The Michigan fish is reported to grow to nearly two pounds weight; I never saw one that I thought would weigh much over a pound, and I have taken them in spawning season for the purpose of procuring their eggs. Whether this fish will bear acclimatization to other waters, I cannot say. I raised a few until a year old at my former trout farm in Western New York, and when I left them I opened the pond and let them into the stream below, but none have ever been taken there, as far as I know. It seems a pity to allow this elegant fish to become extinct, as it will in a few years in its limited habitat, and if opportunity offered I would again try to domesticate it.
The trout-fisher needs no special directions nor tackle to fish for grayling; he may cast in the usual manner, only remembering that the fish has a very tender mouth, and must be treated with this fact ever in mind. The Michigan grayling streams are not suited for wading, and, therefore, fishing from a boat is the rule. This may not suit some anglers, to whom I can only say, every one to his fancy, but no wading for me; dry feet are more comfortable than wet ones, and boat-fishing or bank-fishing are more suitable to my taste, than to be immersed up to my hips in cold water for half a day.
I have killed, I believe, every game fish in America east of the Rocky Mountains, except the salmon, for which I have a rod in readiness, that I hope to use soon, and I can say that while I do not think the grayling the superior of all of them for gameness, yet there is something of romance in the remembrance of the grayling, a kind of sentimental retrospect, that endears the fish to me above all others. Whether it was owing to the pine woods and the genial companionship, I do not care to consider; but each year there comes a longing to repeat the pleasant experiences of the Au Sable and its delicate grayling.
TROUT FLIES
“The trout-fly does not resemble any known species of insect. It is a ‘conventionalized’ creation, as we say of ornamentation. The theory is, that, fly-fishing being a high art, the fly must not be a tame imitation of nature, but an artistic suggestion of it. It requires an artist to construct one; and not every bungler can take a bit of red flannel, a peacock’s feather, a flash of tinsel thread, a cock’s plume, a section of a hen’s wing, and fabricate a tiny object that will not look like any fly, but still will suggest the universal conventional fly.”—Charles Dudley Warner.
“When you fish with a flie, if it be possible, let no pary of your line touch the water, but your flie only.”—Izaak Walton.