyd-George and no big-mouthed Ford amongst them?

The unwritten material is enormous, magnificent. What is the politics of a pickerel? What is the religion of a trout? What are the morals of carp? Is the conscience of an eel anything like that of a munitions maker?

Speak, you who know the sweet language of fish, and do for us a " Hiawatha " of the underlakes, a " Gunga Din " of the river bed!

FOREWORD

Teach us not only how to catch the elusive citizens of the blue, but lead us into communion with them so that we can do more than merely dangle them on a hunk of string and fry them in a pan. We want to civilize them and assimilate them so that we can sell them stock in new moving-picture companies and lead them by the flipper to walks of our own making where we would unfold to them the mysteries of how to blow a safe or carry an election.

Before you lies the chance of being the uplifter of the fish. You alone may play the famous white man's part in unfolding before the gullible children of the wet recesses the manna of the earth — suffrage, booze, evangelism, advanced thinking, Robert W. Chambers, five-card stud, the bunny hug, nude films, Democratic victories, tax-dodging, taxi-dodging — there's no end to what a fish doesn't know and what we members in good standing of the order of brotherly love are hep to.

Therefore, I beseech you, Dixie, do not again bend your superior talents to the paltry and sordid pursuit of telling how to nab a fish for breakfast; take your stylus well in hand and write us a guidebook on how to teach a fish to take a joke so that we may live long and increase our percentage.

With every good wish, always,

Your friend the piscatorial ignoramus,

Jack Lait.