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BROOK TROUT IS A KING Handsome Aristocrat of Streams Is Much Sought Kill of Individuality nnd Conrnee ConrneeHe He I Worth tltc Catching Ix Exclusive and Elnnive Of the many kinds of game fishes one stands pleasantly and radically apart in many ways I refer to the stcekled brook trout Sclvelinus fon tinalis He is different for many reasons aud Ixeause lie is different he is most ardently sought nd most difficult to capture It is human na ¬ tures way to try to attain that which is the hardest attainable particularly in the realm of sport That is one of the principal reasons why the trout is so religiously pursued pursuedThe The speckled brook trout is more than a game fish He is the aristocrat among all other fish in individuality and because of the environment in which he passes his days It is universally con ¬ ceded that his beauty surpasses that of any other fish Conceding merely for the sake of argument that his numbers were plentiful and that he were easily caught I am confident that his beauty alone would cause him to be diligently sought His beau ¬ tiful colorations cannot but appeal to the most practicalminded and sordid of his capturers I shall never forget my first trout It was a delight ¬ ful spring day and as I lifted him from the water and the bright sun played upon his wonderful tint ings of gold and bronze and delicite pink and his brilliant red spots stood out cleancut and liis ffiiubinrd colorings were pyarkingly veneered by the clear cool water of the brook all when I caught sight of him I thought him about the handsomest thing on which I had ever gazed And now each time I draw one from the water I look upon him with just as keen a sense of admiration as I did on that first one more than a score of years ago agoBEOOK BEOOK TROUT LIVES AMID BEAUTY BEAUTYThe The environment into which brook trout fishing leads one is sufficient excuse in itself for follow ¬ ing the sport Tell me of any body of water more picturesque more inviting than a brook with all its complexities of formation It may be a hillside stream where the water comes tumbling and foam ¬ ing down over huge boulders and under the shade of many giant trees or it may be a quiet flowing meadow stream whose banks are gorgeously deco ¬ rated with a variety of flowers or still it may be a brook with all these characteristics and more Yet however it may be it radiates an environment which transforms the prose of the office and the factory one has left behind into a chapter of living virile poetry or in other words one is escorted into a sort of fairy world where it would seem as if every little bird were singing for ones especial pleasure and every delicate and sweetscented flower were enticing one to remain long and every little sunbejeweled ripple and wavelet proffering a spirit of cheer along with the ever present song of wel ¬ come of the busy waters watersDo Do not think me unmindful of the charms of the lakes and rivers and seas for no one loves their sight and their intimacy which visitation brings more than I But theirs are different offerings which cannot be compared to those of the brooks As a general rule the lakes and rivers and seas are more or less used by the public for business and pleasures other than fishing brooks seldom are except in the case of large streams for power pur ¬ poses And so one may readily see that the envi ¬ ronment of the typical trout brook is one of ex clusiveness and wholesome serenity where tired minds and bodies may be given renewed vigor quite as no other sport environment will give it And this is what I mean when I state that the trout is an aristocrat of environment as well as in in ¬ dividuality he lives in a little paradise where as a rule only his kind lives and quite apart from the activities and clamor of the vrorld in general And lie seems to be possessed with an almost human intelligence and understanding of his exalted station and the opinions of men thereto theretoThus Thus the angler in breaking into the exclusive do main of the trout and his exclusive and elusive nature as well must bear in mind that he has come out of the realm of democracy fishwise into the realm of aristocracy and must conduct himself accordingly if he would come into personal contact with the subjects of his quest Because so many fishermen who may be experts in the capture of other fish fail to recognize and study the different realm and habits of the trout as compared with those of other fish there are many firstclass fail ¬ ures among these would ba trout catchers catchersEXPERT EXPERT YOUTHFUL FISHERMEN FISHERMENAnd And this is often the reason that the lad in knte trousers will outdo the grnyhaired veteran who has followed successfully the catching of other kinds of fish The lad approached the trout stream at the first in u spirit akin to mystery for at the country store he had heard old anglers toll of the mysterious ways of trout and the difficulties which besef their capturers Also the lad did not dash in with an overstock of confidence He began to learn where the trout seemed to lunj and as he would cautiously creep up to the edge of the bank and peer into the waters of the brook he would now an J Mien catch sight of a trout as he glided and darted about He observed that when frightened the trout would seek cover so quickly that he would be hardly discernible and that these covers or hiding places would be under overhanging roots or rocks or an old brush pile or under the banks where the current had eaten away the soil Yes he saw all these things and more and when opening day came the young fisherman was in readiness to try out his meager knowledge against the trout he had been watching And that is the beginning of the wisdom which makes successful trout fishermen fishermenI I am convinced absolutely that trout fishing is not a hitormiss matterofluck sport It must be learned cither consciously or unconsciously to score success diiy in and day out And it is just this successful repetition that puts the stamp of skill on the fisherman as contrasted with the occa ¬ sional luck of some blundering follow who scoffs at the methods of the perpetual bringersin While writing this article I am autoing through the beautiful Litchfield Hills in Connecticut Since writing the foregoing paragraph I came to a little brook flowing through a deep valley and densely wooded I had never Iwfore seen the brook and its first glimpse told me there should be trout therein I snapped a couple of pictures of it and then see ¬ ing a boy just over the fence plowing behind a big white horse I made for him himLooks Looks like a pretty good trout brook down there I said saidIt It is promptly replied the boy I Ment down the other day suid causht twentyseven It was just after a rain and thats the time you want to fish that brook because its small and shallow in most places placesAh Ah J sfija to mysejf heres a young Walton who knows the game gameAs As the conversation progressed he told me he was sixteen years of age We talked of rods and tackle and trout fishing i in general Come over some day just after a rain and Ill take you out lie invited My folks own a large strip of tlic brook and the neighbors who own the rest never say anything when I fish there thereNow Now I would rather talk of trout fishing with a lad such as IO than with any of your highbrow knowitall type of fisherman And too it is my candid opinion that such n lad gets twice the real fun out of an afternoons fishing than does he of the highbrow type typeELDERLY ELDERLY FISHER OF ENTHUSIASM ENTHUSIASMThere There is such a thing as getting an overdose of professionalism in almost any sport and especially in that of trout fishing to become a slave to an accepted order of filings both as regards methods of fishing and kinds of tackle I know whereof I speak f r I have been on the streams many a time with hot types of fishermen My fish ¬ ing partner the one with whom I would rather go astream than with ariy oth r man is in his sixties He has played the trout fishing game since a small youngster and yet when he returns from nearly every fishing trip he is all enthusiasm over the way a certain trout tried to fool him and of new things he has learned Theres the proper spirit for you He too has been out with many of the professional fishermen and has had many a secret laugh over their superior methods and then again at the end of the day over their catches which invariably werent so superior Now there are certain general rules which hold in trout fishing but the angler who would lay down specific rules for all days and all kinds of brooks is going to receive some pretty hard Jolts of mind from the angler who fishes a stream with an open mind and ever in readiness to use common sense as against a lot of highflown theories In brief every angler must work out his own system to a large extent and even then at must be a flex irfle one to conform to conditions of each new brook brookComing Coming back to the little brook In the Litch ficld hills I went on up the hill Right at the top was a large farmhouse and near by an old man and a boy of about the age of the other one I mentioned I spoke to the boy about the little brook down under the hill Ive only been out four times on that brook this season he said but 3 caught a hundred and they were all good ones 1 caught one there once that weighed just a pound and a quarter quarterHe He didnt know me or any of my ideas about fish ¬ ing but as we talked along he said Some fellow who dont know anything about trout catching will go out sometime with an old alder pole and catch an old big one and then laugh at all this talk about catching trout But he happened to run on to him by luck that once thats all Every time I go out I learn something new and a fellows got to learn the game if he wants to catch em right along Id rather fish than cat And there you are again the attitude of always wanting to learn is the beginning of trout fishing wisdom and my unuttered prayer is deliver me from going astream with the angler who has mastered all allIn In summing up I will merely state that by doing a little common sense thinking one may readily see why the catching of the speckled brook trout is different from catching other kinds of fish because of the trouts exclusive nature exclusive environ ¬ ment and the varied forms of his environment E W Brockway in Outers Book
