AT THE BIG POOL
Few streams in North America furnish a better place for rainbow trout
than the Big Pool just below the falls of the Michipicoten, so Bruce
and Ray naturally decided to try their luck in its black whirling
waters.
“You should catch some big trout in that pool,” Bruce commented as Ray
put a piece of red flannel on a hook which looked large enough to hold
a three-pound bass. For a little while the trout, if there were any in
this pool, seemed indifferent to this fake bait, as Ray called it. “If
I could only find some worms in this country, you would soon see me
pull them out,” he remarked a little impatiently.
“Well, you know, Ray, that there are no angleworms in a wild country,
and you might as well try patiently to catch one on the flannel bait.
After you catch the first one, you will soon catch more.” After trying
patiently in several places, Ray did land a small trout. “Now,” Bruce
advised him, “dress this fish right away, and use its fins for bait and
see what will happen.”
It has often been claimed that fish do not know one kind of bait from
another, and that they will strike at anything that moves or is
conspicuously colored. To a great extent that is true of such voracious
fish as the pickerel, but rainbow trout are perhaps the most
intelligent of all fresh-water fish. They may bite at times on a piece
of cloth or on bacon or pork-rind; but the man who uses flies, worms,
minnows, fins, or other parts of a fish for bait will catch more trout.
After Ray had baited his hook with a fin, it was not long before the
fun began, and the lads were soon in the midst of more exciting fishing
than they had ever dreamed of. Ray caught no more small fish. They were
all bigger than any trout he had ever seen in the streams near his
Vermont home. Of course, Ray had no reel, no dip-net, no creel or
stringer to take care of his catch. When the line suddenly tightened
and began to cut the swift, whirling current, Ray grew wildly excited.
“Get him, Bruce, get him!” he would call, while he made an effort to
swing the line around so that Bruce could get hold of it, and the older
lad in turn became almost as excited as Ray; and in truth to catch
brook trout that run from two to three pounds and over in weight is
exciting enough to make the blood of even an old man run fast again.
“Oh, Bruce, you let him get away,” Ray exclaimed, after they had been
pulling out the most beautiful and lively fish for an hour. “It was a
big one, a real giant. I saw him come after the bait almost to the
surface. I was going to hit him with the pole, because I thought it was
a big pickerel. He was almost a yard long. Honestly, Bruce, he looked
as big as that!” and Ray indicated the size of the fish by holding up
both of his hands.
“How many have we? About thirty? Bruce, it’s lucky we had a sack,
otherwise most of them would have jumped back in the river. I never saw
such wild fish.”
“And I never saw such a wild fisherman,” Bruce remarked.
“I want to catch one more real big one,” declared Ray without replying
to the older lad. “Bruce, I never want to catch any more sunfish and
bullheads.”
For a short time the trout seemed to be taking a rest; but then
suddenly there came a strike and a pull as if the hook had caught on a
wildly spinning log. The limber cedar pole bent and the tip almost
touched the water, as the fish rushed into deep water and toward the
opposite side of the whirlpool.
“Help me, help me!” Ray called. “I can’t hold him. Maybe I’m caught on
a log. No, I’m not. It’s a fish, Bruce! It’s a fish! I can feel it.
It’s a big one!”
Bruce took the pole, for the younger boy was tired out with the
excitement of the afternoon. “Look out, Bruce, look out!” he called.
“He will pull you into the whirlpool and drown you! Maybe I have caught
an otter or a beaver.”
But Bruce had now gained control of the situation. For some ten or
fifteen minutes he skillfully played the big fish on a taut line.
Several times the desperately fighting fish broke water, but the line
held and the hook could not be shaken out.
“Now then,” called Bruce, when the giant had calmed down. “Now, Ray,
take the line and run up the bank.” And out of the black pool came a
real rainbow giant, the like of which neither lad had ever seen. Bruce
quickly caught the wildly jumping fish behind the gills and carried him
up the bank.
“Look,” he called, “we came near losing him the last minute. He was off
the hook when I caught him.”
“Oh, but he is a big one! Let me hold him a minute,” Ray pleaded. “The
boys in Vermont would never believe that he was so big. What do you
think he weighs?”
“He weighs six pounds if he weighs an ounce,” Bruce asserted, “and he
is over two feet long. Ray, these trout are too beautiful to take home.
I declare, if this black foaming pool were a big glass tank, I should
put them all back, just to watch a host of rainbows swimming around.”
Bruce was just about to shoulder the load of fish when something
happened that made them forget for a short time the wonderful time they
had had catching that unheard-of mess of trout.
Tawny, who had acted a little bored at the sport in which he could not
partake, suddenly rushed down the trail. The lads heard him bark
viciously, as if he had cornered some wild beast and the creature had
turned at bay on him. The lads, who had not taken their guns along, ran
down the trail, but they could not overtake the dog, who for a short
time was out of hearing. As the lads walked more slowly along the
trail, the dog, still mad with excitement, met them. His hair was wet,
but still bristling and he evidently wanted them to come with him,
which the lads did with some hesitation, because they were not armed.
“I am afraid a bear turned on him,” Ray suggested, “and we couldn’t
fight a bear with sticks.”
“I have an idea that it was a moose,” Bruce suggested. “The animal
probably crossed the river and Tawny jumped in after him.”
But when on examining the trail and the river bank very carefully, they
found neither tracks of moose nor bear, nor tracks of any kind, they
were still more puzzled.
“Perhaps he only saw or smelled something on the other side of the
river and got himself wet in trying to swim across. He is just fool
enough to try that; but let us go home now, Bruce. Perhaps Ganawa can
tell us what Tawny was after.”
They found Ganawa sitting in front of the tepee, as if deeply absorbed
in thought. He was much pleased with the big catch of trout the lads
brought to camp, but when they told him of the strange behavior of
Tawny, Ganawa’s eyes flashed and he asked, “Did you look for moccasin
tracks? Moccasin tracks are hard to see on a trail where there are many
stones.”
“We did not see any,” Bruce replied, “but we did not think of looking
for them; we thought only of moose or bear.”
“We shall go and look for them in the morning,” said Ganawa. “It is
getting too dark now.”