258 AMERICAN FISHES. 



" The hero of this anecdote is a gentleman, known by the nom de 

 guerre of Commodore Limbrick, a character in which he has figured 

 many a day in the columns of the Spirit of the Times, and who is 

 universally allowed to be one of the best and most experienced, as 

 well as the oldest fisherman of that city. 



" After having fished all the morning, with various success, in the 

 pond, he ascertained, it seems, that in the pool below the mill there 

 was a fish of extraordinary size, which had been observed repeatedly, 

 and fished for constantly, at all hours of the day and evening, with 

 every diff'erent variety of bait, to no purpose. Hearing this, he betook 

 himself to the miller, and there having verified the information which 

 he had received, and having satisfied himself that neither fly nor min- 

 now, gentle nor red-worm, would attract the great Trout, he procured, 

 horresco referens^ a mouse from the miller's trap, and proceeding to 

 troll therewith, took, at the first cast of that inordinate dainty, a fish 

 that weighed four pounds and three-quarters ! 



" Another fish or two of the like dimensions have been taken in 

 Lifi". Snedecor's and in Carman's streams ; and it is on record, that 

 at Fireplace, many years since, a Trout was taken of eleven pounds. 

 A rough drawing of this fish is still to be seen on the wall of the tavern 

 bar-room, but it has every appearance of being the sketch of a Sal- 

 mon ; and I am informed by a thorough sportsman, who remembers 

 the time and the occm-rence, although he did not see the fish, that no 

 doubt was entertained by experienced anglers who did see it, of its 

 being in truth a Salmon. 



" In the double-pond among the Musconetcong Hills, on the con- 

 fines of New York and New Jersey, in the Greenwood lake in the 

 same region, and in some other ponds in Oi-ange County, Brook Trout 

 have been occasionally taken of the same unusual size. One fish I saw 

 myself on last New Year's Day, which, shameful to toll ! had been 

 caught through the ice, near Newburgh. This fish weighed an ounce 

 or two above five pounds, and was well-fed, and apparently in good 

 condition — but, as I said before, all these must be taken as exceptions, 

 proving the rule, that Trout in American waters rarely exceed two or 

 three pounds in weight, and never compare in size with the fish taken 

 in England, and still less with those of the Scottish and Irish waters, 

 in all of wliich, the regular, red-spotted, yellow-finned Brook Trout 



