Fly Fishing in Wonderland Part 1

Fly Fishing in Wonderland.

by Klahowya.

_GOOD FISHING!_

_This little writing has to do with the streams and the trout therein of that portion of our country extending southward from the southern boundary of Montana to the Teton mountains, and eastward from the eastern boundary of Idaho to the Absaroka range. Lying on both sides of the continental divide, its surface is veined by the courses of a mult.i.tude of streams flowing either to the Pacific Ocean or to the Gulf of Mexico, while from the southern rim of this realm of wonders the waters reach the Gulf of California through the mighty canyons carved by the Colorado._

_This region has abundant attractions for seekers of outdoor pleasures, and for none more than for the angler. Here, within a s.p.a.ce about seventy miles square, nature has placed a bewildering diversity of rivers, mountains, lakes, canyons, geysers and waterfalls not found elsewhere in the world. Fortunately, Congress early reserved the greater part of this domain as a public pleasure ground. Under the wise administration of government officials the natural beauties are protected and made accessible by superb roads. The streams also, many of which were barren of fish, have, by successful plantings and intelligent protection, become all that the sportsman can wish. The angler who wanders through the woods in almost any direction will scarcely fail to find some picturesque lake or swift flowing stream where the best of sport may be had with the rod._

_Several years ago I made my first visit to this country, and it has been my privilege to return thither annually on fishing excursions of varying duration. These outings have been so enjoyable and have yielded so much pleasure at the time and afterwards, that I should like to sound the angler's pack-cry, "Good Fishing!" loudly enough to lead others to go also._

_The photographs from which the ill.u.s.trations were made, except where due credit is given to others, were taken with a small hand camera which has hung at my belt in crossing mountains and wading streams, and are mainly of such scenes as one comes upon in out-of-the-way places while following that "most virtuous pastime" of fly-casting._

_THE AUTHOR._

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _THE DIM, RED DAWN_]

_IN THE DIM, RED DAWN_

[Ill.u.s.tration: _A Leaping Salmon_

_Photo by Hugh M. Smith_]

BEFORE exercising the right of eminent domain over these waters, it may be profitable to say a word in explanation of the fact that hardly more than a score of years ago many of these beautiful lakes and streams were absolutely without fish life. This will aid us in understanding what the government has done and is still doing to create an ideal paradise for the angler among these mountains and plateaus.

There was a time, and this too in comparatively recent geological eras, when the waters of that region now under consideration abounded with fish of many species. The clumsy catfish floundered along the shallows and reedy bayous in company with the solemn red-horse and a long line of other fishes of present and past generations. The lordly salmon found ideal sp.a.w.ning grounds in the gravelly beds of the streams draining to the westward, and doubtless came hither annually in great numbers. It may be that the habit of the Columbia river salmon to return yearly from the Pacific and ascend that stream was bred into the species during the days when its waters ran in an uninterrupted channel from source to sea.

It is true that elsewhere salmon manifest this anadromous impulse in as marked a degree as in the Columbia and its tributaries, yet, the conclusion that these heroic pilgrimages are _habit_ resulting from similar movements, accidental at first, but extending over countless years, is natural, and probably correct. When one sees these n.o.ble fish congested by thousands at the foot of some waterfall up which not one in a hundred is able to leap, or observes them ascending the brooks in the distant mountains where there is not sufficient water to cover them, gasping, bleeding, dying, but pushing upward with their last breath, the figure of the crusaders in quest of an ancient patrimony arises in the mind, so strong is the simile and so active is your sympathy with the fish.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Mammoth Hot Springs_]

In those distant days the alt.i.tude of this region was not great, nor was the ocean as remote from its borders as now. The forces which already had lifted considerable areas above the sea and fashioned them into an embryo continent were still at work. The earth-sh.e.l.l, yet soft and plastic, was not strong enough to resist the double strain caused by its cooling, shrinking outer crust and the expanding, molten interior.

Volcanic eruptions, magnificent in extent, resulted and continued at intervals throughout the Pliocene period. These eruptions were accompanied by prodigious outpours of lava that altered the topography of the entire mountain section. Nowhere else in all creation has such an amount of matter been forced up from the interior of the earth to flow in red-hot rivers to the distant seas as in the western part of the United States. What a panorama of flame it was, and what a sublime impression it must have made on the minds of the primeval men who witnessed it from afar as they paddled their canoes over the troubled waters that reflected the red-litten heavens beneath them! Is it remarkable that the geyser region of the Park is a place of evil repute among the savages and a thing to be pa.s.sed by on the other side, even to the present day?

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Detail from Jupiter Terrace_]

When the elemental forces subsided the waters were fishless, and all aquatic life had been destroyed in the creation of the glories of the Park and its surroundings. Streams that once had their origins in sluggish, lily-laden lagoons, now took their sources from the lofty continental plateaus. In reaching the lower levels these streams, in most instances, fell over cataracts so high as to be impa.s.sable to fish, thus precluding their being restocked by natural processes. From this cause the upper Gardiner, the Gibbon and the Firehole rivers and their tributaries--streams oftenest seen by the tourist--were found to contain no trout when man entered upon the scene. From a sportsman's viewpoint the troutless condition of the very choicest waters was fortunate, as it left them free for the planting of such varieties as are best adapted to the food and character of each stream.

The blob or miller's thumb existed in the Gibbon river, and perhaps in other streams, above the falls. Its presence in such places is due to its ability to ascend very precipitous water courses by means of the filamentous algae which usually border such torrents. I once discovered specimens of this odd fish in the algous growth covering the rocky face of the falls of the Des Chutes river, at Tumwater, in the state of Washington, and there is little doubt that they do ascend nearly vertical walls where the conditions are favorable.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Tumwater Falls_]

The presence of the red-throat trout of the Snake river in the head waters of the Missouri is easily explained by the imperfect character of the water-shed between the Snake and Yellowstone rivers. Atlantic Creek, tributary to the Yellowstone, and Pacific Creek, tributary to the Snake, both rise in the same marshy meadow on the continental divide. From this it is argued that, during the sudden melting of heavy snows in early times, it was possible for specimens to cross from one side to the other, and it is claimed that an interchange of individuals might occur by this route at the present day.[A] Certain it is that these courageous fish exhibit the same disregard for their lives that is spoken of previously as characteristic of their congeners, the salmon. Trout are frequently found lying dead on the gra.s.s of a pasture or meadow where they were stranded the night previous in an attempt to explore a rivulet caused by a pa.s.sing shower. The mortality among fish of this species in irrigated districts is alarming. At each opening of the sluice gates they go out with the current and perish in the fields.

Unless there is a more rigid enforcement of the law requiring that the opening into the ditches be screened, trout must soon disappear from the irrigated sections.

The supposition that these fish have crossed the continental divide, as it were, overland, serves the double purpose of explaining the presence of the trout, and the absence of the chub, sucker and white-fish of the Snake River from Yellowstone Lake. The latter are feeble fish at best, and generally display a preference for the quiet waters of the deeper pools where they feed near the bottom and with little exertion. Neither the chub, sucker nor white-fish possesses enough hardihood to undertake so precarious a journey nor sufficient vitality to survive it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Gibbon Falls_]

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote A: NOTE--"As already stated, the trout of Yellowstone Lake certainly came into the Missouri basin by way of Two-Ocean Pa.s.s from the Upper Snake River basin. One of the present writers has caught them in the very act of going over Two-Ocean Pa.s.s from Pacific into Atlantic drainage. The trout of the two sides of the pa.s.s cannot be separated, and const.i.tute a single species."

Jordan & Evermann.]

_THE TROUT--NATIVE AND PLANTED_

[Ill.u.s.tration: _A Place to be Remembered_]

TO MANY people a trout is merely a _trout_, with no distinction as to variety or origin; and some there be who know him only as a _fish_, to be eaten without grace and with much gossip. Again, there are those who have written at great length of this and that species and sub-species, with many words and nice distinctions relative to vomerine teeth, branchiostegal rays and other anatomical differences. I would not lead you, even if your patience permitted, along the tedious path of the scientist, but will follow the middle path and note only such differences in the members of this interesting family as may be apparent to the unpracticed eye and by which the novice may distinguish between the varieties that come to his creel.

In a letter to Doctor David Starr Jordan, in September, 1889, Hon.

Marshall McDonald, then U. S. Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, wrote, "I have proposed to undertake to stock these waters with different species of Salmonidae, reserving a distinct river basin for each." Every one will commend the wisdom of the original intent as it existed in the mind of Mr. McDonald. It implied that a careful study would be made of the waters of each basin to determine the volume and character of the current, its temperature, the depth to which it froze during the sub-arctic winters, and the kinds and quant.i.ties of fish-food found in each. With this data well established, and knowing, as fish culturists have for centuries, what conditions are favorable to the most desirable kinds of trout, there was a field for experimentation and improvement probably not existing elsewhere.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Willow Park Camp_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Klahowya_]

The commission began its labors in 1889, and the record for that year shows among other plants, the placing of a quant.i.ty of Loch Leven trout in the Firehole above the Kepler Cascade. The year following nearly ten thousand German trout fry were planted in Nez Perce Creek, the princ.i.p.al tributary of the Firehole. Either the agents of the commission authorized to make these plants were ignorant of the purpose of the Commissioner at Washington, or they did not know with what immunity fish will pa.s.s over the highest falls. Whatever the reason for this error, the die is cast, and the only streams that have a single distinct variety are the upper Gardiner and its tributaries, where the eastern brook trout has the field, or rather the waters, to himself. The first attempt to stock any stream was a transfer of the native trout of another stream to Lava Creek above the falls. I mention this because the presence of the native trout in this locality has led some to believe that they were there from the first, and thus const.i.tuted an exception to the rule that no trout were found in streams above vertical waterfalls.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _On the Trail to Grizzly Lake_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Little Firehole_]

Many are confused by the variety of names applied to the native trout of the Yellowstone, _Salmo lewisi_. Red-throat trout, cut-throat trout, black-spotted trout, mountain trout, Rocky Mountain trout, salmon trout, and a host of other less generally known local names have been applied to him. This is in a measure due to the widely different localities and conditions under which he is found, and to the very close resemblance he bears to his first cousins, _Salmo clarkii_, of the streams flowing into the Pacific from northern California to southern Alaska; and to _Salmo mykiss_ of the Kamchatkan rivers. Perhaps the very abundance of this trout has cheapened the estimate in which he is held by some anglers.

Nevertheless, he is a royal fish. In streams with rapid currents he is always a hard fighter, and his meat is high-colored and well-flavored.

The name "black-spotted" trout describes this fish more accurately than any other of his cognomens. The spots are carbon-black and have none of the vermilion and purple colors that characterize the brook trout. The spots are not, however, always uniform in size and number. In some instances they are entirely wanting on the anterior part of the body, but their absence is not sufficiently important to const.i.tute a varietal distinction. The red dash under the throat (inner edge of the mandible) from which the names "cut-throat" and "red-throat" are derived, is never absent in specimens taken here, and, as no other trout of this locality is so marked, it affords the tyro an unfailing means of determining the nature of his catch.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Path Through the Pines_]

If the eastern brook trout, _Salvelinus fontinalis_, could read and understand but a part of the praises that have been sung of him in prose and verse through all the years, what a pampered princeling and nuisance he would become! But to his credit, he has gone on being the same sensible, shrewd, wary and delightful fish, adapting himself to all sorts of mountain streams, lakes, ponds and rivers, and always giving the largest returns to the angler in the way of health and happiness.

The literature concerning the methods employed in his capture alone would make a library in which we should find the names of soldiers, statesmen and sovereigns, and the great of the earth. Aelian, who lived in the second century A. D., describes, in his _De Animalium Natura_, how the Macedonians took a fish with speckled skin from a certain river by means of a hook tied about with red wool, to which were fitted two feathers from a c.o.c.k's wattle. More than four hundred years prior to this Theocritus mentioned a method of fishing with a "fallacious bait suspended from a rod," but unfortunately failed to tell us how the fly was made. If by any chance you have never met the brook trout you may know him infallibly from his brethren by the dark olive, worm-like lines, technically called "vermiculations," along the back, as he alone displays these heraldic markings.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Melan Bridge_]

Throughout the northwest the brown trout, _Salmo fario_, is generally known as the "von Behr" trout, from the name of the German fish-culturist who sent the first shipment of their eggs to this country. This fish may be distinguished at sight by the coa.r.s.e scales which give his body a dark grayish appearance, slightly resembling a mullet, and by the large dull red spots along the lateral line. There are also three beautiful red spots on the adipose fin.