90 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[March 2, 1882. 



ha mtd Mirer 



In he used to gang, out, out, out, and ever sae far out, frae the point 

 o' a promontory, sinkin aye further and further doon, first, to the 

 waistband o' his breeks, then up to thi^ middle button o' his waistcoat, 

 then to the verra breist, then to the oxters, then to the neck, and 

 then to the verra chin o' him, sae that you wunnered how he could 

 fling the flee, till the last o' a' he would plump richt doon oot o' sight, 

 till the Highlander on Ben Ouachan thocht him drooned. No he, in- 

 deed: sae he takes to the sooming, and strikes awa wi' ae arm: for the 

 titherhadhaud o' the rod ; and could ye believe 't, though it's as true as 

 scripture, fishing a 1 the time, that no a moment o' the cloudy day 

 micht be lost; ettles at an island a quarter o' a mile off, wi' trees, and 

 an auld ruin o' a religious house, wherein heads used to be counted, 

 ant wafers eaten, and mass muttered hundreds o' years ago; and get- 

 ting footing on the yallow sand or the green sward, he but gies him- 

 self a shake, and ere the sun looks out o' the cloud, has hyucket a 

 four-pounder, whom in four minutes (for it is a multiplying pirn the 

 creter uses) he lands, gasping through the giant gills, and glittering 

 wi' a thousand spots, streaks, and stars, on the shore.— The Shepherd, 

 in an account of the angling of Kit North, in, "Node* Ambrosi mice." 



WITH THE GRAYLING. 



A BOVE the hills the. dawn of morning breaks, 

 •"- And sheds its flood of radiance o'er the lea ; 



The clear-voiced brook makes laughing minstrelsy: 

 Deep in the bosky woods the pheasant wakes. 



O'er moss and fell the frosty glory lies, 



The birch receives it on its silvern bark; 



The moorhen's eyes grow brighter still; and hark ! 

 The. heron's scream, as homeward now he flies. 



To me the mom yet holds a greater charm — 



A pleasaunce sweeter, deeper, more serene 



Than e'en the jewelled glories of the scene; 

 A soul-slave rare as Gilead's gracious balm. 



I "go a-flshing" for the Timber shy 



Whose iridescent sides shame Orient pearls; 



See with what gentle, oily, dimpling swirls 

 The soft stream curls as Umber takes the fly! 



Oh ! panacea for all sub-lunar woes — 



The nerve-delighting fight a grayling makes'. 



Be gentle and he calm, his lip oft breaks- 

 Good fisher, not so rough, or off he goes! 



Triumphing do I stand, with gladsome brow, 



A quivering bar of silver gracefulness 



Upon the mossy bank, in death's distress, 

 As fragrant as the wild thyme, see him now. 



Thence homeward through the brake, or o'er the lawn, 



With spirit cheered to greet the toil of day, 



And heart as buoyant as the waving spray 

 That all he-gemmed, sways in the breeze of morn. 



Creon, in London Fishing Gazette. 



CAMP FLOTSAM. 



IL CONCERNING "SIGNS." — CONCLUDED. 



THERE are certain "signs in the moon" which, from time 

 immemorial have heen regarded by anglers as influenc- 

 ing, in no small degree, their success. We must confess at 

 the outset a very limited knowledge of these and leave them 

 to he more fully enumerated by the brethren of the angle who 

 may "jine in experience." 



"It is a "sign," which, we believe, the Indian left behind 

 him, that when the new moon lies on its back, that is, with 

 the concave upward, it is a "dry moon" or a sign of dry, 

 pleasant weather. The logic of it is, that "the water can't 

 run out." There is, however, an interpretation of this "sign" 

 which makes it a "wet moon" for the reason that "it is full 

 of water." Likewise, we have the signs that when the horn 

 of Die moon is turned downward it is a "dry moon" because 

 "the water has run out," also a "wet moon" because "the 

 water can run out." The authorities upon each side are so 

 numerous and respectable that we are unable to come to a 

 conclusion without hearing argument. 



There is quite a prevalent belief, among a class of anglers, 

 that fish do not "bite" in the full of the moon; the reason 

 given is, that they feed nights. While the fact, given as a 

 reason, is undoubtedly true, the deduction therefrom, that 

 fish "won't bite" during days when the moon is in the full, 

 is certainly false. The opponents of that theory instance the 

 fact that catfish and eels "bite" on dark rainy nights, and 

 argue therefrom that fish feed when in the mood, whether it 

 be in darkness or in light. 



It seems to us that these have the better of the argument, 

 for we have certainly had as good success on days when the 

 moon was in the full as at any other time, and this, as a rule. 

 At such times we have seen and heard the fish — black bass- 

 leaping in every direction upon the surface through moon- 

 light nights, which proves nothing more than that the lish 

 were moving about, for certainly, there was not sufficient 

 food or insects floating on the water to account for the 

 number of fish which were leaping, for, be it remembered, 

 this was upon a lake some two and a half miles lontr and half 

 a mile wide. Our own theory is, that on moonlight nights 

 when there is a gentle ripple on the water, the fish are 

 attracted to the surface, and that their leaping is mainly in 

 sport. The time when we have observed this has always 

 been mid-summer, and, on these nights have known the fish 

 to persistently refuse the fly, in fact we have never known one 

 to be so taken at night, at this lake. In accepting the full moon 

 idea, are we not compelled to assume that fish prefer to feed at 

 night and that they won't feed by day when the moon is lull, 

 and from this are we not led directly to the position that fish 

 can find their food more readily by "the uncertain light of 

 the moon" than in the light of day, a position, we venture to 

 say, difficult to maintain. The advocates of the former 

 theory seem inclined to invest the fish with an absurd habit, 

 in causing him to feed at night, whether in the mood or not! 

 or, in supposing that if the desire for food seizes him in the 

 night he at once seeks to satisfy himself, while, if such desire 

 comes over him by day, he postpones its gratification until 

 night— if the moon be full, and— it, might be added with 

 equal sense, after first, examining the "weather probabilities" 



himself that he will be in no danger of 1 

 meal by the intervention of a cloudy night. 



We have often heard it asserted' that black bass will not 

 Ijiie after sundown. We have caught them after that hour, 

 and until dark, in considerable numbers, while still fishing 

 with black crickets, and on several occasions we have taken 

 them with the same bait as late as ten o'clock at night, not, 

 however, in large numbers, for we only tried it at that 



hour as an experiment, for a short time on each occasion. 

 Another " sign with some anglers is that black bass won't 

 bite after the first leaves fall upon the. water in the fall of the 

 year. As we have been informed by reliable anglers of large 

 catches made by them much after this, and inasmuch as 

 Forest and Stream announces as in season for December 

 Mifroptrrnts salmouks, we arc fain to believe " there is 

 nothing in it." 



Who, when a boy, failed to learn that ancient "sign" that 

 "after ' peepers' have been stopped three times, suckers will 

 run!" and did not feel himself " stirred as with the sound of 

 a trumpet" by the musical swells breaking along the meadow 

 or the woodland marsh — the precursor of summer and of ang- 

 ling? The connection between the two, so far as the " sign" 

 goes, is like the warning set down in the old almanacs for 

 January, "look — for — snow — about — this — time." The same 

 may be said of the sign, "when dogwood blossoms pickerel 

 bite," or of the similar one of corn being in silk. 



Closely allied to anglers' ' ' signs" is another class of ' ' signs" 

 born among and held by anglers of the past, along the sandy 

 beaches and coves of Long Island and the bolder shores o'f 

 the lower Hudson. These relate not to fish, but to "buried 

 money," for it would seem as if these contemplative men, 

 dreaming in bays and inlets and creeks, with minds stored 

 with "sign" and liquid, sometimes wandered to another land 

 fairer than the lost Atlantis or the Utopia, which has never 

 been found, and brought from thence strange wild stories of 

 richly-freighted galleons, sunk upon the main; of strange 

 men in stranger costumes, who concealed, with "sign" and 

 spell and incantation, in lonely spots, chests iron-bound, 

 filled with jewels and gold — the fruitless attempts to recover 

 which have haunted the shores of our bay and river with the 

 best poetry of the New World. Verily, the angler of the 

 olden time had food for contemplation, when, drifting idly 

 through long summer days, he waited patiently for the luck 

 which came not. 



Angling successfully, like learning, has no royal road. 

 • ' Signs" no more insure fish than a schoolmaster can capa- 

 city. Hence our two classes of anglers — the lucky and the 

 unlucky — seem each born to it; the one to return at nightfall 

 with a w r ell-filled creel, dry and satisfied as to the inner man; 

 the other with the proverbial " fisherman's luck." Indeed, 

 we have often been told by those of whom we expected bet- 

 ter things, that though they were fond of angling, they 

 ' ' don't go any more, for they never have any luck. " Shades 

 of Walton! We beg everybody's pardon, but must remark 

 that he who measures the result of his day out by the scales 

 or the number which night finds in his creel, is just the man 

 who will sit down and reckon the per pound which his fish 

 have cost him, charging up a day of lost time in the calcula- 

 tion. From all such, good Lord deliver us. 



After all, there is no accounting for this sort of luck at 

 times. It almost seems as if some anglers were destined to 

 take every fish within cast of the boat, while their equally 

 expert, patient brother in the same boat with the same bait 

 never gets a strike or a nibble. We have often thought that 

 fish could tell which bait was cast, by one of gentle dispo- 

 sition, and which by one of violent nature or of sullen, angry 

 moods, and that they gave that of the latter a wide berth. 



If anglers are not born, but made, we must insist, upon a 

 belief in innate taste. We have seen a sturdy youth content 

 to stand and dangle a cord with naked hook— by the hour — 

 along a brooklet in which there had never been a fish — at 

 least within the memory of man. Who has not seen the boy 

 content in fishing in a pail of water, or in a pool formed by a 

 summer's shower? Did the resemblance never strike you, 

 my angling friend, between these early manifestations on the 

 part of the boy, and those of his sister with^her doll? Whence 

 come they? The stick and string are put in the boy's hands 

 and he is told to fish, you say, and the doll is placed in the 

 child's arms with some like saying. Very good! Are they 

 not apt? But sticks and strings are common playthings with 

 the boy and can be put to hundreds of uses in his games. 

 Yet, he chooses this particular way, and that, too, in a" man- 

 ner not the easiest or most natural to his tender years. Is it 

 not born in his bone, sinew and spirit? Comes it not down 

 through a line of generations from the days when, as Juvenal 

 has it, "A chill cavern furnished a scanty dwelling and in- 

 closed under a common shelter the fire and household gods, 

 the cattle and the owners; when the world was new and the 

 sky but freshly created and men, born out of the riven oak 

 or moulded out of clay, had no parents, " when men sought 

 existence from the forests and waters? 



Whatever answer the wise and prudent may make, the fact 

 will remain, and the boy, with his mimic rod, casting in 

 mimic sport, will bring up the long column whose advari ce, 

 weighted with years, fondly turns in the glow of the sunset, 

 to the days that are no more. 



As we write, memories of an ancient fisherman who gave 

 us our first lesson in angling, from the bridge by his mill, 

 with a piece of cotton cord and a pin hook, our childish glee 

 over a minnow — our first catch — come up again. Ming-led 

 with these, yet more distinct, comes the memory of another, 

 the companion of many a boyish ramble by stream and lake, 

 under whose tuition with the pliant rod we sought nobler 

 game, whose time-scarred face and locks whitening for the 

 harvest, told us, could we but have read it, that his night was 

 at hand, that soon the royalty of his love for the boy would 

 be under the clod of the valley, who. simple soul, trusted 

 each angler's " sign" and taught them with his gentle craft, 

 whose name, alas I was long years ago carved on a tomb- 

 stone, yet, whose memory throngs amid these words and lines 

 until the eyes brim full with the tearful tenderness which it 

 awakens. 



Let those who will, "scout" the anglers' "signs." We are 

 not of them. They came with our boyhood, dropped from 

 loved lips which are silent and can utter no word in their 

 defence ; they are a part of our day out with our rods, and 

 let us believe that our manhood is none the less manly and 

 strong if, on these days the involuntary query comes upon us 

 —as it, does come and will come, in spite of our philosophy — 

 " is the ' sign' right?" W»wi«mi 



Wawavanda. 



^ A Handsome Present. — We were shown by Messrs. 

 Conroy & Bissett, last week, the following handsome angler's 

 outfit: One split-bamboo salmon fly rod with gaff, raised 

 pillar reel, Holberton fly book, flies, "etc., in fact 'everything 

 complete and ready for use, all heavily gold plated, in' mag- 

 nificent velvet-line'd sole leather case, with silver name-plate 

 and corners. Also, one each black bass and trout fly rod, 

 split bamboo, with reels, lauding net, fly books, etc., etc. 

 complete— gold plated and in same style of case— making a 

 most complete and elegant outfit. In addition, there was a 

 trolling box containing everything in the shape of lines, min- 

 nows, spoons, etc. This outfit is for a present to a prominent 

 New Yorker, ordered of Messrs. Conroy & Bissett, and details 

 left to Mr. W. Holberton. 



THE VALUE OF ANGLING. 



IN a recent address before the Farmers' Institute of Iowa, 

 Mr. B. F. Shaw, the able Fish Commissioner of that 

 State, made an address upon Fish, Fishing and Fishculture, 

 from which we extract, the following: 



From the cradle to the grave we hear more or less of these 

 subjects. The babe sitting on its mother's knee hears her sim- 

 ple ditty: 



" Many fishes in the brook, 

 Papa catch them with a hook, 

 Baby eat them if he can." 



And he will be quite likely to remember his first attempt at 

 eating them. The tempting but deceptive mouthful of sucker 

 tobeswallowed by the youngster who is scarcely more than one 

 himself, the disposition to swallow too much and in too much 

 of a hurry, the cruel, sharp-pointed bone that pierced his throat, 

 getting more firmly fixed with every effort made to disgorge 

 it, the frantic mother kindly beating his back in the hope that 

 the concussion may serve to dislodge.it, until his back is black 

 and blue for many days after. The dry crust of bread with 

 sharp-pointed corners that was thrust down his throat, cutting 

 furrows that for days after felt like the ragged edge of every 

 unpleasant thing; the final desperate effort of the mother with 

 one of her longest fingers down his throat, seeming to him to 

 be feeling for the 'soles of his feet; the tipping over of his 

 stomach and final dislodgment of the bone in some myste- 

 rious manner, are memories that will go with him through 

 life's journey. 



Do' you remember the little creek that used to cross the 

 road or meander through the pasture and meadow, and 

 how as a seven-year-old man you one day, in looking into its 

 enormous pools— fifteen inches deep and full two feet across 

 — saw the monstrous finny leviathans; how you determined 

 to capture some of them'; how you went to your mother's 

 spool of cotton thread and took' a piece four foot long, and 

 from the pin-cushion a pin, and how, with a bent pin for a 

 hook, the thread for a line, a twig for a pole and a worm for 

 bait, you salliedforth to do or die; how you trembled for fear 

 that you should miss him as you approached the scene of 

 action ; the throwing in of the bait, the glorious nibbles, the 

 final good, solid bite, and the throwing clear over your head 

 of an immense shiner, fully two inches long; the repetition of 

 the same until you had a full dozen — enough, in your imagin- 

 ation, to make a square meal for all your family; and how 

 mother, to please the vanity of her pet, had them cleaned and 

 cooked to a crisp, and the deliciousness of this meal of the 

 first and finest fish you ever caught? If you do not remem- 

 ber these things, then you have missed one of the sweetest 

 memories of life. 



You see the boy of twelve to sixteen years in his rugged 

 mountain home, where all have to labor manfully for a bare 

 subsistence. He does his full share of the hard work with a 

 cheerfulness that shows the stuff he is made of, but he has 

 been for the past month silently but fervently praying for a 

 rainy day. He has an abundance of work for every pleasant 

 one," and he knows that the trout bite bast when it rains. It 

 comes, and the more dismal and dreary the day the more the 

 sunshine of the boy's buoyant spirits is shown in his face. 

 His enthusiasm is an inspiration that brings a sympathetic- 

 joy to all his family, old and young alike. His chores early 

 done, he, with doughnuts in one pocket and his tin box of 

 worms in the other, is off for the brook. Though barefooted, 

 he has no time to take around the road; but, "through briar 

 patches, windfall, thorn brakes and other obstacles, he takes 

 a straight shoot for the best hole in the brook, or to the big 

 spring with an intent to fish the whole length of the stream. 



When once there he puts his horse-hair line — the result of 

 much study and labor of his own — upon the slender willow 

 pole that he cut last year and has carefully seasoned in the 

 shade until it is as light and springy as wood can be made. 

 With his sprout hook and light sinker he is ready for business. 

 If you have fished for trout, you know what it is, if not, it 

 would be hard for any one, however gifted, to give you a fair 

 idea of its pleasures and perplexities. That boy has been 

 there so often that he knows just how and what to do. He 

 glides behind a stump and, with the cautiousness of a cat, 

 creeps to the edge of the stream. Carefully he takes the 

 bearing of the water as it swirls under the bank, and with a 

 skill that only comes with experience he drops his angle so 

 softly that scarcely a sound or ripple comes upon the water. 

 It is carried down by the current. A moment's suspense, a 

 rush, a swirl in the water, a tightening of the line, a twist of 

 the wrist upon the pole that is known as ' 'the strike" — which 

 fasten the hook in the fish's mouth, the rushes of the fish to 

 and fro and his wonderful leaps into the air as he gallantly 

 struggles to free himself, the coolness of the boy as he firmly 

 holds a tight line upon his captive to keep him from running 

 under roots or around or under su nk en rocks until after the 

 final struggle, the gentle lifting of the fish from the water lest 

 the hook should be torn from his mouth, the landing of the 

 tish, the throwing down of the pole in his eager haste to make 

 him sure, his triumphant "Whoop, I've got a whopper" — all 

 proclaim that the boy is no novice at trout-fishing. And how 

 he looks at the magnificent fish as he jumps about as though 

 his every muscle were a spring of steel. See his gleaming 

 eyes as Fie views its changing rainbow colors and notes the 

 beautiful spots of brown and crimson and gold, and when 

 you find anything in nature or art more beautiful, may I be 

 there to see. 



Hear the boy talk to him: "I beat you that time, old fel- 

 low. That pays you for the pranks you've played on me 

 before now. What have you done with the hooks you have 

 stolen from me, hey? Oh, crackee! ain't you a beauty, 

 though V" Sow the boy's worship of nature is in full force. 

 You see it in every expression of his face and form, and in 

 every motion as he secures his prize' and prepares for further 

 work. He is prouder of his triumph than petty tyrants are 

 of their despotisms, and he would not, trade his magnificent, 

 prize for the gold that some shyster has succeeded iu plun- 

 dering from his victim. But he goes on. He knows every 

 crook and bend of the stream, every riffle and deep hole, 

 every overhanging bank, every sunken log or stone, or other 

 hiding and lurking place for the trout, and just how to ap- 

 proach them without alarming the fish. He joys in the 

 drenching rain, for it hides his motions from the fish, and he 

 knows that these showers knock the bugs and beetles from 

 the overhanging trees and float them into the streams, and 

 that the fish will be looking for such food at such a time 

 and will be the more readily decoyed. And he has no fears 

 for his health, for his active' habits of life have hardened his 

 robust frame until it could resist storms almost as well as the 

 trees that surround him. The only thing that he really 

 dreads is that it may turn into a thunder storm, and so Ms 

 sport for the day be ended, for he well knows that the trout 

 will not bite when it thunders. His pluck, perseverance 

 and skill is rewarded by a big string of the prince of fishes, 



