370 
At one time they came so close we could 
see them take the bait, and it was pull in, 
unhook, bait and throw out. Often before 
the bait had gone under the surface of the 
water the line would whiz out with an- 
other fish on the hook. 
We all wore finger stalls of wool or can- 
vas on our forefingers, for without this 
protection the skin would soon be worn off. 
The wash bait had to be kept going over 
the side by handfuls, and if the grinder had 
stopped 5 minutes the fish would have left 
us. 
When our last handful of bait washed 
away with the tide we pulled in our lines 
and made ready to get our fish to the pack- 
ing house. The skipper estimated that we 
had 600 pounds in the boat, a profitable 
day’s work for him and his mate. 
I took g fish home with me and they 
made me a good load. 
Bluefishing has become an important in- 
dustry on lower Chesapeake bay. Up to 
recent years the natives knew nothing of it 
but the Yankee fishermen began following 
the fish down the coast and fishing from 
their smacks in the bay. Now each sum- 
mer sees an increased number of native 
fishermen employed. The fish do not 
usually stay Jong in one place but are con- 
tinually moving. 
A few years ago I spent an hour in the 
same locality early in the season. A squall 
chased us home before our fishing was 
done, but in that one hour 3 of us caught 
64 bluefish, ranging in weight from 0 to 12 
pounds each. After pulling in 18 of them 
I began to have that tired feeling the doc- 
tors talk about. 

A POUND TROUT. 
F. M. 
Three long months I had been shut in 
with a severe attack of rheumatism, and 
it was the first of May before I could hob- 
ble around the yard. During the first part 
of my confinement every motion added to 
my misery, but when the pain was gone 
I longed to get out, to go somewhere far 
from the sickroom. As spring advanced, 
and the weather improved I grew more 
uneasy and the first warm days nearly drove 
me wild. The coming of robins and black- 
birds, too, told of approaching summer, and 
still I was a cripple. 
A wet, cold spring we had, and for days 
the brook back of the house was a raging 
torrent, while the meadows looked like a 
lake. Our house is in a fertile valley be- 
tween ranges of hills, and back of the house 
some 50 rods is the brook. This little 
stream, after running miles in and through 
woods and meadows, widens as it nears the 
sea, into a navigable river. All my life has 
been spent on this stream, and each year 
I have fished the length of it. Every bend 
LEETE. 
RECREATION. 
and rock, every tree and bush, is as famil- 
iar to me as my kitchen garden. It was as 
natural for me to fish as it was to eat. My 
father was an angler, and well I remember 
the baskets of trout he used to bring home. 
My grandfather, too, had a love for the 
sport, and fished as long as he was able to 
tramp the brook, and my son has inherited 
the family weakness. 
One morning along in May, I hobbled 
out to the barn, and sat in the South door, 
completely disgusted with everything and 
everybody. The weather was perfect, but 
my bodily ills kept me from enjoying it. 
While I sat in the doorway moodily gazing 
at the sunny landscape, 2 neighbors came 
down the road, Deacon Brown and Henry 
Smith, and seeing me, came in to chat. 
After the usual commonplaces the good old 
Deacon, knowing my weakness, said: 
“We saw something just now that would 
have done your heart good. As we were 
crossing the bridge a trout jumped out of 
that deep hole by the buttonball tree. He 
must have weighed a pound.” 
Left alone again, I did some thinking 
about that fish. A pound trout! Trout 
that weighed a pound were scarce therea- 
bout. Once I had caught one that weighed 
13%4 pounds, but that was years ago. I meas- 
ured on my cane about how long the fish 
would be, and with the point of it scratched 
in the soft dirt an outline of the big trout 
by the buttonball tree. I knew just where 
the fish would probably be, just back of 2 
big stones in the pool, where many of 
his kin had met their fate in years that 
were past. How I did long to have a try 
at him! I could see the tree from the barn, 
down across the meadow just below the 
bridge. A long way off it looked to me that 
morning. 
Just then there crawled out of the dirt 
at my feet a fat angleworm. That 
worm did the business for me. I caught 
him, and then poked around until I had 
6 more. My rod, thank fortune, together 
with my line and hooks, was in the barn. 
With a furtive look at the house, I slipped 
into the building, and out at another door 
in the rear with my tackle and headed for 
the brook, keeping the barn between me 
and the house. I did not move fast. It was 
not easy for me to walk with my crutches 
on the soft ground, but I kept at it, and 
after a long passage brought up at the 
brook, just above where I wanted to fish. 
Sitting on a convenient rock I jointed my 
rod, rigged my line, hooked on a worm and, 
limping painfully along, came to the little 
rapid that stopped in the pool by the but- 
tonball tree. 
The squirming lure floated in the swift 
water to the still depths below. Not a strike. 
Again, and as it passed the sunken stones 
it stopped. I felt a gentle pull and the 
line began to run out, while I helped the 
