338 



RECREATION. 



the bass; but the fish around that section 

 evidently belonged to the United Fish As- 

 sociation, and the leaders had passed word 

 down the line to bite at no bait, touch no 

 fly and to beware of all mock, sham, coun- 

 terfeit, fraudulent, fictitious, tricky objects 

 whatsoever. Captain Fowle averred that 

 the bass, after smelling around his most 

 taking helgramite, would swim to the sur- 

 face, wink one eye, open its mouth to show 

 how utterly weary the transparent efforts 

 for capture made him, and then would 

 sink down languidly out of sight. 



At that juncture a new actor appeared 

 on the scene in the shape of a long, slab- 

 sided, freckle-faced boy. He bore in one 

 hand a trimmed sapling. 



"Hello, Bub !" said Captain Fowle, "go- 

 ing a-fishing?" 



The boy grinned and answered that Dad 

 had sent him "to ketch some fish for sup- 

 per." 



"Well, Dad will have to go without his 

 fish to-night," answered the captain. "We 

 have been at it all day and haven't had a 

 bite." 



"I dunno," responded the boy ; "I reckon 

 I kin yank some out." 



He took from his pocket a small roll of 

 flexible copper wire, made a slip-knot of it, 

 and tied it to the end of the pole. Then he 

 seized a handful of worms, threw them be- 

 side the rock, and as the bass swam leis- 

 urely up he slipped the wire loop, which 

 was invisible to the fish by reason of its 

 being so nearly the color of the water, into 

 the stream, and gave the pole a jerk. The 

 noose caught the fish in the middle and in 

 a second a big bass lay flopping on the 

 bank. Again and again he repeated the 

 maneuver. We tried our hands at it, but 

 somehow could not acquire the trick. 



Having "yanked out" enough for him- 

 self and a string for us, for which we paid 

 him a quarter, the boy, with as much non- 

 chalance as if he had been shucking corn, 

 aintied his wire, shouldered his pole and 

 '"reckoned it war 'bout time he war home." 



"Say, Sonny," called the captain, "Do 

 you folks always fish that way? Don't you 

 ever fish with a rod and line?" 



"The gals do sometimes, but we fellers 

 ain't got no time to fool with 'em that 

 way." 



As he disappeared over the rocks the cap- 

 tain drew a long breath. 



"Live and learn," he exclaimed. "Now I 

 know why the bass are so scarce." 



"Yes," I added, "that Johnny Raw can 

 catch more fish in 2 hours with his hick- 

 ory pole and wire than we with our split 

 bamboos, fly rods, automatic reels, silk 

 water-proof lines and full assortment of 

 flies, together with our fish knowledge, can 

 in a week." 



I asked a native who lived near if he was 



not aware that it was against the law and 

 against the best instincts of sportsmanship 

 to drag the bass out of a hole as he would 

 mud turtles. 



His reply was characteristic, and exempli- 

 fied the feelings of the farmers on the ques- 

 tion of game protection generally. 



"Agin the law ! I ain't mindin' no derned 

 law that interferes with me haulin' in fish 

 when my old woman wants 'em." 



"But you will exhaust the supply," we 

 suggested. 



"That's thar lookout, not mine. That 

 ar river runs through my farm and I'm 

 goin' to ketch fish any way I want and 

 whenever I durn please." 



We had nothing more to say. 



During the next 2 days we caught only 

 about half a dozen bass between us, but 

 we enjoyed those golden autumn days just 

 as much as we could have had the river 

 been full of fish and ravenously hungry for 

 the bait. 



One cool, cloudy morning, just the kind of 

 a day to make an angler exert himself, my 

 comrade and I found a pool which had es- 

 caped the scrutiny of even the wire fiends. 

 It was full of bass, but they were as ca- 

 pricious as a society belle. We tried every 

 fly in our collection. 



"Well," said I, "those fish are not hun- 

 gry, so we might as well stop." 



"That's not it," replied my companion, "I 

 have not been bass fishing these 20 years 

 not to have learned something. They wish 

 a certain food and will not touch any other." 



"All right," I retorted, "I hope they may 

 get it, but it is not I who will ransack crea- 

 tion to find what they want. When they are 

 ready for what I have to offer them they 

 can speak," and I proceeded to unjoint my 

 rod, fill my briarwood, light it, lie down in 

 the shadow of a rock, take a paper novel 

 from my pocket, and when I was not read- 

 ing I listlessly watched my friend. 



He, in the meantime, found some angle 

 worms ; but no, the bass family were tired 

 of that diet. Did they want a grub? Not 

 much ! They were evidently surfeited with 

 grubs. A grasshopper? No temptation 

 whatever. 



Then, after a great deal of trouble, the 

 captain secured a live minnow. 



"I've got them now," he said. 



His line, when he allowed it to sink, was 

 jerked smartly. He pulled it up and lo ! a 

 miserable, slimy, twisting eel. 



As the captain, with unmistakable rage, 

 stamped the life out of the wriggling rep- 

 tile, I just rolled over and over in a con- 

 vulsion of laughter. 



"Billy," I said, wiping the tears from my 

 eyes, "don't try any more. There's no 

 telling what you'll bring up next. You're 

 not fishing for snakes." 



The captain stalked away, leaving his 



