o
00
ID
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m
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
PRESENTED BY
PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID
ANGLING TALKS:
BEING THE
WinterTalks on Summer Pastimes.
CONTRIBUTED TO THE "FOREST AND STREAM'
By GEORGE DAWSON.
New York:
forest and stream publishing CO.
1883.
COPYRIGHT, 1883,
BY THE
Forest and Stream Publishing Co,
^^fW
ZP^
NOTE.
^T^HE following chapters were written by Mr. Dawson sub-
sequently to his retirement from the editorship of the
Albany Evening Journal last September. The series was
broken off by the author's lamented death in February.
The ''Talks" attracted wide attention at the time of their
pubhcation in the angling columns of the Forest and Streamy
and were received with very cordial appreciation. It is
thought that their collection into the present more perma-
nent form will prove acceptable.
As a politi<!al writer of conceded power, Mr. Dawson
wielded a trenchant pen; when he turned from the conflict
of parties to the praise of the favorite pastime of ''simple
wise men," his essays^ limpid as the crystal streams, are
aglow with the soft summer sunlight and melodious with
the songs of birds. When aogling was the theme, he wrote
from a full heart and in closest sympathy with the scenes
and pm-suits described. These " Talks " are brimful of
manly, wholesome sentiment; there is in them all not a
particle of cant. Their sincerity and overflowing spirit at
once win the reader, and he perforce shares the author's
enthusiasm. The effect is magical, like that of the mimic
players in Xenophon's Memorabilia: he who reads, if he
be an angler, must go a-fishing; and if he be not, straight-
way then must he become one.
Forest and Stream Office, April, 1883.
CONTENTS.
Page.
Simple Wise Men 7
About Bass 10
About Grayling 17
A Memory 24
Reminiscences 30
About Some Distinguished Anglers of Our Time . . 38
About Salmon Fishing 47
Salmon and Sea Trout Haunts and Habits 53
Several Relevant Topics 60
The Game Laws— Angling Mishaps— Sea and Brook
Trout 65
Odds and Ends 71
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SIMPLE WISE MEN.
Dear solitary groves, where peace does dwell I
How willingly could I forever stay
Beneath the shade of your embracing greens,
Listening to the harmony of warbling birds,
Tuned with the gentle murmur of the streams.
—Rochester,
I HAVE often had to assure my critical and incredulous
friends that it is by no means all of fishing to fish. The
appreciative angler, who has inherited or acquired the true
spirit of the art is not alone happy while plying his voca-
tion, but happy also in the recollection of what has been,
and in the anticipation of what is to be. To him memory
and hope are equally satisfying — the one luminous with
the mellow sunshine of the recent past, and the other all
aglow with the assured good cheer of the near future.
Nor is the pleasure derived from a review of the incidents
of the last outing wholly or chiefly associated with its ma-
terial results. * 'Casting" and ' 'striking" and ' 'killing" belong
to the mere mechanism of the art. Its real fascination lies
in what one sees and feels: in mountain and valley; in river
and lake ; in sunshine and shadow ; in. the exhilarating at-
mosphere and delectable odors of the virgin forest; in the
music of singing birds and in the soothing monotone of run-
ning waters ; in the hush of the night watches, and in the
quiet and repose best found in the ''solitary places" where
anglers "most do congregate."
It strikes m3 like the sound of a trumpet to remember my
fights with three-pound trout, five-pound bass or thirty-
pound salmon, but I find intenser ecstacy when I recall the
circumstances and surroundings of these material experi-
ences, the transparent brook, whose ripples were rendered
8 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES,
dazzling as molten silver by the sunshine glints which fell
upon them through the ever-waving branches of the pine,
or birch, or hemlock which over-arched it like a benedic-
tion; the pellucid waters of river or lake, whose unruffled
surface trembled as fly and leader touched its placid bosom ;
the deep pool, cast into deeper shadow by the giant boulders
near whicb the lordly salmon rests on his upward journey,
and the thousand other ''things of beauty" which fill the eye
and ravish the senses while watching and waiting, and cast-
ing for a ''rise."
These are the pictures most distinctly photographed upon
the memory of the appreciative angler, and which come up
most vividly before him when he looks back upon what has
been.
Many pleasures leave a sting behind them. Not so this
fascinating pastime. It is as harmless as it is invigorating,
and as healthful as it is harmless. There are many things
for which I am grateful, but for few things more than for
my passion for angling and the reasonable leisure always
vouchsafed me to gratify it.
I say "reasonable leisure," because the most of what time
I have given to angling has been abstracted from the grind-
ing pressure of a busy life. And the fact has, I am sure,
intensified my love for the pastime. As the dawn is most
gladly welcomed by the weary watcher who is waiting for
the morning, so a holiday brings most pleasure to those who
have earned it by hard work or patient service. The **cum-
berer of the ground," whose only employment is to "kill time"
and battle with enmd, has no holiday. He can no more ap-
preciate the luxury of ' 'a rest" than can the surfeited gour-
mand the luxury of an appetite. But with the busy man,
held to the tread-mill of active life through eleven of the
twelve months of the calendar year, it is not so. His holi-
day is to him what the open door is to the caged bird, the
opporiunity coveted by the Psalmist, to "fly away and be
at rest," to "wander far off, and remain in the wilderness,"
(Psalm 55, 6-7). Because most of my holidays have been
thus wrenched from the ever whirling wheel of time, they
WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES 9
have brought to me more joy than ''when oil and wine in-
creaseth." And as my love of angling has grown with my
years, so every recurring holiday has been more impatiently
longed for and enjoyed. If all my days had been days of
idleness, bringing with them neither consciuus responsibility
nor the pressure of duty, I might have lived as unprofitably ,
and passed through life as wearily as the ennuied pet of
fortune, whose indolence and incapacity are the only pro-
ducts of his inherited wealth, and, worst of all, I might
never have known the delights of that man who finds pleas-
ure in the silent woods and loves to go a-fishing.
In my immediate vicinage there are not a few beside my-
self who are fond of the angle — quiet men of gentle habit —
simple wise men, as unostentatious as they are merry-hearted,
and who carry about wi^h them a clear conscience, a con-
tented mind and the elements of perpetual youth. It is their
custom to often ' 'forgather*' while waiting for the return of
**the time of the singing of the birds," when it will be right
to go a-fishing. Among them are men of divers profession
— philosophers and educators, merchants and politicians, but
not one among them all who would engage in any service,
however remunerative or honorable, that would debar him
from his annual outing, with rod and reel, for trout or sal-
mon. Tnese meetings are only less delightful than the fas-
cinating pastime which constitutes the exhaustless theme of
conversation. Every phase of the art is discussed, but the
experiences of each individual during the just closed season
is always first in order. Some of these experiences will enter
into these familiar "Winter Talks on Summer Pastimes."
ABOUT BASS.
When time, which steals our years away,
Shall steal our pleasures too,
The memory of the past will stay.
And half our joy renew. — Moore,
ABOUT BASS.
^y^HE most highly esteemed member of our coterie devotes
^ his leisure in angling for bass. He was born on the
banks of the St. Lawrence, and before he had mastered his
alphabet or shed his short-clothes he had become familiar
with the haunts if not with the habits of this gamy fish.
Indeed, although he has passed his three score years, his
* 'memory runneth not to the contrary" when he would not
rather fish than eat. The implements he used were primi-
tive but effective — of just the form and calibre of those we
often now see in the hands of oar juvenile Waltons — less
ornamental than uselul, and intended not to *'play" a fish
but (o "yank" him, with the least possible ceremony, from
his aqueous element. It is not strange, therefore, that he
is passionately fond of the pastime and as eager, now that
* 'his hoary head is hid in snow, " as when, ' 'in the morn and
liquid dew of youth," he gladly accepted the task of keep-
ing the family table supplied with the results of his infantile
labors.
There are few busier men in the marts of trade to-day and no
man anywhere less likely, from habit or temperament, to
squander either time or fortune. He never turns the back
of his hand to a friend nor the back of his coat to an enemy,
and would sooner lose the best customer on his long list
than forego his visits to bass waters in July and October. I
never knew a man with a more perfectly balanced double
WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 11
nature. As a merchant he is sedate, reticent and absorbed.
As an angler he is cheerful, voluble and merry hearted.
Ten words suffice him to sell a hogshead of sugar, but he
will talk an hour on the felicity of striking, fighting and
killing a five-pound bass. I once asked him the weight of
the largest fish he ever caught. His response was :
*'I am not sure that I can answer your question. I caught
what 1 believe to have been my largest bass when we never
thought of weighing them. In my early days, when I fished
with a hooppole and corresponding appendages, this thing
happened to me : A rough dock extended a few feet out
into the river in front of my father's farm. It was placed
at a point in the river where the current fiowed with mod-
erate rapidity over a pebbly bottom. It was not merely just
the kind of water bass take to in October, but its attractive
qualities were augmented by the moss-covered logs which
constituted the base of the rickety old dock from which I
was wont to angle. On one memorable occasion — I could
not have passed my tenth year— my hook was seized by the
largest fish I had ever seen of the bass family. My line was
not more than twelve feet in length, and it took my lusty
visitor but an instant to run off with the slack and force the
barb clean through his ponderous jaw. The result was a
leap that made my hair stand on end, and brought n:e to my
feet quicker than you could say 'Jack Robinson.' My first
impulse was of course to 'j ank' him, but I might as well
have tried to *yank' the dock itself from its moorings. Find-
ing him bent on mischief, and foreseeing a long fight, I fol-
lowed his lead and managed to get on the pebbly beach
where I hoped to be able to take him out of the net. But,
do my best I could not manage it by any of the processes
with which I was familiar, and finding myself dragged
toward a slough in which I would have been incontinently
swamped if I had attempted to cross it, in sheer despair I
made a bee line for the bushes, and very un artistically but
very surely ran him ashore — the largest bass, by the common
verdict, ever known to have been caught in those waters.
I have since landed hundreds of large fish, scores of them
12 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES.
running from seven to ten pounds, but none of them at all
approximating the dimensions of this gamy monster. Mak-
ing all due aliowance for the exaggerations of dim distance
and the fej vid imagination of inexperienced youth, I have
not a doubt now, and never had, that he weighed fully
twelve pounds, avoirdupois. That was nearly fifty years
ago," he said, with a sigh, *'but the recollection of the inci-
dent is as fresh in my memory as any event of the last twelve
month. But more than that, I attribute to the ecstasy
which came to me from the capture of that fish the passion
for angling which has grown with my years, and from
which I have derived more real pleasure (to parody an old
couplet) than
'Any modern Caesar feels
With an obsequious Senate at his heels.' "
"I suppose," queried one of the party, "other fish than
bass were abundant in those days?"
"Oh, yes! superabundant. Pickerel and muscalonge
were 'plenty as blackberries.' But I never took to either.
Pickerel were my especial boyhood abhorrence, and how
any true brother of the angle' can so much as touch one of
the slimy brutes is beyond my comprehension."
This remark was received with cordial approval, and fresh
cigars all round. Not all present were veterans in the art,
but none of them had the bad taste to call pickerel fishing
a pastime. In commenting upon the subject, the veteran
mtr excellence among us spoke thusly :
"No man ever fell in love with poetry by reading doggerel,
nor did any one ever acquire a passion for angling by catch-
ing pickerel. It had been my habit from youth up to idle
away an hour now and then fishing for perch, sunfish, bull-
pouts and low down trash of that sort. But I did that sim-
ply as an incident in my summer afternoon rambles by the
lake shore and river side, and not because I cared a straw for or
hankered after that kind of fishing; but once in my out-of-
the way saunterings I fell in with a friend who was patient-
ly whipping a trout brook. It was a real pleasure to recline
beneath the shadow of a great rock and watch his graceful
WINTER TALKS ON SU2IMER PASTIMES, 13
''casts." He had very few responses, but when a response
came, the delight he evinced as he played and la ided his
four or eight ounce fish was fully shared by myself, and I
soon found myself fascinated by what my friend was doing.
The stream which ran through a beautiful valley, was cast
into deep shadow by the graceful forest trees which lined its
borders. Not a sound was heard, save a few bird-notes or
the rustling of the leaves as they were moved by the gentle
summer breeze which fanned them. The whole scene was
a poem, and although I have been in just such places and
passed through just such experiences a thousand times; this
first picture of the first trout stream 1 ever saw, comes up
before me as distinctly and as vividly as it presented itself
to my vision forty years ago.
"Fmding me thus interested in what he was doing, my
frirnd, with the kindliness and generosity characteristic of
the brotherhood, proffered me his rod for a cnst. I timidly
accepted his offer, and tried, very awkwardly, to do as he
bade me. You can imagine with what success. He was an
expert; 1 was a novice. He could cast fifty feet without an
effort. When I essayed so much line as the length of the
rod the fly came back upon me as if in derision. But I very
soon succeeded in reaching the center of the stream, when
there came a leap and a strike which made every nerve in
my body quiver like a thrummed harp-string. I stood in
motionless ecstacy for a moment, but, as I think, there
came to me the inspiration of the born angler, for I played
and landed that pound trout with the skill and judgment
(my friend being witness) of a veteran. It was the largest
trout known to have been taken from that stream in many
years. That incident fixed my destiny. Until 1 had that
experience fishing had no more attraction for me than any
minor amusement with which we "kill time" when we find
it a burden. From all of which I merely wish to say that
no amount of pickerel or bull pout fishing could ever have
inspired in me or in anyone the emotion needful to create the
passion for such sort of angling as fascinates while it in-
vigorates and augments the wisdom of the wise and makes
14 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES.
good men better. Such sort of angling inspires something
more than rod and line, 'with a worm at one end and a fool
at the other. * There must be rivulet and lake, forest and
mountain, sunshine and shadow, the music of birds, the mel-
ody of running waters, delicate tackling, and the rise and
strike and swirl of bass, trout or salmon. Where such
things are combined with the love of nature inLerent in the
contemplative, mild-mannered and gentle disciples of the
historic fathers of the art, angling becomes an irresistible
fascination, and gives rest to the weary, vitality to the over
wrought, cheerfulness to the despondent, ambling rhythm
to the life that now is, and a clearer appreciation of the
promised felicities of the life that is to come."
A quiet ripple of applause greeted this rhapsody of the
honored mentor of the happy group, when our bass fisher
from the St. Lawrence was asked:
*'Did you never hook a muscalonge? They are certainly
a gamy fish, quite deserving the attention of the most fas-
tidious angler. "
*'0h, yes; 1 have often taken muscalonge on a trawl, and
their capture gave me a great deal of muscular exercise, but
nothing else. They hook themselves, and all that is required
of you is to drag them in, hand over hand, as rapidly as
possible. It requires a little skill to get them in your boat
without upsetting, but not much more than to do the same
thing with a water-soaked log, and hauling them in is very
much like hauling in the same weight of deadwood against
the current. Yes, I have caught muscalonge of all weights,
from five to thirty pounds, but I would rather take a five-
pound bass on an eight-ounce fly -rod than a score of musca-
longe at the end of a two or three hundred feet trawl."
*'How do the quantity and weight of bass in the St. Law-
rence now compare with forty years ago?''
"I do not think the quantity has materially diminished,
but they have changed their haunts. I find very few now
where they used to be abundant, and places wheie we never
had any luck in old times now teem with them. They are
not nearly as plenty among the Thousand Islands as they
WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 15
used to be, and no wonder. What with steam yachts and
fishing boats, 'thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks
in Yallombrosa,' and net and spear and indiscriminate slaugh-
ter, in season and out of season, by thousands of experts
and amateur idlers, it is a marvel that the whole species was
not long ago exterminated. And the weight of the fish has
fallen off in even greater proportion at that point. The
capture of a five-pound bass to-day is something to talk
about ; forty years ago bass of that weight uniformly made
up one-fourth of my catch. The truth is, the fish haven't
time to grow — with so many to beguile them, they are caught
as soon as they can snap at a hook or rise to a fly. But there
are still pleasant and prolific places in the St. Lawrence — I
will name some of them to any of you in a whisper — where
I never fail to take them as abundantly and of as great
weight, with my eight-ounce rod and tiny fly, as I did forty
years ago with my mammoth hoop-pole and ponderous tack-
ling."
*'Biit you do not now confine yourself to the St. Law-
rence in your search for bass?" was the next query, not be-
cause we did not know, but simply to start him off on his
favorite hobby and hear him expatiate upon the pleasant
places to which he is beguiled during the season when it is
right to go a-fishing.
"By no means," was his reply. "I find it true in angling as
in everything else — 'variety's the very spice of life.' With my
love of the pastime has grown my love for, and apprecia-
tion of, the grand and beautiful in nature, and I have fished
for bass in all waters, from the unbroken wilds of Canada
to the primitive forests of Northern Michigan. The lakes
where they mos!: abound, wherever found, are invariably
gems of transparent purity, and are almost as inviting to
the appreciative eye because of their picturesque surround-
ings as because of what they hold for the angler. Wherever
I have gone, whether to the remote North or to the far West, 1
have never failed to find what I went for, plenty fish, good
sport, magnificent scenery, mental repose and physical re-
cuperation. It is a pastime th..t gave moral fibre to tiie
16 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES.
apostles and aesthetic delectation to the simple wise men of
all ages."
To this, of course, all present gave cheerful response, as
will all others who live virtuous lives and like to go a-fishing.
ABOUT GRAYLIKG.
Hide me, ye forests, in your coolest boTv'rs,
Where flows the murmuring brook, inviting dreams,
Where bordering hazel overhangs the streams.
—Gay.
It 80 happens that no one of the local brotherhood, ex-
cept myself, ever fished for grayling. All have frequently
resolved to do so, but none of them have yet found leisure
to put their resolve into execution. As the next best thing,
they require of me an annual recital of my visits to gray-
ling waters. I am nothing loth, of course. On the contrary,
it is a great pleasure, only less enjoyable than the reality
itself. My "talk" this year was on this wise:
"A few years ago the Au Sable wns the most famous and
best stocked grayling river in Northern Michigan. When I
became acquainted with it, the fish were very abundant.
In an hour's casting at almost any point, a sufficient num-
ber could be taken to surfeit any reasonable angler for a
day. But, unfortunately, all anglers are not reasonable.
While making ready for a few days' sojourn on the river,
a party came in with a barrel of fish they had taken, and
which they proposed to carry home with them. They may
have had a thousand or more, and to secure that number of
sizable fish they had probably killed four times as many.
With the utmost care the whole lot would doubtless be nau-
seatingly stale before tht y reached their destination. The
purpose of the party was well enough; for it is always
commendable to remember the loved ones at home ; but I
never felt that I greatly complimented a friend by present-
ing him with a mess of stale fish ; and, except under very
favorable circumstances, all fish become stale, however
carefully packed, that can only be eaten a week, more or
less, after they are taken. Neither grayling, nor trout,
18 WINTER TALKS OK SUMMER PASTIMES
nor salmon, are in full flavor if they have been so much as
twenty-four hours out of water. Many an honest angler
has lost caste with his friends because the promise to the ear
has been broken to the palate. His praises were based
upon the flavor when freshly caught; their judgment upon
the flavor when eaten. The original flavor of salmon re-
mains longer than that of either trout or grayling. But
even salmon greatly deteriorate in two or three days, how^-
ever carefully packed. Whenever I bring any of my sal-
mon catch home with me, I see to it that they are kept con-
stantly encased in fresh ice and that they are not exposed
to anything above a frigid temperature until they are
passed over into the hands of the cook. In this way I have
sometimes enabled my friends to get a fair if not a perfect
idea of the exquisite salmon flavor.
''Since I first visited the Au Sable it has fallen off in both
the number and weight of its fish. But it still affords good
sport to those who do not engage in the pastime simply to
see how many fish they can kill. 'Catching to count' is a
species of vandalism in which no honest angler will engage.
Those who do, whatever they may call themselves, have the
'low down' spirit of the pot-hunter, although they may not
have his dollar-and-cent cupidity.
' 'I remember a great many years ago, hearing one of a
party of four boasting that they had, in two days, taken
twenty -two hundred trout from the waters of 'Stony Clove,'
in the Catskills, and I once saw a then famous judge 'scoop-
ing up' trout from the same waters with a bed-tick he had
either bought, borrowed or stolen from one of the neighbors.
ISTo marvel that that once prolific stream is now compara-
tively barren. Scores upon scores of other streams have
been similarly depleted in this State and elsewhere. But I
am happy to know that this unsportsmanlike habit of 'catch-
ing to count' is now deemed 'more honored in the breach
than in the observance' — thanks to the admonitions of the
public press and the better education of the present gener-
ation of anglers.
"On my first visit to the Au Sable I took all the fish I
WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 19
wished within a mile from camp. On my recent visit it
took me a whole afternoon, casting over the same ground,
to catch enough for supper and breakfast. I was told they
were plenty as ever fifteen or twenty miles down stream, but
I didn't care to make the journey. I preferred to work for
what I caught, having long since ceased to find my highest
pleasure in angling where neither skill nor patience is re-
quired to fill my creel."
*ln what," I was asked, "do grayling, in their haunts and
habits, differ from trout?"
"Their haunts are the same, in every material quality.
That is, the Au Sable has every feature of a trout stream, in
the clearness, flow and temperature of its water, and in its
ripples, eddies and pools. To simply look at it, any expert
would pronounce it as promising a trout stream as he ever
saw. When I began to cast, I expected a rise from a trout
rather than from a grayling; but often as I have fished the
river I have never yet so much as seen a trout."
"How do you account for their absence?" was the next
query.
* 'I have been frequently asked that question, but I have
never been able to answer it, and the answer is all the more
puzzling from the fact that the earlier settlers have a tradi-
tion (and some assume to speak from personal knowledge)
that there was once trout in the river, and that even now
there are both trout and grayling in other waters not far off.
If the tradition is truthful in regard to this river, what has
become of the trout ? Have the grayling destroyed them?
If so, how did it happen, after having dwelt together in unity
since the creation, in these latter days 'the one has been
taken and the other left?' I know that trout have dis-
appeared from a great many streams because of the changed
temperature or diminished supply of the water, caused by
the artificial drainage of swamps, the absorption or diversion
of springs and the denudation of forests. But no such
causes have operated here. With isolated exceptions — few
and far between — the swamps and springs and forests re-
main as they were when *the morning stars sang together.*
20 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES,
If trout ever were in the river I can conceive of no reason
why they should not be there still, and if in waters where the
two fish are still found the trout are rapidly disappearing (as
is alleged) the mystery is all the more inexplicable. I wish
some one better acquainted with grayling and grayling
waters than I am would essay to solve this problem.
"So much for the haunts of the grayling. Now a word
about their habits. I find them in just such spots as I
would look for trout in the early season — on the riffs, at the
foot of rapids, under old logs and in all kinds of shady
places, but not often in deep pools. And they are like trout
also in the manner in which they take the fly, except that I
thought they did not come up as far out of the water as trout
sometimes do when they 'rise;' but they take the fly as
sharply, shoot off as rapidly and fight as gamely. They
make a more stout resistance at the outset than trout of the
same weight, chiefly because of the great dimensions of their
dorsal fin, which gives them a powerful lever when they
shoot a(;ross the current, as they usually do when struck. I
do not think, however, they have the trout's 'staying' qual-
ities, but they are all game, and afford the angler quite as
much sport as trout in any waters.
"There is one thing about the grayling especially worth
mentioning — the peculiar thyme-like aroma they emit when
taken. The ancient Greeks recognized this fragrant odor
in the fish. 'Hence its generic name Thymalhis, which is
derived from Thumalliis, the Greek term for thyme .' [Hal-
leck's Gazetteer, p. 335.] I had never heard of this peculi-
arity, and for a time I fancied myself moving through a
forest-garden of sweet smelling herbs. None of this aroma
is perceptible after cooking — except to a very lively imag-
ination. In point of flavor, the grayling is the peer of the
trout. Indeed, neither in its haunts, its habits, its gamy
qualities or its flavor, is it at all inferior to that favorite
fish. If not as handsome when landed it is even more beau-
tiful in the water. In reeling one in, with the sun at a i-roper
angle, its great dorsal fin, with its blended body-hues of olive,
brown, rose, liilue, green and pink, reveal all the dazzling
WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 21
colors of the kaleidoscope. I am afraid I sometimes unne-
cessarily protracted my 'play* to enjoy the exquisite pictm*e. "
*'You speak,'* said one of the coterie, **of the Au Sable as
having the flow of an ordinary trout stream. The popular
idea is that the ^\'hole of Michigan, except its extreme north-
ern portion, is practically a uniform plane, with no high
hills and no mountain brooks nor swift flowing waters, such
as we have in our own State."
* 'And this popular idea is not far wrong. There are no
real mountains in Michigan. Nevertheless, the topography
of the center of the lower peninsula is such that many of the
streams move with considerable velocity. The current of
the Au Sable, for instance, flows from one to four miles an
hour, and its water is as pure and as transparent as any
mountain stream I ever saw. But when I have said this I
have said about all that can be said in its favor. It has
very few beautiful scenic features. Its banks are generally
low and uninviting. There are not, so far as 1 traversed it,
many pleasant camping places directly on its borders. On
my last visit I floated several miles before I found a spot where
I was willing to pitch my tent, and when I landed an inci-
dent occurred that made me wish myself a hundred miles
away. It was this : A party of ladies and gentlemen had
just broken camp as we landed, and were awaiting their
w^agons to take them to the village. While thus waiting,
the ladies amused themselves in gathering wild flowers, and
in their rambles they had encountered a huge massassaugua,
whose glittering eyes and warning rattle had sent them flying
and screaming back to camp. Although diligent search
was made for the reptile, he remained undiscovered. The
incident was followed by the pleasant assurance from my
guide, that 'although a good many 'saugas were round, they
very seldom bit anyone; or, if they did, a quart of whisky,
swallowed at once, was a sure cure.' As I hadn't the
whisky I didn't hanker after the bite. My sleep in the
woods, with nothing but a few hemlock boughs between
my body and mother earth, is usually sound and re-
freshing. But upon this occasion I was terribly nervous,
23 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES
and more than once awoke with the fancy that every hair
on my head was a massassauga, and the rustling of the
leaves the seductive music of their blood-curdling rattle.
Fond as I was of fishing, before morning I had resolved
that I wouldn't spend another such night for all the grayling
in the Au Sable. But 4iow use doth breed a habit in a man!'
With the dawn my nervousness took flight, and through all
the subsequent nights I spent upon the river, I 'slept the
sleep of unconscious innocence.' Still, the knowledge that
rattlers are occasionally seen has made me less anxious than
I might otherwise be to go after grayling.
"It is one of tLe glories of the 'North Woods' that they
are infested by no venomous reptiles; and during all the
years I have visited salmon rivers, I have never seen nor
heard of anything of kin to the rattlesnake family. I know
of some splendid trout, bass and muscalonge waters north-
west from Ottawa which 1 have hesitated about visiting be-
cause of their bad reputation in this respect. But even this
will not restrain me thiough another summer, if my health is
spared."
"When are grayling in season?" I was asked.
"The grayling is a spring spawner, and is in season any-
where from July to mid-winter. They are, perhaps, in full-
est life and flavor in September and October, and thus fur-
nish sport to the angler after it is wrong to take trout or
salmon. In Michigan there is no more delightful month in
the whole year than October. As a rule, it is an unbroken
Indian summer, and as, late in the month, deer are in good
flesh and are almost as plenty in the woods as grayling are
in the water, a combination of the two makes the Au Sable
region a very paradise to the sportsman. I may add, also,
that there are lakes near by quite as well stocked with bass
as the river is with grayling. A region where bass, grayling
and deer are all 'in season' at once, and all equally abun-
dant, should have a potent drawing power for all who take
delight in the use of rod and rifle."
"Please take us with you the next time you go for gray-
ling," was the expressed wl^h cf all present— not excepting
WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 23
my old friend from St. Lawrence, who had never before in-
dicated any interest in any fish but his beloved bass. I more
than half suspected, however, that his desire to accompany
me had its moving cause in my casual intimation that there
were inviting bass lakes in the neighborhooi of this famous
grayling river.
A ^lEMORY.
How beautiful this night : the balmiest sigh
Which vernal zephyrs breathe in evening's ear
Were discord to the speaking quietude
That wraps this moveless scene. — Shellej/,
The casual presence of two or three out-of-town veterans
of the craft gave a retrospective cast to the conversa-
tion at a recent re-union of the local brotherhood. With
one of our guests I had tabernacled for twenty years in the
wilderness. No man was ever more companionable or had
more of the characteristics of true nobility. In physique
he was robust as an athlete, but in thought and feeling he
was as impressive as a child and as gentle as a woman. He
was, withal, as moderate in his sports as he was temperate
in his habits. In seeking his own pleasure he never forgot*
the pleasure of others, nor did he ever envy others the
**luck" he sometimes failed to enjoy himself. Indeed, I
have known him to slip away from a promising * 'spring
hole" which was his own by right of possession, that a less
expert ansler might fish undisturbed and be happy. He is
some years my senior, and although still as buoyant in
spirit as wnen he would ''set the table in a roar" by the un-
ceasing flow of his inimitable humor, he bears, on body and
brow, the ear-marks of weariness, if not of decay. When I
meet him he always reminds me of my fancy picture of
grand old "Kit North*' — that princely king of the inimit-
able "Noctes Ambrosianae." He is hke him in his tastes,
in his enthusiasm and in his irrepressible love of the gentle
pastime which constituted the rarest pleasure of his youtn
and the chief joy of his green old age. He is like him also
in that he finds unalloyed delight in re-traversing, in imagi-
WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 25
nation, the quiet places, where in his prime and later man-
hood, he was wont to go a-fishing.
And another of our guests was cast from the samo mold,
lie had, for. thirty years, without a single intermission, regu-
larly visited the North Woods. He knew every foot of that
tangled wilderness ; had fished in every accessible brook,
river and lake, and had never been known to do aught that
did not become an angler and a man. In all my long asso-
ciation with him, in town and forest, around the home-
hearth and the camp-fire, 1 never but once saw him out of
humor. The single exception was when a conceited cockney
— who had more of the spirit of the vandal than of the
gentle angler — happened along where we were in camp and
challenged him to a day's fishing to "count.*' Although
proverbially hospitable and never more happy than when
entertaining casual guests, he made his contempt for his
challenger so unmistakable that the fellow was glad to
"vamose the ranch" at the earliest possible moment. If all
other honorable angleis were equally emphatic in their de-
nunciation of this vile habit, our trout streams would not
be so soon depleted.
After all were comfortably seated around the open fire-
place, and our venerable guests and all of us were well down
to the middle of our first cigar, the oldest and most honored
of the circle said :
"Well, this is comfortable. This crackling wood fire, this
fragrant Havana (only it should be a pipe), and these friendly
and familiar faces have knocked thirty years of time into
oblivion and dropped me down into the cosy precinctr. of a
bark shanty at the foot of Big Tupper. Some of you
younger gentlemen were then still in your swaddling clothes,
but you and jou and you [naming three of us] w^re there
or thereabouts years before and for many years thereafter.
Providence has dealt kindly with all of us. My^wn cru£.«
has never been without oil, and I never took physic enough
to nauseate a cat. In the beautifully expressive language
of Scripture, my 'lines have been cast in pleasant places/
I never had an ailment a week's fishing wouldn't cure, ano
26 WINTEB TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES "^
I never envied prince, potentate or president so long as I
could find the time (and I always did) and had the opportu-
tunityto make a 'cast.' I think I am and have been as
sympathetic as most men. [''Hear, hear," all around the
circle.] I know I have lost many a night's sleep on hearing
of the misfortune of some friend who deserved a better
fate. I know, too, that I would rather toss a dollar to a
beggar than exchange salutations with a king, and I have
had both experiences. Indeed, my sympathies have uni-
formly been with 'the under dog in the fight,' no matter
which was the aggressor. But my heart has always been
stirred to its deepest depths when 1 have met a good fellow
who was so insensible to his own happiness, so absorbed in
his acquisition of wealth, and so inappreciative of the ex-
ample of the holy apostles as never to have cultivated a
taste for the angle. ["Hear, hear," and a gentle ripple of
applause.] Why, what is life? and what is the prime
object of living? In one respect 'life is a vapor'; but i1, is
something more. It embodies all the elements of an active
verb— to be, to do, to suffer (as little as possible) and to
enjoy (all you can). That is a condensed epitome of life, as
I understand it. And what is the object of living? Simply
to do good and be happy. The one is dependent upon the
other. They are inseparable and indivisible; and 'what
God has joined together let no man put asunder.' I know
that an old Scotch philosopher — afid no class of philosophers
blend more hard sense with their incomprehensible meta-
physics—has said that the root of all happiness lies in 'a
clear conscience and open bowels.' So far as that aphorism
goes it is incontestably sound and profoundly sensible. But
there is a link missing. I insist that however clear and
clean one»may keep his conscience, and however regularly
the complicated machinery of his 'fearfully and wonder-
fully mad^' system may do its office, it is impossible that he
should ever be qualified for the highest good or reach the
highest possible pinnacle of earthly felicity, unless he has
the contemplative mind, the gentle spirit, the poetic taste,
the quiet habit and the sturdy common sense of the man
C WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES 27
who loves to go a-fishing. [* 'Bravo 1" ''Well put," with
approving smiles and affirmative head-nods from all of us.]
!Now, you see, 1 know what I am talking about. I was ten
years old before I killed a trout. If my early education
had not been neglected I would have begun fishing at five.
The loss of those five years have always been a soarce of re-
gret to me, and 1 more than once questioned my father's kind-
ness because, with all his own love for, and appreciation of,
the sport, 'he kept his only son, myself, at home' during
these five years, while he himself made his weekly excur-
sions to the trOut streams in our immediate neighborhood.
I am told that during those five lost years I was delicate,
morose, flippant and querulous. No wonder. My inhsr^
ited angling blood was in rebellion against the cruel restraint
imposed upon me. But with a carte blanche at ten to fish
when and where I pleased, the whole mental and moral
structure of my being was changed, and I became ductile,
obedient and happy ; and 1 have been fairly good and very
happy ever since, but never so happy as when I have had a
'lodge in some vast wilderness,' through which course melo-
dious trout brooks or roaring salmon rivers." [Applause.]
When fresh cigars were lit and the blazing fire replenished,
our venerable friend was reminded that he had not yet told
us about the pleasant time he had in his bark shanty at the
foot of Big Tupper thirty years ago.
"Thank you for the reminder. Well, you see, no matter
how fond one becomes of the woods in general, or how
happy he may be wherever there are plenty fish and
pleasant scenery, he will get a special fondness for some
special spot, and will never deem his outing comi)lete with-
out paying it a visit. I always had several such pet places,
and Cole's Point, at the toot of Big Tupper, was one of
them. I came to like the spot not alone because of its pleas-
ant surroundings — although that counted for something —
but also because, within easy distance, there were some of
the best casting places, during the early season, to be found
anywhere in the woods, notably the Point itself, Peter's
Rock and Lothrop's chopping. My acquaintance with these
28 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMEB PASTIMES.
localities began nearly forty years ap:o, when the regular
visitors to those waters could be counted upon your two
thumbs and eight fingers, and when you could float fifty
miles without meeting a white man or encountering a house.
There are now, I am told, a hundred places of entertain-
ment within the boundaries of the grand old forest where
we used to pitch our tents without fear of molestation from
cockney anglers or 'Murray's fools.' As I was saying, Cole's
Point was one of my favorite resorts. The occasion to
which my memory drifted just now was only distin-
guished from many another because of two or three inci-
dents which rendared it especially memorable. I was ac-
companied by two of the most companionable fellows I ever
met. They were born anglers, and carried with them all
the scholarly tastes and joyousness of spirit characteristic of
the old masters of the art. Dull care never obtruded his ugly
visage within the precincts of their tabernacle. Although
they were masters of all the sciences, and had earned all the
tMes at the disposal of all the schools, they were as free
from guile and ostentation as a true angler is from cruelty
or conceit. While we were in camp the moon was at her
full, so that the nights were as luminous as the early gloam-
ing, and as serene and beautiful as the placid waters of the
great lake which stretched out inimitably before us. As we
sat in rapt ecstacy outside our primitive camp looking up
and out upon the unclouded sky, the silvery sheen of the
quiet waters and the rugged bluffs which loomed up in the
clear moonlight like giant warders at the portals of the lake,
no sound broke upon the ear save the low ripple of the tiny
rapids just below us, and the occasional whistle of some be-
lated wood-bird who had missed his mate. You know I
have been a world-wide wanderer. There is not a historic
painting, nor a chronicled statue, nor a noted palace, from
the Hudson to the Bosphoi-us, that I have not seen. I have
slept upon an Alpine glacier, have sat in wonderment and
awe beneath the ponderous dome of St. Peters, have looked
down from the belfry of St. Paul's, have traversed the
Rhine, have bowed my head at the entrance of the Golden
WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES 29
Gate, have wandered tlirougli the 'garden of the gods/ and
taken in all the exquisite beauty and majestic grandeur of the
Yosemite Valley, but my soul was never so thiilled as dur-
ing these never-to-be-forgotten nights of ecstacy and beauty
at the foot of Big Tnpper, when, superadded to what I saw
and felt, my two companions made the dense solitude vocal
with 'the concord of sweet sounds,' breathed from cornet
and flute, played with a sweetness and harmony which
proved them as much the masters of those instruments as
they wore of Greek and beile-lettres and of rod and reel.
Much that I have seen and enjoyed is forgotten, but this
memory of thirty years ago remains as fresh and vivid as
any pleasurable emotion that has come to me within the past
fortnight. Oh, no; as our respected chronicler of the pleas-
ures of our favorite pastime has said, *it is not all of fishing
to fish,' and he who thinks so has not yet learned the first letter
in the alphabet of the true angler. [Ripples of applause]
"Did some one ask me what sport we had? In those days
it required more skill to keep from 'striking' than to get a
•rise.' If we only went to fish, we need not then to have
penetrated into the heart of the forest to get what we went
for. But fishing was but an incident then as always. The
freedom, the rest, the recuperation, the ten thousand delights
which come to mind and heart from mountain and river and
lake and forest, infinitely more than the mere act of taking
tish, constituted and still constitute the chief charm of
these summer rdmbles. As my friend here has said before me,
among the multitude of blessings vouchsafed me by a kind
Providence, I count my passion for this delightful pastime
as chief. If not a better, I am sure I have been a happier
man, because, during all my long life, I have found pleasure
in the woods and loved to go a-fishing." ["So say we, all
uf us," and a hearty hand-shake all round followed the re-
hearsal of this pleasant memory. It was the preface to
many another like recital, which held the merry-hearted
coterie together far into the "wee, sma' hours ayont the twal, "
and which I may make "of record" before "reeling up"
these rambling "Talks on Summer Pastimes."]
REMINISCENCES.
I have written for lovers of the gentle art, and if this which I have
written falls into other hands, let him who reads understand it is not
for him. — W. C. Prime.
'X^HESE "Talks" are written on the presumption that they
-*- will only be read by the ''simple wise men" who can sym-
pathize with their theme and who are in accord with their
sentiments. To those who know nothing of the art or of
its delightful possibilities, they will be "as sounding brass
or tinkling cymbals." But to the mild-mannered and
merry-hearted brotherhood they may have something of the
music of forest birds and the melody of running waters.
Not only has every pastime its special attractions, but its
votaries have their special reasons for the high estimate
in which they hold it. Others may, but they never weary
of talking about il. What is true of other pastimes is pre-
eminently true of angling. No other affords so many inci-
dents that it is a pleasure to remember and a greater pleas-
ure to recount to appreciative and sympathizing listeners.
The "memory" which formed the theme of my last "Talk"
was followed by other reminiscences, one of which is sub-
joined.
Several years ago I found that I had not time to make my
usual August trip to the North "Woods ; but 1 knew very well
if I allowed the month to pass without enjoying a "cast"
somewhere I would find my mental machinery sadly out of
joint. I had tried it once and remembered the result. I
cannot gay that I suffered any real physical detriment, but
I evinced neither good temper nor good manners (and they
always hunt in couples) until the fever subsided with the
close of the season.
And this is the experience of all anglers who have had a
taste of the invigorating and exhilarating delights that come
to those who have even passable skill with rod and reel.
Perhaps something of this feeling may pass into the experi-
WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 81
ence of those who have only felt the excitement incident to
the capture of fish with the rougher implements of the craft.
* 'Still-fishing" with bait, or trolling with * 'spoon" or min-
now is better than no fishing, as ** 'tis better to have loved
and lost than never to have loved at all. '* But that sort of
fishing never reaches to the dignity of a passion. The out-
ing necessarv to engage in it may be missed, but no great
disappointment will be felt if circumstances compel a resort
to some other mode of diversion. But with those who have
loni)r enjoyed the ecstasy of fly-casting it is not so. To be
satisfying, their ''vacation" must carry them to trout, bass,
grayling or salmon waters. No other harmless or healthful
recreation takes so strong a hold upon one's spirit or imagi-
nation, because there is no other which meets so fully the
mental, physical and aesthetic demands of mind and heart.
In following the brooks and rivers which wend their way
through forest and mountain and valley, where solitude has
her abode and where rustling leaves and singing birds and
the rippling music of running waters fill the air with per-
petual melody, the appreciative angler, "born so," as good
old Izaak has it, finds mental repose, physical invigoration,
"beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the gar-
ment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." It is because
these qualities inhere in the pastime — are identical with and
inseparable from it — that it is so irresistibly fascinating to
its votaries. They can be proffered no substitute, because,
Kke matchless beauty, "only itself can be its parallel."
On the occasion to which I have referred, my usual two
weeks' visit to the "spring holes" between Ray Brook and
Setting Pole Rapids, where I have had such sport as lifted
me into the seventh heaven of delectation, was reduced to
a three-days' sojourn where the whistle of the locomo-
tive could be heard, and where, if need be, a telegraph mes-
sage could reach me. It was, I thought, a pitiful substitute
for my old-time free and easy swing in the grand old woods,
where, for so many years, a score of good fellows constituted
the sum total of intruders upon its then unbroken solitude.
Ah, those were days to be remembered — when trout were
82 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES.
plenty and anglers, few, wnen you could float from Mar-
tin's to Raquette Falls, and from Blue Mountain Lake to
the Old Forge, in midsummer, as undisturbed by human
companionship as if you were astraddle of the highest peak
of the Rocky Mountains, when tliere wasn't so much as a
log shanty on the whole line of the Fulton range or (with
one exception) from Bartlett's away down to Downie's Land-
ing. Most of the good fellows whom I was wont to meet
in those far-back summer rambles have made their last
**cast," and are now, I trust, enjoying infinitely higher fe-
licity on the banks of that **pure river of water, clear as
crystal," so graphically portrayed by the lonely seer upon
the Isle of Patmos Some of them — alas! how few — still
remain to illustrate the beneficent influence of the gentle art
upon the mind and heart and physique of its happy brother-
hood. Here is a note just received from one of them. Al-
though to him the grasshopper may have become a burden,
the golden bowl is not yet broken, nor has his good right
arm yet lost its cunning. His heart still pulsates with good
will to all men. especially to those who "deal justly, walk
humbly," and love to go a-fishing. He has the gentle spirit
of the dear old masters, and whether, hereafter, his annual
visits shall be many or few to the pleasaut places where
he has for thirty years found retirement, recreation, re-
pose, and a higher conception of the munificence and loving
kindness of the Heavenly Father, the recollection of his
friendly courtesies and quiet ways will ever be a pleasant
memory to those who have often met him in the woods and
enjoyed his kindly hospitality:
"Keeseville, Essex Co., N. Y., November 27, 1882.
"^f^/ dear Z)..*
"I desire to express to you the satisfaction and pleasure already
received from reading the two articles from your pen published in
Forest and Stream. I trust they will be continued through all the
bleak months of our weary winter. May I ask you, before you 'reel
up,' to give us a 'Talk' on the dear old North Woods of the Saranac
region and thereabouts? I very often recall the many times we have
met there, and they are hallowed in memory. Last spring's trip
made my thirtieth e.nniial pilgrimage to those blessed haunts, but
not with my usual enthusiasm. I miss old friends like yourself. As
WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 33
you can readily imagine, many changes have occurred in thirty
years, and of many who were once our forest companions, 'there
only remains to us,' as you have said elsewhere, 'the recollection of
their pleasant ways and joyous companionship.' It makes me sad
to remember bow many have passed away with whom I have taken
'sweet counsel' in the dear old woods, but whom I will see no more
this side the dark river. Yours, very truly, J. R. R."
With but tliree days at my certain disposal, Manchester
and its adjacent waters seemed the most available. I had
heard of the pleasant valley through which clear streams
meandered, and I found it all it was claimed to be, "beauti-
ful for situation," and a very paradise in itself and in its
surroundings. If I had had no other purpose than to fish, I
need not have left the valley. I filled my creel as quickly
as I desired. The weather was superb, the water was in
prime condition, the responses were prompt, and the weight
of the fish and their gamey qualities even more inspiriting
than their numbers. But 1 wished to explore as well as to
angle ; to fill my lungs with the pure ozone of the mountains,
as well as to till my creel with the speckled denizens of the
pearly brooks; to camp out, if but for anight, as well as to fish.
I had heard of a tiny lake perched upon the summit of an
adjacent mountain many hundreds of feet above the valley,
difficult of access, as retired as any peak in the Coloradoes,
and well stocked with large trout always available to those
who had the skill to catch them. I was prompt to avail my-
self of the proffer of an escort thither, and in the early gloam-
ing I found myself casting in vain for a rise. At the end of a
half hour the full moo\i came up over the tree tops. As the
unclouded rays fell upon the fair bosom of the ruffled
waters, I realized something of what Tennyson meant when
he wrote of "the shimmering glimpses of a stream." The
tiny waves looked like rippling rolls of molten silver, and
when the moon had reached an elevation where her beams
could flash full upon the face of the forest-bordered lakelet,
it made up a picture which has remained with me through
all these intervening years. It was for this and such as this,
equally as for the delight afforded by the pastime itself,
that I had alwajs made my semi-annual visits to the quiet
34 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES.
places where trout and contemplative anglers are pleased to
forgather.
But this beautiful picture, gorgeous and fascinating as it
was, did not fill full the measure of my desire and expecta-
tion. While I had been casting and watching the silent
march of **the silver empress of the night," the fire had
been kindled, the pork had been sliced, and the frying pan
rtood ready to do its office, but no trout had been taken.
The idea of going supperless to bed was not pleasant. The
long tramp and keen mountain air had given me an appetite
more biting than the chilly atmosphere with which we were
environed. I had resolved to retire discomfited after an-
other cast when I bethought me that what the scarlet ibis and
brown hackle had failed to accomplish, might, under the
favorable conditions of the hour, be effected by a well -poised
dusty miller; and I was uot mistaken. The first cast was
followed by a rise. In five minutes a two-pound trout was
ready for dissection, and in twenty minutes, eight others,
aggregating nine pounds, had been taken in out of the wet,
wherewith I was content and reeled up for the night.
The repast that followed was fragrant, luscious and abun-
dant—such a feast as always comes to an honest angler when
''good digestion waits on appetite.'* I cannot, however,
say as much for my night's repose. A hastily constructed
brush canopy sufficiently protected us from the fast-falling
dew, and a thick layer of hemlock boughs — emitting an
aroma as fragrant as the fabled nectar of the gods — was
such a couch as kings might envy. When thus disposed
sleep always comes to me without wooing, and it would
have done so on this occasion but that my inexperienced
companion, who had never before camped out, chattered so
incessantly that I sought revenge by reciting every blood-
curdling story I had ever heard or could invent about the
mortal peril that besets whoever has the temerity to invade
the haunts of venomous reptiles or ravenous beasts. The
brief intervals of silence were broken by mysterious sounds,
which I knew to be caused by the flight of prowling night
birds, the gnawing and scratching of hungry grubs, or the
WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 35
stealthy tread of fox or rabbit, but which he, in his nervous
excitability, magnified into the unpleasant proximity of
bear or wild cat. His frequently repeated **Hist!" "What's
that!" had become monotonous, and I was passing off into
peaceful slumber when 1 was startled by a yell from my
timid friend which could only have been born of genuine
fright induced by actual contact with some tangible object.
If his alarm was not justified it was excusable, for our
couch had been invaded by a prowling woodchuck, who
had been attracted by the fragrance of the discarded frag-
ments of our evening feast. This intrusion (when the in-
truder took flight, for he stood not upon the order of his
going, but went at once) was followed by profound silence
on th3 part of my friend and by blissful unconsciousness
on my own part, until a full chorus of forest minstrels and
the slanting rays of the morning sun admonished me that it
was time to try the virtue of a morning cast
And I cast, but nothing came of it. There was not a rip-
ple on the surface of the water, and as far as I could reach
it seemed like casting upon a floor of glass. Every moment
the sun glare was extending, and before I had become en-
tirely hopeless of a rise, the whole lake shone like a great
mass of burnished silver. I was soon encouraged, however,
by a * 'break" some hundred feet beyond my cast. As there
was neither boat nor raft available, the "break" might as
well have been a hundred miles away as where it was. I
did my best to entice the sportive brutes shoreward, but it
was like "calling spirits from the vasty deep," — they
wouldn't come. The more I cast the more they jumped,
but always at an unapproachable distance. Of course it was
provoking, and of course I looked about for some mode by
which I could circumvent and turn the tables upon my
sportive tantalizers. I discovered near by two dry logs —
barely two — which, if properly joined together, would suf-
fice to bear me up if carefully manipulated. Withes were
procured, hastily twisted and used in the conventional way
known to all old woodsmen. A few minutes sufliced to
finish the work after a fashion, and while the fish were still
m WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES.
* 'making the water boil" with their sportive antics, my fly
dropped in the very center of their circle, and was taken be-
fore it had fairly touched the water. Th© movement of
fisher and fish was spontaneous. But the fish had the ad-
vantage. The lake gave him ''scope and verge enough" to
do his best, while I stood poised upon a structure so frail
that its dislocation and engulf ment was threatened by the
slightest motion. To play the fish was not so difficult, but
how to land him without toppliug over was a problem whose
solution troubled me not a little. But it was accomplished
— not once, but many times in quick succession. If con-
science makes cowards of us all, impunity often makes us
inexcusably presumptuous. My good luck had this effect
upon myself, and while playing what afterward proved
to be a two-pound trout, I found the two sticks which
formed my raft slowly diverging. Here was a di-
lemma. It wouldn't do to drop my rod and risk
the loss of my fish ; nor would it do to allow either log
to take its departure without an effort to prevent it. I soon
discovered that one of the withes had broken, and my only
hope was to use my feet to hold the raft together until I
could finish my fight and paddle ashore. But my efforts in
this direction rather tended to widen the breach than close
it, and while my fish was at his best I found myself in the
attitude of the Colossus of Khodes or the American eagle,
who stood with one foot on the Pacific and the other on the
Atlantic while he dipped his beak in the majestic Missis-
sippi. My straddle was simply prodigious, and it contin-
ued to broaden with ever-increasing momentum until my
feet seemed as remote from each other as the Hebrides from
the Rocky Mountains. There was, in short, a great gulf
between them, and I was rather pleased than otherwise
when I found them once more brought into close proximity
and rendering me useful service in my efforts to swim
ashore — which, in this instance, I found to be even more
easy than "rolling off a log." But during all these novel
experiences and unexpected mishaps the "ruling passion"
did not forsake me. I may not have been able all the timo
WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 37
to keep a **taut line" upon my fish, but I held my rod,
and so soon as I could touch bottom I resumed the fight and
landed my two-pound trout as coolly as if nothing out of
the ordinary had happened since he rose to my fly.
A rousing fire and a luscious breakfast soon put every-
thing to rights; and with a better constructed raft and a
keener zest for the sport, I resumed my fishing, and in an
hour or two had a full creel with which to replenish the
larder of friends in waiting at the foot of the mountain.
ABOUT SOME OF THE DISTINGUISHED ANGLERS
OF OUR TIME.
Though he in all the p( ople's eyes seemed great,
Yet greater he appeared in his retreat.
— Sir J. Denhatn.
In the long catalogue of honorable anglers are the names
of apostles, kings, princes, priests, poets, bishops, states-
men and philosophers — men who made history, ruled
nations, honored the church, dignified humanity, and left
the impress of their scholarship upon all the centuries.
And what they did they did all the better — more wisely,
more humanely, and with a higher conception of the sacred
character of the work assigned them — because they had the
contemplative habit, proverbial patience and gentle spirit of
the simple wise men who love to go a-fishing.
It has been my fortune to know and to have ''camped
out" with some of the well-known men of our own time,
and I have always found them as companionable and merry-
hearted as the most humble of the brotherhood. If there
was any difference in the zest and enthusiasm with which
each class plied their vocation, it arose from the fact that to
the former the pastime was in greater contrast with the
social and ofiicial conventionalities which held them more
closely in their chafing trammels, and so gave them a
keener appreciation of the fre(»dom which came to them in
the quiet places to which their love of angling led them.
To all such an ''outiug" was not simply a holiday; it was
WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES 39
the unlocking of their official prison house ; the lifting of a
leaden weight from their weary brain ; a translation from
work and worry to needed rest and absolute freedom and
repose. The contrast between what they endured and what
they enjoyed — between the red-tape technicalities of official
life and the rollicking abandon permissible in the cosy camp
on trout stream or salmon river — is the contrast between
purgatory and paradise ; and when the rebound comes it is
felt in every cell of the brain, in every fibre of the body and
in every pulsation of the heart. I knew just how a Chief
Justice felt when, coming in from our salmon pools to lunch,
he cast himself at full length beneath the welcome shade of
a spreading pine, with face aglow and his voice tremulous
with devout thanksgiving and exclaimed :
" 'Begone, my cares, I give ye to the winds.*
**Ah! old man, old man, this indeed is rest."
"Yes, my dear fellow, it is pleasant and — jolly," was my
response, as I ripped off a piece c f fresh hemlock bark to
serve as a table for our humble repast.
These ripples of ecstacy; these indefinable heart-zephyrs;
these foretastes of a higher felicity, which drop into the
soul like golden sun-glints through the quivering leaves of
the waving forests, are among the unpurchasable luxuries
of the appreciative angler, and come to no other in such full
measure.
Vice-President Wheeler is one of the distinguished anglers
of our own time. His visits to the Saranacs and adjacent
waters were and still are as regular as the seasons. His
home is in close proximity to the best fishing grounds in
the State, and he has grown up as familiar with all of them
as he is with the various rooms in his own domicile. He
has been a member of our State Legislature, has repeatedly
served his district in the House of Representatives, been
Vice-President of the United States, and a busy man al-
ways, but he has never intermitted his annual visits to the
beautiful lakes which make a terrestrial paradise of the far-
famed Adirondacks. When, years ago, he was talked of for
the high position which he subsequently filled, I ventured
40 WINTER TALKS ON SU2IMEB PASTIMES,
the prediction that he would take no office that would pre-
clude him from these annual visits to angling waters. In
18^6 **Hayes and Wheeler" were the candidates of their
party, and 1 was proclaimed a false prophet. But I not
only knew my man, but the fascinating pastime of which
he was a votary, and the result vindicated my piediction.
He more than once mysteriously disappeared from his place
as presiding officer of the Senate, and while others were guess-
ing his whereabouts, his more intimate friends knew he had
gone a-fishing. His robes of place were laid aside for the
garb of the angler, and the restraints and formalities of his
office for the quiet and freedom which can be found nowhere
so perfectly as in the primitive forests and on the crystal
lakes and flowing rivers where the veteran angler finds his
most refreshing rest and highest delectation.
Although the ex-Yice-President is as skilled in all the
mysteries of the craft as he is in all the intricacies of the
civil law, and with all the prof oundest principles of states-
manship, he affects the troll rather than the fly, and is
oftener seen leisurely floating over the silvery surface of
the beautiful lakes than casting in either brook or river.
While this mode of angling does not come up to the highest
standard of the art, and fails to satisfy the more ardent,
robust and enthusiastic of the brotherhood, it is full of
attraction and affords supreme delight to the more repose-
ful and contemplative. Indeed, the most enthusiastic of
the craft — even those who fancy they would soon weary of
the sport if they could not ''cast" for their prey— are often
lured by the pleasure available to those who spend the
sunny summer days casting along the picturesque shores
and among the fairy-like islands of our charming inland
waters. Every measure of the oar reveals some new bit of
landscape to be admired. Sunshine and shadow are ever
busy painting pictures of ever-varying beauty. The gentle
summer zephyrs float down from the forest-crowned moun-
tains like heavenly benedictions. The balmy air, as free
from the germs of disease and the odors of decay as the
mind of the angler is from strife and contention, fills his
WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES 41
lungs as full of invigorating elixir as his heart is of grati-
tude and good will. Those who have felt all this— and all
of us have — will not think the less of our distinguished
fellow citizen because he mostly angles with the troll, and
seeks Jiis pleasure and recreation in moving to and fro upon
the lakes, which sit like sparkling gems among the everlast-
ing hills of the far-famed Adirondacks. I hope, when my
right hand shall forget its cunning, and when from old age
or decrepitude I shall have fought my last battle on salmon
waters, to be able to glide gently toward the dark river in
the quiet and peaceful and happy way in which my honored
friend has so long found his highest pleasure and most
perfect repose.
Gen. Arthur, now President of the United States, is also a
well known "brother of the angle." He has all the best
qualities of the most famous disciples of the gentle art. He
is patient, courteous, companionable, enthusisastic and
expert. He is, withal, an ardent lover of all that is grand
and beautiful and picturesque in nature. As I have said of
another I can say of him, in all that moves our sensibilities
and kindliest sympathies he is as impressible as a child and
as gentle as a woman. In spite of the rough school in which
he has been a life-long pupil, his heart is * 'open as day to
melting charity," and his poetic tastes enable him always
and everywhere, to see
*'Sermons in stones, books in running brooks,
And good in everything."
His love of the art is the outgrowth of his aesthetic sus-
ceptibilities, and this love will remain with him long after
the dazzling glories of office shall have lost their charm, be-
cause the beauties of nature are as varied and exhaustless as
the munificence and majesty of their beneficent author.
The pleasurable emotions they excite, like the eternal prin-
ciple mysteriously linked to our finite humanity, never die.
Than Gen. Arthur no man can pitch a tent more quickly,
adorn a camp more tastefully, cast a fly more deftly, fight a
salmon more artistically or bring him to gaff more gracefully.
I owe to his courtesy the opportunity to kill my first salmon,
43 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES.
have been with him in every phase of an angler's experience,
and know him to be the peer of the most accomplished and
most appreciative of the masters of the art. It has been his
good fortune to kill the largest salmon ever taken with a fly
on this continent ; and it was because I knew his intense
fondness for the pastime that I appreciated how deeply he
felt his disappointment when, after his nomination as Vice-
President, I tendered him my congratulations, he said: '*I
thank you, of course, but I am afraid that, for this summer
at least, it will keep me away from our grand old river. " A
pastime that could be remembered and spoken of under
8uch circumstances must have a strong hold upon one's
affections. I am sure he looks forward hopefully to the day
when, relieved of the cares of his high office, he will be once
more permitted to pitch his tent upon the Restigouche or
Cascapedia and angle for salmon.
Gen. Spinner, ex-United States Treasurer, an octogenarian
with whom old Time has dealt very gently, and whose sign
manual is a type of his robust integrity and sturdy patriot-
ism, is also one of the brotherhood. Long before his home
friends sent him to Congress or President Lincoln made him
the custodian of the treasury chest of the nation, he had be-
come intimate with the best angling waters of Northern
New York. With him the pastime was a delight, less be-
cause of the flsh to be taken than because of the pleasant
places to which their capture led him. He was a born
botanist as well as a born angler, and during his later years
he was quite as happy gathering the rare plants and ferns
and flowers he met with in his forest walks as in catching
trout. I have journeyed with him through the whole length
and breadth of our Northern forest, and I never journeyed
with a more happy or entertaining companion. While in
Washington through the terrible years of the war, he found
needed rest in frequent rambles along the Potomac gathering
flowers and angling for bass. His office, from which he
distributed thousands of millions of dollars without the loss
of a farthing, was a perfect museum of floral and botanical
specimens and of all the paraphernalia which go to make up
WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 43
fin angler's kit. And now, at his home in Florida, although
he long ago passed the alloted life of man, the same habits
remain with him and the same pleasures come to him from
these cherished pastimes of his earlier years. He would, per-
haps, all the same have illustrated in his life the virtues of
an honest man if Providence had not, in addition to a vigor-
ous constitution, given him the temperament and taste of an
angler, but the fact that he is an angler we may be sure
abstracts nothing from the high qualities which enter into
the mental and moral structure of an honest man. May he
yet live many years to fish with leaders as tough as his con-
stitution, and with rods as elastic as his humor and as stable
as his fame.
Judge Edmunds, the distinguished Senalor from Vermont,
has been for many years a regular visitor to salmon
waters. He has fished many of the best rivers of the Prov-
inces, and is as expert as he is enthusiastic in the practice of
the art. Of late years his daughters have accompanied him
and shared with him the great pleasure to be derived from
these annual visits to the quiet places where salmon and sea-
trout gather in their season for the delectation of the angler.
One of his daughters was long an invalid, and although she
was temporarily benefited by these summer sojourns in the
silent woods, she recently ''entered into rest." Hereafter
the pleasure the honored statesman may derive from his
angling excursions will be hallowed by the memory of the
heart-gladdening companionship of the "loved and lost."
Judge Folger, the present Secretary of the Treasury, is
also fond of the angle. A coterie of genial gentlemen have
lodges on the banks of Geneva Lake. The Judge is chief
among them in skill and enthusiasm. He has been hoping
for years to accompany Judge Hadley, his near neighbor
and intimate friend, in his annual raid upon the king of
fishes; but he has always had the misfortune to be so tied
down by the galling withes of public responsibilities {hat
he has never been able to pass beyond the metes and bounds
of his official parish for the length of time needful to make
the trip and enjoy the longed-for luxury. A seat will be
44 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES.
reserved for him in our cosy tent until a kind Providcnc3
shall enable him, unhampered by any special obligation to
an exacting public, to try his 'prentice hand on the lordly
salmon.
Although Gov. Seymour may not be technically classed
among the brotherhood, he has the simple habits and aes-
thetic tastes of the contemplative angler. No one has a
nicer appreciation of the beauty and grandeur of forest
scenery, or of the b(^neficent influence upon mind and heart
and body of an occasional sojourn in the silent woods. It
is a rare pleasure to listen to his graphic descriptions of what
he has seen and felt and enjoyed during his rambles in the
Adirondacks. Unlike most of the visitors to that pictur-
esque region, he was most charmed by his winter excur-
sions, when the solitude of the woods was doubly solitary,
and when the mid-winter camp-fire gave an aspect to all its
surroundings as weird-like as it was fascinating. "You
ought to go to the woods in mid-winter," he said to me ox.
one occasion. "You will never have seen them in their
sublimest grandeur and magnificence until you do." The
very last conversation I had with him was on the always
inter jsting subject to the angler of fish food, and the reasons
why some streams are so much more prolific than others.
Tlis theory is the existence of a weed which attracts to itself
ani holds, if it does not produce, a species of insect or ani-
malculae of which fish, especially trout, are fond, and upon
which they thrive. This weed can, he believes, be trans-
planted and should be introduced into all waters where
trout ar3 found. A treatise from his pen on this subject
would be an important and valuable addition to the multi-
tude of papers on practical thames which he has written. As
one of our honored fish commissioners, such a treatise would
come within his official province, and form an important
addition to our piscatorial literature. Who will say
what influence this love of the silent woods and the
peaceful repose of rural life has had in moulding and de-
veloping the social virtues and pure public character of this
unique and distinguished statesman? None of our public
WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES 45
men have lived more circumspectly. His declining sun
reflects a mellow light and will set in unclouded lustre.
Chief Justice Ritchie of New Brunswick, and Chief Jus-
tice Gray of Massachusetts (now of the Supreme Court of
the United States), were two of the merriest men I ever met
on angling waters. The former, though venerable in years,
had all the ardor and enthusiasm of lusty youth, and was one
of the most persistent anglers I ever encountered. He cast
with the skill of an expert and fought his fish with a dash
and impetuosity as exciting as it was masterful. Chief
Justice Gray, with less experience and more deliberation in
casting and killing, was like his brother chief in his intense
love of the sport and in appreciation of the enjoyable pos-
ibilities of camp life on salmon waters. Among the pictur-
esque memories of thase two eminent jurists which remain
with me is this : Chief Justice Ritchie had struck a large
fish about the going down of the sun. Failing to return to
camp before dark, his brother chief became alarmed lest
some mishap had befallen him. Whereupon he hastily ex-
temporized a number of birch-bark torches, and started out
to the rescue. The lost chief was found enveloped in dark-
ness, sturdily fighting a huge fish among rocks and rapids as
impetuously and as resolutely as if the chances were not ten
to one that at any moment his canoe would be wracked
upon some one of the hundred boulders which made the
rapids directly below the pool in which he had hooked his
fish a boiling cauldron. As Chief Gray approached him
with his flaming flambeaux, the happy angler, in a voice
which overtopped the thundering of the rushing rapids, in
reply to the query, "What can we do for you?" exclaim ad:
"Give me but light, Ajax asks no more,"
and, amid Ihe ringing cheers of his admiring rescuers, after
a further half hour's struggle, a thirty-pound salmon was
gaffed, and these two jolly jurists, assisted by their equally
excited guides, proceeded to camp — Judge Gray leading as
corps commander of the most unique torchlight procession
that ever gave escort to a conquering hero on land or water.
The unusual length of this rambling ''Talk" prevents me
46 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES.
from referring to several noted churchmen and scholars
with whom I have either camped or met in my forest tramps.
Prominently in my mind as I write is an eminent and be-
loved Bishop, whose fondness for the pastime often leads
him to the silent woods and crystal trout streams within
easy reach of his cathedral parish. His appreciation of the
dignity as well as of the churchly and fascinating character
of the art may be inferred from the fact that he deems it no
disparagement to his sacred office to be seen bearing with
him homeward his well-filled creel and the tidy fly- rod which
had been his only companion through the long summer's
day. If any cavil at this apostolic habit of the reverend
bishop, I would say to them as good old Izaak said to simi-
lar stupid critics of his own day: 'Indeed, my friend, you
will find angling to be like the virtue of humility, which has
a calmness of spirit and a world of other blessings attending
upon it."
ABOUT SALMON FISHING.
All things by experience
Are most improved; then sedulously think
To 'meliorate thy stock; no way or rule
Be unassay'd. —John Phillips.
r AM often questioned in regard to the mode of procuring
-*- permits to fish in salmon rivers. This question was easily
answered until a recent decision was rendered by the Do-
minion Courts, affirming the riparian rights of the owners of
lands along the rivers. Up to that time the control of all
salmon waters, as well above as below the flow of the tide,
was in the Dominion government; and the right to fish with
either seine or rod could only be obtained from the fishery
officials. But now it is different. Permits or leases can
only be obtained from the owners of the lands, whether such
ownership is in individuals or in the government. Imme-
diately this decision was rendered, gentlemen who were
promptly posted either took up the unentered government
lands commanding desirable pools, or secured leases from
It is generally believed that this decision will lead to the
early depletion of the now prolific rivers affected by it. The
individual owners, even where they lease their pools, will not
be as likely to refrain from fishing them with either rod,
spear or net as when they were restrained by non-ownership or
through fear of the penalties of the old comprehensive and
rigorously enforced laws. The government will, of course,
withdraw its guardianship from rivers from which it derives
no revenue. To be sure, the individual owners or lessees
can appoint guardians, but it is very questionable whether
such appointees will be as careful or as efficient as those
who held an official commission. The loyal residents on and
48 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES
in the vicinity of the rivers have a profound respect for the
authority of the Queen, even when that authority is repre-
sented by one of their own neighbors, but they have no
more respect for individual rights, when those rights are
simply guarded by those having no official authority, than
our own free and independent citizens.
But I may be mistaken in regard to the effect of this
change in the fishery laws of the Dominion. T certainly
hope so; for it would be a great misfortune, not to the Prov-
inces alone, nor yet simply to those who take delight in the
princely sport of angling, but to all consumers of this kingly
fish. For some reason yet unexplained, the salmcn catch
has largely diminished within the past few years. It would
be a public calamity if this new policy should result in the
indiscriminate slaughter of the whole salmon family while
on their journey to and from their spawning beds at the
sources of the rivers to which they resort to breed and mul-
tiply. I most sincerely hope that those who believe no harm
will result from this change of policy are right. But I think
otherwise, and believe my fears will be confirmed by a few
years' experience.
This decision, it is proper to say, only affects the waters
of Quebec and New Brunswick. Nova Scotia rivers, as I
understand it, still remain open to all comers.
*'Well," snid one of my inquisitive friends, who has made
up his mind to kill a salmon at any cost, ''assume that, by
hook or by crook, I have obtained a permit, what shall I
do with it; or, rather, what must I do to render it available?"
"That is a question more easily answered than how to ob-
tain a permit. The first thing needful is an appropriate
equipment, such as rod, reel, flies and leaders. In regard to
a rod, the essential things are strength and elasticity.
Either can easily be obtained separately, but wood in which
both are perfectly combined is hard to get hold of. But
without both neither is of any use, cither in casting or in
killing. A lod that is unresporsive is not only a very un-
pleasant thing to handle, but will fail to do the work re-
quired even in the hands of an expert. No one can cast
WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES 49
a fly with a hoop pole, but one might almost as well have a
hoop pole as some rods that are palmed off as appropriate
for salmon easting. Unless the spring is equally distributed
from tip to butt, and can be distinctly felt at the latter as well as
clearly seen at the former, it is not a rod for the work for
which it is intended. But with such a rod casting is an ab-
solute pleasure, whether the responses are few or many.
One may manage very well with an inferior line, if it only
has strength, with sec )nd or third rate strong leaders, and
with fli'js which would not pass muster in the eye of an
artist, but he had better stay at home than to go to salmon
waters Tjith anything less than a number one rod, whether
of wood or bamboo. My own favorite rod is of wood, but
it is fair to say that it is the only one of half a dozen that
can be branded as perfect. But this one is perfect. It has
the very spirit of elasticity in every fiber, and responds to
every movement as if instinct with life. Such a rod is
better than rubies, and is worth more than its weight in
gold. I would lather break every other rod I own than
raise so much as a splinter upon the surface c^ this grand
old hero of a hundred battles. Nevertheless, T have made
slightly longer casts with a bamboo, but I never give a large
fish its butt without a tremor. Its advantage is lightness of
weight— no mean advantage, be it understood, when one's
muscle is of delicate fiber.
"In fishing for salmon, I like a line of good weight— not
alone for strength, but for casting. A heavy eighteen-foot
rod needs something at the end of it you can feel. The
most accomplished expert would make poor work with a
light trout line on a double-handed salmon rod. An oiled
line of medium strand, a hundred or a hundred and twenty-
five yards in length, is what one needs. With such a rod
and line and with such leaders and flies— both in sufficient
numbers— as can be procured of any honest dealer, and a
reel made for use and not for ornament, one may feel sure
that good sport will not be marred by bad tackling."
''Thank you, so far; but after I have secured my tackling,
what am I to do with it?"
50 WIJSTEB TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES.
**My only reply to such a question is— use it."
* -That's all very well; but how? Have you no specific
advice to give a willing pupil on that head?"
* 'No ; because while you may be taught by a cook-book
how to dress a salad or stew a rabbit, I never knew an
angler made by a written recip3. It is no more true that
*the proof of the puJding is in the citing' th m that the only
way to learn how to ang!e is to angle. One may be talked
to until his head swims about fly-casting and salmon fishing
and still make his first cast as awkwardly as if he had never
seen a fly or stretched a leader. But those who have had
any experience in casting for trout will have no difficulty in
casting for salmon. The movements in both are practically
the same. The only vital difference is in the weight of the
rods, and this difl'erence is practically neutralized by the
fact that both hands instead of one are employed in the
manipuJ ation of the rod used in casting for salmon. Dur-
ing all my thirty years of exclusively trout or bass fishing I
had never used a double-handed rod. When I first launched
my canoe on a salmon river I had to float through a mile of
water swarming with trout before I reached a pool where I
could have an opportunity to cast for salmon. In making this
distance I kept my eight-ounce trout rod in active motion,
with such results as gave me a surfeit. When this stretch
of water was passed, and my Indian gaffer said, * Trout no
more, salmon pool, trout rod no good,' I promptly, but
very tremulously, took hold of my salmon rod, which looked
ponderous as a weaver's beam and felt as heavy as a hem-
lock sapling, and prepared to reach out for the point indi-
cated by my Indian mentor. Holding my rod in my left
hand, with the butt pressed against my body, I pulled the
line from the reel with my right hand, keeping it out by the
required quick backward and forward movement until the
desired length was obtained, whenl seized the rod with both
hands and found myself casting as easily and as steadily as
if I had been *to the manner born.' Although kind friends
had given me a score of lessons, the memory of them had ail
vanished when the crucial moment came, but by simply
WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 51
doing, with a slight variation, what I had always done when
casting for trout, I did just the right thing, in the right
way, at the right moment. And when the rise came and I
struck my fish, I did precisely what I would have done
with a large trout or bass in similar waters. I held him
taut when I could, gave him line when the pressure de-
manded it, re:led in when I could do so with safety,
humored him when he sulked, brought him to within reach
of the gaff as soon as possible, and landed him with a shout,
probably the happiest man in all the Provinces. T have
killed hundreds of salmon since, but I do not think I have
ever cast better, manipulated my fish more discreetly, or re-
ceived more deserved compliments from my critical gaffers,
or heartier congratulations from my angling companions.
No, a reasonably skillful trout fisher need have no fears
about striking out boldly for salmon. It is only necessary
for him to make careful use of what he already knows, and
to take care that he does not 'lose his head' under the ex-
citement of such sport as, in his wildest imaginings, he had
never dreamed of."
"But," said a novice friend who is ambitious to graduate
from a hand trawl to a fly rod, *'what hope can I have to
successfully tackle a salmon? Surely there are some rules a
knowledge of which would assist such unfortunates as my-
self?"
"The only rule I can lay down for you and those like you
who have the good sense to aspire to the dignity of salmon
anglers is this: Begin as soon as you can and learn from ex-
perience. There is no other competent teacher. If you had
an ambition to copy a Raphael, you might read every treatise
that has ever been written on tone and tint, light and shade,
the different varieties of color and the most effective mode
of applying them, without being any the better qualified to
make the copy than if you had never seen a Raphael. So it
is with angling for salmon. No amount of reading or of
mere verbal instruction, however clearly or graphically im-
parted, can give to you the rhythmic movement, the delicate
twist, the careful manipulation, and the nice discrimination
5.3 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES.
required to make a wise nse of the constantly varying con-
ditions in wtiich an angler finds himself when casting for
salmon. Topsy wasn't brought up — she 'growed ;' and that
is the only way to become an expert on salmon waters.
"I never knew two anglers who cast exactly alike, while I
have seen scores who were the peers of each other. Each
has his peculiar attitude, motion and swing; his straight,
lateral or sweeping cast, but each reaches his goal with
equal precision, if not with equal grace. Each manipulates
his fly on the water, awaits a rise, and strikes and nghts his
fish after his own fashion," but certain general principles are
adhered to by all, and ail have the same measure of felicity
from the beginning to the end of the fray. But whatever
their manner of casting and striking; and killing, the testi-
mony of each will be, that whatever of skill they have was
acquired, not from instructions in the theory of the art, but
in the knowledge that came to them from actual experience;
from all of which I do not wish to be understood as con-
demning the honest efforts of honest anglers to transform
a novice into an expert by written or verbal instructions —
I have done a little of both myself —but simply to impress
the earnest aspirant with the fact that the only way to
learn to cast is to cast, and the only way to appreciate the
pleasure available to salmon anglers is to experiencs it. As
no man ever yet became acquainted with the luscious flavor
of the creamy flakes of a well-cooked salmon by having some
one glowingly describe how deliciously the delectable mor-
sels rested upon his own gratified palate, so no man ever yet
learned how to cast for salmon, or attained unto a full apprecia-
tion of the supreme delight wrapped up in the exercise and
in the results which come from it, by being told how to do
the one, or by having described to him the ecstacy of the
other."
SALMON AND SEA TROUT HAUNTS AND HABITS.
In those vernal seaso/JS of the year, when the air is calm and pleas-
ant, it were an injury and sullenness against nature not to go out and
see her riches, and partake of her rejoicing with Heaven and earth, —
Milton.
Salmon are a dainty fish and never resort to streams
which, in their normal condition, are turpid or impure.
Like trout, they must have clear, cold water, where there
are rocks and rill's and pebbly bottoms, and pools scooped
out of the river bed and flanked by rapidly flowing currents.
I never took a salmon in absolutely still water, and very
seldom on shallow rapids. The former is not natural to
them, and when in the latter they are pursuing their upward
journey and are not easily diverted. They rest in pools, and
there is where the angler looks for them and expects to find
them, and when found and they are in the rising mood, no
sport has ever yet been revealed to human consciousness
which is more kingly.
The best trout streams are simply miniature salmon rivers.
But trout are unlike salmon in their habits in this : In the
eaily season trout are often found on riffs where the water
is both shallow and rapid, but later on, from the middle of
July to the close of August, no experienced angler would
expect to find them +here in any inviting numbers. In these
hot months, when the water has become tepid, they resort to
54 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES,
the mouths of cold brooks- or spring holes, and they need not
be looked for elsewhere. But salmon are unifoimly found,
in August as well as in June, in pools. To be sure, when
the water is well up, there are pools where there are only
shallow riffs when the water is low. I have often taken fish
at high water where I would, not think of casting for them
when the water was low. Hence one never comes to know
a river so as to make the most of it until he has fished it at
all its stages. But whether the water is high or low it is all
the same ; salmon rest in pools, and it is the merest chance
if any are taken elsewhere. In these pools the water is not
always to say deep, but it is always of greater depth than
the water in their immediate neighborhood, and the full
force of the current is ordinarily dellected from them by the
rocks of larger or smaller dimensions, whdse position has
given the motion to the water which, in time, has scooped
out these resting places for the kingly fish.
On all the rivers I have fished for salmon — and I assume
it be true of all others — the best pools are almost always
found just above some rough or heavy rapid. The fatigue
involved in ascending these rapids make rest all the more
welcome. The excitement in fishing these pools is intensi-
fied by the doubt which always follows a strike whether you
will be able to kill your fish within the limits of I he pool or
• ^^hether he will rush down the rapids, and so compel you
.0 follow him. In that case the chances are always against
you, because, with all the skill of your canoemen, if you
are in a canoe, or of yourself if you are on shore and the
water renders wading possible, it is always questionable
whether you can keep up with your flying fish. Besides, in
rushing through a rapid full of rocks, there is always the
chance that your line will get hitched, or, worst of all, that
the fish may take it into his head to stop midway of the
rapid, and thus, like a hunted deer, double on you and allow
you to swoop past him, only to find out the fact when you
have dropped into still water *a hundred yards or more be-
low the point where your fish is sulking. Under these latter
conditions a hitched line is often the sequel; or, when it is
WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES 55
not, you can only force back your canoe against the impetu-
ous current to where your fish is sulking by the most her-
culean efforts. When that point is reached and you find
your line happily free, you can only hope that he will
start; and when he does start under such circumstances it is
almost invariably down stream, with a rush, and you after
him under such a pressure of excitement as renders you
equally indifferent to danger and unconscious of fatigue.
When the foot of the rapids is reached the fight is renewed,
but you are master of the situation if you have shown ordi-
nary skill thus far, and it is only a question of time — if you
are well hooked — when the gaff will be called into requisi-
tion.
When you are casting from the shore and you are obliged
to follow your fish on foot through even shallow rapids,
you need to have all your wits about you, and to bring out
all the highest skill there is in you; first, to preserve your
footing upon the slippery rocks over which you must pass,
and secondly, to take care that your fish does not i*un faster
than you do yourself, and so get out more of your line than
you wish him to have. In this sort of fishing you have one
advantage over the canoe, you need not move faster than
your fish, and if he chooses to take a rest midway of the
rapid, so can you. But it is an unpleasant time for a fish to
sulk when you are waist-deep in the water awaiting his
pleasure. I have more than once stood thus an half hour at
a time, finding it impossible, by any skill at my command,
to start the stubborn brute. Once I was dragged to the foot
of a rapid which terminated in a deep hole, through which
there was no way of passing but by a plunge and a swim.
Of course, no one in such a contest would give up beat
when a cold bath gave promise of victory. The provoca-
tion in this particular case was that immediately after the
gamy fellow had compelled me to take this plunge he sur-
rendered—coming up to the gaff so soon as I could reach a
footing and give him the butt.
But these rapids tussles are glorious when the fish makes
a straight wake for the easily flowing water below them. It
56 WmTEB TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES.
is grand to stand up in your canoe when both fish and canoe
move at equal lightning pace, and you are able to keep a taut
line upon him every inch of the way. I have often had just
such experiences, and the recollection of them still stirs the
blood like the sound of a trumpet.
Sea trout show themselves wherever salmon are found, but
not always simultaneously with them. In rivers where the
salmon run begins in May or early June, you need not look for
sea trout in any considerable numbers before well on into July.
Intermediately they are found in tidewater at the mouths of
the salmon rivers, and often in such numbers and of such
weight as give the angler superb sport. Three, five and
seven pound fish are not uncommon, and I have heard of
them of even greater weight, but I have never myself taken
one of over five pounds — two poun ds less than a real brook
trout, I once killed in the Rangeley waters, a beautiful fac
simile of which was kindly painted for me by Dr. Otis, of
New York, who was in camp with me at the time. There
is no picture in my collection I value more highly.
Next to salmon fishing I know of no more exciting sport
than angling for sea trout in waters where they reach their
highest dimensions; for waters differ in regard to this fish
as in regard to both brook trout and salmon — the weight of
all fish being determined by the abundance and quality of
the feed available to them. There are salmon rivers open to
all comers for sea trout alone, after the salmon season is
over, say from the middle of September on. I can imagine
few things more fascinating than such an excursion. I
know a river that you can strike fifty miles above its mouth,
by an easy portage of six miles from the st eamboat landing.
To float down these fifty miles with the current, in a bark
canoe, with such scenery on either hand as can hardly be
excelled on the continent, is something which any appreci-
ative angler might covet. It is a trip I have never yet
found leisure to take, but affairs will go hard with me if I do
not try it the coming season.
Like trout, salmon vary in size in different rivers. Why
this is so is a mystery which I have not been able to solve.
WINTER TALKS ON BUMMER PASTIMES. 67
It cannot result from either the quantity or quality of food
in the rivers, because it is assumed to he a settled fact that
salmon are very light feeders— if they feed at all — in fresh
water. Possibly the diiference comes from the greater or
less abundance of food found by the fish in their salt water
rambles. Far-fetched as this conjecture may be deemed to
be by those who are as i2:noraDt of the subject as I am my-
self, it ma3^ perhaps, after all, furnish the true solution;
because, as the instincts of the fish always bring them back
to the rivers where they were hatched, may not the same in-
stinct keep them to their own feeding ranges when outside?
If so, and if these ranges, like trout waters, vary in the kind
and quality of food available, the fact will affect their
weight. I simply state this as a hypothesis. If I am at
fault, and if any one can solve the problem "by authority"
or otherwise, I will be very glad to hear from him.
Certain it is that those who have heard much about salmon
rivers from those acquainted with them, have heard such
phrases as these: "Ye?, there are plenty of salmon in such a
river, but they are small." In such another river we are
told: * 'The fish are in moderate numbers and of fair size,"
and of others we are told: "The fish may not be as plenty
as in some rivers, but they run large," and so on of rivers
from one end of the coast to the other. In one where 1 have
fished, a 35 pound salmon was not uncommon. The largest
fish I ever landed weighed 39i pounds, but I fought a fish
for two hours which finally broke away and was taken next
morning in a net nine miles below with my fly in his mouth,
and he weighed 42 pounds. One gentleman, Mr. Spurr, of
St. John, N. B., kdled two 40 pound fish in the same river
the preceding year. It was in this river, also, that General
Arthur killed his famous 50 pound salmon, and where Mr.
Dun, his companion, lost a fish after a long struggle, which
immediately afterward floated into a net with the evidence
of Mr. Dun's ownership in his mouth. This fish weighed 52
pounds.
These monsters were caught in the Cascapedia, a river in
which forty fl^h that I took one season averaged 25^ lbs..
58 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES.
and five of these only weighed 11, 15, 17, 19 and 21 lbs.
respectively. The Restigouche is almost equally famous
for its large fish, and the Metapedia and Merimichi used to
be. In the rivers I have more recently fished the average
of a season's catch will not exceed 18 lbs. , and the largest I
ever caught in my present river weighed only a fraction
over 29 lbs.
But I trust no reader will imbibe the idea from what I
have written that the sport of salmon angling depends upon
the size of the fish. As a rule there is more lightning in a
12 lb. than in a 35 lb. salmon, and I have had more trouble
killing fish of the lesser than of the heavier weight. They
don't fight so long, but they are vastly more lively while
they are fighting. The only fish 1 ever found it impossible
to prevent running under my canoe so as to do me damage
weighed but 11 lbs. The movement smashed my rod into
several pieces, and I only landed him after the exercise of
such skill and patience as excited the wonder and admira-
tion of my delighted gaffer, and astonished myself.
1 cannot call to mind the record of any salmon taken
with a fly on this side the water larger than that killed by
Gen. Arthur. But larger fish are recorded as having been
killed with the rod in English and Scotch waters. One was
taken last summer in the Tweed that weighed 60 lbs. An
English earl is credited with one that weighed 69f lbs. A
Highlander, after an all-night fight, is said to have landed a
73-lb. fish, and Hofland says a sal Dion was sold in the Lon-
don market which weighed 83 lbs. When this was, or
how taken, is not stated. I know Christopher North once
declared he had killed a fish weighing "90 lbs. neat." But
1 make no account of that fish, because it was only caught
with "a long bow," to serve as a climax to the Ettrick
Shepherd's extravagant "fish stories," as given in Macken-
zie's edition of the "Noctes Ambrosianse," vol. 4, p. 83, 84:
Shepherd.— What creel-fu's [of trout] you maun hae killed!
North.— A hundred and thirty in one day in Loch Awe, James, as
I hope to be saved— not one of them under—
Shepherd.— A dizzen pun'— and twa-thirds of them abune't.
Athegither a ton.
WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 59
North. — * * * And poor Stevenson, mild and brave— now no more
—with his own hands wreathed round my forehead a diadem of
hetherbells and called me King of the Anglers.
Shepherd.— Pool That was nae day's jQshin' ava, man, in com-
parison to ane o' mine on St. Mary's Loch. To say naething aboot
the count less sma' anes, tv/a hundred about a half a pun, ae hundred
about a hail pun, fifty about twa pun, five-and-twenty about f owro
pun, and the lave rinnin' frae half a stane up to a stane and a half,
except about half a dizzen, aboon a' wecht, that put Geordio Gude-
f allow and Huntly Gordon to their mettle to carry them pechin' to
Mount Benger on a ban' barrow.
North. — Well done, Uljsses'.
Shepherd.— Anither day in the Megget I caucht a cart-fu'. As it
gaed doon the road the kintry-f oik thocht it was a cart-fu' o' herrins
—for they were a' preceesely ae size to an unce — and though we left
twa dizzen at this hoose— and fowre dizzen at that hoose — and a
gross at Henderland— on coontin' them at hamein the kitchin, Leezy
made them oot forty dizzen, and Girzzy forty-twa, aught; sae a dis-
pute haen arisen, and of course abet, we took the census ouei again,
and may these be the last words I sail ever speak, gin they didna
turn oot to be Fourty-Five!
And here is where Christopher's ninety pound salmon
comes in :
North. — The heaviest fish I ever killed was in the river Awe— ninety
pound neat— I hooked him on a Saturday afternoon and I had small
hopes of killing him, as I never break the Sabbath. But I am con-
vinced that within the hour he cama to know that ho was in the
hands of Christopher North, and his courage died. I gave him the
butt so cruelly that in two hours he began to wallop, and at the end
of three he lay dead at my feet, just as
"The star of Jove, so beautiful and large,"
tipped the crest of Cruachan.
Shepherd.— Hoo lang?
NoRTH.-So beautifully proportioned, that like that of St. Peter's or
St. Paul's you did not feel his mighty magnitude till after long con-
templation. Then you indeed knew that he was a sublime fish, and
could not but smile at the idea of any other salmon.
Tickler.— Mr. De Quincey, now that these two old fools have got
upon angling —
Shepherd.— Twa auld fulesl You great, starin', Saracen-headed
lang-slianks ! If it \^ erna for bringin' Mr. North intill trouble, by haen
a dead man fund within his premeeses, deal tak me gin I wudna frac-
tur' your skull wi' ane o' the cut crystals.
After reading this dialogue, no one will doubt that Chris-
topher North's ninety pound salmon was killed with * 'a long
bow" instead of a Jock Scott.
SEVERAL RELEVAIsT TOPICS.
Forced from their homes, a melancholy tram.— Goldsmith.
I find the following paragraph in a fairly-written book,
printed in England fifteen years ago, with this title,
"Chiploquorgan ; or, Life by the Camp Fire in Dominion of
Canada and Newfoundland, by Richard Lewis Dashwood,
XV. Regiment."
"We were much surprised and disappointed at the paucity
of salmon on our way up the Cascapedia, and when we
reached the Forks only succeeded in killing two after
several day's fishing. We therefore came to the conclusion
that the river as regards salmon was a myth, and decided
to return to the sea. "
This visit was made in July, 1862. "The Forks," where
barely two salmon were killed, are about fifty miles from the
mouth of the river, and "on his way up," Col. Dashwood
and his companions passed a score of pools where I have
killed many scores of salmon, and which no one now-a-days
with any sort of skill could fish without being amply re-
warded for the time and toil required to reach them.
The "paucity" experienced by this party in 1862 can not
be attributed either to their want of proficiency or to their
ignorance of the habits of the fish, for the Colonel was an
old salmon angler, having fished all the best salmon waters
of the "old country," and was accompanied by a gentleman
as noted for his skill as for his eccentricities. Nor could
their ill luck have resulted from their want of knowledge of
the locality of the pools, for some of them are so conspicu-
ous that any "wayfaring man, though a fool," could not
have made a mistake.
To what then could this "paucity of salmon" in this long
famousriver be attributed? Making all due allowance for
any want of skill or knowledge or application on the part of
these gentlemen, I am inclined to attribute their disappoint-
WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES, 61
ment to the fact that the salmon were not then in the river
in any such numbers as they have been since, and for this
reason :
Twenty years ago that river and all others were open to
all comers, whether with net, rod or spear, and because of
this fact it had not only been thinned out, but by the mer-
ciless way in which the fish were hunted in season and out
of season — in the estuary, in the pools and on the spawning
beds — they were given no opportunity to multiply. By this
persistent slaughter, continued for years in all riveis acces-
sible to the salmon purchaser and packer, the kingly fish in
the lower Provinces would very soon have shared the fate of
their predecessors in the Upper Canada waters and in our
own rivers on the south shore of Lake Ontario and the St.
Lawrence. For it is not simply from far-back tradition that
we know that salmon were once abundant in tliese Lake
Ontario tributaries. I have myself (when a lad) seen canoe
loads of salmon brought into "Little York," now Toronto,
by the Indians, who had captured them in the rivers "Hum-
ber" and ''Credit" at the head of the lake.
A venerable gentleman of Keesville (Mr. Arnold, now de-
ceased) once told me that in 1818, he had purchased a salmon
freshly caught at Oswego for a " York shilling," and that
for several years afterward they continued to be taken in
great numbers in that neighborhood. And you may remem-
ber that Mr. Weed was moved by the recollections awakened
by the account I gave of "my first salmon," to publish in
the Tribune some years ago, the account of his capture of a
salmon in Onondaga Creek, near the present site of the
city of Syracuse. He then lived in that neighbor-
hood. One night he observed the flashing of bright lights
along the creek, and on going out to see what was up, he
found a party of Indians with spears and clubs, killing sal-
mon as they were trying to force their way over the shal-
lows of that stream. It was then and there, borrowing a
spear from a friendly Indian, he killed Ms first salmon. To
us of to-day this fact s(^ems incredible. Nevertheless, that
incident was but one of a thousand like it occurring in the
62 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES,
shallows and pools of all the streams which then made their
way, unobstructed by milldams or other barriers, to the lake.
But for these obstructions, supplemented by choking saw-
dust and poisonous chemicals, many of these streams would
have continued to be what they once were, the chosen resorts
and spawning beds of this favorite fish, whereas now,
not a salmon, except at one or two points, where they have
been or are being artificially propagated, is seen in any river
between Montreal and Hamilton. I would not complain of
this if it had been a square question between progressive in-
dustry and the extermination of the lordly salmon ; but we
now know that, in many rivers, their extermination was not
neccessary to the development of industry. If the mill-
dams had been constructed so that the fish could have sur-
mounted them (as is easily practicable), salmon would have
coutinued to ascend the streams, and would still be found
in waters from whence they have been driven by the erec-
tion of these impassable barriers. Although the Dominion
government is endeavoring to undo the mischief already
done, I fear it will take many more years to replenish than
it did to deplete these once prolific salmon waters.
A year or two before this developed * 'paucity" of the
Cascapcdia and other rivers of the lower Provinces, having
learned by experience that it would be too late to lock the
stable door after the horse was stolen, stringent laws were
passed by Parliament to protect the fisheries in all waters
under government control. But, unfortunately, while the
original laws contained sundry useful provisions, they were
fatally defective in that all persons were ^'forbidden to fish
for, capture or kill fish by means of spears, except only
the Indians." This exception rendered the law practically
nugatory. The deadly spear had been the chief cause of all
the mischief, and so long as this permission continued it
would be impossible to bring the rivers (in the neighbor-
hood of localities where the speared fish could be exchanged
for rum and tobacco) back to their original status. This
spearing clause was still in force in '62, when Col. Dash-
wood made his trip up the Cascapedia, and to that fact may
WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES 63
be attributed the then ''paucity" of the river an he found it
Soon afterward, spearing even by Indians was strictly pro-
hibited, and as a result the river became in a few years the
most noted on the continent : and it will so continue, unless
the recent riparian rights decision shall work as mischiev-
ously as many believe it will.
I made my first visit to the Cascapedia in *74. At that
time the stringent fishery laws — including the prohibition
against spearing by Indians as well as by all others — had
been in force for eight or ten years, and, however it may
have been before, it certainly was not then true that "the
river as regards salmon was a myth." Its waters were
teeming with the lordly fish, and their capture afforded all
the excitement and sport any reasonable angler could desire.
Whether at the "Sheddon Pool," ten miles, or at "the
Forks," fifty miles abo\e the mouth of the river, fish were
found in satisfactory numbers. But I had other proof than
that furnished by Col. Dashwood that it had not always
been so. Mr. Best, an intelligent habitant, who occupies the
last house on the river (ten miles from the bay), and who
has lived on the river for thirty years, told me that the fish
were never so abundant as they then were ; that they were
far more numerous than ten years previously, and were in-
creasing in numbers every year. In asking him how he
accounted for the increase, his response was, "A strict
guardianship and no more spearing by anybody."
But something more is necessary to keep up the supply,
even though the recent riparian decision shall not work the
mischief apprehended. The nets at the mouths of the
rivers should be raised for two or three instead of one day
in the week, to enable a larger number of fish to reach their
spawning beds. Now that every pool on every available
river is persistently fished, a much larger percentage of im-
migration is necessary to keep up the supply. If this is not
secured, even with the otherwise effective protective laws,
there will be inevitably a rapid diminution of salmon avail-
able to either seine or fly.
But the sea-trout will remain, whatever may become of
64 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES,
the salmon ; and they are next of kin to that noble fish in
habit, weight, flavor, and every gamy quality.
Until within a very few years not many anglers on our
side of the line were in the habit of "going for" salmon.
Even so recently as ten years ago a * 'Yankee" was seldom
seen on the best rivers. But they have of late multiplied
twenty-fold, and if they do not now they soon will consti-
tute a majority of the ''simple wise men," to whom the gentle
art has become irresistibly fascinating; and the fact is not
altogether agreeable to our English cousins, whatever our
Canadian neighbors may think of it. The London Field
gives expression to its displeasure thus:
"The principal rivers are leased by Americans, to whom
money is no object. When they take a fancy to a particular*
river, there is no mistake about it, they will have it."
And the Field only speaks the simple truth. The New
York Club, of which President Arthur, Mr. Yander-
bilt, Robert Dun and a score of other wealthy gentlemen
are members, paid a fabulous price for the best portion of
the Restigouche, and Mr. Blossom and his associates were
almost equally liberal in the price they paid for the lower
twelve miles of the Cascapedia. These are, by all odds, the
best rivers in the Provinces. Other first-class rivers will be,
if they have not already been, similarly secured "by Ameri-
cans, to whom money is no object." And the opportunity
to do so has been greatly facilitated by the recent riparian
decisions. Previously, the government officials had supreme
control, and they were not always indifferent to the solicita-
tions of their home friends. Leases, like kisses, often went
by favor, as more than one American bidder has had occa-
sion to know. But individual owners are not likely to forego
a good offer from a "Yankee" to accept a poorer one from a
"Kanuck." The result will be a more equitable distribution
of leases and permits and an increased influx of American
anglers. So be it. Men who have money to spend for
coveted enjoyments can expend it for nothing more health-
ful, harmless and exhilarating than in the delightful pastima
of angling for salmon.
THE GAME LAWS— ANGLING MISHAPS— SEA AND
BROOK TROUT.
He who has once experienced the fascination of the woods-life
never escapes its enticement. In the memory nothing remains but
Its charm.— Warner.
Our local coterie were in council a few evenings since,
nominally to devise means to render such aid as was prac-
ticable to secure an amendment and more general enforce-
ment of the existing game laws of the State, but really for
a promiscuous confab upon the subject of angling in gene-
ral. The game laws were conceded to be imperfect, but less
so than the slip-shod way in which they were enforced.
Every species of fish arid game are ruthlessly pursued out
of season and by prohibited devices. This is true not alone
in regard to remote waters and ranges, but also in regard to
lakes and streams in populous neighborhoods. And this
state of things will continue until the general public shall
reach a more just conception of the material value of well-
stocked waters in all sections of the State. As a partial
remedy, an increase of the number of game constables was
suggested. The necessity for this is conceded by those in
authority, and if, in addition, those who api^reciate the im-
portance of game protection shall exert their personal influ-
ence to secure a thorough enforcement of the law in their
several localities, something effective might be accom-
plished. At a few points in the State there are organized
associations, one of whose pui poses is to prosecute offend-
ers. Some of them have rendered good service, but they
are not generally efficient. Their members are ordinarily
busy men, who have no leisure to give personal attention to
the frequent violations of the law by the poachers and pot-
hunters of their neighborhoods. If these several organiza-
tions could or would, for a year or two, employ some one to
give his entire time to the detection and prosecution of
66 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES,
offenders, tbey would learn to fear if not to respect the
law, and good results would follow.
Our own State is not an exception to the prevailing
van-lalism. Xot only do these violators of the laws of na-
ture and of man deem all game their rightful plunder, but
they persist in bagging it at all seasons and by any device.
This is as true on the vast plains of the great West as within
the borders of civilization, and is as persistently practised
on the recently stocked salmon waters of Maine as in the
over-fished lakes and rivers of the Adirondacks. Public
sentiment is being gradually educated up to the proper
standard upon this subject and it will ultimately reach a
point when it will serve as a moral check upon all classes of
the community, but meanwhile nothing but the terrors of
the law and the enforcement of its penalty will act as suf-
ficient restraints upon its habitual and persistent violators.
**If all has not been done that is desirable," said one of our
number, ''something has certainly been accomplished by the
discussion of this subject within the past twenty or thirty
years. I remember when sportsmen — not professional
poachers or pot-hunters — did not deem it unsportsmanlike
to string set-lines in the lakes and rivers of the North Woods
to swell their 'count.' This practise has, I believe, been
generally discarded, except by the low-down riff- raff, who
have no more idea of what is legitimate in the practise of the
art than an Esquimau has of the principles of algebra.
"I once met one of these fellows on the North Branch
of the Moose River a great many years ago. We saw him
set his line at a point famous for the number and size of the
trout, which seemed to make it their headquarters. He sup-
posed himself unobserved, of course, and retired to his
fehanty sure of a good haul in the morning. I was in camp
with Dick O., whom most of you knew as 'a fellow of in-
finite humor,' and as muscular as he was witty, and as fond
of fair play in angling as he was 'down on' all poachers and
pot-hunters. When it was suggested that we make a mid-
night raid upon the trap set by our neighbor, Dick dissented,
with the remark that 'he would make him a visit early in
WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES, 67
the moruing, give him due notice of his purpose, and cut
his line before his eyes.' I offered to accompany him, but
he declined my services and proceeded alone to perform his
righteous office. I watched him on his mission, observed
him talking to the poacher, and saw him stoop down at the
edge of the water, as if to cut the line. A tussle followed,
and in less than a minute 'something dropped' in the water,
and it wasn't Dick. The issue was the capture of the set-
line; and, after due explanations, apologies, and sundry
soothing appliances, a treaty of peace was signed, Dick was
forgiven, and the poacher promised 'never to do so no
more.'"
"Was that the season I met you fishing under water?'*
'* *No more o' that, Hal, an' you love me.' "
**Why not? It was certainly nothing to your discredit,
and I have had a many hearty laugh since, at the remem-
brance of it. "
"Tell us about it, D."
* 'Well, it was something like this: I was wading and
casting down the Korth Branch with results entirely satis-
factory, when I reached the borders of, a rather deep pool,
into which the waters swept with a velocity which rendered
it extremely difficult for me to keep my footing. Anxious
to reach a shaded spot in the pool, which required a long
cast, I lifted myself up upon a slippery boulder to the more
certainly reach my objective point. I succeeded, as I ex-
pected, in raising a large fish, but in striking, my feet slipped
from under me, and I glided into the flood as cleanly and as
arrow-like as a saw log dips into the water below the chute.
I was not aware that anyone was in the neighborhood, until
I heard a roar of laughter as T emerged from my bath to
swim ashore. That's the whole story; I saw nothing laugh-'
able iu the adventure then, although I have often since
smiled in thinking of it."
"No, gentlemen, that is not the whole story, begging my
friend's pardon. After he made his plunge there was noth-
ing to be seen of him or of his belongings, but his rod, and
that was held as erect and as artistically as if he was playing
68 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES.
his fish from the rock from which he had slipped. The hne
was kept taut, and the tip of the rod bent as gracefully while
the angler was submerged as when he regained his footing.
It was a fine illustration of the ruling passion, and I was as
glad as if 1 had done it myself, when our friend landed a
three-pound trout as the result of his judicious manipulation
under diflaculties. By the way, D., did you ever find your
hat?"
* 'Yes, half a mile below, and none the worse for the journey,
But since you have begun to 'tell tales out of school/ I have
a mind to give you a Roland for your Oliver. "
"Let's have it; let's have it," from all sides. *'Bob will
not object."
**Not I, for 1 am sure nothing can be said about my ang-
ling adventures which will not redound to my infinite
credit."
* 'We had been leisurely fioating down the Raquette on
such a day as rendered one quite indifi'erent to any past or
any coming event except the going down of the sun. It
was just such a day as one would like to have last forever.
As we floated, we cast hither and thither, from no special
desire to get a rise, but simply that our well-balanced rods
might share in the inexpressible felicity of those who wielded
them. It was well on in the afternoon when we touched
the head of the long rapids near the Oxbow — in old times
one of the best points for large trout, and plenty of them,
on the river. My friend here was the first to get a rise,
and was doing his best to land him at the head of the pool.
But the fish and the current combined were too strong for
him, and while both guide and angler were more Intent
upon the fish than upon their surroundings, the boat floated
- sideways against a projecting treetop, and was upset in the
twinkling of an eye. Tbe water was rather more than
shoulder deep ; but before I could cross over to help him, my
friend had reached terra firma, while the guide was swim-
ming with the current to overtake his boat. It is proper to
say that Bob kept his temper, although he lost his rod."
*1 remember those rapids very well," said another of our
".: WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 69
number, 'but I have not visited them since the Raquette
v^aters were planted with pickerel by a Long Lake vandal,
whose name I have forgotten,"
* 'But I haven't. It was Lysander Hall, who had often
served as my guide, and an excellent guide he was — quick,
intelligent, obliging and better acquainted with all the by-
paths of the wilderness than any guide I ever had, except
George Morse, who was killed in the war, and over who33
remains Gen. Spinner caused to be erected a fitting record
of his patriotism and courage."
"No matter what he was in all else, in thus polluting the
Raquette waters. Hall committed a crime for which there
was no law to mete out to him fitting punishment. The
grandest trout waters in the State are deteriorated for all
time. But, as I was saying, I remember those long rapids
very pleasantly, and except at Setting Pole, I enjoyed swift
water fishing nowhere else so well. Since I last visited
them I have done something in the way of killing sea trout,
and I seldom cast in the swift waters where they are found
without being reminded of the rapids on the Raquette."
'* Are not the fish even more alike than the waters they
inhabit?"
**At first I thought the fish not only alike in appearance,
but alike in fact. But I have since changed my opinion,
and now believe them to be quite distinct from our brook or
river trout, but of course, of the same general family. "
"In this," I replied, "you are at odds with some of the
best writers. "
' 'I know that very well, but I know also that I am in agree-
ment with others, and where doctors thus differ I have tried
to decide for myself, not by any scientific investigation —
although I have done a little of that — but by a close observ-
ation of the haunts and habits of the fish. Some of the
salmon and sea trout rivers I have fished are fed by numer-
ous small tributaries which are full of brook trout, and
when coveting a mess, as we often did, I knew just where
to 'find them. I have one special brook in my mind which
projected its cold, pure transparent water into the river with
70 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES.
such force as to preserve its identity for some distance.
Whenever I cast within the radius of this distinctively
marked brook water I would take clearly marked brook
trout ranging from a quarter to half a pound, but if I cast
beyond this line so much as a half dozen yards I would
have no brook trout response. When the clearly defined
river water line was reached, the dainty fish seemed to halt
as surely as if they had run their heads against a stone wall.
But, by extending my cast beyond the outflow of tlie brook,
I would receive prompt responses from what I believed to
be sea trout. On placing them side by side the difference
in their appearance seemed to me to be something more than
the difference caused by the difference of the water in the
two streams. But both are beautiful fish, but, in such a
side by side comparison, the sea trout is discovered to lack
the rich lustre and golden beauty of his more dainty
cousin."
**Just," I added, ''as you will find the tiny fry } ou see in
the little spring rivulets which empty into a trout lake to be
more beautiful in form and color than the larger fish you
find in the larger waters."
"It was long a question," my friend rejoined, ''whether
pickerel and muscalonge were not identical. Now we know
that they are different fish, and yet they resemble each other
quite as closely as sea and brook trout. Among all the
trout I have taken in salmon waters I never saw one that
bore an exact resemblance to the trout I have taken in real
trout brook waters, or that leaped from the water to the fly
with the same vim which distinguishes the large brook trout
in our own northern lakes and rivers. I have no wish to be
dogmatical upon this subject, but I shall hold to my opinion
all the. same."
"I do not care to argue the question with you," was my
reply, "but I am not convinced. I agree with you in this,
however, that, except salmon, I know of no fish that affords
better sport to the appreciative angler than sea trout rang-
ing from three to eight pounds in weight. "
ODDS AND ENDS.
I would do what I pleased, and doing what I pleased, I should have
my will; and having my will, I should be contented; and when one
is contented there is no more to be desired; and when there is no
more to be desired, there is an end of it.— Cervantes.
At a recent sitting of the local brotherhood, one of them
was moved to murmur thus :
*'My usually placid temper is often disturbed by the
stupid criticisms which outside barbarians sometimes pro-
nounce upon our gentle pastime. Their ignorance is their
only excuse. But men have no business to speak dogmat-
ically upon a subject of which they know nothing. And
this is just the mental status of those who speak dispar-
agingly of angling and of those who engage in it. There
is a thousand times more of the divine element of saint-
liness in our harmless and healthful recreation than in the
dirt-worm habit of perpetually delving for filthy lucre, and
there is a great deal more of rock-bed common sense in a
man who cheerfully spends ten dollars to preserve his health
than in one who would rather jeopard his health than spend
a dollar. No honest angler would ever wet a line if there
were nothing in the art besides the mere material pleasure it
affords him. But it has other and higher attractions —
attractions which reach into the aesthetic realm and lift its
votaries up to the very border-lnnd of Bulah."
"We can all, I am sure," said another of our number,
"speak from our own personal experience on this point.
Two or (hree hours a day of the forty or fifty I pass on
angling-waters every year, give me all the fishing I desire.
The intervening time is filled up very delightfully in leis-
urely rambling through the silent woods; in reclining
beneath some umbrageous arbor,
'Whose green leaves quiver with the cooling wind,
And make a checkered shadow on the ground,'
and which overlooks the lake or stream on the borders of
which I have pitched my tent ; in clambering to the summit
72 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES,
of some lofty eminence which gives me an enchanting view
of the vast forests spread out inimitably before me; in float-
ing hither and thither, where the kingly salmon
'Cuts with his flashing oars the silvery stream;'
in listening to the music of singing birds and to the melody
of rippling waters; in lazily loitering about our cosy camp;
in filling my exulting lungs with the pure atmosphere in
which I am enveloped, and in inhaling the delectable odors
of the virgin woods as they are borne to me by the summer
zephyrs which sweep down from the forest-clad mountains
with the refreshing balminess of the breath of the morning.
Fishing is but a pleasant incident in these forest experiences.
To me it simply gives zest to what, independently of it,
is a source of perpetual delight. Possibly, at first, I might
not have sought out these quiet places if I had had no taste
for angling; but certain it is that angling would never have
come to be to me what it is if it had not been associated
with, and if it were not a part of, these other and higher
sources of mental and physical delights. I am sure, also,
that I am not exceptional either in my tastes or in my habits
from the great mass of the brotherhood. There is not a
fluttering leaf, a rippling rapid, a silver cascade, a mo-
mentary sun-glint, a passing shadow, a bird note, a tiny
flower, a feathery fern, or any one of a thousand other
•things of beauty' we see and hear where our pastime
draws us, which is not remembered by the appreciative
angler equally with the rise and strike and swirl of trout or
salmon."
''That is true, every word of it," was the reply. ''Angling
never yet made a bad man woise, while it has made a great
many good men better. I admit that all anglers are not saints,
but I insist that they would be less saintly if they were not
anglers. For the recreation brings its votaries into close and
constant contact with whatever is sublime and beautiful and
exalting in nature, and no one can long hold communion and
loving fellowship with the thing created without acquiring
a higher appreciation of the beneficence, wisdom and power
of its Creator. "
WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 73
' 'There is, " I suggested, ' 'one beautiful tiling about angling
which is well worth taking into account : one never wearies
of it. Other pleasures grow stale or insipid, but this acquires
new fascination with every new experience. This is the
verdict of all who, 'e'en down to old age,' have secured
mental rest and physical vigor from the practice of the gentle
art, which good Sir Henry Wotton found to be 'rest to his
mind, a cheerer of spirits, a diverter of sadness, a calmer
of unquiet thoughts, a moderator of passion«, a procurer of
contentedness, begetting peace and patience in those who
profess and practice it. '
"I have a friend who is the very type and embodiment of
a happy angler and an honest man.
'Age sits with decent grace, upon his visage,
And worthily becomes his silver locks;
He wears the marks of many years well spent,
Of virtue, truth well tried, and wise experience.'
* 'He has fished for fifty years, and is to-day even more eager
to take his place on angling waters than when he first felt
the ecstatic thrill which comes to all who have ever had the
good fortune to kill a salmon. Here is what he says to me
in a recent note :
"At Home, Dec. 12, 1882.
*'M>/ dear D.:
"What has become of you? Have you again been playing Cincin-
natus on your Western ranch, or are you simply digging yourself out
from beneath the political avalanche under which you and all of us
were buried in November?
"As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so do I pant for the
coming of the time of the singing of birds when it will be right to
go a-fishing, where
'Soft whispers run along the leafy woods,
And mountains whistle to the murmuring floods.'
"What a blessed time we shall have (D. V.) exploring the beautiful
lakes mapped out for us by our faithful henchman, wherein no white
man has ever yet cast a fly 1 I have 'dreams in the night' about them ;
for I know what they must be from what we have already seen of
two of them. Husband your vitality, my dear fellow, that, you may
be able to make the circuit,
"Six months yet before the 20th of June! Meanwhile I will have
passed my seventieth birthday, and as you, old chap, are 'there or
thereabouts,' you cannot greatly boast over your humble servant.
But, next to a vigorous youth commend me to a lusty old age
74 T^IXTEH talks on SUMyiER PASTIMES.
and this is what both of us have liad vouchsafed to us— for which-
devout thanks. But would it have been so but for the rest, recupera
tion and repose which have come to us from our annual visits to
salmon waters?
"No politics in mine, if you please, for politics at present form no
part of my mental ailment. I simply keep the mn of things— feel-
ing veiy much as Bret Harte's Abner Dean of 'The Society of the
Stanislaus" felt:
*Then Abner Dean, of Angel's, raised a point of order, when
A chunk of old red sandstone struck him in the abdomen,
And he smiled a kind of sickly smile, and curled up on the floor,
And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more.'
' 'As ever and forever » yours, H. "
**The lakes referred to in the foregoiug note are trout lakes
in the vicinity of the salmon river myself and friend an-
nually visit. We had heard of them but could find no one
who had ever visited all of them. Last summer T^e re-
quested our local servitor to hunt them up and make a map
of them. This he has done, and I anticipate as much
pleasure in visiting- them as I do in fishing our favorite pools
for salmon — not alone because we are sure to find them
full of trout, but because we have found the two or three
of the group we have already seen perfect gems of beauty.
From my very first visit to the woods I have had a passion
to hunt up new places, and make side excursions whenever
I could hear of anything worth visiting. To do so often
involved hard work, but that fact simply added to the fas-
cination of the habit, and, I am inclined to believe, has
contributed to the large measure of vigor which has con-
tinued with me through all these decades. Now that I have
reached my three-score y ears and ten, I may not be able to
pass over rough places or climb steep hills as sprightly as in
the long ago, but I can do both passably well still, and find
no abatement in the delight these adventures and the pleas-
ant places they reveal afford me. Indeed, I am not sure
that my fondness for them has not even outrun my passion
for the excitement derived from the more material incidents
connected with angling. Of this, however, I am sure, that
every new exploration reveals to me new beauties ; that
many pretty bits of scenery that in my former greater
WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 75
haste were passed byunroticed, now attract my attention
and excite my admiration. Whether this is because we be-
come more observant as we advance in years, or because
our tastes, like our virtues and our vices, grow by what
they feed u[»on, I cannot say. But this I know, that 1 look
forward to no phase of the pastime with more glowing an-
ticipation than to these delightful rambles."
"I notice," said one of our coterie, "that you speak of
yourself and friend in a way that leaves the impression that
you two make up your entire party in these annual excur-
sions. Is that so?"
"Yes, not because we are unsociable or exclusive, but
because we have both been taught by experience that the
fewer cogs the less friction. I have known the start of a
party of five or six delayed for a week because some one of
the number was not quite ready; and not infrequently the
equanimity of a whole camp is disturbed because some one
wishes to go when others do not, or to stay when others
wish to 'fold up their tents, like the Arabs, and silent steal
away.' In a crowd, some are night birds, who never care
to *go home 'till morning,' or to bed either, while others
deem sleep and regular hours as necessary to comfort in the
woods as at home. Both classes may enjoy themselves
equally well, but, though they may not say so, each in their
hearts wish "tother dear charmers away.* It is best, there-
fore, when it can be done, that only those whose tempera-
ments and home habits are similar should camp together,
that as little as possible should interpose to mar the pleasure
of these forest visits. My first experiences were in crowds.
Later on, the number of my angling companions was
gradually curtailed, until, during recent years, two of us,
whose ideas of comfort and of times and seasons are always
in harmony, constitute a 'party^ as happy and contented as
'two drops of water blended into one.' "
"But,'^ said my questioner, "how do you manage to pass
the evenings? You must get talked out after a while, with
only two of you to contribute to the common stock.''
* 'That would bo true if my friend was like some fellows I
70 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES.
know, who are really *talked out' before they begin to talk
at all, because they never have anything either useful or
edifying to say. "
"That's all very well, but for my part, when I am in the
woods 1 don't care to be very 'edifying' myself nor to be
very greatly edified by others, if by 'edifying' you mean
only such conversation as would be expected from a party
of monks in a cloister or of a bevy of savans in a salon."
"Nor do I, for I don't go to the woods myself to be super-
latively grave, but to be innocently happy. My companion
is aufait in all the intricacies of the law, in all the mysteries
of the sciences, and, like all the graduates of Old Union
when its historical President was at its head, he is as pro-
found in the classics as he is familiar with current events.
There is no subject about which he cannot converse —
gravely, if the subject demands it, or humorously if other-
wise. And as for myself, ask him, and if his friendship
does not induce him to hide my faults, he will tell you that,
while lounging around our camp-fire, I talk 'an infinite
deal of nonsense; more than any man in all Venice.' No;
there is neither wearisome sameness nor somnolent gravity
in our party of two during the restful hours between early
gloaming and our night retreat. If our conversation is not
always what would please a fool if it is never what would
disgust a scholar."
"I can very well believe that; but it has always seemed
to me that at least a third party is necessary to give piquancy
to persoaal jests; for how can one laugh at his own joke,
or how can the other fellow be expected to laugh when he
is its subject. A looker on in such an encounter is a mighty
stimulant to one's wit."
"As to that, we are never without subjects that provoke
laughter; but we always find it pleasanter to laugh with
than at each other. He is walldng on thin ice and
making a dangerous experiment with assumed friendship
who habitually indulges in either personal or practical jokes.
He must be something more than a saint who always re-
ceives them with equanimity, and he a great deal worse
WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES, 77
than an average sinner who, having a giant's strength in
that direction, persistently uses it like a giant. No 'prac-
tical joker' ever long retains the hearty respect of his friends,
nor their hearty friendship either. A persistent punster is
less offensive. He is only a bore; the other fellow is a nuis-
ance."
''Talking of practical jokes, ''you remember the 'good
thing' played on Mark Antony when he was fishing with
Cleopatra :
Charmion—^'' 'Twas merry when
You wager'd on your angling ; when your diver
Did hang a salt-flsh on his hook, which he
With fervency drew up."
" 'Tony must have been in a sweet-tempered mood just
then to have received the joke complacently. I once knew
a miserly sort of a fellow who would almost literally sleep
on the brink of the best 'spring-hole' within a five miles*
circuit, in order to retain its monopoly. To punish him
for his unsportsmanlike behavior, one of the guides was
bribed to launch a hemlock bush upon the current every
two minutes, at a point just above the coveted spring-hole ;
and while the astonished angler went up stream to investi-
gate, another chap took possession and held it through the
day. When told of the joke, instead of enjoying it he was
very angry, and I doubt whether he had a hearty laugh in
a twelve-month."
"The danger of practical jokes," I interposed, "is that
they are generally aimed at the most vulnerable point in the
victim's harness. For this reason, as in the case just cited,
they cut, because they are somehow felt to be deserved. A
proverbially thrifty chap would not feel half so much
offended by being presented with the empty shell of a
sucked egg as would a spendthrift who had 'wasted his sub-
stance in riotous living. ' "
"You remember the case of "our practical joker
had begun to remark, when he was interrupted by the most
exemplary of our number, who said to him :
"Now, Jeemes, my good fellow, 1 see what you are
78 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES,
driving at. You know only too well how you always fasci-
nate me when you draw your long bow, and you know just
as well that my time is up ; and yet you are deliberately and
with coldly concocted malice, trying to beguile me into for-
getfulness and thereby subject me to a 'curtain lecture' when
I get home. But you can't play any such practical joke on
me any more then you could humbug me by telling me I
was hitched to a log when I felt the twitch of a salmon.
So, 'go to' old man, and good night to all of you."
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