Harper's Young People, May 2, 1882 / An Illustrated Weekly

by Various

To begin with, any flexible light rod will do. You should have a reel, so that you may be able to fish at varying distances from where you stand, and also in order that if you do strike a large fish, he may not get away from you by simply starting off suddenly and snapping off your line or tearing out the hook. You should have about thirty yards of line. Then you want, if you mean to fish with the fly, a few gut casting-lines and some flies; or if you intend bait-fishing, some hooks, and a sinker heavy enough to keep your bait from being swept along too fast by the current.

If you can, provide yourself with a fish basket. It will keep your fish from being dried up by the sun, and visited by the flies, which latter like fresh trout quite as much as you do yourself. It will also leave you your hands free to attend to your fishing with; and if the fish bite at all, you will need both to manage them. When you are fishing, keep this same basket lid fastened. I remember on one occasion being very much annoyed to see my fine trout, that I had caught all swept away by the rushing current, when I had, with no intention thereof, sat down in the water by reason of a slippery rock, or, out of pure anxiety, walked into some deep hole.

If you intend to use bait for your fishing, tie your sinker at the end of your line in such a way that you can attach the loop in the gut of your hook below it. Your hook ought to be at least a foot below your sinker, and it ought not to vary greatly in size from the hooks shown in the illustration on this page. You know how to get worms, just as well as I do; only choose those that are neither small nor great, and that are about twice the length of your hook. Such a worm looks best and most inviting to a trout when he is properly disposed on the hook. This you should do in the simplest way possible, putting the hook crosswise two or three times through the worm, tucking him together on it, and being chiefly careful that the point and barb are covered. If you can not get worms, there is a variety of old stumps of trees that will yield you a fat white grub that the trout esteem highly. These grubs are borers, and an axe easily lays bare their long sawdust galleries in the decaying timber. Failing worms and grubs, you can use grasshoppers or minnows. For handsome as the trout is, he is a voracious fellow, and will eat all manner of small fish, snails, frogs, and the like, being nothing short of a cannibal, and devouring things until he can hold nothing more.

Fish with your line as nearly of the length of your rod as you can, and put your bait as far from your standpoint as is possible without losing your ready observation and command of it. Never be too prodigal of your line because you have plenty of it on your reel, but use only so much of it as may be needed to put your bait where the fish lies, and keep yourself and your rod out of his sight. The trout is bold in one way, and timid in another. He is as brave as a lion about what he eats, and the quantity of it, but he is as swift-flying as a shadow if he catches a glimpse of you. Keep out of his view, and drop your line noiselessly into the stream above the eddy in the current. It will drift quietly down, and if the fish are there, you will know it very soon. When you feel him bite, strike by sharply raising the tip of your rod. Do it firmly and quickly, but with such control that if you miss him you will not send your bait flying back over your head, among the trees, perhaps, or into any place but where it ought to be. If you have him, and he be a fish of any strength and weight, your sport begins. Let him run with it, but keep your rod well up so that you can maintain a steady strain on him. If you slacken your line, the chances are he will spit out the hook, or shake it out of the hole it has made for itself in his jaw, and then you are done with him. Keep a steady hand on him; bring him up sharp and quick if he jumps out, for that is a dangerous trick, and guide him at a favorable turn, and when you have a good head of speed on him, to his landing-place.

For fly-fishing, which is the finest after all, you want a gut casting-line, and some more in reserve in your pocket-book or about your hat, and an assortment of flies suited to the season. Flies are imitations of the various insects that trout feed upon, and are of great variety. You may learn to make them yourself with a few simple materials, such as small feathers and bits of silk or woollen goods.

To your casting-line attach your flies as you see them in the engraving, and then you are ready. You have at least eight feet of gut between your end fly and your line. Fish with as much length of line as you can easily and surely throw. Use your rod like a long delicate whip, and let the three flies that form its taper lash settle down on the water as lightly as thistle-down. This can not have too much care; it is the great thing in the art of fly-fishing, and should be practiced in an open space. When you can drop your flies, every time, on a handkerchief fifty feet away, you can consider yourself an expert. For the rest of it, when you see your fish rise with a swift bright flash of red and white, and a sparkle of breaking water, strike just as before advised, and hold him after in the spirit of firmness and coolness until you land him and have him safe in your basket.

Let your tackle be of the lightest and the strongest; don't neglect it, for a real fisherman is as careful of his things as if they were so many live pets; and beyond everything else, when you go a-fishing, keep a good temper and an open eye.