COLONEL CHARLES H. RAYMOND. 



TURTLES, SETTERS AND DUCKS. 



THE only fishing companion of earliest boyhood 

 with whom I have kept in touch throughout life, 

 and who is living to-day, is the subject of this 

 sketch. He was born in Albany, N. Y., in January, 1834, 

 and is near my own age. He frequently visited me across 

 the river, and we hunted turtles in the creeks from the red 

 mill to Quackendary Hollow pond turtles, snapping tur- 

 tles and box turtles and the point was to collect as many 

 as possible and try to train them to race. We fished a 

 little once in a while, but to Raymond it was too slow and 

 lacked the excitement of grabbing turtles; and this was 

 characteristic of his life throughout. As a fisherman pure 

 and simple he would never have achieved fame. He 

 lacked that quality of patience which is not strained, but 

 droppeth like the gentle worm overboard when it is the 

 last in the bait box. I cared little to fish with him because 

 of this lack of patience. He was of the class who say, 

 "Yes, I like to fish if they bite fast." But he was a born 

 hunter, wing, rifle shot and "bird-dog" man, and took to 

 setters as ducks go to a mill-pond. 



We would watch old John Chase lift his fyke nets in 

 the creek, and he would give us the turtles that he caught. 

 We would stroll down the Greenbush bank, past old Fort 

 Crailo, where I went to school, and watch the sturgeon 

 jump in the river. Then a big one would jump every few 

 minutes ; now there are few, if any, in the Hudson. We 

 went back of the nut orchard and drank the strong sul- 

 phur water from Harrowgate Spring, which we often talk 

 of to-day. It is singular that we never went shooting to- 



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