SHAD-FISHING BY PROXY
According to the almanac, May was on time to a second, but Nature seemed
unaware of the fact. Great bodies of snow covered the Adirondack region,
and not a little still remained all the way southward through the
Catskills and the Highlands, about the headwaters of the Delaware, and
its cold breath benumbed the land. Johnnie's chosen intimates had given
her their suffrages as May Queen; but prudent Maggie had decided that the
crowning ceremonies should not take place until May truly appeared, with
its warmth and floral wealth. Therefore, on the first Saturday of the
month, Leonard planned a half-holiday, which should not only compensate
the disappointed children, but also give his busy wife a little outing.
He had learned that the tide was right for crossing the shallows of the
Moodna Creek, and they would all go fishing. Johnnie's friends and Dr.
and Mrs. Marvin were invited, and great were the preparations. Reed and
all kinds of poles were taken down from their hooks, or cut in a
neighboring thicket, the country store was depleted of its stock of rusty
hooks, and stray corks were fastened on the brown linen lines for floats.
Burt disdained to take his scientific tackle, and indeed there was little
use for it in Moodna Creek, but he joined readily in the frolic. He would
be willing to fish indefinitely for even minnows, if at the same time
there was a chance to angle for Amy. Some preferred to walk to the river,
and with the aid of the family rockaway the entire party were at the
boat-house before the sun had passed much beyond the meridian. Burt, from
his intimate knowledge of the channel, acted as pilot, and was jubilant
over the fact that Amy consented to take an oar with him and receive a
lesson in rowing. Mrs. Marvin held the tiller-ropes, and the doctor was
to use a pair of oars when requested to do so. Webb and Leonard took
charge of the larger boat, of which Johnnie, as hostess, was captain, and
a jolly group of little boys and girls made the echoes ring, while Ned,
with his thumb in his mouth, clung close to his mother, and regarded the
nautical expedition rather dubiously. They swept across the flats to the
deeper water near Plum Point, and so up the Moodna, whose shores were
becoming green with the rank growth of the bordering marsh. Passing under
an old covered bridge they were soon skirting an island from which rose a
noble grove of trees, whose swollen buds were only waiting for a warmer
caress of the sun to unfold. Returning, they beached their boats below
the bridge, under whose shadow the fish were fond of lying. The little
people were disembarked, and placed at safe distances; for, if near, they
would surely hook each other, if never a fin. Silence was enjoined, and
there was a breathless hush for the space of two minutes; then began
whispers more resonant than those of the stage, followed by acclamations
as Johnnie pulled up a wriggling eel, of which she was in mortal terror.
They all had good sport, however, for the smaller fry of the finny tribes
that haunted the vicinity of the old bridge suffered from the well-known
tendency of extreme youth to take everything into its mouth. Indeed, at
that season, an immature sun-fish will take a hook if there is but a
remnant of a worm upon it. The day was good for fishing, since thin
clouds darkened the water. Amy was the heroine of the party, for Burt had
furnished her with a long, light pole, and taught her to throw her line
well away from the others. As a result she soon took, amidst excited
plaudits, several fine yellow perch. At last Leonard shouted:
"You shall not have all the honors, Amy. I have a hook in my pocket that
will catch bigger fish than you have seen to-day. Come, the tide is going
out, and we must go out of the creek with it unless we wish to spend the
night on a sand-bar. I shall now try my luck at shad-fishing over by
Polopel's Island."
The prospect of crossing the river and following the drift-nets down into
the Highlands was a glad surprise to all, and they were soon in Newburgh
Bay, whose broad lake-like surface was unruffled by a breath. The sun,
declining toward the west, scattered rose-hues among the clouds. Sloops
and schooners had lost steerage-way, and their sails flapped idly against
the masts. The grind of oars between the thole-pins came distinctly
across the water from far-distant boats, while songs and calls of birds,
faint and etherealized, reached them from the shores. Rowing toward a man
rapidly paying out a net from the stern of his boat they were soon hailed
by Mr. Marks, who with genial good-nature invited them to see the sport.
He had begun throwing his net over in the middle of the river, his
oarsman rowing eastward with a slight inclination toward the south, for
the reason that the tide is swifter on the western side. The aim is to
keep the net as straight as possible and at right angles with the tide.
The two boats were soon following Mr. Marks on either side, the smooth
water and the absence of wind enabling them to keep near and converse
without effort. Away in their wake bobbed the cork floats in an irregular
line, and from these floats, about twenty feet below the surface, was
suspended the net, which extended down thirty or forty feet further,
being kept in a vertical position by iron rings strung along its lower
edge at regular intervals. Thus the lower side of the net was from fifty
to sixty feet below the surface. In shallow water narrower nets are
rigged to float vertically much nearer the surface. Mr. Marks explained
that his net was about half a mile long, adding,
"It's fun fishing on a day like this, but it's rather tough in a gale of
wind, with your eyes half blinded by rain, and the waves breaking into
your boat. Yes, we catch just as many then, perhaps more, for there are
fewer men out, and I suppose the weather is always about the same, except
as to temperature, down where the shad are. The fish don't mind wet
weather; neither must we if we make a business of catching them."
"Do you always throw out your net from the west shore toward the east?"
Webb asked.
"No, we usually pay out against the wind. With the wind the boat is apt
to go too fast. The great point is to keep the net straight and not all
tangled and wobbled up. Passing boats bother us, too. Sometimes a float
will catch on a paddle-wheel, and like enough half of the net will be
torn away. A pilot with any human feeling will usually steer one side,
and give a fellow a chance, and we can often bribe the skipper of
sailing-craft by holding up a shad and throwing it aboard as he tacks
around us. As a rule, however, boats of all kinds pass over a net without
doing any harm. Occasionally a net breaks from the floats and drags on
the bottom. This is covered with cinders thrown out by steamers, and they
play the mischief."
"Do the fish swim against the tide?"
"Usually, but they come in on both sides."
"Mr. Marks, how can you catch fish in a net that is straight up and
down?" Amy asked.
"You'll soon see, but I'll explain. The meshes of the net will stretch
five inches. A shad swims into one of these and then, like many others
that go into things, finds he can't back out, for his gills catch on the
sides of the mesh and there he hangs. Occasionally a shad will just
tangle himself up and so be caught, and sometimes we take a large striped
bass in this way."
In answer to a question of Burt's he continued: "I just let my net float
with the tide as you see, giving it a pull from one end or the other now
and then to keep it as straight and as near at right angles with the
river as possible. When the tide stops running out and turns a little we
begin at one end of the net and pull it up, taking out the fish, at the
same time laying it carefully in folds on a platform in the stern-sheets,
so as to prevent any tangles. If the net comes up clear and free, I may
throw it in again and float back with the tide. So far from being able to
depend on this, we often have to go ashore where there is a smooth beach
before our drift is over and disentangle our net. There, now, I'm
through, with paying out. Haven't you noticed the floats bobbing here and
there?"
"We've been too busy listening and watching you," said Leonard.
"Well, now, watch the floats. If you see one bob under and wobble, a shad
has struck the net near it, and I can go and take him out. In smooth
water it's like fishing with one of your little cork bobblers there on
your lines. I'll give the shad to the first one that sees a float bob
under."
Alf nearly sprang out of the boat as he pointed and shouted, "There,
there."
Laughing good-naturedly, Mr. Marks lifted the net beneath the float, and,
sure enough, there was a great roe-shad hanging by his gills, and Alf
gloated over his supper, already secured.
The fish were running well, and there were excited calls and frantic
pointings, in which at first even the older members of the party joined,
and every few moments a writhing shad flashed in the slanting rays as it
was tossed into the boat. Up and down the long, irregular line of floats
the boats passed and repassed until excitement verged toward satiety, and
the sun, near the horizon, with a cloud canopy of crimson and gold,
warned the merry fishers by proxy that their boats should be turned
homeward. Leonard pulled out what he termed his silver hook, and supplied
not only the Clifford family, but all of Johnnie's guests, with fish so
fresh that they had as yet scarcely realized that they were out of water.
"Now, Amy," said Burt, "keep stroke with me," adding, in a whisper, "no
fear but that we can pull well together."
Her response was, "One always associates a song with rowing. Come, strike
up, and let us keep the boats abreast that all may join."
He, well content, started a familiar boating song, to which the splash of
their oars made musical accompaniment. A passing steamer saluted them,
and a moment later the boats rose gracefully over the swells. The glassy
river flashed back the crimson of the clouds, the eastern slopes of the
mountains donned their royal purple, the intervening shadows of valleys
making the folds of their robes. As they approached the shore the
resonant song of the robins blended with the human voices. Burt, however,
heard only Amy's girlish soprano, and saw but the pearl of her teeth
through her parted lips, the rose in her cheeks, and the snow of her
neck.
Final words were spoken and all were soon at home. Maggie took the
household helm with a fresh and vigorous grasp. What a supper she
improvised! The maids never dawdled when she directed, and by the time
the hungry fishermen were ready, the shad that two hours before had been
swimming deep in the Hudson lay browned to a turn on the ample platter.
"It is this quick transition that gives to game fish their most exquisite
flavor," Burt remarked.
"Are shad put down among the game fish?" his father asked.
"Yes; they were included not very long ago, and most justly, too, as I
can testify to-night. I never tasted anything more delicious, except
trout. If a shad were not so bony it would be almost perfection when
eaten under the right conditions. Not many on the Hudson are aware of the
fact, perhaps, but angling for them is fine sport in some rivers. They
will take a fly in the Connecticut and Housatonic; but angle-worms and
other bait are employed in the Delaware and Southern rivers. The best
time to catch them is early in the morning, and from six to eight in the
evening. At dusk one may cast for them in still water, as for trout. The
Hudson is too big, I suppose, and the water too deep, although I see no
reason why the young fry should not be caught in our river as well as in
the Delaware. I have read of their biting voraciously in September at a
short distance above Philadelphia."
"Do you mean to say that our rivers are full of shad in August and
September?" Leonard asked.
"Yes; that is, of young shad on the way to the sea. The females that are
running up now will spawn in the upper and shallow waters of the river,
and return to the ocean by the end of June, and in the autumn the small
fry will also go to the sea, the females to remain there two years. The
males will come back next spring, and these young males are called
'chicken shad' on the Connecticut. Multitudes of these half-grown fish
are taken in seines, and sold as herrings or 'alewives'; for the true
herring does not run up into fresh water. Young shad are said to have
teeth, and they live largely on insects, while the full-grown fish have
no teeth, and feed chiefly on animalcules that form the greater part of
the slimy growths that cover nearly everything that is long under water."
"Well, I never had so much shad before in my life," said his father,
laughing, and pushing lack his chair; "and, Burt, I have enjoyed those
you have served up in the water almost as much as those dished under
Maggie's superintendence."
"I should suppose that the present mode of fishing with drift-nets was
cheaper and more profitable than the old method of suspending the nets
between poles," Leonard remarked.
"It is indeed," Burt continued, vivaciously, for he observed that Amy was
listening with interest. "Poles, too, form a serious obstruction. Once,
years ago, I was standing near the guards of a steamboat, when I heard
the most awful grating, rasping sound, and a moment later a shad-pole
gyrated past me with force enough to brain an elephant had it struck him.
It was good fun, though, in old times to go out and see them raise the
nets, for they often came up heavy with fish. Strange to say, a loon was
once pulled up with the shad. Driven by fear, it must have dived so
vigorously as to entangle itself, for there it hung with its head and one
leg fast. I suppose that the last moment of consciousness that the poor
bird had was one of strong surprise."