Mr. Dide, His Vacation in Colorado

by Lewis B. France

"I thought so—a mother's advice is always good, and you can apply it to fish and other game."

"All right, just as you say."

The Major started off to the hills with his Winchester. Joshua concluded he would stay around camp and "square things up." One of the horses had stepped on the new coffee-mill and ruined it, and he must look out for another. The principal feature of the new coffee-mill was a piece of clean board about a foot square; the other part of the complication consisted of a tin can. He placed the coffee on the board and rolled it fine with the can: the board, being the important part, in the absence of carpenter shops and sawmills, was the portion fractured, of course.

I put my rod together and adjusted the reel. The leader and flies had been in soak for an hour and were in good condition; I had selected a coachman, a red-bodied gray hackle and a brown cofflin to test in prolific water a theory of mine. The White River in the fifty or more miles we experimented is the ideal of a trout stream. From our camping-place for thirty and odd miles to the cañon of the South Fork is a series of riffles, deep swirls under bushy banks, pools and comparatively still reaches. The willows and other shrubs are so thick that the opportunity for casting from the shore is happily exceptional. There is no satisfactory alternative but to pursue the best method. The stones are clean beyond those in any stream which I ever waded, and the prospect of a wetting from smooth rubber boots and rocks a remote possibility. To avoid the places too deep to wade, crossing and recrossing the riffles becomes a necessity; these opportunities seem to lie at such convenient and appropriate distances that admiration for the skill of the Designer is irresistible; one takes to the dancing crystal with a love for it, and a reverence for its Presiding Genius. There is a feeling of exultation as one enters and stands solitary in mid-stream and looks down the flashing current; the surging of the water, as it takes his limbs into its cool embrace, whispers a greeting of welcome; hid by the growth upon either side one feels no longer alone, the water-sprites are with him in loving communion and sympathy.

So standing and happily surrounded, I commissioned the gray hackle, at the end of my leader, to ascertain what might be lurking in the shade of the opposite bank, where the current was swift and the water four feet deep, at least. It was taken at once, and inside of five minutes I had a trout of a pound's weight safe in the landing-net. As soon as possible after hooking him, I had drawn away from his hiding-place and coaxed him into shallower and quieter water, so that his neighbors, if he had any, might not be disturbed. After placing him in the creel, I changed the hackle for the coachman and it was taken as readily, the fish being a mate to the first. A third cast resulted in a failure, a fourth brought a rise, a little more line and at the fifth the fly alighted in the acceptable spot, and was taken by a still larger fish.

Changing the coachman for the cofflin, I waded down, close under the bushes of the right bank, crossed a riffle and dropped the fly just where the water slowed up a little, at the foot. It had scarcely touched the surface when I saw the gaping jaws of an apparent leviathan close upon it; at the same instant I struck and the bamboo bent to its work. A leap clear from the water advised me that I had one of the lighter-colored variety and consequently more of a fight on my hands. Five minutes, however, at a guess, sufficed to bring him into the net. He weighed, an hour afterward by my pocket scales, a scant one and three quarter pounds. I lengthened the line a little and brought out another of nearly a pound. If the trout were to keep up to these weights, for only a little while, there would be waste in camp, and I wished for a few smaller. But they did not come to me; either of the next three would weigh three-fourths of a pound, and going back to the slight opening in the brush, through which I entered, I climbed out and returned to camp.

Joshua received the creel and examined its contents.

"You and the Major seem to have the same notions; I thought you would fill up that basket and string a lot on a willer."

"There are quite eight pounds,—sufficient for two meals."

"Yes, I know, but how do you manage to stop? When the fish bite that way I want to catch 'em." Thereupon I read a homily to Joshua on the art of angling, at the conclusion of which he said he understood what I had told the Major in the morning about the "inner sanctuary."