THE FISH WERE THERE.
Saturday afternoon was before Jack Ogden, when he came out at the
water's edge, near the dam, across from the mill. That was there, big
and red and rusty-looking; and the dam was there; and above them was
the mill-pond, spreading out over a number of acres, and ornamented
with stumps, old logs, pond-lilies, and weeds. It was a fairly good
pond, the best that Cocahutchie Creek could do for Crofield, but Jack's
face fell a little as he looked at it.
"There are more fellows than fish here," he said to himself, with an
air of disgust.
There was a boy at the end of the dam near him, and a boy in the middle
of it, and two boys at the flume, near the mill. There were three
punts out on the water, and one of them had in it a man and two boys,
while the second boat held but one man, and the third contained four.
A big stump near the north shore supported a boy, and the old snag
jutting out from the south shore held a boy and a man.
There they all were, sitting perfectly still, until, one after another,
each rod and line came up to have its hook and bait examined, to see
whether or not there had really been a bite.
"I'm fairly crowded out," remarked Jack. "Those fellows have all the
good places. I'll have to go somewhere else; where'll I go?"
He studied that problem for a full minute, while every fisherman there
turned to look at him, and then turned back to watch his line.
"I guess I'll try down stream," said Jack. "Nobody ever caught
anything down there, and nobody ever goes there, but I s'pose I might
as well try it, just for once."
He turned away along the track over which he had come. He did not
pause at the road and bridge, but went on down the further bank of the
Cocahutchie. It was a pretty stream of water, and it spread out wide
and shallow, and rippled merrily among stones and bowlders and clumps
of willow and alder for nearly half a mile. Gradually, then, it grew
narrower, quieter, deeper, and wore a sleepy look which made it seem
more in keeping with quiet old Crofield.
"The hay's about ready to cut," said Jack, as he plodded along the
path, near the water's edge, through a thriving meadow of clover and
timothy. "There's always plenty of work in haying time. Hullo! What
grasshoppers! Jingo!"
As he made the last exclamation, he clapped his hand upon his trousers
pocket.
"If I didn't forget to go in and get my sinker! Never did such a thing
before in all my life. What's the use of trying to fish without a
sinker?"
The luck seemed to be going directly against him. Even the
Cocahutchie, at his left, had dwindled to a mere crack between bushes
and high grass, as if to show that it had no room to let for fish to
live in--that is, for fish accustomed to having plenty of room, such as
they could find when living in a mill-pond, lined around the edges with
boys and fish-poles.
"That's a whopper!" suddenly exclaimed Jack, with a quick snatch at
something that alighted upon his left arm. "I've caught him!
Grasshoppers are the best kind of bait, too. I'll try him on, sinker
or no sinker. Hope there are some fish, down here."
The line he unwound from his rod was somewhat coarse, but it was
strong, and so was his hook, as if the fishing around Crofield called
for stout tackle as well as for a large number of sportsmen. The big,
long-limbed, green-coated jumper was placed in position on the hook,
and then, with several more grumbling regrets over the absence of any
sinker, Jack searched along the bank for a place whence he could throw
his bait into the water.
"This'll do," he said, at last, and the breeze helped him to swing out
his line until the grasshopper at the end of it dropped lightly and
naturally into a dark little eddy, almost across that narrow ribbon of
the Cocahutchie.
Splash--tug--splash again--
"Jingo! What's that? I declare--if he isn't pulling! He'll break the
line--no, he won't. See that pole bend! Steady--here he comes.
Hurrah!"
Out he came, indeed, for the rude, strong tackle held, even against the
game struggling of that vigorous trout. There he lay now, on the
grass, with Jack Ogden bending over him in a fever of exultation and
amazement.
"I never could have caught him with a worm and a sinker," he said,
aloud. "This is the way to catch 'em. Isn't he a big fellow! I'll
try some more grasshoppers."
There was not likely to be another two-pound brook-trout very near the
hole out of which that one had been pulled. There would not have been
any at all, perhaps, but for the prevailing superstition that there
were no fish there. Everybody knew that there were bullheads, suckers,
perch, and "pumpkin-seeds" in the mill-pond, and eels, with now and
then a pickerel, but the trout were a profound secret. It was easy to
catch another big grasshopper, but the young sportsman knew very well
that he knew nothing at all of that kind of fishing. He had made his
first cast perfectly, because it was about the only way in which it
could have been made, and now he was so very nervous and excited and
cautious that he did very well again, aided as before by the breeze.
Not in the same place, but at a little distance down, and close to
where Jack captured his second bait, there was a crook in the
Cocahutchie, with a steep, overhanging, bushy bank. Into the glassy
shadow under that bank the sinkerless line carried and dropped its
little green prisoner, and there was a hungry fellow in there, waiting
for foolish grasshoppers in the meadow to spring too far and come down
upon the water instead of upon the grass. As the grasshopper alighted
on the water, there was a rush, a plunge, a strong hard pull, and then
Jack Ogden said to himself:
"I've heard how they do it. They wait and tire 'em out. I won't be in
too much of a hurry. He'll get away if I am."
That is probably what the fish would have done, for he was a fish with
what army men call "tactics." He was able to pull very hard, and he
was also wise enough to rush in under the bank and to sulkily stay
there.
"Feels as if I'd hooked a snag," said Jack. "May be I've lost the fish
and he's hitched me into a 'cod-lamper' eel of some kind. Steady--no,
I mustn't pull harder than the fish."
He was breathless, but not with any exertion that he was making. His
hat fell off upon the grass, as he leaned forward through the alder
bushes, and his sandy hair was tangled for a moment in some stubby
twigs. He loosened his head, still holding firmly his bent and
straining rod. One step farther, a slip of his left foot, an
unsuccessful grasp at a bush, and then Jack went over and down into a
pool deeper than he had thought the Cocahutchie afforded so near
Crofield.
There was a very fine splash, as the grasshopper fly-fisherman went
under, and there was a coughing and spluttering a moment afterward,
when his eager, excited, anxious face came up again. He could swim
extremely well, and he was not thinking of his ducking--only of his
game.
"I hope I haven't lost him!" he exclaimed, as he tried to pull upon the
line.
It did not tug at all, just then, for the fish on the hook had been
rudely startled out from under the bank and was on his way up the
Cocahutchie, with the hook in his mouth.
"There' he is! I've got him yet! Glad I can swim--" cried Jack; and
it did seem as if he and this fish were very well matched, except that
Jack had to give one of his hands to the rod while his captive could
use every fin.
Down stream floated Jack, passing the rod back through his hands until
he could grasp the line, and all the while the fish was darting madly
about to get away.
"There, I've touched bottom. Now for him! Here he comes. I'll draw
him ashore easy--that's it! Hurrah! biggest fish ever was caught in
the Cocahutchie!"
That might or might not be so, but Jack Ogden had a three-pound trout,
flopping angrily upon the grass at his feet.
"I know how to do it now," he almost shouted. "I can catch 'em! I
won't let anybody else know how it's done, either."
He had learned something, no doubt, but he had not learned how to make
a large fish out of a small one. All the rest of that afternoon he
caught grasshoppers and cast them daintily into what seemed to be good
places, but he did not have another occasion to tumble in. When at
last he was tired out and decided to go home, he had a dozen more of
trout, not one of them weighing over six ounces, with a pair of very
good yellow perch, one very large perch, a sucker, and three bullheads,
that bit when his bait happened to sink to the bottom without any lead
to help it. Take it all in all, it was a great string of fish to be
caught on a Saturday afternoon, when all that the Crofield sportsmen
around the mill-pond could show was six bullheads, a dozen small perch,
a lot of "pumpkin-seeds" not much larger than dollars, five small eels,
and a very vicious snapping-turtle.
Jack stood for a moment looking down at the results of his experiment
in fly-fishing. He felt, really, as if he could not more than half
believe it.
"Fishing doesn't pay," he said. "It doesn't pay cash, any way. There
isn't anything around Crofield that does pay. Well, it must be time
for me to go home."