516 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Jan. 15, 1891. 



like a needle and a 3-foot handle is the weapon, and some 

 of the professional guides, from long and constant prac- 

 tice, become very expert in its use. With a quick, 

 downward motion, before musky has time to think what 

 it is all about, the sharp point 'is darted under his body 

 and the next instant he is struggling vainly in the bot- 

 tom of the boat. This is less humane than shooting them, 

 but for some reason or other it seems to be preferred by 

 many. 



If not immediately killed by a bullet through the brain 

 a sharp-pointed knife is insetted right back of the head 

 and the spine severed, for if this is not done it is likely 

 to flop about for a long time and cause a great deal of 

 trouble. 



The third method, which is only resorted to where no 

 other is available, is the one that Bob and I once had a 

 rather peculiar experience with. We were trolling for 

 pike from a treacherous dugout canoe that was barely 

 wide enough to sit down in. and which seemed forever 

 to be on the verge of rolling over arid completely revers- 

 ing the natural order of things. While passing over a 

 bed of weeds Bob hooked on to a monster pike which for 

 about ten minutes occupied all the attention we could 

 safely spare from the management of our hollow log. 

 Immediately after striking the actions of a pike are 

 similar to those of a maskallonge. It dives down and 

 gives a series of lusty, angry tugs which seem to indi- 

 cate quite a vindictive spirit. But here the resemblance 

 ceases, for the pike is not much of a fighter and soon 

 comes up as though thoroughly tired out. The one Bob 

 caught finally came in with hardly a struggle. Having 

 no rifle, revolver, gaff or any other instrument where- 

 with to demolish it I determined to try the simple plan 

 of lifting it out bodily by hand. 



Accordingly, as it lay just beneath the surface, slowly 

 opening and closing its capacious mouth. I ran my hand 

 gently along its back, and with a quick movement 

 clutched it in the hollow places formed by the eyes and 

 dropped it in the canoe. If a second thought had been 

 taken it would not have been released quite so soon, but 

 it was now too late to regain my hold, and as a result of 

 this oversight we were treated to an exhibition of fish 

 gymnastics that we had seldom seen equalled. A pike 

 coming in with meek and lowly mien is certainly quite 

 a different thing from that same pike when lying in the 

 dry bottom of a canoe, as we were not long in discover- 

 ing. No sooner was he released than he made a couple 

 of vigorous flops that threatened to take him back in the 

 water and, not seeming satisfied with this, he commenced 

 a series of twistings, turnings and other eccentric gyi'a- 

 tions that were almost bewildering. Bob and I moved 

 cautiously toward the center and sat down with as 

 much dignity as the situation would permit on either end 

 of the restless fish. 



This quieted him for a moment, and Bob, taking ad- 

 vantage of the calm, fished out a chunk of wood, about a 

 foot long, and rained blow after blow upon the head of 

 the defenseless captive. Its body quivered a little and 

 then dropped back limp and lifeless, as it appeared to us. 

 Thinking all was over, we drew back to our respective 

 ends, but were not more than fairly seated before that 

 tenacious pike, with a couple of spasmodic leaps, almost 

 threw himself out again. Back we scrambled and once 

 more deposited ourselves upon its slippery, squirming 

 length. This treatment it seemed to regard as an insult, 

 for it commenced struggling furiously, and to such good 

 effect that it slipped like an eel from under our feet and 

 legs and through our hands, and with a final flirt vanished 

 like a streak over the side of the clumsy old craft. We 

 did not then, and do not now, understand how that pike 

 escaped after being sat down on twice and thoroughly 

 mauled with a hard piece of wood, but the fact that he 

 did so escape nevertheless remains. However, we did not 

 lose it, for a few moments after we discovered it floating 

 on its side a short distance away almost dead. It 

 measured just 36in. in length. This little incident served 

 to impress upon us the importance of killing these big fish 

 as soon as possible after being caught, and there is no 

 better way than to sever the spine back of the head with 

 a sharp knife. One would hesitate a long time before at- 

 tempting to lift a muskallonge out with the bare hand, 

 for those long, sharp fangs present anything but an in- 

 viting appearance. Some use a small hardwood mallet, 

 and when the fish is close enough, stun it with a sharp 

 blow between the eyes. In the absence of a small-caliber 

 revolver, this weapon is much better and far less cruel 

 than the merciless gaff hook, as the latter sometimes fails 

 to take a good hold, and, instead of lifting the fish out, 

 tears a ragged hole in its side. 



Muskallonge are generally caught in shoal water from 

 3 to 8ft. in depth, as their favorite feeding grounds are 

 along close to the shore or along the edge of a sand bar 

 that rises in the middle of a lake. Like the pike they 

 love to lie around in the grass and weeds, where the 

 small fish that form the bulk of their food, resort. 



They never seem to know when they have enough, and 

 I have known of them after being caught on one hook 

 to make a rush for another trailing along some eight feet 

 away and attempt to swallow that. Two of my friends 

 who were fishing out of opposite sides of a boat once had 

 strikes almost at the same instant, and their surprise can 

 better be imagined than described, when they finally 

 reeled in and found that they had both hooked one and. 

 the same fish. Evidently one of the spoons tasted so 

 good to it that it concluded another would not be so bad. 

 Sometimes when two are trolling from the boat they will 

 run across a pair of muskallonge lying together and two 

 spoons will be taken almost simultaneously. Bob and I 

 caught two in this way, and it was no easy matter to get 

 them safely in the boat, for it is rather difficult to time 

 the fish and allow one to come in before the other. In 

 this case we were compelled to draw them in about the 

 same time, but Bob's was a short distance in advance, 

 and when the guide jerked it in with the gaff the one I 

 was engaged with made a dive for the bottom and ran 

 out about 15yds. of my line before it could be checked. 

 For a few minutes it was very exciting, but superior 

 strength prevailed, and two 161bs. muskies soon lay be- 

 fore us permanently disabled. 



Some of the guides have a way of turning away from 

 the shore and rowing out into deeper water immediately 

 after a fish is struck. _ They do this for two reasons. In 

 the first place, this gives the muskallonge plenty of room 

 for his wild rushes and powerful leaps and avoids the dan- 

 ger of having the hook dislodged by some pointed rock or 

 permanently tangled up in some tough bunch of weeds or 

 grass. In the next place, it keeps a taut line on the | 



fish, and, although it is sometimes of great assistance in 

 this respect, it renders the work of reeling in much more 

 difficult. 



To the tyro in these matters a guide is almost a, neces- 

 sary adjunct, and is at all times a great help. He rows 

 your boat for ypu, takes you to where you will be most 

 likely to meet with success, gaffs or shoots your fish, gives 

 you a good deal of practical advice, and, in fact, makes 

 himself quite useful in many ways. But after he has had 

 a little experience and becomes better posted in regard to 

 the more prominent phases of the sport, a guide is re- 

 garded as a useless incumberance and seems more or less 

 in the way. 



We made one more trip to Muskallonge Lake before we 

 left, and the second time made a record of ten inside of 

 three hours, but they were all of medium weight and 

 none approached, either in size or ferocity, the big fellow 

 we took a few days before. We enjoyed paddling around 

 in the old leaky canoe far more than we did having Sully 

 pull us about in the heavy wooden boat. Occasionally we 

 would run across fresh deer signs, and one day as we 

 were walking along an old deserted lumber road with no 

 other weapon than a .22eal. repeating rifle, a graceful 

 young doe leaped up from almost under our feet and 

 loped away over a low hill in plain sight while the tiny 

 bullets flew after her in rapid succession. 



There were plenty of wolves about, but as usual these 

 wary beasts took good care not to show themselves. We 

 could hear them howling about in the night, and what is 

 more mournful and lonely than these sounds breaking- 

 through the deep hush of the dense, dark forests. 



It was late in October when we packed up our tents and 

 took a last farewell look at the camping ground and the 

 lake beyond, as the old wagon again commenced its creak- 

 ing, bumping, jolting journey through the woods. Every- 

 thing, even the old stump near the shore, had become 

 pleasantly familiar to us, and it was with deep regret that 

 we turned our faces from the spot where we had known 

 naught but deep content, to take up once more the burden 

 of a busy, uneventful life. H. Lynde. 



MY FIRST BLACK BASS. 



IT was one of the beautiful mornings of the last of May. 

 The flower-perfumed breezes were blowing through 

 my office window, and all nature out of doors was burst- 

 ing forth in the wild delight of spring. Judge Woodbury, 

 our veteran lawyer and sportsman, came into my office 

 animated from crown to sole with the fever to go bass 

 fishing. After laying plans for getting bait that would 

 tempt the largest bass we decided to start for Irving, at 

 the mouth of the Cattaraugus Creek. At 13 o'clock sharp 

 the old Hambletonian was hitched to the old open buggy 

 and our outfits, consisting of the Judge's three-joint reed 

 rod, 18ft. long, weighing something less than lOlbs., two 

 9oz. lancewood rods, 9 and lift, long, of my own, a tackle 

 box containing hooks, flies, reels, lines, etc., a basket of 

 soft-shell crabs and a milk pail half-full of water contain- 

 live minnows, were packed into the buggy, and we started 

 filled to the brim with the joy of anticipation. Irving is 

 14 miles from Gowanda, our starting point, and the road, 

 not one of the best to travel over, goes through the Seneca 

 Indian Reservation nearly all the way. 



Now, if you want to see us as we looked, you can pic- 

 ture a rather tall genial-faced gentleman, with iron-gray 

 hair and beard, driving the horse— that is the Judge — and 

 you can picture your humble servant as a small man of 

 about 30 years, with a red mustache, slightly humped 

 over on the other end of the seat, carrying the milk-pail 

 of minnows, to keep the water from slopping, and men- 

 tally wishing minnows would grow on bushes at the mouth 

 of the creek, or that the milk-pail would spring a leak. 

 But after all, two happier faces are seldom seen than ours 

 were that day. We had left our business and its cares at 

 home and were enjoying the outing thoroughly. The 

 breezes were laden with perfume from the wild 'flowers 

 growing among the scrub-oak bushes on the Reservation. 

 The spring bad been late and the apple trees looked like 

 huge balls and banks of snow tinted with rose and car- 

 mine, and all nature was rejoicing with us. 



We told stories all the way. The Judge told how he 

 had tracked a deer in his boyhood all day, and near night, 

 when almost exhausted, he at last got a shot at the deer, 

 the old smooth-bore flashed in the pan and the deer dis- 

 appeared. The only deer he ever had a chance to shoot 

 at. And I told how I had fished for trout in boyhood, 

 and one day when I thought 1 had the acme of perfection 

 in a rod for casting a long line (a bamboo 8ft. long), and 

 was standing in the water up to my knees casting about 

 20ft. of line into an extra good point in a mill pond, a 

 stranger who proved to be H. M. Barry, the best fly caster 

 in Erie county, came quietly up behind me, and, with a 

 rod that then looked to me like a buggy whip, cast about 

 fifty feet of line out beyond my hook* and picked a fine 

 trout from under my very nose. Of course, I inspected 

 the rod, and seeing its good qualities, bought one like it, 

 and that is my reason for using these light rods. "Wall," 

 said the judge, "you maybe able to catch a six-inch trout 

 all right with them i-ods of yours, but when you get hold 

 of a two-pound bass he'll snap it quicker'n lightning." 

 'Well, if I can get a bass to bite I'll try my lancewood 

 against your rod and we'll see which is the stouter." 



At about 4 o'clock we arrived at Irving. The Judge 

 went on ahead while I was putting out the horse. I had 

 never caught a bass, and on the way down I met a boy 

 with a large string of bass, and, to make a sure thing of 

 having some to take home, I bought them and sent them 

 back to mine host's ice box, and pumped the boy in regard 

 to the bait he had used, and found he catight them in a net. 



The creek from Irving to its mouth is still and not very 

 clear, and there are numerous deep pools filled with old 

 logs, just the place for black bass. I soon found the 

 Judge intently fishing in one of these pools for a black 

 bass that would show himself every few minutes with a 

 splurge that would make your blood boil, and I soon 

 found a place near him where another was going through 

 with the same antics. I tried to tempt him with worms 

 and with crabs, and then began casting flies, but all to 

 no purpose; he didn't want that kind and wouldn't be 

 tempted. By and by I heard the Judge's cane pole begin 

 to creak and looking up beheld the Judge, with an indes- 

 cribably bland smile covering his face, trying to tow the 

 big bass to shore. It was a sight worth seeing. The fish 

 chassed and promenaded, and the Judge tugged and 

 smiled, and finally called on me to land him, and we soon 

 had him landed safe for inspection; he was a small-mouth 

 of about 21bs. and a beauty. 



We continued fishing till dark, but could not persuade 

 another fish to bite, so we went back to the hotel, got our 

 suppers and went to bed. The morning soon came and 

 the day came in with a fog. We procured a boat and 

 rowed and fished all the day to the mouth of the creek 

 without success, and gave it up and started back dis- 

 couraged. On the way back we came to a very promis- 

 ing looking pool of great reputation, and noticed several 

 swirls near an old log, and concluded to try once more. 

 I saw a big swirl just above us, and concluded to try a 

 new scheme on that bass, so I went to the milk pail and 

 got a good lively minnow and got out of the boat and 

 carefully approached the pool where I saw the swirl, and 

 my minnow hadn't fairly sunk before swish went my 

 line through the water and I had hooked my first bass, 

 and business began. The old bass was doing his best and 

 I was too intent on the struggle to notice surroundings. 

 The little lancewood rod would bend and hang to it like 

 a rubber cord until Mr. Bass finally gave up and I landed 

 him. He was equal to the Judge's in all respects and 

 my rod was not broken, and the Judge was surprised. I 

 put on another minnow and went back and almost in- 

 stantly hooked another. This time I was cooler and took 

 in the fun all around. The Judge was standing in the 

 boat looking on, intent as a cat after a mouse, and I sat 

 down on the bank and began to enjoy myself and to hum 

 dance tunes and call off for the fish to dance, balance on 

 the corner, and he would balance, chassee back and forth, 

 swing in the center, all promenade, seat your partners, 

 and the fish was mine, the biggest yet caught. 



The Judge left the boat and began like this, "Abem, 

 'hem, five to my one; I must begin to do somethin'. Let 

 me see that pole of yours. That'll break next time. They 

 ain't nothin' to it. it's all chance catching such fish with 

 such a pole." In the meantime I was getting on another 

 minnow. The Judge shouldered his rod after putting on 

 a crab (crayfish) and went just above me, but before he 

 could get the 18ft. of cane pole in position I had hooked 

 another and got him out safe. The Judge had lugged off 

 the pail of minnows so I put on a worm and tried a 

 deeper place. My hook had no sooner sunk than it began 

 to walk off, and I supposed I had a bass and began to 

 sing, "Bass number four, balance on the corner." Then 

 the Judge's old cane pole began to crack and squeak, and 

 he began on one of those indescribable smiles, and I got 

 one eye on him and the other on my fish and discovered 

 I had a catfish of 201bs., more or less, and I continued to 

 call off, "Right and left, circle all," when the Judge 

 called out, "Doc, for gosh sake come and help me land 

 this fish, he'll break my pole." "1 can't," said I, "I've 

 got a 201bs. catfish here." "Let your catfish go to thun- 

 der, this bass is worth more'n all the catfish in the creek 

 and he'll break my pole." "I can't." "Promenade down 

 the hall." "Snap went my fiddle string of a line and my 

 catfish escaped, and I cussed the old line and went and 

 landed a three-pound bass for the Judge, 



On examining my line for the first time in six weeks, I 

 found it was so weak that had I known it I would not 

 have trusted it on a six-inch trout; but the little limber 

 lancewood rod had done the work and saved the line until 

 the big catfish straightened on it, by my not giving him 

 line enough, and snapped the rotten thing. I broke off 

 the poor part of the line and caught only one more bass, 

 and we had enjoyed the participation as thoroughly as 

 the anticipation this time. I had learned how to catch 

 bass, and the Judge had learned the value of a lancewood 

 rod so well that the next time he went he took one of my 

 rods. 



The bass graced our own and our neighboring sports- 

 men's dinner table long ago, but the experience of that 

 day is one of the bright spots in life to look back upon in 

 the dull winter days, and its memory grows brighter 

 every year. John V. Cole, 



Gowanda, N. ¥. 



TROLLING FOR WALL-EYED PIKE. 



HPHE art of taking this fish by trolling with the rod, 

 X line and spoon was unknown to, or at least unprac- 

 ticed by, the local fishermen of this place until the season 

 of 1886. 



One evening early in September of the same year, as 

 I went to my work at Columbia, I met a friend, Mr. 

 John Rote, of Harrisburg, who had been fishing during 

 that day at Mud Island and had succeeded in taking a 

 very fine string of our so-called salmon. Having been 

 somewhat of a fisherman myself these fish excited my 

 deepest admiration, and led me to inquire of him his 

 mode of catching them. He then showed me his tackle, 

 which consisted of a rod, reel, line, spoon and hooks, and 

 also explained the manner in which the rig should 

 be manipulated. I then and there resolved to test tha t 

 way of fishing myself. I requested him to sell me one of 

 his spoons, which he did, and after I got home next 

 morning I secured a long non- sectional bamboo rod, on 

 which I fastened three line guides made of wire; the next 

 step was to get a long piece of the ordinary "net twine" 

 for a line, and of course some hooks. The aforesaid 

 articles made up the whole of our original trolling outfit, 

 and crude indeed it was, The next morning about 7:30 

 my friend, Mr. W. A. Charles, of this place, and I went 

 out in a canoe (which w^e propelled with a paddle, and I 

 might add, in justice to my friend, that he did the pad- 

 dling because I did not understand how to do it well, or 

 at least was not very anxious to) to try the new tackle 

 and with the resolve to fish or die. 



On the way to the fishing grounds we had to search for 

 bait; we succeeded in getting only seven lamprey eels, and 

 with these we proceeded to fish. Now for the fun: We 

 had scarcely cast our line, for the first time, when the fish 

 immediately began to bite. When the first one struck 

 we at first thought our hook had become fastened to a 

 snag or a piece of sunken wood, but on di-aAving the line 

 (which was done by hand, owing to our having no reel) 

 we were much surprised and gratified to find a lib. 

 "salmon" fast to the hook. Encouraged by this we cast 

 again, when almost instantly jerk went the line, and on 

 hauling in we secured our second fish. And so we con- 

 tinued until our bait was all taken; then we went to shore 

 for the purpose of getting a new supply; in that we were 

 not very fortunate, for two solitary helgramites were the 

 only bait we could get. With these we resumed our sport; 

 the fish continued to bite vigorously, and with our last 

 helgramite we caught four "salmon," one bass and one 

 perch; the latter individual completely annihilating our 

 effective little friend the "ho jack." 



On looking over our catch we found that we had, as 

 the result of four hours' fishing with our hastily-con- 



