Part 4

It is very much easier to use the reel underneath when one becomes accustomed to it, and it has been used in this way for centuries by the British angler. As the reel originated in England, it is to be presumed that the manufacturers and anglers of that country know its proper position on the rod.

While fly-fishing and casting the minnow may be practiced wherever the black bass is found, on stream or lake, there are other methods of angling that depend somewhat on local conditions. Trolling with the minnow or trolling-spoon is sometimes practiced on lakes, as in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. There is no skill whatever required for trolling with handline and spoon, as the bass hooks himself, when hooked at all, and is simply dragged into the boat without ceremony. It is a method of fishing that would better be "honored in the breach, than the observance." And as the rod generally used for trolling is rather stiff and heavy, it does not require the skill and cleverness to play and land the fish that are demanded by the light and pliable rods employed in casting the fly or minnow.

Skittering with a pork-rind bait is practiced on some Eastern ponds, and casting the frog overhead with a very short rod is a method that originated with some Chicago anglers. Fishing with one or a group of hooks dressed with a portion of a deer's tail and a strip of red flannel, forming a kind of tassel and known as a "bob," is practiced in the Gulf States. A very long cane rod and a very short line comprise the rest of the equipment. The bob is danced on the surface in front of the boat in the weedy bayous, and is certainly effective in catching bass.

Still-fishing from the bank or a boat may be practiced wherever bass are found. Any kind of rod is used, from a sapling to a split-bamboo, with almost any kind of line or hook, and natural bait of any kind may be employed, with or without a float. It is the primitive style of angling. I think the paradise of the still-fisher may be found on a Florida lake. Anchoring his boat near the shore, just outside of the fringe of pond-lilies and bonnets, he splits the stem of a water lily, takes from it a small worm that harbors there, impales it on his hook, and casts it in a bight amid the rank growth of vegetation, where it is soon taken by a minnow of some sort, which in turn is cast into the deeper water beyond the border of aquatic plants, on the other side of the boat, where a big bass is lying in wait for just such an opportunity. And so he proceeds, ad infinitum, casting on one side of the boat for his bait, and on the other side for his bass. "First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear."

THE GRAYLING: THE FLOWER OF FISHES

THE GRAYLING: THE FLOWER OF FISHES

St. Ambrose, the good Bishop of Milan, in a sermon to the fishes, apostrophized the grayling as the "flower of fishes," as being the most beautiful, fragrant and sweetest of all the finny tribe. The saintly bishop was quite right in his estimation of the graceful, gliding grayling. It possesses a refined beauty and delicacy that is seen in no other fish, and it well merits its appellation of the "lady of the streams."

Dame Juliana Berners, prioress of the nunnery of Sopwell, near St. Albans, England, was the author of the first book on angling in the English language--printed in 1496. This "Treatyse of Fysshynge with an Angle" has served as the inspiration and model for all subsequent angling authors from Izaak Walton to the present day. Dame Juliana was really the first author to mention fly-fishing in a definite sense, though Ælian in his "History of Animals," A.D. 230, says that the Macedonians fished in the river Astræus with an imitation of a fly called hippurus.

Dame Juliana in her treatise gives a list of "XII flyes wyth whyche ye shall angle to ye trought and grayllyng"; and now, after the lapse of four centuries, artificial flies constructed after her formulas would prove as successful as any of the new fangled, up-to-date creations. In fact, most of her flies are in use to-day under various names; and any of them tied on very small hooks would answer admirably for the graylings of America.

There are three closely allied species of grayling in America, and two or three in Europe. Wherever found they inhabit the coldest and clearest streams. Their distribution in this country is restricted to well-defined and limited areas. One, known as the Arctic grayling, is abundant in Alaska and the adjoining Mackenzie district of British Columbia. A second species is native to Michigan, and the third is found only in Montana.

The first mention of the grayling and grayling fishing in America was that of Sir John Richardson, in the narrative of the Franklin Expedition to the North Pole, in 1819. Dr. Richardson called it "Bach's Grayling" in honor of a fellow officer, a midshipman of that name, who took the first one on the fly. He gave it the technical specific name of signifer, meaning "standard bearer," in allusion to its tall and brilliant dorsal fin.

Regarding the gameness of the grayling, Dr. Richardson says: "This beautiful fish inhabits strong rapids.... It bites eagerly at the artificial fly and, deriving great power from its large dorsal fin, affords much sport to the angler. The grayling generally springs entirely out of the water when first struck by the hook, and tugs strongly at the line, requiring as much dexterity to land it safely as it would to secure a trout of six times the size."

The Michigan grayling, in early days, was known to lumbermen and trappers as "Michigan trout," "white trout," "Crawford County trout," etc. It was first described by Dr. Edward D. Cope, in 1865, who gave it the specific name of tri-color, in allusion to the gay coloration of the dorsal fin. Until recent years it was abundant in streams of the lower peninsula of Michigan rising from an elevated sandy plateau and flowing into Lakes Huron and Michigan and the Strait of Mackinac. In a few streams flowing into Pine Lake and Lake Michigan, as Pine, Boyne, Jordan, etc., it co-existed with the brook trout, but farther south, especially in the Manistee and the Au Sable rivers and their tributaries, the grayling alone existed. In the upper peninsula it also existed in Otter Creek, near Keweenaw.

The Montana grayling, though mentioned by Lewis and Clark from the Jefferson River (to which fact I have recently called attention), was not recognized until seventy years later, when Professor J. W. Milner discovered and named it montanus, in 1872. So now we have the three species, Thymallus signifer, Thymallus tri-color, and Thymallus montanus. The generic name Thymallus is a very ancient one, and was bestowed originally because an odor of thyme was said by the Greeks to emanate from a freshly caught grayling. In our day the odor of thyme is not apparent, though when just out of the water it diffuses a faint and pleasant odor not unlike that from a freshly cut cucumber.

The structural differences between the three American graylings are so slight that they would be scarcely recognized by the lay angler, therefore a general description will probably answer. It is a slender, gracefully formed fish, with a body about five times longer than its depth, and rather thin, or compressed, on the order of the lake herring or cisco, or the Rocky Mountain whitefish. From this slight resemblance there is an erroneous notion quite current in Montana that it is a cross between the whitefish and the trout.

Its characteristic feature is the tall dorsal fin, beautifully decorated with a rose-colored border, and oblong spots of various sizes of rose-pink ocellated with blue, green or white. The height of the fin is about one-fourth the length of the fish; I have several specimens of fins that are four inches tall, from fish not more than sixteen inches long.

When first out of the water the grayling might be compared to a fish of mother-of-pearl, owing to the beautiful iridescence, wherein are displayed all the colors of the spectrum in subdued tints of lilac, pink, green, blue and purple, with the back purplish gray, and a few dark, small spots on the forward part of the body. The graylings are closely allied to the trout family, having an adipose second dorsal fin.

The eye of all graylings is peculiar, the pupil being pyriform or pear-shaped. In all illustrations of American graylings that I have seen, except photographs, the artist has drawn the pupil perfectly round, as in most fishes. The only exception is that of the painting of the Montana grayling, by A. D. Turner, that accompanies the magnificent work, "Forest, Lake and River," by Dr. F. M. Johnson.

The grayling having but few teeth, and those small and slender, its food consequently consists of insects and their larvæ. It prefers swift streams with sandy or gravelly bottom, and loves the deep pools, where it lies in small schools. Occasionally it extends its search for food to adjacent streams strewn with small rocks and bowlders. Its maximum weight is one and a half pounds, very rarely reaching two pounds.

The Arctic grayling is still abundant in the Yukon and other rivers of Alaska. On the contrary, the Michigan grayling, though plentiful twenty years ago, is now nearly extinct, owing to the extensive lumbering industry. All the graylings spawn in April and May in very shallow water, and the eggs hatch within two weeks. As this is also the time when the saw-logs descend the streams on the spring rise, they plow through the spawning beds, destroying both eggs and newly hatched fry. The annual recurrence of these circumstances for many years has resulted, unfortunately, in the passing of the Michigan grayling. Overfishing and the incursion of the trout have been mentioned as probable causes, but neither factor could possibly have produced the present state of things. The streams have since been stocked with brook and rainbow trout, and efforts are being made to introduce the Montana grayling.

In Montana the grayling is restricted to tributaries of the Missouri River above the Great Falls, except where recently planted. Until within the past few years it inhabited only the three forks of the Missouri--the Gallatin, Madison and Jefferson rivers and tributaries--and Smith River and tributaries below the three forks. It is still abundant in these waters and lives in amity, as it has done for all time, with the red-throat trout and Rocky Mountain whitefish.

That the grayling should inhabit only the widely separated regions of Alaska, Michigan and Montana is remarkable. The Arctic grayling is regarded as the parent stock, while the others are possibly relics of the glacial period. This seems probable in connection with the fact that in the mountains where the sources of the Jefferson River arise, there is a deep lake, some four miles long (Elk Lake), that in addition to grayling is inhabited by the Great Lake, or Mackinaw, trout. This trout is found nowhere else west of the Great Lakes except in Canada.

Beginning with 1874 numerous attempts were made to propagate the Michigan grayling artificially, but after repeated failures all effort in this direction was abandoned. When a station of the U. S. Fish Commission was established at Bozeman, Montana, in 1897, the Commission, under my supervision, began a series of experiments in grayling culture, resulting in complete success, so that for several years millions of grayling have been hatched and planted, and millions of eggs have been shipped to other stations of the Bureau, where they have been hatched and planted in Eastern waters. It is hoped that they may find a suitable home in some of the streams thus stocked. At the Bozeman station they have been reared to maturity, and eggs taken from these domesticated fish have been hatched. This is considered a triumph in fish-culture. Grayling eggs, by the way, are smaller than trout eggs, while the newly hatched fry are only about one-fourth of an inch long, and are quite weak for several days.

The English name "grayling" is doubtless derived from its appearance in the water, where it glides along like a swiftly moving gray shadow. In Germany it is called asche, from its gray or ash color in the water. One of its old names in England on some streams was "umber," a name of like significance.

As a game-fish, the grayling is considered by those who know it best, both in this country and England, when of corresponding size, equal to, if not superior to, the brown trout of England, the brook trout of Michigan, or the red-throat trout of Montana; while as a food-fish it is also better, its flesh being firmer, more flaky, and of greater sweetness of flavor. Likewise one can relish the grayling for many consecutive meals without the palate becoming cloyed, as in the case of the more oily trout. It never has a muddy or weedy taste.

In England there is a prevalent opinion that the grayling has a tender mouth and must be handled very gingerly when hooked; there is no truth in this notion, however, as its mouth is as tough as that of the trout; but as smaller hooks are employed in grayling fishing they are more apt to break out under a strain. For this reason the angler should not attempt to "strike" at a rising fish, but allow it to hook itself, which all game-fishes will do nine times out of ten. The only object in striking is to set the hook more firmly.

Grayling fishing is fair during summer, but is at its best in autumn; and where the streams are open it is quite good in winter. Mr. Dugmore, who made the admirable photograph illustrating this article, did his fishing late in August, in the West Fork of the Madison River, and in Beaver Creek in the upper cañon of the Madison, in Montana. The upper Madison is an ideal home for grayling, the stream being clear and swift with a bottom of black obsidian sand.

Fly-fishing for grayling differs considerably from trout fishing. The trout usually lies concealed, except when on the riffles, while the grayling lies at the bottom of exposed pools. When the fly is cast on the surface the trout dashes at it from his lair with a vim; or if below it, he often rises clear of the water in his eagerness to seize it. Should the fly be missed, another attempt will not be made again for some little time, if at all. The grayling rises to the fly from the bottom of the pool to the surface with incredible swiftness, but makes no commotion in doing so. Should it fail to seize the fly it returns toward the bottom, but soon essays another attempt, and will continue its efforts until finally the fly is taken into its mouth. From this it is evident that the grayling is not as shy as the trout. It is also apparent that the fly should be kept on the surface for trout, but allowed to sink a few inches at each cast for grayling.