FISHING AND BOATING.
In the spring of the year when the ice broke up, in the creek, the
(pike) or (pickerel) came up in great abundance from Detroit River, and
they were easily caught. At such times the water was high in the creek,
often overflowing its banks. Sometimes the Ecorse appeared like quite a
river. We made a canoe of a white-wood log and launched it on the
Ecorse. Sometimes we went fishing in the canoe. At such times it needed
two, as the pickerel were fond of lying in shallow water or where there
was old grass. By looking very carefully, on the surface of the water, I
could see small ripples that the fishes made with their fins while they
were sporting in their native element. By having a person in the back
end of the canoe, pole it carefully, toward the place where I saw the
ripples, we would get up in plain sight of them, and they could be
either speared or shot.
I think the most successful way was shooting them, at least I preferred
it. If the fish lay near the surface of the water, I held the gun nearly
on it, and if it was six inches deep I held the gun six inches under it,
and fired. In this way, for the distance of two or three rods, I was
sure to kill them or stun them so that they turned belly up and lay till
they were easily picked up with a spear. In this way I frequently caught
a nice string. I have caught some that would weigh eight pounds apiece.
Sometimes I stood on a log that lay across the creek and watched for them
when they were running up. I recollect one cloudy afternoon I fished with
a spear and I caught as many as I wanted to carry to the house. Sometimes
they would be in a group of three, four or more together. I have seen
them, with a big fish below, and four or five smaller ones above him,
swimming along together as nicely as though they had been strung on an
invisible string, and drawn along quietly through the water. I could see
their wake as they were coming slowly up the creek keeping along one side
of it. When I first saw them in the water they looked dark, I saw it was
a group of fishes. It looked as though the smaller ones were guarding the
larger one, at least they were accompanying it. They appeared to be very
good friends, and well acquainted, and none of them afraid of being eaten
up, but any of them would have eagerly caught the smaller ones of another
species and swallowed them alive and whole. I do not know that they
devour and eat their own kind, I think not often, for nature has given
the pickerel, when young and small, the ability to move with such
swiftness that it would be impossible for a larger fish to catch them.
They will be perfectly still in the water, and if scared by anything they
will start away in any direction like a streak. They go as if it were no
effort and move with the rapidity of a dart. I have cut some of the large
pickerel open and found whole fish in them, five or six inches long.
But I must finish describing that group of fishes! As they were swimming
up, the smaller ones kept right over the large one. I stood until they
got almost to me and I killed four of them at once and got them all. It
is known that it is not necessary to hit a fish with a bullet in order to
get it. It is the force of the bullet, or charge, striking the water that
shocks or stuns him, and causes him to turn up.
These fish ran up two or three weeks every spring. Then those which were
not caught went back again into the Detroit River. Father made him what
he called a pike net which had two wings. By the time the fish were
running back, the water was settled into the bed of the creek. Then
father would set his net in the creek, stretch the wings across and stake
it fast. The mouth of the net opened up stream. This he called a funnel;
it was shaped like the top of a funnel. It was fastened with four hoops.
The first one was about as large around as the hoop of a flour barrel,
the next smaller, the third smaller still, and the last one was large
enough for the largest fish to go through.
When the net was fastened around these hoops it formed a tunnel about
four feet long. Then we had a bag net eight or ten feet long. The mouth
of this was tied around the first or large hoop of the tunnel, so when
the fish came down and ran into that they could not find their way out.
Father said when the fish were running back to Detroit River, it was
right to catch them, but when they were going up everybody along the
creek ought to have a chance. I never knew him to put his net in, so
long as the fish were running up. When they got to going back, as they
most all run in the night, in the evening he would go and set his net,
and next morning he would have a beautiful lot of fish. In this way, some
springs, we caught more than we could use fresh, so salted some down for
summer use. They helped us very much, taking the place of other meat. For
years back there have hardly any fish made their appearance up the
Ecorse. Now it would be quite a curiosity to see one in the creek. I
suppose the reason they do not come up is that some persons put in gill
nets at the mouth of the Ecorse, on Detroit River, and catch them, or
stop them at least. It is known that fish will not run out of a big
water, and run up a small stream, at any time except in the night.
These denizens of the deep have their own peculiar ways, and although man
can contrive to catch them, yet he cannot fathom the mysteries that
belong alone to them. Where they travel he cannot tell for they leave no
track behind.
It is seen that I used a hunter's phrase in my description of holding the
gun while shooting fish. The hunter will readily understand it as given.
If he has seen a deer and it has escaped him, and you ask him why he
didn't shoot it; he almost invariably says, "I couldn't get my gun on it
before it jumped out of my sight." To such as do not understand that
phrase I will say, the expression is allowable, as the bullet or charge
of shot flies so swiftly (even in advance of the sharp report of the
gun). The distance of twenty rods or more is virtually annihilated: Hence
the expression, "I held the gun on it," (though it was rods away.) If he
sighted his gun straight toward the object he wished to hit whether it
was in the air, under water, or on the ground, he would claim that he
held his gun on it.
I said that the bullet flew in advance of the report of the gun. That is
true, on the start, or until it struck an object. If the object was at a
reasonable distance, but if the distance proved too far, it of course
would fall behind the sound. The bullet is the bold--fearless--and often
cruel companion of the report of the gun, and loses in its velocity the
farther it flies, being impeded and resisted by the air, and at last is
left flattened and out of shape, a dead weight, while the report of the
gun passes on very swiftly, and dies away in the distance to be heard no
more. I have often heard the reports of guns very plainly that were fired
at ducks on Detroit River, six or seven miles away. With what velocity
their sounds approached me, I leave Dr. Derham to determine. According to
his calculation it must have been at the rate of eleven hundred and
forty-two feet per second. It has also been ascertained with what
velocity the ball leaves the gun and pierces the air. The following is
the practical result ascertained by the experiments of Mr. Robins, Count
Rumford, and Dr. Hutton: "A musket ball, discharged with a common charge
of powder, issues from the muzzle of the piece with a velocity between
sixteen and seventeen hundred feet in a second."