AMONG THE GRAYLING
Turning at a point upon the further side of the valley, where the road forked off for the Yellowstone Park, the two cars passed on to the northward, through two or three gates of wire fences inclosing a ranch that lay in the valley. They found the ranchman himself at home, and most courteous and obliging. He insisted they should camp near his house and stay as long as they liked, where they could get chickens, butter, and eggs without any inconvenience.
“I post my land,” said he, “to keep off the general public, who soon would ruin all the fishing here as they have almost everywhere else, but I have no desire to keep off decent fishermen like yourselves; and I know the young men who are with you now.
“You are just in time for the evening rise. I was over and picked out a couple for breakfast just now. If I were in your place I would go straight across and then work up the stream a little way, to some big holes you will see, then you can fish on down about as far as you like. By being careful at the crossings, some of you can keep to the stream pretty much all the time, but you can fish from the bank if you are patient. Toward dusk there will be fish enough rising from almost any one hole to give you all the fishing you will like.
“I think you will find a very small gray hackle will be good. Sometimes they take the Professor. Just the other day a man came down here with a little Silver Doctor fly, and they couldn’t keep away from it. Sometimes they take Queen of the Waters—dressed long, like a grasshopper—in the bright time of the day. If they take little flies in the evening, then you use little flies, too. There are certainly plenty of the grayling there.”
On any stream but this the number of rods now present would have spoiled the sport for some one, but so extensive was the good fishing water that there was room enough for all six of those who intended to fish—Billy said he would go along and carry the basket for Jesse, and Con O’Brien laughed at the idea of fishing, as he had already had so much that summer; so he went with Uncle Dick. They broke into three parties, one each of the men going along with one of the young anglers, although Chet and his friend were so used to the stream that they needed no advice. These two for a time did not fish at all, but showed the newcomers how and where the sport would be found.
The prediction of the rancher was more than verified. The day had been warm, and now, as the cool of the evening came, the grayling began to rise. At the heads of the bluffs where the current swept in they could be seen breaking almost continually, taking in some small floating insects. Inside of a few minutes each of the anglers was fast to a fine fish; and after that one strike after another followed fast and furious.
“You will have to be careful, son,” said Billy Williams to Jesse, who had raised three fine grayling and lost them all. “The mouth of a grayling is very tender. You can’t fight him as hard as you can a trout. Let him run. When he gets that big black fin up crossways of the stream he pulls like a ton. After a while he will begin to go deep; then you want to lift him gently all the time, until in a few minutes you can get the net under him. I would rather fish grayling than trout, although some think trout fishing is more fun.
“Now look at that fellow jumping over there under the bushes. He’s rising right in the same place. You walk around there at that little sand bar, and float your fly right over him and see what happens.”
Jesse did as instructed, Billy following a little distance behind him. Whipping his fly backward and forward a few times to dry it well, Jesse, who was really a good fisherman for his years, managed to land the fly just short of the bushes, so that it floated down directly over the rising fish.