NOES A Nae) Wiel ens. 
[Under this Department Heading queries relative to Angling, Ichthyology and Fish Culture 
will be answered. | 
- Reminiscences of Nessmuk. 
[Continued from January ANGLER. | 
On January 17, 1883, we received the an- 
nexed personal letter and verses, the latter 
being written on the receiptof a tobacco 
pouch from one of his New York City friends: 
I smoke my first from the pouch to night, 
As I watch the snow drift over the lawn, 
And muse on the days when hope was bright, 
And the trusty comrades dead and gone. 
Ach, Gott ! that the weakest should longest stay, 
While the best and bravest were first to go— 
That my stoutest comrade should pass away, 
And leave me out in the blinding snow. 
* * %* * * 
Oh, Etheridge Nye, 
The winds go by; 
The beard o’ the thistle sails out to sea, 
And the hearts of gold, 
That I loved of old, 
Have gone with the thistle down far a lee. 
Etheridge Nye is the only man [| have ever 
hunted with who could pick up a 200-pound 
buck and carry it to camp without wincing. 
Pathologically speaking, he ought to have out- 
stayed me by fifty years. In point of fact, I 
lived to feed him gruel from a spoon on his 
dying bed. 
Let me here make a point, and have done: 
‘‘Etheridge Nye,” Sime McCulloch,’’ and 
‘‘Gurd Steele,” were three of the most splen- 
did backwoods giants I haveeverseen. Look- 
ing at them, as we were ‘‘in swimming” on 
the banks of the Susquehanna River, I have 
wept with sorrow as I looked on their fine 
forms, and contrasted them with my little 1o1 
pounds. They are all buried; and I ‘am 
stronger, better, than I was then. Why and 
wherefore this should be thus, no man knows, 
NESSMUK. 
««My Father’s Rod’’ A First Fly Cast. 
Prior to the year 1886, like ‘‘Camp Fire,’’ I 
had not been initiated into the mystic signs 
and symbols of the fly fisher. I had always 
taken cum grano salzs all articles 1 read of 
two and three pounders taken on an eight 
ounce rod, with light tackle and silver doctors. 
Seth Greens and brown hackles were not in it 
as compared with a chub or a helgramite on a 
heavy line and a strong reed rod. 
During the winter of the above year, by a 
change in the agency of the railroad company, 
a young man was placed in the position made 
vacant, and shortly afterwards I became ac- 
quainted with him. Then began the intro- 
ductory conversation and signs and symbols 
that puzzled our friend ‘‘Camp Fire.” I list- 
ened to wonderful exploits; how ‘‘ father took 
twenty-eight bass one afternoon from 3 o'clock 
until dusk, just out of town, and a four pound 
bass one morning down under the big chestnut 
on the bank”; and how ‘‘ brother Jack would 
take fifteen or twenty big fellows after quitting 
work in the evening, all on father’s old eight 
ounce rod,’ with more as to the kinds of flies, 
the condition of the water and all details 
clearly described. I ‘‘took it in.” 
We went trout fishing when the season 
opened, and sometime during the month of 
May he presented to my gaze ‘‘father’s won- 
derful rod.” I gazed and remarked: 
‘“Do you mean to say that your father 
landed a four pound bass with this switch; 
this rod so ‘fearfully and wonderfully made,’ 
of a dark cherry color.” 
It was wrapped here and there with heavy 
cord, and the serpentine shape of the tip which 
was also wrapped near the middle, made a re- 
markable appearance. 
One day in June I had a bucket of chubs 
ready and we went fishing. My new-found 
friend had ‘‘that rod,” with all the necessary 
complements thereto; I had my jointed bait 
rod of about fifteen feet and tackle to suit. I 
