example of fishing under conditions that make the fly a mockery. Take
the Taylor Brook, "between the roads," on the headwaters of the
Lamoille. The place is a jungle. The swamp maples and cedars were
felled a generation ago, and the tops were trimmed into the brook. The
alders and moosewood are higher than your head; on every tiny knoll the
fir balsams have gained a footing, and creep down, impenetrable, to the
edge of the water. In the open spaces the Joe-Pye weed swarms. In two
minutes After leaving the upper road you have scared a mink or a
rabbit, and you have probably lost the brook. Listen! It is only a
gurgle here, droning along, smooth and dark, under the tangle of
cedar-tops and the shadow of the balsams. Follow the sound cautiously.
There, beyond the Joe-Pye weed, and between the stump and the cedar-top,
is a hand's breadth of black water. Fly-casting is impossible in this
maze of dead and living branches. Shorten your line to two feet, or even
less, bait your hook with a worm, and drop it gingerly into that
gurgling crevice of water. Before it has sunk six inches, if there is
not one of those black-backed, orange-bellied, Taylor Brook trout
fighting with it, something is wrong with your worm or with you. For
the trout are always there, sheltered by the brushwood that makes this
half mile of fishing "not worth while." Below the lower road the Taylor
Brook becomes uncertain water. For half a mile it yields only
fingerlings, for no explainable reason; then there are two miles of
clean fishing through the deep woods, where the branches are so high
that you can cast a fly again if you like, and there are long pools,
where now and then a heavy fish will rise; then comes a final half mile
through the alders, where you must wade, knee to waist deep, before you
come to the bridge and the river. Glorious fishing is sometimes to be
had here,--especially if you work down the gorge at twilight, casting a
white miller until it is too dark to see. But alas, there is a
well-worn path along the brook, and often enough there are the very