Little Fishes in the Brook

Papa, an Ardent Devotee of the Dry-Fly, Reveals How He Would Catch Them With a Hook

COREY FORD

I SHOULD put my fly directly behind that boulder. There the current spends its force and parts on either side in a rippling, satin flow; and there in the dead backwater above the rock the yellow-white foam from the tumbling water circles aimlessly for a moment before it is snatched downstream. I should strip in the line a little; send it backwards with a flick of the rod, and then forward, and backward, and then singing forward suddenly through the agate eyes, feeling its way like a snake, wandering a little and wavering as it writhes down and rests fly-first upon the creamy froth: rides the froth lightly for a moment, turns slowly with the endless circle of the eddy, and then darts off the pillow of foam and hurtles downstream after the dragging line . . .

Late May, perhaps, or June; and it would be that hour of the afternoon when the blue smoke rises off the meadows, and the bark of a dog and distant tinkle of cattle are strangely near in the hollow silence. The cooling air carries every odour sharply: the dank bodysmell of a pasture still steaming from the recent sun; manure turned into a freshlyploughed field; wood-smoke, and the acid smell of hickory. The stream is running down after a recent rain, and chuckles and slaps at the white cobbles along the shore; the long flat riffles that we fished during the hot afternoon are humming below us. Here the stretch of stream is deeper, widening in a smooth fan from the boulder at the lip of the flat. The current glides silently along the left bank, under the overhanging willows and alders. A bluish-grey midge conies bouncing and spanking downstream, flapping its wings helplessly into the air, dropping back upon its tail and skidding merrily with the current; under a small willow the water parts with a suck and a noiseless swirl, and when the surface flattens again, the midge is gone. Mark the place; under that small willow.

A SCOOP of the hand would capture another midge as it flutters by on the surface; and with it locked between thumb and forefinger I should sink back on a white round rock at the side of the stream, with the water flattening the rubber of my boots cool against my leg, and study the insect. Bluish-grey wings. A bit of yellow on the tail. Well; out with the fly-box, and pick over the assortment of hand-tied flies critically. Cahill; Hare's Ear; say, a Whirling Dun: starling's feathers for wings, a wrapping of mole's fur around the body, and the legs and tail of ginger hackle. A reasonable imitation of the midge in my fingers. A light brush of mucelin to make it float; tie it on the silvery leader, and swing it into the air. The reel snarls as it unwinds; the line travels forward, backward, suddenly forward again in a horizontal cast across the flat water to the gliding current along the left bank. The fly rides like a speck of light downstream past the small willow. Does a small hump of water follow it for a moment, and then disappear? A flick of the wrist retrieves the fly into the air before it drowns; another flick lays it gently a foot above the willow, and it glides down again into the shadows. The water parts; the bottom of the stream turns over suddenly, and the line hums taut in a blurred fan of rainbow drops, singing against the current like the string of a 'cello, cutting upstream at an angle, slicing a half circle mid-current, suddenly slackening, following the invisible fighting captive as he darts about below the surface or breaks at last in a flash of white water, the glimpse of a greenish shoulder and a white belly plunging down . . .

NO. Your Cabots of Back Bay may have their little clique; your Pomeranian may glance condescendingly through his limousine window at the mongrel in the gutter; your patent cigar-lighter may look down upon a paper safe of matches. But there is nowhere a snobbery quite so complete as the snobbery of the Dry-Fly Fisherman. The wet-fly fisherman is unenlightened; the worm fisherman is anathema; the man who does not fish at all—but they are not men who do not fish at all. Two-legged, pale, soulless creatures, perhaps, who see the first Saturday in April come and go, who count off May and early June as just one more step toward the hot weather; who pass by a tackle-store window without a longing stab and lingering, hungry eyes; who motor over a rumbling bridge without a swift speculative glance at the pools and eddies in the stream below; who could read this article without murmuring indignantly: "This guy doesn't know Avhat he's talking about. In the first place, a Whirling Dun isn't . . ." They are mice, not men. Not DryFly Fishermen, anyway.

There is a strange, haunted look in the true angler's eyes, as the Opening Day draws nearer. They stroll along Madison Avenue with a curious plodding motion, as though they were wading upstream against an imaginary current. They handle their walkingsticks tenderly, playing them unconsciously in the air with a reminiscent flirt of the wrist and pointing them at a choice eddy in the stream of traffic. In their offices they stand dreamily by the hour, while telephones ring and papers pile high, turning the pencilsharpener slowly as they wind a distant reel. Their bedroom lights burn late into the night, that first week in April, as they sort over their tackle, soak their leaders, test their lines, tell over their flies, fit together their rods and play them once or twice cautiously in the narrow space between bed-post and bureau, handling them with all the reverence of an old pair of duelling-pistols. Of an afternoon, perhaps, they congregate over the camphor-soaked trays in Abercombie's or Von Lengerke and Detmold's, gesturing, talking in a frenzied monotone, picking over the downy flies critically, examining the expensive Hardy rods and purchasing at last one small gut leader, discussing the latest bulletins from the front: "Say there's pretty much snow up there still." "Hear the Beaverkill's very high." "This time last year .. ."

It is an exacting order. Its membership is exclusive; its initiation is long and slow; its brethren of the angle, upon joining, are pledged to the solemn conviction that any one who is not a Dry-Fly Fisherman is simply not quite bright. And the opportunities for an innocent novice, who entertains the bland assumption that the purpose of fishing is merely to catch fish, and that it all has something to do somehow with lowering a piece of pork over the side of a boat on a hot afternoon on Long Island Sound—the opportunities for such a novice to augment this preconceived conviction of the Dry-Fly Fisherman are staggering. The very terminology of the tackle offers innumerable pit-falls to a wellmeaning layman.

For example, at the cost of alienating the sensitive angler for life, never refer to his rod as a "pole". Never call his line a "string". Never, under any conditions, speak of his reel as a "pulley". Never call his trout-flies "them little things", nor inquire genially if his wife knitted them for him. Never ask if the trout are apt to go for him when he's in the water. Never attempt to open conversation with him by remarking in an amiable tone: "You know, I used to be sort of a fisherman myself. I used to be quite fond of digging clams. Yep," clasping the hands behind the back and nodding companionably, "there's quite an art in digging clams right. You have to know how to feel for them with your toe, and . . ." And never, above all else, greet a weary angler who is sneaking guiltily toward home, with his creel bouncing all too lightly on his hip, with the well-meaning hail: "Hi! Catch anything?"

These are the things that drive Dry-Fly Fishermen closer together; these, and the three great Common Prejudices that bind them with bands of steel in a vast brotherhood: contempt for the Fish Hog; contempt for all Lady Anglers; and contempt for Fishermen Who Use Worms.

FISH Hogs should be, by all logic, beneath contempt. Their breed should be exterminated with no more consideration than is afforded the black-fly on your neck. They are the Mayor Thompsons of sport. They bully their way downstream—you never see them fishing dry—wallowing into the choicest eddies, rooting their snouts along the deep banks, doing valiant battle with a six-inch trout—legal prey under a criminal law that permits the capture of these immature fish— and limiting the number of their catch only to the capacity of their pockets, so that they may count their noble total at the end of the day and enter it in some imaginary competition for Biggest Catch. Their standard of success depends entirely on the number of fish in their basket: not the expert handling of their rod, nor their canny imitation of the natural fly on the water; not the battle of wits with the fighting trout; not even the sunshine and the clean air. They brag happily: "Sure, I bet. Joe I'd get a hun'erd and fifty this week ... Eat them? Me? No, fish make me sick. No, I'll have to just give them to the cat . . ."

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My dislike for Lady Anglers may have sprung from that old prejudice which has run in the Ford family for generations against Women in Bloomers. I come from an old New England stock which believes firmly that Woman's Sphere does not belong in pants. I do not deny that women have their place; but I would fight to the death for a National Ordinance proclaiming that that place is not on a Trout Stream. There they chatter, they giggle, they splash and flounder into the choicest pools, they slap mosquitoes, they complain, they powder their noses at the instant when they are landing their biggest fish, they bicker and quarrel and lose their tempers, they tangle their lines in overhanging balsams and I have to climb up for them. I am an acknowledged Idealist about Women, but on a Trout Stream they are not at their best.

And as for Worm Fishermen . . .

Last summer Mr. Coolidge put a worm on a hook and caught a nice fish; and subsequently, according to the Rotogravure Sections, posed with it before the cameras, wearing a trim business suit and starched collar, while Mrs. Coolidge held two white collies and a bear on a leash and smiled approvingly at her husband's skill. And immediately the hue and cry went abroad that worm-fishing was the most successful method of catching trout.

So it is. No Fly-Fisher will dispute the point. You can catch more trout with worms than with any other device, except possibly dynamite. The issue (and perhaps it is scarcely delicate to mention it during a Republican administration) is only one of sportsmanship.

I do not blame Mr. Coolidge. After all, it was not so long ago that he came out in print against any form of fishing whatsoever. His progress is slow, but encouraging. If he finds pleasure now in angling with a worm, that is very nice indeed, and no one happier than I to see him get some fresh air and put a little colour in those cheeks; and perhaps after he has relinquished the Presidency and its attendant worries, he may be able to devote a little more time to his angling, and eventually—who knows? —develop into a first-class Dry-Fly Fisherman. I do hope, however, that next time he will take off that starched collar. It only scares the fish.

For the attitude of the Dry-Fly Fisherman toward the Fisherman Who Uses a Worm is a little tolerant and sympathetic. In all probability he was a worm-fisherman once, himself. After all, they have the stuff in them. And some day they too may know that instant ecstasy of a midge well-imitated, a cast well-made, the plunging strike and screaming reel, and then the lashing, rearing captive, turning in midair in a comet-tail of silver spray, burning the line upstream, fighting, fighting toward white water . . . (EDITOR'S NOTE: The above manuscript was found floating downstream in a bottle and was returned to Vanity Fair. It is believed that Mr. Ford is still fighting that trout.)