"The average fly-fishing Angler casts his fly or flies, on most waters, from five to seven times a minute and the less experienced Angler from seven to ten times. With the more experienced Angler this means that he casts from 300 to 420 times in an hour and in five hours from 1500 to 2100 times. Let us take the lesser number as a basis of reasoning; in one hour, if once in thirty casts a trout rose, struck, and was hooked when the fly first alighted upon the water, the Angler's creel would be richer by ten fish and in five hours by fifty fish. Then to this number should be added the trout that rise, strike, and are hooked after the fly has alighted upon the water and has been fished or played by the Angler. Would it not be a fair proposition to say that at least as many trout would be caught under the latter circumstances as the former? To my mind it would. The Angler then would have creeled one hundred fish in five hours. As some trout, even with the most expert of Anglers, are bound to be lost let us be liberal and place the loss at fifty per cent., thus making the Angler's net catch fifty instead of one hundred fish. Think this over and think over what your experience has been, day after day and season after season, and ask yourself if a catch of this size is not very unusual on the best of trout fishing waters. So far as my own experience goes it certainly is most unusual, and I fish on many fine waters each year and for at least one hundred days.
"There are some places, especially in the State of Maine, and notably 'The Meadow Grounds' of 'The Seven Ponds,' Franklin County, where at times large numbers of small trout, running from five to seven or eight inches, can be caught in a fishing day of five hours and I have known of Anglers catching, though not killing, from three hundred to seven hundred trout and most of them rose to the flies when they first alighted upon the water. At 'Tim Pond,' Maine, the only place I know where more trout can be caught on the fly than by bait, one hundred to two hundred trout have been caught in one day on the fly, but in most instances these trout take the fly not when it alights upon the water but after it has been played. Such occurrences as these, however, take place where countless numbers of small trout are found in the shallow waters of remarkable and wonderful natural breeding and propagating sections. Instances of this kind prove nothing because they are the great exception and the art of fly-fishing is not brought into play, for one fly is as good as another and the small boy with his fifty-cent pole can catch just as many trout as the man of experience with his thirty-dollar rod of split bamboo. Yet in expressing my opinion about trout rising to a fly when it first alights upon the water I took into consideration just such instances as I have cited.
"'For your own satisfaction and education,' to quote from my book, 'when the opportunity offers, keep an account of the number of rises you get when your fly first strikes the water and the number you get after you have begun to fish the fly, and so prove for yourself what the real facts are on this subject.'
"It is unquestionably true that all trout both large and small, when in clear, still water that is shallow, easily see a cast fly before it alights upon the surface.
"At times, under certain conditions both on streams and lakes, trout will leap into the air and take small as well as large flies in the air. But seldom will large or very large trout rise above the surface for any kind of fly either real or artificial.
"In order that there may be no misunderstanding I would say that I classify the size of trout as follows:
"Small trout, 8 inches and under.
"Medium sized trout, 9 to 13 inches.
"Large trout, 14 to 18 inches.