HASTY VISITS TO AMERICA
The untravelled English angler has, pardonably enough, vague notions as
to the sport to be had with the rod of a mere visitor in the United
States. He fancies generally that he has only to come, see, and
conquer; and this is partly because he confuses Canada with the country
south of the great chain of lakes. No doubt there is an abundant
variety of angling in the States; but here, as at home, you must go far
afield. Do not forget that even the best American streams are as
easily fished out as our own. Pending the completion of the Exhibition
at Chicago, I had been gathering, from reliable sources, some facts
that may be of use to those readers who are always craving knowledge in
the columns of the fishing papers; and I endeavoured to discover what
the casual visitor, finding himself at the best-known cities, may
expect without travelling too far from his base of operations. The
result of my inquiries, however, is at best only an outline sketch, and
it may be that time has brought changes.
Let us suppose that you are in New York. At the termination of the
voyage, when you were not engaged in admiring the pretty residences on
the wooded slopes of Staten Island, you would look occasionally to the
right upon Long Island, one of the lungs of New York, though the city
has in itself so clear an atmosphere that people are able to build
marble houses with impunity. Still, in the heat of summer the
citizens--and small blame to them--make it a rule of flying nearer the
ocean, and Long Island is one of their handiest and most appreciated
resorts. There are upon it many trout preserves; "ponds" they are
called, but we should give them the higher title of lakes with a clear
conscience. They are generally maintained by clubs of wealthy members,
and each has its comfortable house.
The earliest trout fishing to be found in this country is here. April
1 is the opening day, and the season opened well, though a snap of
rough weather during the last fortnight interfered with sport. There
are numbers of lady anglers, members of the Long Island colony, and two
of them to my knowledge made capital baskets during the Easter week. A
New Yorker gets through his business in the city before luncheon, and
then, in a couple of hours, he is at the Long Island clubhouse getting
into his fishing suit. Fly-fishing only is practised, and the fish are
principally fontinalis. Unless otherwise stated, this species is
always intended in any reference to trout.
Our brother anglers here are, as a rule, keen sportsmen and honest men,
meaning that they are glad whenever they can assist another in securing
the recreation which makes fishermen kin all the world over. My chief
trouble was that I could make no manner of use of a tantalising list of
kindly invitations to cast a fly in Long Island. Then there is another
and smaller island at a greater distance, Martha's Vineyard, beloved of
old whalers, where there are well stocked trout streams; but it goes
quite without saying that all the water near New York City is
preserved. Outside, in New York State, the trout fishing opens on
April 15, and the favourite country is in the Adirondacks, where the
wood-built veranda'd clubhouses are pitched here and there over a vast
tract of woods, beside lakes and streams. To reach the Adirondacks you
have a fifteen hours' journey by rail, and waggon tracks over hilly,
and not macadamised roads, that will account for from two to fifteen
hours more, according to the retreat chosen. You are here quite out of
the world, and for the nearest fishing grounds you may leave New York
by the evening train to-day, and be at work at even-tide to-morrow.
From Boston, the quiet city of studious men and women, who regard their
old town still as the "hub of the universe," there are endless
possibilities, more or less inland. Connecticut, Vermont, and
mountainous New Hampshire, abound in charming minor streams and
picturesque scenery. The delights of this New England fishing and
camping have been faithfully immortalised in that incomparable prose
idyll "I Go a Fishing," by Prime. Maine, however, is the United States
angler's paradise. This involves at least a twenty-four hours' journey
by rail and steamer, if you would reach the famous lake region of that
sporting state. The trout run large, and I have seen the skin of a
handsome 9-lb. fontinalis killed there with the fly. There are
declared to be even bigger fish than this; but 4-lb. and 5-lb. fish are
considered really good specimens. The average is not lower than 2 lb.,
and 3-lb. fish may be taken as "good." The flies used are never
smaller than our sea-trout size, and they are more often larger; but
the best anglers catalogue you as a lubber if you wield anything
heavier than a boy's rod. I have looked over some fly books in active
service, and when some day I find myself in that log-house in the Maine
woods which I have in my notebook, I will back my selected half-dozen
of our English, Irish, and Scotch sea-trout and lake flies against the
best of the Orvis favourites.
Philadelphia, which, from my all too passing and superficial view of
it, has the most English-looking suburbs of any city I have seen, does
not count for much with the angler. There are some streams in
Pennsylvania which yield plenty of small trout, and if you know the
proper places, at the head waters and elsewhere, the Delaware and
Susquehannah rivers, which, in crossing them, I was assured contained
no game fish at all, have very fair black bass streams, while there are
what we should rank as burn trout in most of the tributaries tumbling
down through the woods and the mountains and hills. As for salmon, I
may here remark that I could only hear of one pool in the United States
where Salmo salar can be caught. There are heaps of salmon on the
Pacific slope, but they are not salar, and not sportive in the rivers
to the fly. This pool is the watery fretwork of a dam where the tidal
portion of a fifty-mile length of river is ended, and the salmon are
therefore caught in brackish water always with the fly. Seventy were
taken there the previous year.
Washington--the city still of magnificent distances, though it is
gradually filling in the blanks, and is looked forward to as the coming
city of the leisure and pleasure classes, who shall live unpolluted by
the rank snobbery of New York fashion, the chicanery of Wall Street,
and the genius of the almighty dollar, which rules in other
cities--Washington, I regret to find, is no better for the angler than
Philadelphia. But you get bass fishing in the historic Potomac, and
small trout in the hill country of Maryland and Virginia.
On the face of it, Chicago, with its surroundings of prairie and lake,
would not tempt the angler. Yet it is in this respect most fortunately
placed, and I made the acquaintance of many anglers of the right sort,
and enthusiastic enough for anything. It is a marvellous city, of
really magical growth and extent, and the energy of the people is
appalling. But it is nonsense to call it magnificent in anything but
its enterprise and the size of its buildings towering to the sky, and
not beautiful. Moreover, it is smoky. Hence the anglers are numerous;
they have many incentives to flee from it. The lake yields no angling
for the skilled rod. The boys and loafers get, however, plenty of
1/2-lb. perch. The nearest respectable sport for the fly or minnow man
is with black bass, in the smaller lakes and connecting rivers within
two or three hours' railway journey; and there are six or eight other
percoid forms such as striped, calico, and rock bass, and several of
the sunfishes, all of which take a fly. The game is not of high repute
all the same, and they are somewhat slightingly spoken of as "only pan
fish." But they run from 1/2 lb. to 3 lb., and rise voraciously. The
next best sport with black bass, which is the game fish most sworn by
in this district, is in Northern Illinois and Indiana, fifty miles and
more by train from Chicago. Farther afield still are the streams and
lakes of Wisconsin, which may be brought into a day's work by starting
early. In Northern Wisconsin there are trout in the streams, and
muskalonge galore in the lakes. Altogether it is a very fly-fishing
state, and heavy creels can be made from the streams falling into Lake
Superior. The Michigan and Montana streams enjoy the distinction of
holding the indigenous grayling, which take the fly freely, and have
their enthusiastic admirers, who protect and cherish them. They are,
however, decreasing in numbers and their establishment in other states
was still problematical. A 2-lb. Michigan grayling is the maximum, so
far as the experience of native observers can fix it. A pound is an
honest sample for the creel.
The black bass, as I have said, are prime favourites in the angling
resorts of the interior. They spawn any time, according to locality,
between April and July; but there is a brief spell of smart fishing
before they get on the shallows. This happens during what is called
the "spring run"; that is to say, when they are moving from the deep
waters of their winter quarters (some think that they hibernate) to the
sandy shallows (if they can get sand) of the streams and lakes. Before
this, however, the pike-fishers have been having sport, if the waters
allow it, in March. The winters here are often open, that of which I
saw something, with a snow tempest of three days, being the exceptional
season of ten years at least. Sometimes the enthusiasts are piking
even in February, getting fish from 2 lb. to 20 lb., which Dr.
Henshall, the well-known author and naturalist, pronounces true Esox
lucius. This is the fish we often read of as the pickerel, and it is
taken with a local minnow some 3 in. long, or one of the spoons, of
which America is the cradle.
The black bass, it may be premised, has been transplanted to many
states where it did not previously occur, and has taken most kindly to
the waters of middle and eastern states, where the croakers predicted
it would and could never thrive. The fly-fishers prefer wading, and
use a fly large as a small salmon pattern, gut of Mayfly strength, line
of corresponding size, and the light ten-feet built-up cane rods, which
were first brought into general action in this country. The custom is
either to cast across, with a tendency downwards, and to work the fly
slightly as it swings round, or to cast down and work back. Three or
two flies are used. Minnow fishers are in a minority, and fly-fishing
is reckoned the correct method by the angler. Dr. Henshall had had so
many "records" that he could not remember offhand his best with fly;
but his heaviest bag--and he did not confess it with any pride--was,
spinning with the minnow, seventy black bass, averaging 2 lb., in a
day. The biggest fish are in the lakes; but a 4-lb. specimen is large
anywhere, save in the Gulf States, where all fish seem to reach
abnormal dimensions. June and July are the best months for sport in
these North-Western States; August, as in England, is a depressing
month for the angler; but fishing becomes merry in September and
October, and is pursued with zest in the cool evenings, at which time
the gorgeous tints of the American fall are deepening. Altogether the
autumn fishing is the most enjoyable; for, while the conditions just
indicated are to be considered, the water has become thoroughly
settled, and there are no fears of flood and disturbance. After
spawning, the bass is quickly in condition; as a matter of fact, it is
seldom out of it.
There was some rare fun one day with a brace of alligators sent by
express from Florida. They were the patriarchs of a considerable
consignment, and arrived pretty miserable five days back in wooden
boxes. They were put into a lagoon in the open grounds. Then we had
bitter wintry gales with snow flurries, and a blizzard which, had the
season been earlier and the ground frozen, would have given us a foot
of snow. Anyhow, it made the temperature of the lagoon a very
unsuitable figure for the alligators, and they had to be looked
promptly after. They were driven at length into a bay with poles, and
pretty furious they were, lashing round with their tails and snapping
viciously. As these fellows were 10 ft. long, the men told off to the
duty had to proceed warily, and after an hour's exciting sport
succeeded in lassoing them one after the other round the neck, yanking
them ashore, and bustling them into wooden cases made expressly for
their accommodation. They were at once taken to the warm interior of
the horticultural building, and I saw them spending their Sabbath in
some degree of comfort in the tepid water of the basin, without even
guessing that in the old country it was Shakespeare's day.
Some of the queer fish swimming about in the big aquarium tanks
naturally drew my attention. Carriers from Florida and elsewhere were
arriving every day with new specimens, and I could see, in a quarter of
an hour's stroll round the circular annexe, more live fish than I had
ever seen in three of the largest aquariums known in England, had they
been combined into one. There were some large fellows, something like
pollack, cruising around, and these are called buffaloes. Insinuating
their slow course through the crowd were fresh-water gar-fish with long
spike noses. The catfish, with its greasy chubby body, portmanteau
mouth, and prominent wattles, were precisely like those we used to
catch (and eat sometimes) in Australia. Carp were present in numbers,
including the mirror and leather varieties, but carp culture was not so
fashionable as it was in the States. My eyes were gladdened with a
grand lot of tench, in the primest colouring of bright bronze; they
were raised from some of our British Stock. A whole tank was filled
with two-year-old fontinalis; another with young lake trout, handsome
12-in. examples at two years old, and not easy at a glance to
distinguish from fontinalis. Then came a tank of young sturgeon; and,
in a general assembly next door, were a few wall-eyed pike; this is
really a pike-perch, differing in the markings, however, from the
zander of Central Europe.
A most droll-looking customer is the paddle fish. With body suggesting
a compromise between sturgeon and catfish, he has a long, perfectly
straight duck bill, and so seems to be always shoving ahead of him a
good broad paper knife nine or ten inches long. This weapon is used
for digging up the bed of the river, but if it could be insinuated out
of the water into a drowsy angler's leg it would probably make him sit
up. As the paddle is as long as the fish the creature presents a
really farcical appearance. The species runs to a hundredweight, I
believe, in the Mississippi.
There was a river form that seemed particularly anxious to come to the
front that is called the sea trout, from its rough-and-ready
resemblance to that species, but its real name is the weak-fish--a sad
come-down for any creature. There was a puffed-out beast, with velvet
jacket, zebra markings, and turquoise eye, which was a perfect monster
of ugliness, but I did not catch its name. Its head was as much a
caricature as a pantomime mask.
On another page I mentioned the killing of a fontinalis trout of over 9
lb., and I begged the captor to tell me the story of his prize. "Why,
certainly," said Mr. Osgood; "I caught that fish with the rod, and the
place was a typical anglers' paradise. You'll experience that for
yourself when you keep that promise you have made me. You see, when I
made my first cast---- Oh! I beg your pardon. Begin at the beginning
must I? I understand; you want to give your English brother
anglers--and my brother anglers too, I suppose?--an idea of what a
fishing expedition is like out here, do you? Then I begin first at New
York.
"You take the evening boat at 5.30 for Boston, fare four dollars.
There is beautiful sleeping accommodation, the Sound is smooth water
all the time, and you get to Boston at half-past seven next morning.
Better get your breakfast on board before you land, and then take the
8.30 Boston and Maine line train, reaching Portland at noon. Then you
switch on to the Grand Trunk system for Bryant's Pond, reached at 4.20.
Here you take the stage coach with a team of six horses, runners and
fliers all. The road is pretty hilly, however, and your twenty-mile
drive brings you to Andover for early supper, having on the road
crossed--coach team, and everything--a wide river (the Androsciggin) by
a float, hauled over by a rope. You stay at Andover for the night, and
next morning continue the journey in a birchboard waggon with a pair of
horses. This is a delightful drive through winding woods along the
side of a hill, crossing numbers of small streams.
"Eventually you enter the Narrows, from which you emerge into
Mollechuncamunk, a small Indian name that takes practice to pronounce.
It is necessary to mention it nevertheless, because, in the river
between it and Mooseluckmegunquic, you find the largest trout. Indian
name too? Why cert'nly. It tells its own story pretty well also, but
no Indian chief gets any moose, or calls for his gun there, any more.
Now then we are on the spot. It is in this stream, between the two
lakes, in a pool 500 ft. and 400 ft. below the dam, that the trick was
done.
"The pool is magnificent, alive and streaming all over, and varying
from 2 ft. to 20 ft. You can see the trout in the clear water lying on
the bottom in any number; lovely fish, ranging from 1/2 lb. to 7 lb. or
8 lb. About 200 ft. from the shore, and practically facing this pool,
is our wood-built hotel, one and half stories, with wide veranda
covered with woodbine, green lawn, and flower beds in front, blooming
with geraniums and pansies. This is the anglers' camp, and the
happiest hours of my life have been spent there. We have twenty-seven
rooms, and they are all lined with native pine, and varnished and kept
as clean as a tea saucer. The roar of that pool is so musical that if
it ever stops you cannot sleep. The people of the house are excellent
people, good sportsmen, and men and women alike just devote themselves
to making the angling boys happy and comfortable. You pay your two
dollars a day for board and lodging, and live like fighting
cocks--plenty of fruit and vegetables, and any variety of butcher's
meat and side dishes. You can fish from the shore if you like, but a
boat is best. You can hire one for two dollars a week, and if you want
a competent guide to manage it, that will cost you two and a half
dollars a day, for labour is not cheap here, and these guides are most
skilful and experienced. If you have them you have forty miles of lake
to fish, as well as the dam pool. However, let us suppose you go out
in your own boat. One peculiarity of the pool is, that wherever you
anchor you will have a down-stream wind, and that is what you want
here. Out with your 40-lb. weight, and there you are at anchor.
"And now we come to September 18 last year. It was Sunday, a day upon
which I seldom fish. At the bottom of the pool, however, a large trout
had been seen rising, and lots of men had been trying for it. So I
went out at the most favourable hour--five in the afternoon, with my
10-ft. Kosmie rod, weighing exactly 6 1/4 ounces. I like myself to
fish with a single fly, and I anchored my boat about 30 ft. from the
head of the outfall sluice. The fly was the B. Pond, so called because
it is a favourite on a lake of that name, and, as you will see, it was
a 2 per cent. Sproat hook. These big fish have a habit of showing on
the top, and I had marked where it rolled. It had been in the same
place for quite a week, and we all knew about it, and had even decided
that it was a female fish, as, indeed, it turned out to be. So we got
to speak of her as the Queen of the Pool; and it was because I had been
challenged to catch her by the score of fellows who had been trying for
her that I went out on this particular day. I took boat an hour before
I intended to fish, and dropped quietly down, bit by bit, at intervals,
to the spot I had marked in my eye. It was not far from the head of
the sluice, and, therefore, a most critical position. I had worn the
B. Pond stuck in my hat for days, so that it should be quite dry. I
only allowed myself line 2 ft. longer than my rod. After a few flicks
with my left hand I delivered a business cast with my right, and in an
instant she came up with a roll, and I struck and hooked.
"There was no need to shout. The Queen of the Pool leaped two feet out
of water and then made straight for the sluice. This was the dilemma I
had feared all along, and my plan of action had been well thought out
beforehand. I raised and held firm my rod, and let the fish and it
settle the whole business on a tight line. She often brought the top
curving right down to the water, but I never departed from my plan. I
kept the rod at an angle of about forty-five degrees throughout, and
risked all the consequences. The men from the bank, of course, shouted
'Give her line,' but I knew what my rod could do, and knew that all the
rigging was to be trusted.
"This went on for an hour and five minutes. Sometimes the fish made
for the boat, sometimes for the sluice, and the rod was never still,
but she had to give in. At last another boat came and fastened to
mine, and the guide in it after three unsuccessful shots dipped her out
in the net. I need not tell of the excitement there was when we got
ashore. The fish was there and then weighed and measured, and there
and then entered on the records. Weight 9 lb. 2 oz., length 27 1/2
in., girth 17 in. She was a most handsome fontinalis, and we counted
ninety-three vermilion spots on one of her sides."
After this story from an experienced angler, whose word is never
doubted, I was very anxious to see that small rod. The fish, as
described, was before my eyes; I handled the fly (what at least was
left of it), and can describe it. B. Pond was really a fair-sized
salmon fly--turkey wing, orange body, and claret hackles, with the gold
tip of the Professor. The collar was of picked medium gut stained
black, many of the American anglers contending that this is the colour
least obtrusive to fish. The line was strong, but not large. The rod
was just as small as described, and certainly a masterpiece of work.
* * * * * *
On returning to New York, after my visit to Chicago, and delightful day
at Niagara Falls, it was not until I arrived at Albany that I saw
anything in the shape of scenery which could be compared to England;
and very sorry was I not to be able to go across the river and ramble
about the town, that seemed to be environed with pleasant meadows and
abundant foliage--the type of scenery one loves in the old country.
The run down the Hudson river, even in the railway train, was a
continued delight; for the scenery, where it is not magnificent, is
always picturesque. In the summer there is a service of steamers from
New York to Albany, up and down; but just as I was too soon for the
fishing, so was I too soon for the summer excursions. The knowledge
that the boats would begin to run in three or four days' time was no
consolation to me. Had it been otherwise I should have left the train
at Albany and taken the Hudson steamer. Still, I had 150 miles of ever
varying scenery, with the noble Hudson on my right hand nearly the
entire distance. You soon get accustomed to the great white buildings,
that at first remind one of a covered ship-building yard, but which you
soon discover are the ice-houses in which is stored the cooling
material for the cunning summer drinks which the American loves. By
and by mountain masses appear in the distance, and the broad meadow
land narrows, until you are confronted by bold headlands rising often
uprightly from the water.
Of course, the Catskill Mountains are the _pièce de résistance_ of this
trip, and amongst the places where one would like to stop is Fishkill,
a few miles below Poughkeepsie, the points of beauty being the city of
Newburgh, over the water, and the widening of the river known as
Newburgh Bay. Then come the fine Highlands of the Hudson, with massive
granite precipices, and Storm King towering boldly 1,529 ft. above the
level. West Point succeeds; and there is more beautiful scenery at
Peekskill. After the State prison of Sing Sing we run past the Sleepy
Hollow country, with associations of Knickerbocker, Rip Van Winkle, and
the romantic Dutch citizens of old New Amsterdam. The Palisades
(twenty miles of lofty, rugged natural wall) are a fine finish to the
run.
There seemed to be enough nets and fishing apparatus along the Hudson
to depopulate the stream, but there is some very good angling of a
common sort to be obtained there. Striped bass, white perch, pickerel,
sun-fish, frost-fish, and catfish are amongst the game, and trout are
to be found in many of the tributary brooks. The New Yorkers, I found,
also fish the Mohawk, where there are plenty of pike, pickerel, and
perch, pike being most abundant. The baits are crabs, crickets, and
minnows. Expensive as many things were in America, boats, at any rate
on waters of this kind, could be had much cheaper than in England, 50
to 75 cents per day being a usual charge.
Mr. Osgood, the slayer of the big fontinalis, had been round the
country, and I found him amongst his fishing tackle in New York,
showing rods and flies to an admiring trio of anglers, who, with the
near approach of June, were making ready their outfit. I spoke in
terms of bitter disappointment at my fate in having to leave the
country without even seeing a trout stream. I had three days to spare
before the boat sailed, and when Mr. Osgood was free he began to think
what could be done. The result was that he took me over and introduced
me to Mr. Harris, the editor of the _American Angler_, an illustrated
magazine of fish, fishing, and fish culture, issued monthly. When he
learned my troubles he made a suggestion, which suggestion being jumped
at by me, he sat him down, with the business-like promptitude by which
our Trans-atlantic cousins save a good deal of time in the course of
the day, wrote a letter, and the thing was done. The letter was an
injunction to someone to take care of me and show me the best that was
to be seen. Mr. Osgood kindly allowed his business to slide for a day
or so, and in an hour we were crossing to New Jersey, and were soon on
board a train bound for Rockland County. The scenery here also was
quite English, of the pleasantest pastoral type; for we were passing
through highly cultivated farms, in conditions of agriculture that had
not yet brought the owner and cultivator of the soil under such a cloud
of dismal distress as we had experienced at home. A buggy was waiting
for us at the station, and we had a couple of miles' drive, finished by
turning out of the high road and galloping down a sandy track, across a
rustic bridge, and through a charming plantation.
On a knoll, surrounded by thickets just showing leaf, stood a neat
wooden structure with a veranda running around it. A couple of setters
and a pointer in a kennel welcomed us by frantic barking, but for the
time that was the only sign or sound of life. We were in a sylvan
solitude, and somewhere near was heard the musical flow of water
through the tangled copse. The good lady who had charge of the
clubhouse eventually came forward and read the letter which made me
free of the house. It was not, however, till dusk that her husband,
the bailiff, appeared, and we therefore had no opportunity, as we had
hoped to do, of any evening fishing, but we had a hearty dinner,
beautifully cooked and prepared in one of the cosiest sportsman's
retreats I have ever entered. The woodwork of the interior was
beautifully finished and polished; the furnishing was just enough for
comfort; and the bracing air and wafted murmurs that came to us, as we
smoked our pipes on the veranda, were most grateful. Mr. Harris had
kindly put into my hands a copy of his _American Angler_, describing
the birth of the club, which may be taken to be a representative
angling club for city gentlemen in America. It was called the
Quaspeake Club, and the house was pitched close to the Demorest brook.
This was the water the music of which we had heard, and from our
elevated position on the veranda we could see it; a little to the west,
and down below, it broke into a miniature cascade and was then lost
among the low-lying alders which hid the course of the stream. This
clubhouse was about ninety minutes by rail from New York; and in the
season the members escaped from the city by the four o'clock train, got
a couple of hours' trout fishing before night, and were back to
business again by nine o'clock next morning.