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HE backward look reveals many-isolated bits of experience in the
out-of-doors, not one of them important enough to form the nucleus of a
story of respectable size, and yet to each one crying out every time we
glance in its direction: “Tell about me!” If the reader finds nothing
of interest in these odds and ends, he who writes may at least hope to
quiet the importunities of these clamorous voices from out of the past.
The Canasawacta Creek is usually a quiet, inoffensive stream, making its
way between the low-lying hills of central New York to its union with
the Chenango River. The rain had been falling steadily all day and the
creek was somewhat swollen when the families in the little hamlet at
South Plymouth retired for the night, but no one thought of danger.
Shortly after midnight a little chap in one of those homes was awakened
by his father, who lifted him out of his trundle bed and wrapped him in
a blanket. The lad did not understand what had happened, even when he
saw the water ankle-deep on the living-room floor, or when his father
carried him through the swiftly rushing flood to the house of a
neighbour on the height of land. It never occurred to him to be afraid
so long as his father’s arms were about him.
In the sunshine of the next morning father and boy walked hand in hand
down the street to the home which they had so hastily abandoned the
night before. The creek had returned to its bed and was behaving much
as usual. The boy wondered not a little at the flood-wood left stranded
against the picket fence, and was not slow to begin an investigation
of the changes wrought in his playground by the visitor of the previous
night.
Over towards one corner of the yard was a depression in the ground
with water still standing in it, and as the lad passed this pool he saw
something moving. Although less than three years old, he had learned
that a moving object in the water was very likely to be a fish. Young as
he was, a great passion of pursuit seized him, and he grabbed with
both hands at the object dimly seen through the roily water. Conviction
became a certainty as he felt the fish squirm out of his grasp and
received a splash of muddy water as the frightened victim struggled
in the shallow pool. Clean clothes and a mother’s injunctions were
forgotten in the lust of the chase. In he waded and gathered that fish
to his heart with both arms. When the father returned from investigating
conditions in the house, there stood the lad, wet, muddy, but
triumphant. What kind of a fish? The boy neither knew nor cared. It was
a fish--and that was quite enough, especially when accompanied by the
unquestioning conviction that it was the biggest fish in all the world.
Since that boy has grown to manhood he has often said to himself as he
looked upon an unpromising bit of water, “You never can tell. If fish
are to be caught in your front dooryard, where may you not find them?”
Many trout come to view as we peer into the mists of the long ago, but,
among them all, two are in a class by themselves. One of them came out
of the Otselic River on a day when the boy had been berrying and had
made a failure. Swinging his empty pail, he came to the river just where
it had dug its way into the bank and formed a deep pool over which the
alders hung. No normal boy goes abroad on any day, save Sunday, without
a fishhook and line in his pocket. Bringing forth these essentials to
happiness, he found a pole, dug an angleworm from a muddy spot, and
dropped his bait just where the water was blackest. Sunfish and perch
and eels abounded in this river, but it was not famous for trout. In
fact, this boy was not fishing for trout and so was all the more amazed
when, after a sharp struggle, he landed a speckled monster on the
grassy bank. At least he seemed a monster in size to the boy, and a
conservative adult estimate would place the fish at well over a pound.
Now, failure to find berries appeared plainly providential, for here
was the empty pail and the trout could be carried home alive. Under the
porch at the back of the house was a half-hogshead, set into the ground,
into which poured a little stream of pure, soft spring water brought
from the nearby hillside through a lead pipe. Did a trout ever have a
more ideal place of residence? Here he lived and thrived for many a day,
fed with untiring regularity until--just here memory fails. Possibly he
died of old age.
The boy had grown somewhat older and had learned to make and use the
“snare,” when he went on a visit to friends in Cortland. Cortland is a
thriving city now, and even then was a wide-awake and bustling village;
but its chief attraction to the boy was its river--the Tioughnioga. No
sooner had he said “How do you do?” to his relatives than he hurried
to the river bridge to snare suckers. Now don’t sniff, you owners of
hand-made split-bamboo rods and scorners of all fishing except that for
trout or bass! If you will just think back along the years until you
catch sight of yourself as you once were, you will realize that the boy
knows but one rule when fishing, and that is, “Get there!” Methods do
not matter to him so that he catches fish. Neither has he learned that
dainty discrimination among the inhabitants of the water that comes with
the years. We know boys, even in these days, who would rather stand on
a log and catch unlimited numbers of sunfish, than to fish all day and
take a half-dozen bass.
He had borrowed a cane pole, and the line, with the slipping-noose of
shining copper wire at the end, was soon dangling over the side of the
bridge. Yes, the suckers were still there just about as they had been
a month before when he saw them but lacked the paraphernalia for their
capture. Of course, they were not good eating, for it was summer-time
and their flesh was soft. So, as often as one was derricked wriggling to
the bridge, it was thrown back, and the process repeated. Naturally, he
sought to catch the biggest ones, and when he discovered one of unusual
size lying in the shadow of a rock he was all a-tingle with desire and
anxiety. Cautiously he dropped the snare well above the fish and gently
guided it down with the current until the copper wire was well back of
the gills, and then jerked. Hurrah! he had him! Sucker? Not with that
mouth and the beautiful carmine spots upon its sides. It is a trout, and
a big one. The suckers had lost their charm, and a bee-line was made for
the house of his friends that he might ‘have company in his rejoicing.
Passing along the street, proudly dangling the big trout from an alder
sprout, he was met by a man who stopped to admire the fish.
“Where did you catch him?”
“Down at the bridge. I snared him.”
“Snared him? Don’t you know that’s illegal?” When the good-natured man,
who had not forgotten that he was once a boy, had explained that snaring
a trout laid one liable to fine or imprisonment, a scared, small boy
sneaked by back-ways, and with the trout carefully hidden under his
jacket, to the home of his friends. Heretofore game laws had not
entered into his scheme of life. He was worried and unhappy; but nothing
happened.
Every fisherman has his favourite lure for bass. Some put their trust in
frogs, others swear by minnows. The crawfish, dobson, fly, spoon,
worm, lamprey, pork-rind, and almost innumerable other supposed
attractions,--each has its enthusiastic champions. But what will you do
when all these fail? It came pretty near being that question which was
faced by the boy who sought to capture the big bass lying under the
Erie Canal bridge. On sunny days one could stand on the bridge and see
a score or more of bass resting near the bottom of the canal, but this
particular fish, of aldermanic proportions, made all the others seem
like infants. The boy could and did catch some of these bass, but
the prize fish maintained a tantalizing indifference to all that was
offered. Once or twice he had rubbed his nose against a fat minnow that
was dangled directly in front of him, but usually he treated the most
enticing morsel with utter disdain. The boy had exhausted his repertoire
of attractions, when, on a certain morning, he made his way to the
bridge with the fixed purpose to ignore the big bass and devote himself
to more responsive members of that family. As he trudged along the road
he noticed an apple peeling that had been cast away by some passer-by. A
part of it was brilliant red. An idea popped into the lad’s mind, only
to be turned out of doors as absurd. But it would not stay outside.
Again and again it returned asking hospitality, but the boy was firm and
continued on his way. Once more, as he fished, that preposterous idea
thrust itself upon him, and finally he retraced his steps and picked up
the apple-peeling. Going back to the bridge, he fastened a piece of the
red peeling to his hook, red side down, stood well out of sight of
the fish, and began wiggling his pole in such a way that the brilliant
peeling was compelled to dance a jig on the surface of the water. Only
a moment of suspense, and then came a strike that almost carried him off
his feet. Was it the big one? The pole bent until it threatened to snap
in two. Pushing it rapidly backwards through his hands, he grasped the
line and proceeded to haul in hand over hand. Of course a number of
things might happen, any one of which would be a measureless calamity.
But the line did not part, the hook did not tear out, the heavens did
not fall, and when at last a noble bass was safely landed on the bridge
the boy let out a yell that might have been heard in Syracuse. Five
pounds, four ounces, he weighed, and his relatives under the canal
bridge knew him no more for ever.
The bass has countless vagaries, and one never knows what he will
do under given circumstances. As a father and son were fishing for
small-mouth on the St. Lawrence, the senior hooked a fish which broke
the snood and went free. Now there is a persistent tradition that, when
a bass has been pricked by the hook, he does not bite again until the
passing of twenty-four hours or such a matter has served to wipe the
experience from his memory. In less than an hour the boy caught a
two-pounder having in its jaws the identical snood which the father
had lost. The tradition was discredited, unless we assume that the one
caught had envied the mouth ornament worn by the one hooked earlier in
the day, and, stealing it, had fixed it in his own jaw.
Bass fishing on the Bay of Quinte is famous for its excellence. Not
only is there abundance of fish, but they are exceptionally gamey. Their
vigour and eagerness to be caught is illustrated by the member of this
tribe that jumped into our boat. Every one has heard of the Florida
mullet that, attracted by the light in a boat at night, came jumping
over the sides in such numbers that they sank the boat and imperilled
the lives of those on board. But a bass is no such fool fish as a
mullet. If they do any jumping it is usually away from the boat, not
towards it. The bass under consideration was hooked in some twenty feet
of water, and put up a vigorous fight. The fisherman was compelled to
give out line in considerable quantities, but when the fish ran under
the boat it was evidently time to “snub” him. No sooner was this done
than he gave a leap and landed in the boat from the opposite side.
As a rule, ladies are not enthusiastic devotees of the “gentle art.”
One, however, whom we knew somewhat well, became, under the tutelage
of her husband, more than a little expert in fishing for bass. She had
grown familiar with all their ordinary tricks and knew how to drop the
point of the rod to prevent an impending leap, and just when to give out
line and when to reel in. Fishing one day on Round Lake, she hooked a
bass and proceeded to play it according to the most approved rules. She
met every rush and anticipated every jump. Then the line became limp and
she said to her husband, “He’s off.” Just then the fish broke water less
than two feet away from the boat, flung himself into the air, shook the
hook free from his jaws, and was gone. Here was one trick with which the
fisherwoman was not familiar. Small wonder that she asked pathetically,
“Why did he do it?”
One makes strange catches sometimes. We recall a gentleman who, on his
initial experience in trout fishing, was discovered sitting on a log
by the stream, examining a strange-looking fish which furnished the
solitary evidence of his piscatorial skill. “Is that a trout?” he
asked of his friend. “Hardly,” was the reply. “What is it, then?” That
question remains unanswered. It was evidently a bottom fish of some
kind, and resembled a “hammer-head,” but with some marked differences.
Every one familiar with sea-fishing knows what freaks in form and
colouring are brought up occasionally when one is fishing for cod or
scup or flounders. It remained for Mt. Desert to take a safe lead of all
competitors in furnishing peculiar returns to the fisherman’s advances.
We were fishing off the pier at one of the famous summer resorts of this
famous island. The fish were not responsive and it was decided to quit.
When the fisherman attempted to pull in his line he found that his hook
was snagged. Under a strong but steady pull the line began to come in
with something heavy dragging at the end. As it made no struggle it
could hardly be a fish, and sunken logs and sticks are not frequent in
tide-water. Slowly the catch was drawn in until the wondering fisherman
could see a jug, brown but not very little, into the handle of which his
hook had caught. The wonder was that an empty, corked jug should sink.
When it was discovered that a strong cord anchored the jug to one of
the timbers of the pier, a suspicion was created that this jug had
been caught previously. A somewhat hasty and incomplete examination
established relationship between the jug and the Maine prohibition law,
but not between the jug and its owner. Can any other fisherman boast of
catching the “spirits of the vasty deep”?
Perhaps the Deacon had an experience as exciting, if not as
satisfactory, as that ever allotted to any fisherman. He and his son
and the Preacher were fishing on Big St. Germain. The hotel was provided
with a porch which ran along the entire front. As the party came in from
an afternoon with the pike, the rods were placed against this porch,
butts on the ground and tips projecting above the porch roof. The
Preacher was the first to finish his supper, and as he came out the
front door a peculiar combination of sounds was heard. Spitting,
snarling, scratching were mingled with the clicking of a reel. It was
the Deacon’s reel that seemed to be working alone and unaided, and the
mystery was solved only when it was discovered that a cat had climbed
upon the porch roof, swallowed the minnow that the Deacon had failed to
remove from the hook, and was now making frantic efforts to escape.
When the Deacon was informed of what was certainly nothing short of a
cat-astrophe, he hastened to the rescue. Then and there was furnished
such an exhibition of artistic and skilful handling of a rod as few have
been permitted to witness. If a ten-pound trout instead of a cat had
been at the end of the line, the Deacon could not have done better. Did
the cat run up the side of the building, the Deacon paid out line. Did
it run down again, he reeled in. His poise and calm were admirable.
Once, indeed, when the youngster giggled, the Deacon’s voice was heard
remarking that he did not see anything to laugh at. This furnished an
atom too much for the Preacher’s self-control, and he hurried into a
boat and rowed hastily out to the middle of the lake where he could give
vent to the emotions which rent and tore him. An hour later, when
the Preacher returned, all was peaceful. Despite the Deacon’s
skill--possibly because of it--the cat had gotten off.
Did you ever see a muskallonge walk over the water on its tail? It is
not claimed that this is its favourite method of taking a stroll, but
only that under certain exceptional circumstances it may be induced to
disport itself in this manner. W. G. had always felt like fishing, but
circumstances had not permitted much indulgence of this inherent desire.
When he had succeeded in making arrangements for a trip to Pike Lake and
found himself on the twenty-five-mile drive from the railway station
to the lake, he was happy. To be sure, the city-dweller was not quite
prepared for the quiet of the woods, and when night came he was heard to
aver that it was so still it made him nervous. However, on the whole,
he found the experience quite to his liking, and entered with enthusiasm
upon pursuit of the valorous muskallonge. It was the first one he struck
which furnished the remarkable phenomenon of walking upon the water. He
was trolling with a steel rod and plenty of line out, when a careless
muskie grabbed the hook. The figure which a moment before had been
relaxed and seemingly inert, became a mass of steel springs. Over that
placid face came a look of such fierceness as fairly to frighten his
boat-mates. He began to reel, but that did not at all satisfy his desire
for speed. Casting the rod aside, grabbing the line and standing up in
the boat, he jerked that muskallonge in, seemingly a rod at a jerk.
To the onlookers the fish seemed to touch only the high places on the
water, and then only with his tail. Not one muskie out of a thousand
has a mouth tough enough to stand such treatment, but this was an
exceptional fish. He came walking into the boat as if he had been
accustomed to such violent exercise from childhood. We did not need to
club him; he had died of surprise.
It was a muskie that furnished us with an introduction to those tricky
scales which some unregenerate fishermen are said to use. We had
journeyed to the Ottonaby Lakes, north of Port Hope, in search of bass
and muskallonge. The senior member of the party had never caught a
specimen of the latter, and was up at sunrise every morning to be rowed
up and down until breakfast-time in pursuit of this gallant fish. When
the Preacher came down to breakfast one morning there was the old
gentleman, the centre of an admiring group gathered about a muskallonge.
There could be no doubt as to its genuineness, but when the Senior
announced that it weighed thirteen pounds, the Preacher was stunned.
He thought of certain fish of which he had heard whose great weight was
found to be due to some pounds of shot that had been surreptitiously
poured down their gullets. One look at the honest face of the Senior
dispelled all such suspicions.
“Who weighed him?”
“I did,” answered the landlord. “He goes a little over thirteen pounds.”
After breakfast the troubled Preacher went behind the bar in search of
those scales, and was caught in the act by the landlord.
“What do you want?” questioned the proprietor.
“I want to weigh that fish.”
In a low voice that could not reach the Senior in the adjoining
dining-room, the landlord said: “Never mind. I’ll tell you. That fish
weighs just five pounds.”
And that unsuspicious old man went back home and bragged of his
thirteen-pound muskie, while the Preacher said never a word. What’s the
use of spoiling a good story?
Some people seem to be naturally skeptical about fish stories. They
should not be, for tales of piscatorial adventure are peculiar in that,
no matter how big they are made, they can never equal the facts. The
Preacher had just come to his new parish, and after a month or so of
work there had taken a trip to the Nepigon. He could do nothing less, on
his return, than tell stories of big trout, for there were no others to
tell about. At the dinner table in one of the homes of his parish he had
been relating some of his fishing adventures on the famous stream, of an
eight-pound trout taken at Victoria Pool and the numbers that went four
and five pounds each, when the hostess, a vivacious and witty woman,
threw up her hands and jocularly exclaimed: “For Heaven’s sake! What
sort of a pastor have we drawn?”
It was a year or two later that the Preacher, when spending a few days
on Tomahawk Lake, caught a muskie that went a little over seventeen
pounds. Recalling the skepticism of his parishioner, he had the fish
packed in a box where it could lie out at full length, surrounded it
with moss and ice, and expressed it to the doubter. When he reached home
again the skeptic had been soundly converted from the error of her ways.
On their first meeting after the reception of the muskie, she said:
“Pastor, after this you may tell any fish-lie you like and I will swear
to it.”