deep hole in the centre of Phillipse’s Pond, on Long Island. He came
out fiercely, and taking my fly as he went down, darted at once for the
bottom, which is absolutely covered with long, thick weeds. The moment
he found he was struck he took refuge among them, and tangled himself so
effectually that I could not feel him, and supposed he had escaped. By
carefully exerting sufficient force, however, the weeds were loosened
from the bottom, and the electric thrill of his renewed motion was again
perceptible. He was allowed to draw the line through the weeds and play
below them, as by so doing they would give a little, while if confined
in them he would have a leverage against them, and could, with one
vigorous twist, tear out the hook. When he was somewhat exhausted,
the question as to the better mode of landing him arose. The wind was
blowing so hard as to raise quite a sea, which washed the weeds before
it in spite of any strain that could be exerted by the rod, and drifted
the boat as well, rendering the latter almost unmanageable, while the
fish was still so vigorous as to threaten every moment to escape. I
besought the boatman, who was an old hand, and thoroughly up to his
business, to drop the boat down to the weeds and let me try and land
my fish with one hand while holding the rod with the other. He knew the
dangers of such a course, and insisted upon rowing slowly and carefully
for shore at a shallow place sheltered from the wind, although I greatly
feared the hook would tear out or the rod snap under the strain of
towing both weeds and fish; once near shore, he deliberately forced an
oar into the mud and made the boat fast to it, and then taking up the
net watched for a favorable chance. He waited for some time, carefully
putting the weeds aside until a gleaming line of silver glanced for
a moment beneath the water, when darting the net down he as suddenly
brought it up, revealing within its folds the glorious colors of a
splendid trout. That was the way to land a trout under difficulties,
although I still think I could have done it successfully by myself.
Generally the utmost delicacy should be shown in killing a fish, but
there are times when force must be exerted. If the fish is making for a
stump, or even weeds, he must be stopped at any reasonable risk of the
rod’s breaking or the fly’s tearing out. A stump is the most dangerous;
one turn around that and he is off, leaving your flies probably in a
most inconvenient place and many feet below the surface of the water.
But remember the oft-repeated maxim of a friend of the writer, who had
been with him many a joyous fishing day, “That one trout hooked is worth
a dozen not hooked.” Small trout are more apt to escape than large ones,
because the skin around the mouth of the latter is tougher. With either,
however, there is risk enough. The hook is small, and often takes but
a slight hold; the gut is delicate, and frequently half worn through by
continual casting. Fish are, in a majority of instances, hooked in the
corner of the upper jaw, where there is but a thin skin to hold them;
by long continued struggling the hole wears larger, and finally, to the
agony of the fisherman, the hook slips out.
There are occasions when force must be exerted, and then good tackle and
a well-made rod will repay the cost. At dusk, one night, I cautiously
approached the edge of a newly made pond, that was as full of stumps as
of fish, both being about the extreme limit, and casting into the clear
water struck a fine fish of three-quarters of a pound. Not a minute’s
grace did he receive, but I lugged and he fought, and after a general
turmoil I succeeded in bringing him to land, in spite of weeds and
stumps and twigs, which he did his best to reach. The same was done with
Severn fish after a loss of only three flies and with a rod that weighed
only eight ounces.
In landing a fish wait till he is pretty well exhausted, bring his mouth
above water, and keep it there till he is drawn into the net, and warn
your assistant to remove the net at once if he gets his head down. By
diving after him with the net the assistant would certainly not catch
the fish and might tangle one of your other flies. The fish should be
led into the net, and the latter kept as still as possible; he knows as
well as you do what it is for, and if his attention is drawn to it will
dart off as madly as ever.
* * * * *
The trout is admitted to be the most beautiful of all our fish; not so
large or powerful as the salmon, he is much more numerous, abounding in
all the brooks and rivulets of our Northern States. He lives at our
very doors; in the stream that meanders across yon meadow, where the
haymakers are now busy with their scythes, we have taken him in our
early days; down yonder in that wood is a brook filled with bright,
lively little fellows; and away over there we know of pools where there
are splendid ones. Who has not said or thought such words as he stood in
the bright summer’s day under the grateful shade of the piazza running
round the old country house where he played—a boy?
He does not make the nerves thrill and tingle like the salmon, he does
not leap so madly into the air nor make such fierce, resolute rushes; he
has not the silver sides, nor the great strength; but he is beautiful
as the sunset sky, brave as bravery itself, and is our own home darling.
How he flashes upon the sight as he grasps the spurious insect, and
turns down with a quick little slap of the tail! How he darts hither and
thither when he finds he is hooked! How persistently he struggles till
enveloped in the net! And then with what heart-rending sighs he breathes
away his life! Who does not love the lovely trout? With eye as deep and
melting, skin as rich and soft, and ways as wildly wilful as angelic
woman—who loves not one loves not the other. Who would not win the one
cares not to win the other. Strange that man should kill the thing he
loves but if to possess them kills them, he must kill. If women, like
the _Ephemerae_, died, as they often do, in their love, we should still
love them. Such is man; do not think I praise him. No one kills fish for
the pleasure of killing; but they cannot live out of water, nor we in
it, therefore one of us must die.
The man who kills to kill, who is not satisfied with reasonable sport,
who slays unfairly or out of season, who adds one wanton pang, that man
receives the contempt of all good sportsmen and deserves the felon’s
doom. Of such there are but few.
We seek this, our favorite fish, in early spring, when the ice has just
melted, and the cold winds remind one forcibly of bleak December, and
when we find him in the salt streams, especially of Long Island and Cape
Cod; but we love most to follow him in the early summer, along the merry
streams of old Orange, or the mountain brooks of Sullivan county; where
the air is full of gladness, and the trees are heavy with foliage—where
the birds are singing on every bough, and the grass redolent of violets
and early flowers. There we wade the cold brooks, leafy branches bowing
us a welcome as we pass, the water rippling over the hidden rocks,
and telling us, in its wayward way, of the fine fish it carries in its
bosom. With creel upon our shoulder and rod in hand, we reck not of the
hours, and only when the sinking sun warns of the approaching darkness
do we seek, with sharpened appetite, the hospitable country inn, and the
comfortable supper that our prey will furnish forth.
* * * * *
There is no fish more difficult to catch, nor that gives the true angler
more genuine sport, than the trout. His capture requires the nicest
tackle, the greatest skill, the most complete self-command, the highest
qualities of mind and body. The arm must be strong that wields the rod,
the eye true that sees the rise; the wrist quick that strikes at the
instant; the judgment good that selects the best spot, the most suitable
fly, and knows just how to kill the fish. A fine temper is required to
bear up against the loss of a noble fish, and patient perseverance to
conquer ill luck.
Hence it is that the fisherman is so proud of his basket of a dozen
half-pound trout. He feels that any one more awkward or less resolute
could not have done so well. He feels conscious that he does not owe his
success to mere luck, but has deserved the glory. He feels that he has
elevated himself by the very effort. Do not suppose I mean that there is
no skill in other fishing; there is in all, even in catching minnows for
bait, but most of all in trout-fishing.
TROUT FLIES.
“That _we are_ wise men, I shall not stoop to maintain, but that we
do love angling we are assured of, and therein we know that we are in
unison with very many greatly wise and wisely good men.”—_Thaddeus
Norris._
“The true angler is not confined to fly-fishing, as many imagine. When
the fly can be used it always should be used, but where the fly is
impracticable, or your fish will not rise to it, he is a very foolish
angler who declines to use bait.”—_W. C. Prime_.
“The creative power of genius can make a feather-fly live, and move,
and have being; and a wisely stricken fish gives up the ghost in
transports.”—“_J. Cypress, Jr._”
[Illustration: 0224]
64. Jungle Cock.
65. Lake Green.
66. Jenny Lind.
67. Poor Man’s Fly.
68. Pheasant.
69. Romeyn.
70. Morrison.
71. Katy-did.
72. Claret.
73. Hoskins.
74. Caldwell.
75. Iron Dun.
76. Queen of the Water.
77. Olive Gnat.
78. Brown Coffin.
“The deftly-tossed fly, taking wing on the nerve of a masterly cast,
will drop gracefully far out in the stream where the heavier gear of the
bait rod would never aspire to reach.”—_Charles Hallock._
“Fly-fishing may well be considered the most beautiful of all rural
sports.”—“_Frank Forester_.”
“To be a perfect trout fisher, to my mind, a man should follow no other
branch of fishing. It spoils his hand if he does. I myself, from the
practice of striking so hard in both salmon, pike and other fishing,
lose numbers of fish and flies in the course of the season; and what
makes it the more vexing is that they are nearly always the best and
heaviest fish.”—_Francis Francis_.
“If a pricked trout is chased into another pool, he will, I believe,
soon again take the artificial fly.”—_Sir Humphry Davy._
“It is only the inexperienced and thoughtless who find pleasure in
killing fish for the mere sake of killing them. No sportsman does
this.”—_W. C. Prime._
“We persevered, notwithstanding the storm, and got our hundred trout,
all alive and active, into Lake Salubria. They did not, however,
multiply as we hoped they would. For years one would hear occasionally
of a great trout being caught in the lake, till at last they were all
gone. They lacked the ripples and the running water. They lived to be
old, and then died without progeny, ‘making no sign.’”—_S. H. Hammond._
“The trout is such a light food, that eight of them, some ten inches
long, will not make a supper for a hearty man, leading this wilderness
life.”—“_Porte Crayon_.”
“I believe I am sincere in saying that I enjoy seeing another man throw
a fly, if he is a good and graceful sportsman, quite as much as doing it
myself.”—_W. C. Prime_.
“I was content with my one glimpse, by twilight, at the forest’s great
and solemn heart; and having once, alone, and in such an hour, touched
it with my own hand and listened to its throb, I have felt the awe of
that experience evermore.”—_A. Judd Northrup._
THE POETRY OF FLY FISHING
By F. E. Pond.
It has been said that the angler, like the poet, is born, not made. This
is a self-evident fact. Few men have risen to the dignity of anglers who
did not in early youth feel the unbearable impulse to go a-fishing.
There are, of course, noteworthy exceptions, but the rule holds good.
It might be added, too, that the genuine angler is almost invariably
a poet, although he may not be a jingler of rhymes—a ballad-monger.
Though, perhaps, lacking the art of versification, his whole life is in
itself a well-rounded poem, and he never misses the opportunity to “cast
his lines in pleasant places.”
This is particularly true of the artistic fly-fisher, for with him
each line is cast with the poetry of motion. Ned Locus, the inimitable
character of J. Cypress’ “Fire Island Ana,” is made to aver that he
“once threw his fly so far, so delicately, and suspendedly, that it took
life and wings, and would have flown away, but that a four-pound trout,
seeing it start, jumped a foot from the water and seized it, thus
changing the course of the insect’s travel from the upper atmosphere to
the bottom of his throat.” Being quoted from memory, these may not be
the words exactly, as Toodles would say, but the sentiment is the same.
There is the true poetical spirit pervading the very air, whispering
from the leaves, murmuring in the brook, and thus the surroundings of
the angler complete that which nature began, and make him a poet. In
common with other sports of the field, though in greater degree:
“It is a mingled rapture, and we find
The bodily spirit mounting to the mind.”
Bards have sung its praises, traditions have hallowed it, and
philosophers have revelled in the gentle pastime, from the days of
Oppian and Homer down to Walton, Christopher North and Tennyson.
Although the art of fly-fishing was not known to the ancients, the
poetry of angling has been enriched by the bards of ye-olden-time to
a remarkable degree. In Pope’s translation of the Iliad, the following
passage occurs:
“As from some rock that overhangs the flood,
The silent fisher casts the insidious food;
With fraudful care he waits the finny prize,
Then sudden lifts it quivering to the skies.”
One of the most familiar of Æsop’s fables, in rhyme, is that of the
Fisherman and the Little Fish, while Theocritus, who flourished about
the year 270 B. c., gives us a spirited idyl representing the life of a
Greek fisherman. Oppian and Aristotle each prepared a classical volume
on fish and fishing. Pliny in his “Historia Naturalis” treats at length
of the finny tribes, and Ansonius in his poem, “Mostella,” describes the
tench, salmon and other varieties of fish.
Among the early contributions to English literature on angling, the
“Poeticæ,” generally attributed to a Scottish balladist known as Blind
Harry, is conspicuous. Then the “Boke of St. Albans,” by Dame Juliana
Berners, and quaint old Izaak Walton’s “Compleat Angler”—a brace of
classic volumes dear to the heart of all who love the rod and reel.
In modern times the literature of angling has had scores of staunch
and able supporters among the writers of Britain and our own land. Sir
Humphry Davy’s “Salmonia”; Christopher North’s essays on angling, in
“Noctes Ambrosianæ”; Stoddart’s Angling Songs; all these and a score
of others are familiar to rodsters on both sides of the Atlantic. The
clever poet and satirist, Tom Hood, discourses thus in praise of the
gentle art:
“Of all sports ever sported, commend me to angling. It is the wisest,
virtuousest, discreetest, best; the safest, cheapest, and in all
likelihood the oldest of pastimes. It is a one-handed game that would
have suited Adam himself; and it was the only one by which Noah could
have amused himself in the ark. Hunting and shooting come in second and
third. The common phrase, ‘fish, flesh and fowl,’ clearly hints at this
order of precedence. * * * To refer to my own experience, I certainly
became acquainted with the angling rod soon after the birchen one, and
long before I had any practical knowledge of ‘Nimrod’ or ‘Ramroch’ The
truth is, angling comes by nature. It is _in the system_, as the doctors
say.”
It is no exaggeration to state that the real poetry of fly-fishing, as
given in the grand old book of Nature, is appreciated to the fullest by
American anglers. The breezy air of the forest leaves is found in the
charming works of Bethune, of Herbert, Hawes, Norris, Dawson, Hallock
and many other worthies, past and present. The modern Horace—he of the
traditional white hat—never wrote a better essay than that descriptive
of his early fishing days. The same is true of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher,
and Charles Dudley Warner’s most graphic pen picture is his inimitable
sketch, “A Fight with a Trout.” The number of really good books on
American field sports is principally made up of angling works, a fact
which goes far to establish the truth of Wm. T. Porter’s assertion,
namely: “No man ever truly polished a book unless he were something
of an angler, or at least loved the occupation. He who steals from
the haunts of men into the green solitudes of Nature, by the banks of
gliding, silvery streams, under the checkering lights of sun, leaf and
cloud, may always hope to cast his lines, whether of the rod or the
‘record book,’ in pleasant places.”
This may be appropriately supplemented by the opinion, poetically
expressed by the same author, with reference to the art of fishing with
the artificial fly, thus: “Fly-fishing has been designated the royal and
aristocratic branch of the angler’s craft, and unquestionably it is the
most difficult, the most elegant, and to men of taste, by myriads of
degrees the most pleasant and exciting mode of angling. To land a trout
of three, four or five pounds weight, and sometimes heavier, with a hook
almost invisible, with a gut line almost as delicate and beautiful as a
single hair from the raven tresses of a mountain sylph, and with a rod
not heavier than a tandem whip, is an achievement requiring no little
presence of mind, united to consummate skill. If it be not so, and if
it do not give you some very pretty palpitations of the heart in the
performance, may we never, wet a line in Lake George, or raise a trout
in the Susquehanna.”
Thomson, the much admired author of “The Seasons,” was in his youth a
zealous angler, frequently casting his fly in the rippling waters of the
Tweed, a trout-stream justly famous along the Scottish border. The
poet has eulogized his favorite pastime of fly-fishing in the following
elegant lines:
“Now, when the first foul torrent of the brooks,
Swell’d with the vernal rains, is ebb’d away;
And, whitening, down their mossy tinctur’d stream
Descends the billowy foam, now is the time,
While yet the dark brown water aids the guile
To tempt the trout. The well-dissembled fly—
The rod, fine tapering with elastic spring,
Snatch’d from the hoary stud the floating line.
And all thy slender wat’ry stores prepare;
But let not on thy hook the tortur’d worm
Convulsive twist in agonizing folds,
Which, by rapacious hunger swallow’d deep,
Gives, as you tear it from the bleeding breast
Of the weak, helpless, uncomplaining wretch,
Harsh pain and horror to the tender hand.”
When, with his lively ray, the potent sun
Has pierc’d the streams, and rous’d the finny race,
Then, issuing cheerful to thy sport repair;
Chief should the western breezes curling play,
And light o’er ether bear the shadowy clouds,
High to their fount, this day, amid the hills
And woodlands warbling round, trace up the brooks;
The next pursue their rocky-c-hannel’d maze
Down to the river, in whose ample wave
Their little Naiads love to sport at large.
Just in the dubious point, where with the pool
Is mix’d the trembling stream, or where it boils
Around the stone, or from the hollow’d bank
Reverted plays in undulating flow,
There throw, nice judging, the delusive fly;
And, as you lead it round the artful curve,
With eye attentive mark the springing game.
Straight as above the surface of the flood
They wanton rise, or, urged by hunger, leap,
Then fix, with gentle twitch, the barbed hook;
Some lightly tossing to the grassy bank,
And to the shelving shore slow dragging some
With various hand proportion’d to their force.
If yet too young, and easily deceiv’d,
A worthless prey scarce bends your pliant rod.’
Him, piteous of his youth, and the short space
He has enjoy’d the vital light of heaven,
Soft disengage, and back into the stream
The speckl’d captive throw; but, should you lure
From his dark haunt, beneath the tangled roots
Of pendent trees, the monarch of the brook,
Behooves you then to ply your finest art.
Long time he, following cautious, scans the fly,
And oft attempts to seize it, but as oft
The dimpled water speaks his jealous fear.
At last, while haply o’er the shaded sun
Passes a cloud, he desperate takes the death
With sullen plunge: at once he darts along,
Deep struck, and runs out all the lengthen’d line,
Then seeks the farthest ooze, the sheltering weed,
The cavern’d bank, his old secure above,
And flies aloft, and flounces round the pool,
Indignant of the guile. With yielding hand,
That feels him still, yet to his furious course
Gives way, you, now retiring, following now,
Across the stream, exhaust his idle rage,
Till floating broad upon his breathless side,
And to his fate abandon’d, to the shore
You gayly drag your unresisting prize.”
Angling, like every other manly pastime, has had numerous
assailants—some of them “men of mark,” as in the case of Lord Byron,
whose “fine plirensy” in denouncing Walton and the gentle art failed not
to draw down upon himself the laughter of a world. The plaint of Lord
Byron runs thus:
“Then there were billiards; cards, too; but no dice,
Save in the clubs no man of honor plays—
Boats when’twas water, skating when’twas ice,
And the hard frost destroy’d the scenting days;
And angling, too, that solitary vice,
Whatever Izaac Walton sings or says;
The quaint old cruel coxcomb in his gullet,
Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it.”
Another famous satirist of the old school defines angling as “a stick
and a string, with a fish at one end and a fool at the other,” while a
third, the well-known Peter Pindar, in closing a “Ballad to a Fish in
the Brook,” takes occasion to say:
“Enjoy thy stream, oh, harmless fish,
“And when an angler for his dish,
Through gluttony’s vile sin,
Attempts—a wretch—to pull thee out,
God give thee strength, oh, gentle trout,
To pull the rascal in.”
All who love to go a-fishing can well afford to smile at the malicious
flings of morbid critics, and while recreating both mind and body in
casting the mimic fly along the dashing mountain stream, think of the
deluded satirists in pity rather than condemnation.
Let us, then, in unison with the quaint and charming poet, Gay:
“Mark well the various seasons of the year,
How the succeeding insect race appear,
In their revolving moon one color reigns,
Which in the next the fickle trout disdains;
Oft have I seen a skilful angler try
The various colors of the treach’rous fly;
When he “with fruitless pain hath skim’d the brook,
And the coy fish rejects the skipping hook.
He shakes the boughs that on the margin grow,
Which o’er the stream a weaving forest throw;
When if an insect fall (his certain guide)
He gently takes him from the whirling tide;
Examines well his form with curious eyes,
His gaudy vest, his wings, his horns, his size.
Then round his hook the chosen fur he winds,
And on the back a speckled feather binds;
So just the colors shine through every part,
That nature seems to live again in art.”
A PERFECT DAY
By Geo. W. Van Siclen.
I take my rod this fair June morning, and go forth to be alone with
nature. No business cares, no roar of the city, no recitals of others’
troubles and woes which make the lawyer a human hygrometer, no doubts
nor fears to disturb me as, drinking in the clear, sweet air with
blissful anticipation, I saunter through the wood-path toward the
mountain lake. As I brush the dew from the bushes around me, I spy in a
glade golden flowers glowing on a carpet of pure green, mingled with the
snowy stars of white blossoms; with their fragrance comes the liquid,
bell-like voice of the swamp-robin, hidden from curious eyes. Soon
seated in my boat, I paddle to the shade of a tall, dark hemlock and
rest there, lulled by the intense quiet. Ever and anon as I dreamily
cast my ethereal fly, a thrill of pleasure electrifies me, as it is
seized by a vigorous trout.
I have long classed trout with flowers and birds, and bright sunsets,
and charming scenery, and beautiful women, as given for the rational
enjoyment and delight of thoughtful men of aesthetic tastes. And if
“By deeds our lives shall measured be,
And not by length of days,”
then a perfect life has been lived by many a noble trout whose years
have been few, but who, caught by the fisher’s lure (to which he was
predestined, as aforesaid), has leaped into the air and shaken the
sparkling drops from his purple, golden, crimson, graceful form and
struggled to be free, to the intense delight of the artist who brought
him to the basket, where he belonged.
Thus resting, and floating apparently between the translucent crystal
and the blue ether, silent, I have felt the presence of a spirit who
inspires one with pure thoughts of matters far above the affairs of
daily life and toil, of the universe and what lies beyond the blue sky,
and of the mind and soul of man, and his future after death.
I _love_ the mountains, and the meadows, and the woods.
Later satisfied, but not satiated, with fair provision of corn, and
wine, and oil, and my creel well filled, the shadows lengthen and the
day begins to die.
Some day I shall hear no more forever the birds sing in the sylvan
shade. My eyes will no more behold the woods I love so well. For the
last time my feet will slowly tread this woodland road, and I shall
watch for the last time the changing shadows made by the clouds upon the
hillsides.