278 Fish Stories 



We have been thinking, dreaming about old fishing 

 grounds all winter. The stories of the famous bass caught 

 in the eighties has been told threadbare and has grown and 

 expanded under the telling until we have not the face, 

 though we firmly believe it, to tell it again, which is another 

 reason for going fishing, to restock the memory and obtain 

 new records. Then what companions there are to meet! 

 There is old Joe, who first told about the deadly qualities of 

 a certain fly, and who brewed the famous brandy punch 

 said to be concocted from a description left by Walton him- 

 self. There is T , who hooked a minnow, which was 



taken by a yellow perch, which in turn was swallowed by a 

 four-pound black-bass, which was seized by a muskallunge, 

 all being landed. 



We wonder if the old boatman is still on the river. All 

 this, and more, constitutes premonitory symptoms of the 

 summer fishing; and so the days creep by and the tackle is 

 looked over. A new split bamboo rod is bought. It weighs 

 about five ounces and is nine feet in length. New silk lines 

 are added, as the very act of buying tackle is a legitimate 

 factor in the sport, which one would not miss, though you 

 or I would not confess that sometimes anticipation has con- 

 stituted the whole bag. 



The happy day arrives; we are off. A man in our car 

 has a rod strapped to his sticks ; he, too, is going down the 

 river. We try the old bass story on him, but he has one to 

 beat it, about a bass caught at Gananoque, which is in Can- 

 ada; so we still hold the record, the American record, for 

 our part of the river. At last we stand on the beach; the 

 old boatman is waiting; he has the cleanest boat, the fresh- 

 est minnows and the jolliest smile of any man on earth, 

 and as we have seen him come in a hundred times, never 

 without a bass, we know we are going to have a day of 

 sport. 



The St. Lawrence bass boat is a type peculiar to the river. 

 It is of natural wood, copper-fastened, oiled until it shines. 



