March 17, 1887.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



157 



\m mid §iver ^gjkhmg. 



Address all communications to the Forest and Stream Pub. Co. 



WELL SPENT. 

 rpHEY laughed and called me idler, 



And said I had lost a day, 

 Because my creel was empty 

 And my rod had had no play. 



But I smiled and made no answer, 



For 1 knew what I had found 

 Far up by a fall of the water, 



With murmur of gentle sound, 



Where a leaf went slowly sailing 



Round (he little basin's edge. 

 And a bit of foam from above it 



Kept trembling hold on the ledge. 



And there on an oak tree ancient 



My rod had leaned unused, 

 While prone on the turf and the shadow 



I had looked and list ened and mused 



So I smiled and made no answer 



Wheu they said 1 had lost the day, '. 

 For 1 knew I had made me riches— 



I had brought a thought away. 



El) w AMD Caht/ton. 



A SALMON FIGHT IN THE NIGHT. 



THE moon is often credited with great influence over 

 the affairs of men. Old-fashioned farmers cut tim- 

 ber, plant crops and Mil hogs in the old or the new of 

 the moon with a religious observance of tradition ; and 

 I knew one old fellow who would only make soap under 

 the new moon, and not then unless he could stir it with a 

 "saxafrax" stick cut when she was in her last quarter. 

 There are many anglers who hold to the belief that the 

 moon exercises a considerable influence over the race of 

 anadromous fishes, especially salmon, and that they rise 

 better and more freely at certain of its phases than at 

 others. I am not one' of these, but I do wonder if the sun 

 exercisss any control over us anglers! Certain it is that 

 at this season of the year, when the sun is daily getting 

 higher and more nearly over our heads, we become aware 

 of symptoms not noticed during the early winter when 

 it was further south. Then it is that we wander rest- 

 lessly about the house for a day or two, stopping most 

 f reqiiently at the door of the closet in which we so care- 

 fully stored away our precious tackle at the close of the 

 last season, half ashamed of what we know we are about 

 to do, but will not, we think, do quite yet, partly because 

 we really enjoy the pleasure of fighting our inclination 

 yet a little longer, and partly because we fear that the 

 indulgenc a of our desire to' overhaul our tackle while 

 weeks and months must elapse before we can use it will 

 only add to our restless longings; that the pleasure of an- 

 ticipation will, if we indulge it, become a pain before we 

 can gratify it. 



Such has been my case for two or three weeks past, and 

 up to this time I have been able to master my inclination; 

 but two or three recent -articles in your paper have so 

 aggravated my symptoms that I have had to yield, and 

 now the disease has full sway over me. 



You published, two or three weeks ago, the story of 

 the salmon that was saved — now I purpose to write of 

 the salmon that was lost. It was in 1882, an off year for 

 salmon, and my sport had been indifferent. I had been 

 ten days on the river and had hardly taken that number 

 of fish, and even they were small, as my score-book 

 shows. 



It was in the afternoon of Saturday, July 8, and the 

 weather was perfect; the sun was generally under a 

 cloud with an occasional gentle fall of rain, which was 

 so fine and gentle as to be rather mist than rain; a slight 

 current of air down stream made casting a delight, and 

 the water was in elegant condition. Under these favor- 

 able circumstances I took my seat in the canoe and 

 floated down to a pool a mile or more below my camp at 

 the head of the island which I had left undisturbed for 

 some days awaiting just such conditions of sky and water 

 as then existed. The pool was bounded at its upper end 

 by a sharp riffle, made by an obstructive ledge of rock 

 that shot out from the right bank of the river and ex- 

 tended two-thirds of the way across the stream. 



A hundred and fifty yards below the pool terminated at 

 the head of a large island, the passage of which is always 

 accomplished by the channel next the left bank of the 

 river, that on the right being accounted dangerous by 

 reason of the many sharp, jagged rocks lying in its bed. 



The mountains rose abruptly from the very edge of the 

 water, and the dark evergreen of the foliage" extended to 

 the shore. Twilight fell early in that deep gorge, and 

 when it became dark it was very dark indeed. Near the 

 head of this pool I anchored my canoe and with high 

 hopes commenced operations. Cast after cast followed, 

 and yard after yard was added to it, but the water was 

 apparently barren. Another fly was substituted and the 

 water carefully searched again with no better result, and 

 the canoe was allowed to drop down with the current ten 

 or fifteen yards to enable me to reach new ground. So I 

 fished slowly and carefully, for I did not wish to reach 

 the foot of the pool until later in the afternoon, say be- 

 tween 6 and 7 o'clock, the hour when salmon, as I know 

 them, are most willing. Near the foot of the pool, nearly 

 opposite the head of the island but in the left hand pas- 

 sage, is a large brownish red rock, covered by water at 

 all seasons; it is a celebrated resting place for salmon on 

 entering the pool, and well known to all anglers who fre- 

 quent that portion of the river. 



It was here that I expected to raise my fish and at this 

 point I arrived just at the proper time. 



I had got out about sixty feet of line and a yard or two 

 more would place my fly just where I wanted it, directly 

 over the rock, and I was in a state of most pleasurable 

 anticipation, with all my attention concentrated on that 

 point, when by far the largest salmon I had ever seen rose 

 within a very short distance of the canoe. His leap was 

 prodigious, and when he disappeared it was with such a 

 tremendous splash, and he was so nearly at hand that he 

 actually splashed us with drops of water thrown off by 

 his vigorous action. 



Most salmon anglers have a belief that a leaping fish, 



that is one that leaps apparently for pleasure, being 

 attracted by nothing visible to the eye of the angler, will 

 not rise to the fly; but I have found that it is always 

 worth while to try them, so I sat down at once and quietly 

 reeled in my line until the upper end of the leader was 

 nearly in the tip ring. 



After waiting ("resting him") five minutes by the watch, 

 meanwhile discussing with my men the weight of the 

 fish, which we all agreed was at least thirty-five pounds, 

 and the chances of our capturing him, I allowed the fly 

 to float over the spot where he rose. My heart was in my 

 mouth I assure you, partly because I feared he would not 

 rise at all and partly because I feared he would, for he 

 was so nearly under the tip of my rod that I fully ex- 

 pected that something would break it I should fasten him. 

 Hardly had the fly touched the water before he rose to it 

 with a lea* even more vigorous than before, and was 

 hooked. His first rash took the tip of my rod far below 

 the surface of the water, but everything was free and the 

 fish, after taking some fifty feet of line, made ono more 

 leap and then followed the canoe quietly. 



As we were getting up the anchor and working up 

 toward the better landing place near the head of the 

 pool, Old Frank, turning to me, said, "That fish will 

 weigh forty pounds sure.'* I had had three good views 

 of his proportions, and, although I generally dislike to 

 weigh my fish in that way, I was of his opinion in that 

 case. The landing place was on the left bank of the 

 river, and in front of quite an area of dead water, deep 

 and free from snags and rocks to entange line or leader. 



To this point we brought the fish without difficulty, 

 but there he sulked. He lay about six feet from shore 

 and in eight or nine feet of wa'er, and there he seemed 

 disposed to remain. After waiting fifteen minutes for 

 him to commence operations of his own accord, I had re- 

 course to the usual mode of starting sulky fish, and 

 pitched a peck or so of stones at him; it was of* little 

 avail, however, for he would not move at all except when 

 some stone larger than usual landed unusually near him, 

 and then only to move lazily off fifteen or twenty feet and 

 return to the same spot. Night was fast coming on and 

 I was anxious to bring the fish to an understanding as 

 quickly as possible. I therefore sent the man out with 

 the canoe to stir him up with their poles. This had little 

 more effect than the stones, as he could not be persuaded 

 to move more than a few yards, and that in so lazy and 

 sluggish a manner as to suggest sucker rather than sal- 

 mon. 



It was a dangerous thing to do, since had the fish realty 

 started then, as he did later, he would probably have 

 taken the line under or against the canoe, when it would 

 certainly have parted, 



I therefore abandoned myself to a patient waiting for 

 him to get over his sulky fit and behave like a game fish. 

 It was now after 7 o'clock, and I felt sure that I was in 

 for an after dark fight; so I got my seat out of the canoe, 

 had a ring of smudges made around me, sent the men 

 into the woods for bark for flambeaux, lit my pipe and 

 waited events. 



It was just five minutes past six when I hooked that 

 fish, and for two hours and ten minutes he maintained 

 that passive attitude; then, at fifteen minutes past eight, 

 he commenced a wonderful performance. Up and down 

 and around and about that pool he rushed, never still for 

 a moment, now taking line off the reel at a fearful rate, 

 now rushing toward me faster than I could possibly re- 

 cover it, leaping at the end of each wild rush, as I could 

 tell by the ear only, for it was now too dark to see more 

 than sometimes the splash. For thirty-five minutes this 

 performance continued, and until I was just ready to 

 give that fish twenty-five dollars to give up or get away. 

 Every muscle and nerve of my body was aching. I was 

 wet to the skin, and the flies and mosquitoes were some- 

 thing awful. 



Before dark fairly shut down on us I had taken in the 

 geography of the situation, and decided upon my plan of 

 action if certain events occurred. 



From where I stood I judged it to be about one hund- 

 red and twenty yards to the head of the dangerous rapid 

 on the right hand side of the island; I had just that 

 amount of line in the reel, and had made up my mind 

 that if the fish determined to leave the pool by that route 

 while daylight lasted I should follow him in the canoe, 

 but that after dark he might go alone; if he essayed the 

 other and safer passage, I determined that I would go 

 with him whether it were daylight or dark. 



At last he seemed to have made up his mind and headed 

 straight for the head of the rapid, as I could toll only by 

 the direction of the strain, for it was too dark to see any- 

 thing more than twenty feet away. 



I kept my thumb on the coil of line until it seemed that 

 he must be in the very head of the wild water, and feel- 

 ing that the time had come when I must trust everything 

 to the strength of my tackle, I threw my rod well back 

 and shut down on him. He struggled fiercely for a mo- 

 ment, gave it up and became perfectly passive. I could 

 feel from the changing direction of the strain that he was 

 gradually swinging in with the current toward the shore 

 on which I stood, and supposed that his (and ruy; troubles 

 Avere over and that he was dead. The current where he 

 lay was, however, so heavy that it Avas impossible to bring 

 him up against it, and I dare not, could not, in fact, go 

 down to him; so I sent the men with the only remaining 

 flambeau and the gaff to look for him below, as he was 

 now evidently close under the bank. It was a weird, 

 strange sight, to see them as they passed down, some- 

 times crawling and stumbling over the rocks, and some- 

 times wading where the rock shore was too precipitous to 

 afford a foothold. At last I could see that they had 

 located the fish, and while one held the remains of the 

 flambeau high overhead, the other, gaff in hand, waded 

 gently into the water. I distinctly saw him advance the 

 gaff, and just as distinctly felt the fish move out into 

 the stream, and then I knew that he Avas not dead 

 as I had supposed. However, I gained twenty or thirty 

 feet of line by the maneuver, and again he came close 

 under the bank. Three times was this repeated and I 

 gained line every time; I was doing well enough, and I 

 felt that I ought to direct the men not to attempt to gaff 

 him, but to keep this process up until I could get him into 

 the deep, still water near at hand. I was, however, com- 

 pletely exhausted and quite mdifferent to anything ex- 

 cept to get the affair off my hands somehow; and I said 

 nothing. At last the gaffers made a slash and a stroke — 

 I felt the gaff on the leader and everything let go. 



The fish was gone after two hours and fifty-five minutes 

 of exhaustive work. It was just nine o'clock when I reeled 



i n my line and we started for camp, and ten when we 

 arrived. My friend had. become seriously alarmed, and 

 was just about starting out in search of us when he heard 

 the metallic ring of our iron-shod poles on the rocks 

 and stones of the river bed. 



Not a word was spoken until just as we came near the 

 landing, Old Frank turned to nie and said, "That salmon 

 would have weighed fifty pounds." 



I always thought myself that he would have weighed a 

 hundred. S. A. 



SALMON IN THE HUDSON. 



THE Troy Times of the 11th inst. contains the following 

 account on this subject. We think the writer is 

 mistaken in saying that the State Commissioners do not 

 favor the movement. The only opposition we know of 

 has been merely an occasional slur or sneer from a super- 

 intendent, whose intense egotism prompted him to oppose 

 all fishculture not done by himself, and who imagines 

 that he is the greatest of all fishculturists because of some 

 cheap newspaper notoriety. The last report of the State 

 Commissioners speaks with praise of the co-operation of 

 the U. S. Commission, and there is no rivalry or jealousy 

 between the two, as we understand the case, except in 

 the quarter to which we have alluded. The Times says: 

 "A large number of our citizens who have, in common 

 with others who reside upon the Hudson, appreciated the 

 successful efforts of the United States Fish Commission 

 in restocking the Hudson with salmon after our own 

 Sta.te Commissioners had failed to do so, are moving in 

 the matter to secure the construction of fishways, that 

 the salmon may reach the waters of the upper Hudson as 

 a spawning ground, and to secure such legislation as will 

 prevent the catching of salmon in nets without interfering 

 with the usual shad fishing. At the outset, however, these 

 efforts are met with the assurance that the State Fish 

 Commission do not favor the movement, and it cannot 

 have then support from the fact that such legislation 

 would interfere with the shad fishing, which is of a para- 

 mount consideration. If this were true, the objection 

 would be a reasonable one, but in this matter the position 

 of the State Commission is untenable, and is seemingly 

 taken without knowledge of consistency. By far the 

 larger portion of the shad caught in the Hudson are taken 

 in gill nets, and the meshes of the latter to take shad must 

 have a limited size of mesh, far too small to take salmon, 

 and if the State Commission will look into the matter in- 

 telligently they will learn tha t the nets made to gill sal- 

 mon in the rivers of Canada would let all the migration 

 of shad which enter the Hudson River pass through them. 

 Not only is tliis true, but it is a fact that where gill nets 

 are used to catch salmon, so generally will the salmon 

 jump over them that their tops are covered with bushes 

 to compel the fish to run into their nets. The nets most 

 interfering with the stocking of the river with salmon, 

 are the seines used in the shallow waters of the Hudson 

 between the cities of Hudson and Troy, and the drop-nets 

 at the Troy dam, wliich take the salmon from just below 

 the dam when seeking a place to ascend to the upper 

 Hudson. 



"Last year over fifty well-developed and lusty salmon 

 were taken in the Hudson on their return from the sea. 

 These fine specimens of fish were grown from the salmon- 

 fry put into the Hudson River some three years ago by 

 the United States Fish Commission, and it is also a fact 

 that the upper Hudson is now Avell-stocked with the fry 

 put in the succeeding years, and all that is wanted is to 

 furnish means for these fish after they have gone out from 

 the river to the sea, to be provided with means to make 

 the ascent of the several dams on the river so that they 

 can reach a proper spawning ground. The Hudson River 

 is a salmon stream, as established by the well-developed 

 fish returning to its waters after having been placed 

 therein as fry, and well-authenticated tradition and his- 

 tory of the fact. If our State Commission failed to make 

 the Pacific variety develop in the Hudson, they should 

 not pout and sneer at the better and more intelligently 

 made efforts of the United States Commission, or refuse 

 to co-operate with those who desire to restock- the river 

 Avith a fish that would be quite as profitable as the shad." 



DISEASED TROUT. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



My attention being called to a paragraph in your valu- 

 able paper inserted by Mr. At water, of Montreal, in refer- 

 ence to our trout in Canadian lakes, which are at one 

 period of the year affected by a disease, wliich is caused, 

 in my estimation, by the absence of rocks and rough 

 gravel, whereby they may rub or cleanse themselves of 

 those little tormentors like a diminutive worm or boring 

 insect, scarcely visible to the naked eye; still, there they 

 are tormenting the fish, which fly to every spot where 

 they can by friction free themselves. It is the same in 

 the old country, several species being subject to the same, 

 particularly grayling, trout, roach and dace, also the basr- 

 bel, or what yoti call in this country the sucker. In the 

 month of July, wherever there are' weeds growing, you 

 have no difficulty in lowering your hands in the weeds, 

 and Avhen you feel a fish work the fingers continually 

 until you feel the head and tail. By forcing the middle 

 finger in their mouths and at the same time forcing the 

 fish to the bottom, you can throw them out by scores. 

 The left hand must also encircle the tail. You will find 

 beds of Aveeds when in flower from six to eight feet 

 square, contain sometimes a dozen fish; these fly to the 

 weeds and scour themselves. The Airbyshire fishermen 

 call it the "rut" in fish. The grayling and roach are par- 

 ticularly infested, so much so, that I have had no diffi- 

 culty in placing my landing net under them, they mak- 

 ing very little effort to get out of reach. They are found 

 generally in the side of a swift stream where rough sand 

 and stones abound, in about four or five inches of Avater, 

 and being in that state are not fit for human food. A 

 jolly old "angler, a resident here, was out on the St. Law- 

 rence one hot afternoon fishing, Avhen he observed a simi- 

 lar incident among the bass, some hundreds rising to the 

 surface and making a circle round his boat for a consider- 

 able time, and disturbing the water within three yards of 

 boat, and most probably they had also become affected, 

 which caused him to laugh, as they followed each other 

 under and over, darting in a continual circle for upward 

 of half an hour. I should like to hear the opinion of 

 some of those who are practical fishermen of ancient date, 

 like myself, the old Yorkshire fly-maker and fisher. 



Maltby, SB, 



Montreal, Can. 



