Part 2
One should not, however, go to the wilderness and expect it to receive him at once with open arms. It was there before him and will remain long after he is forgotten. But approach it humbly and its asperities will soften and in time become akin to affection. As one looks for the first time through the black, basaltic archway at the entrance to the Park, the nearby mountains have an air of distance and unfriendliness, nor do they speedily assume a more sympathetic relation toward the visitor. A region in which the world's formative forces linger ten thousand years after they have disappeared elsewhere will make no hasty alliance with strangers. The heavy foot of time treads so slowly here that one must come often and with observant eye to note the advance from season to season and to feel that he has any part or interest in it.
When we can judge correctly from the height of the up-springing vegetation whether the forest fire that blackened this hillside raged one year ago or ten; when we have noted that the bowl of this terrace, increasing in height by the insensible deposit of carbonate of lime from the overflowing waters, appears to outstrip from year to year the growth of the neighboring cedars; when these and a multitude of kindred phenomena are comprehended, how interested we become!
Nothing said here is intended to encourage undue familiarity with the wild game. "Shinny on your own side," is a good motto with any game, and more than one can testify of sudden and unexpected trouble brought on themselves by meddlesomeness. In following an elk trail through the woods one afternoon, I found a pine tree had fallen across the path making a barrier about hip-high. While looking about to see whether any elk had gone over the trail since the tree fell, and, if so, whether they had leaped the barrier or had passed around it by way of the root or top, a squirrel with a pine cone in his teeth, sprang on the butt of the tree and came jauntily along the log. Some twenty feet away he spied me, and suddenly his whole manner and bearing changed. He dropped the cone and came on with a bow-legged, swaggering air, the very embodiment of insolent proprietorship. The top of my rod extended over the log, and as he came under it I gave him a smart switch across the back. Now, there had been nothing in my previous acquaintance with squirrels to lead me to think them other than most timid animals. But the slight blow of the rod-tip transformed this one into a Fury. With a peculiar half-bark, half-scream, he leaped at my face and slashed at my neck and ears with his powerful jaws. So strong was he that I could not drag him loose when his teeth were buried in my coat collar. I finally choked him till he loosened his hold and flung him ten feet away. Back he came to the attack with the speed of a wild cat. It was either retreat for me or death to the squirrel, and I retreated. Never before had I witnessed such an exhibition of diabolical malevolence, and, though I have laughed over it since, I was too much upset for an hour afterward to see the funny side of the encounter.
The ways of the wilderness have ever been pleasant to my feet, and whether it was taking the ouananiche in Canada or the Beardslee trout in the shadow of the Olympics, it has all been good. Without detracting from the sport afforded by any other locality, I honestly believe that, taking into consideration climate, comfort, scenery, environment, and the opportunities for observing wild life, this region has no equal for trout fishing under the sun. I am aware that he who praises the fishing on any stream will ever have two classes of critics--the unthinking and the unsuccessful. To these I would say, "Whether your success shall be greater or less than mine will depend upon the conditions of weather and stream and on your own skill, and none of these do I control." In that splendid book, "Fly-Rods and Fly-Tackle," Mr. Henry P. Wells relates an instance in which he and his guide took an angler to a distant lake with the certain promise and expectation of fine fishing. After recording the keen disappointment he felt that not a single trout would show itself, he says, "Then I vowed a vow, which I commend to the careful consideration of all anglers, old and new alike--never again, under any circumstances, will I recommend any fishing locality in terms substantially stronger than these 'At that place I have done so and so; under like conditions it is believed that you can repeat it.' We are apt to speak of a place and the sport it affords as we found it, whereas reflection and experience should teach us that it is seldom exactly the same, even for two successive days."
There is a large number of fly-fishermen in the east who sincerely believe that the best sport cannot be had in the streams of the Rocky Mountains, and this belief has a grain of truth when the fishing is confined solely to native trout and to streams of indifferent interest. But when the waters flow through such picturesque surroundings as are found in the Yellowstone National Park, when from among these waters one may select the stream that shall furnish the trout he loves most to take, the objection is most fully answered. The writer can attest how difficult it was to outgrow the conviction that a certain brook of the Alleghanies had no equal, but he now gladly concedes that there are streams in the west just as prolific of fish and as pleasant to look upon as the one he followed in boyhood. It is proper enough to maintain that: "The fields are greenest where our childish feet have strayed," but when we permit a mere sentiment to prevent the fullest enjoyment of the later opportunities of life, your beautiful sentiment becomes a harmful prejudice.
When the prophet required Naaman to go down and bathe in the river Jordan, Naaman was exceeding wroth, and exclaimed, "Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than any in Israel?" The record hath it that Naaman went and bathed in the Jordan, and that his _body_ was healed of its _leprosy_ and his _mind_ of its _conceit_. So, when my angling friend from New Brunswick inquires whether I have fished the Waskahegan or have tried the lower pools of the Assametaquaghan for salmon, I am compelled to answer _no_. But there comes a longing to give him a day's outing on Hell-Roaring Creek or to see him a-foul of a five-pound von Behr trout amid the steam of the Riverside Geyser. The streams of Maine and Canada are delightful and possess a charm that lingers in the mind like the minor chords of almost forgotten music, but they cannot be compared with the full-throated torrents of the Absarokas. As well liken a fugue with flute and cymbals to an oratorio with bombardon and sky-rockets!
Who hath seen the beaver busied? Who hath watched the black-tail mating? Who hath lain alone to hear the wild-goose cry? Who hath worked the chosen water where the ouananiche is waiting, Or the sea-trout's jumping-crazy for the fly? He must go--go--go--away from here! On the other side the world he's overdue. 'Send your road is clear before you when the old Spring-fret comes o'er you And the Red Gods call for you!
Do you know the blackened timber--do you know that racing stream With the raw right-angled log-jam at the end: And the bar of sun-warmed shingle where a man may bask and dream To the click of shod canoe poles round the bend? It is there that we are going with our rods and reels and traces, To a silent smoky Indian that we know-- To a couch of new-pulled hemlock with the starlight on our faces, For the Red Gods call us out and we must go! The Feet of the Young Men--_Kipling._
_A CHAPTER ON TROUT FLIES_
"Thyse ben xij. flyes wyth whytch ye shall angle to ye trought and graylling, and dubbe lyke as ye shall now hear me tell." _Dame Juliana Berners._
FIVE centuries have passed since the dignified and devout prioress of St. Albans indited the above sentence, and the tribute to the sterling good sense therein is that the growing years have but added to its authority. A dozen well selected varieties of flies, dubbe them how ye lyke, are well-nigh sufficient for any locality. There may be streams that require a wider range of choice, but these are so rare that they may safely be considered as exceptional. Not that any particular harm has resulted from the unreasonable increase in the number and varieties of artificial flies. They amuse and gratify the tyro and in no wise disturb the master of the art. But an over-plethoric fly book in the possession of a stranger will, with the knowing, place the angling ability of the owner under suspicion. Better a thousand-fold, are the single half-dozen flies the uses and seasons of which are fully understood than a multitude of meaningless creations.
The angler should strive to attain an intelligent understanding of the principal features of the artificial fly and how a change in the form and color of these features affects the behavior of the fish for which he angles. In studying this matter men have gone down in diving suits that they might better see the fly as it appeared when presented to the fish, and there is nothing in their reports to encourage extremely fine niceties in fly-dressing. One may know a great deal of artists and their work and yet truly know but little of the value of _art_ itself; or have been a great reader of economics, and yet have little practical knowledge of that complex product of society called _civilization_. So, I had rather possess the knowledge a dear friend of mine has of Dickens, Shakespeare, and the Bible alone than to be able to discuss "literature" in general before clubs and societies.
Several years of angling experience in the far west have convinced the writer that flies of full bodies and positive colors are the most killing, and that the palmers are slightly better than the hackles. Of the standard patterns of flies the most successful are the coachman, royal coachman, black hackle, Parmacheene Belle, with the silver doctor for lake fishing, in the order named. The trout here, with the exception of those in Lake Yellowstone, are fairly vigorous fighters, and it is important that your tackle should be strong and sure rather than elegant.
With a view of determining whether it were possible to make a fly that would answer nearly all the needs of the mountain fisherman, I began, in 1897, a series of experiments in fly-tying that continued over a period of five years. The result is the production of what is widely known in the west as the Pitcher fly. As before indicated, this fly did not spring full panoplied into being, but was evolved from standard types by gradual modifications. The body is a furnace hackle, tied palmer; tail of barred wood-duck feather; wing snow-white, to which is added a blue cheek. The name, "Pitcher," was given to it as a compliment to Major John Pitcher, who, as acting superintendent of the Yellowstone National Park, has done much to improve the quality of the fishing in these streams.
From a dozen states anglers have written testifying to the killing qualities of the Pitcher Fly, and the extracts following show that its success is not confined to any locality nor to any single species of trout:
"The Pitcher flies you gave me have aided me in filling my twenty-pound basket three times in the last three weeks. Have had the best sport this season I have ever enjoyed on the Coeur d'Alene waters, and I can truthfully say I owe it all to the Pitcher fly and its designer."
E. R. DENNY, Wallace, Idaho.
"One afternoon I had put up my rod and strolled down to the river where one of our party was whipping a pool of the Big Hole, trying to induce a fish to strike. He said: 'There's an old villain in there; he wants to strike but can't make up his mind to do it.' I said: 'I have a fly that will make him strike,' and as I had my book in my pocket I handed him a No. 8 Pitcher. He made two casts and hooked a beautiful trout, that weighed nineteen ounces, down. I regard the Pitcher as the best killer in my book."
J. E. MONROE, Dillon, Montana.
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"I determined to follow the stream up into the mountains, but as I neared the woods at the upper end of the meadow I stopped to cast into a long, straight reach of the river where the breeze from the ocean was rippling the surface of the stream. The grassy bank rose steep behind me and only a little fringe of wild roses partly concealed me from the water. I cast the Pitcher flies you gave me well out on the rough water, allowed them to sink a hand-breadth, and at the first movement of the line I saw that heart-expanding flash of a broad silver side gleaming from the clear depths. The trout fastened on savagely, and as he was coming my way, I assisted his momentum with all the spring of the rod, and he came flying out into the clean, fresh grass of the meadow behind me. It was a half-pound speckled brook trout. I did not stop to pouch him, but cast again. In a moment I was fast to another such, and again I sprung him bodily out, glistening like a silver ingot, to where his brother lay. In my first twelve casts I took ten such fish, all from ten to twelve inches long, mostly without any playing. I took twenty-two fine fish without missing one strike, and landed every one safely. I was not an hour in taking the lot. Then oddly enough, I whipped the water for fifty yards without another rise. Satisfied that the circus was over, I climbed up into the meadow and gathered the spoils into my basket. Nearly all were brook trout, but two or three silvery salmon trout among them had struck quite as gamely. I had such a weight of fish as I never took before on the Nekanicum in our most fortunate fishing."
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"Walking back along the trail, I came again to the long reach where I had my luck an hour before, and cast again to see if there might be another fish. Two silver glints shone up through the waves in the same instant. I struck one of the two fish, though I might have had both if I had left the flies unmoved the fraction of a second. Three times I refused such doublets, for I had not changed an inch of tackle, and scarcely even looked the casting line over. It was no time to allow two good fish to go raking that populous pool. However I did take chances with one doublet. So out of the same lucky spot on my return, I took ten more fish each about a foot long. I brought nearly every one flying out as I struck him, and I never put such a merciless strain on a rod before.
"I had concluded again that the new tenantry had all been evicted, and was casting 'most extended' trying the powers of the rod and reaching, I should say, sixty feet out. As the flies came half-way in and I was just about snatching them out for a long back cast, the father of the family soared after them in a gleaming arc. He missed by not three inches and bored his way straight down into the depths of the clear green water. 'My heart went out to him,' as our friend Wells said, but coaxing was in vain. I tried them above and below, sinking the flies deeply, or dropping them airily upon the waves, but to no purpose. I had the comforting thought that we may pick him up when you are here this summer."
JOHN GILL, Portland, Oregon.
_THE BONNY RED HECKLE_
Away frae the smoke an' the smother, Away frae the crush o' the thrang! Away frae the labour an' pother That have fettered our freedom sae lang! For the May's i' full bloom i' the hedges And the laverock's aloft i' the blue, An' the south wind sings low i' the sedges, By haughs that are silvery wi' dew. Up, angler, off wi' each shackle! Up, gad and gaff, and awa'! Cry 'Hurrah for the canny red heckle, The heckle that tackled them a'!'
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Then back to the smoke and the smother, The uproar and crush o' the thrang; An' back to the labour and pother, But happy and hearty and strang. Wi' a braw light o' mountain and muirland, Outflashing frae forehead and e'e, Wi' a blessing flung back to the norland, An' a thousand, dear Coquet, to thee! As again we resume the old shackle, Our gad an' our gaff stowed awa', An'--goodbye to the canny 'red heckle,' The heckle that tackled them a'!' --From "The Lay of the Lea." By _Thomas Westwood_.
NOTE--I am indebted to Mrs. Mary Orvis Marbury, author of "Favorite Flies," for copies of "Hey for Coquet," and "Farewell to Coquet," from the former of which the foregoing are extracts.
_GRIZZLY LAKE AND LAKE ROSE_
"And best of all, through twilight's calm The hermit-thrush repeats his psalm." _Henry Van Dyke_
GRIZZLY LAKE lies secluded among the timbered hills, four miles south--south and west--from Willow Park. The long narrow bed of the lake was furrowed by a glacier that once debouched here from the mountains to the west, and through the gravel and detritus that surround it the melting snows and rain are filtered till the water is fit for the Olympian deities. No more profitable place can be found for the angler to visit. The lake swarms with brook trout weighing from one to five pounds, and in the ice-cold water which is supplied with an abundance of insect and crustacean food the fish are in prime condition after July first. The best fishing is at the southern end, near where Straight Creek enters the lake. A little investigation will discover close at hand, several large springs that flow into the lake at this point, and here the trout congregate after the spawning season.
In order to reach this location conveniently, I, early in 1902, constructed a light raft of dry pine logs, about six by ten feet, well spiked together with drift bolts; since which time other parties have added a substantial row boat. Both the boat and the raft may be found at the lower end of the lake, just where the trail brings you to it. The canvas boat that was set up on the lake earlier, was destroyed the first winter by bears, but the boat and raft now there will probably hold their own against the beasts of the field for some time. If you use either of them you will, of course, return it to the outlet of the lake, that he who cometh after may also enjoy.
The route to Grizzly Lake follows very closely the Bannock Indian trail from the point where Straight Creek enters the meadows of Willow Park to the outlet of the lake. The trail itself is interesting. It was the great Indian thoroughfare between Idaho and the Big Horn Basin in Wyoming, and was doubtless an ancient one at the time the Romans dominated Britain. How plainly the record tells you that it was made by an aboriginal people. Up hill and down hill, across marsh or meadow, it is always a single trail, trodden into furrow-like distinctness by moccasined feet. Nowhere does it permit the going abreast of the beasts of draft or burden. At no place does it suggest the side-by-side travel of the white man for companionship's sake, nor the hand-in-hand converse of mother and child, lover and maid. Ease your pony a moment here and dream. Here comes the silent procession on its way to barter in the land of the stranger, and here again it will return in the autumn, as it has done for a thousand years. In the van are the blanketed braves, brimful of in-toeing, painful dignity. Behind these follow the ponies drawing the lodge-poles and camp outfit, and then come the squaws and the children. Just there is a bend in the trail and the lodge-poles have abraded the tree in the angle till it is worn half through. A little further on, in an open glade, they camped for the night. Decades have come and gone since the last Indian party passed this way, yet a cycle hence the trail will be distinct at intervals.
By turning to the west at Winter Creek and passing over the sharp hills that border that stream you will come, at the end of a nine-mile journey, to Lake Rose. The way is upward through groves of pane, thickets of aspen, and steep open glades surrounded by silver fir trees that would be the delight of a landscape gardener if he could cause them to grow in our city parks as they do here. Elk are everywhere. We ride through and around bands of them, male, female, and odd-shapen calves with wobbly legs and luminous, questioning eyes. As you pause now and then to contemplate some new view of the wilderness unfolding before you, the beauty, and freedom and serenity of it are irresistible, and you comprehend for the first time the spirit of the Argonauts of '49 and the nobility of the pæan they chanted to express their exalted brotherhood:
"The days of old, The days of gold, The days of '49."
Suddenly the ground slopes away before us and Lake Rose lies at our feet, like an amethyst in a chalice of jade-green onyx. The surroundings are picturesque. The mountains descend abruptly to the water's edge and the snow never quite disappears from its banks in the longest summer. Here in June may be seen that incredible thing, the wild strawberry blossoming bravely above the slush-snow that still hides the plant below, and the bitter-root putting forth buds in the lee of a snow bank. A small stream enters the lake at the northwest, and here the trout are most abundant. They rise eagerly to the silver doctor fly, a half dozen often breaking at once, any one of which is a weight for a rod. Probably not more than a score of anglers have ever cast a fly from this point, and a word of caution may for this reason be pardoned. The low temperature of the water retards the spawning season till midsummer, consequently trout should not be taken here earlier than the third week of July. Again, nature has given to every true sportsman the good sense to stop when he has enough, and as this unwritten law is practically his only restraint, he should feel that its observance is in safe hands and that the sportsman's limit will be strictly observed.
_A MORNING ON IRON CREEK_