56 MEN I HAVE FISHED WITH. 



were perfect, because they did not break a small worm 

 and allowed the use of a generous bait on the long wire. 

 How I treasured a dozen of these hooks which he gave 

 me, and how som* boys looked at them with envy and 

 others sneered at them, saying, "A big fish would bite 'em 

 in two," are things well remembered. 



The stream was small; in places one could jump across 

 it; then it would widen out, sometimes in deep holes and 

 at others in shallow riffles, through meadows most of the 

 way and often fringed with alders, which troubled the 

 angler to use his rod. In the latter case trout would be 

 hauled in as on a hand line. There was no landing net in 

 the party. At this time the existence of such an imple- 

 ment was unknown to us boys; we hauled in a fish, un- 

 hooked it, and either strung it on a twig and carried the 

 string or let the fish hang in the water to keep alive. 

 This day the latter mode was not practicable. The trout 

 in this stream did not run very large, perhaps from four 

 to six ounces ; but the new kind of hooks, the absence of 

 a sinker and the consequent ability of the fish to fight, 

 made it the grandest event in all my fishing, and one ever 

 to be remembered. The day was perfect: a light breeze, 

 the sun not too bright, and the fish taking the bait freely. 

 Crawling through the brush or skipping the places where 

 it was too thick to get a short rod and line in the water, 

 we worked slowly down stream. I had let my hook drift 

 under a log in a hole on the other side of the stream, when 

 a trout struck it hard. We had not arrived at that point 

 in fine angling when reels were used, and the strike 

 caught me with my tip lowered, and there was a struggle 

 which soon ended in the line being fast to some immova- 

 ble thing, and a strong pull parted it, and for the first time 

 the biggest got away. This has happened to others. 



Surely it is hard to tell, at this late day, whether grief 



