May 28, 1891.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



37B 



NE learns 

 his salt- 

 water 



, lessons 

 \k ; early who is reared 



VI beside the bright 



waves ot Long Island 

 r Sound. Given a good 



centerboard boat and 

 'ij unrestricted personal 

 ; Vi'i liberty in hours of 

 ; ' boyhood, and there is 

 . no better kindergar- 



V: . ; ten for the angler than 



. ; its broad expanse of 



bosom and the errant 

 tideways of its in- 

 dented shores. In the 

 course of fifty years I 

 have seen it in all its 

 moods. 



It was my good for- 

 tune to spend portions 

 of a lusty adoleecence 

 at New Haven, where 

 my father's villa oc- 

 cupied the vantage 

 ground of an oyerlooking bluff, whence were barely 

 visible the blue outlines of Long Island, twenty miles off; 

 and as the greater part of my tuition was acquired at 

 Brooks & Thatcher's boat house, with the hopeful son of 

 the senior partner as my inevitable conapanion, we two, 

 John and I, soon learned the caprices of that changeful 

 Mediterranean, and how to lay the Teazer's course ac- 

 cordingly. 



Dear old boat! She Avas a weatherly little craft and 

 took right hold of the water as though she meant to keep 

 her grip; and she did, for many a time did old Captain 

 Brooks anxiously watch her through his glass from the 

 boat house loft at the head of the harbor as she came 

 bowling up the channel when no other sail was in sight, 

 except perchance some stately West India vessel in-bound 

 with "rum, sugar and molasses" for the Trowbridges or 

 the Armstrongs. In course of years we came to know 

 every reef and ledge within a reach of forty miles up and 

 down the Sound. From Bridgeport to New London is an 

 archipelago of breezy islands and surf-worn rocks, many 

 of them awash only at low water, among whose marine 

 subways and thoroughfares a multitude of fish of many 

 kinds find sumptuous nursery ground and pasture; and 

 there was not a spar buoy, spit, or spindle, which did not 

 indicate for us some favorable fishing groimd for black- 

 fish or sea bass, or a noted rendezvous for cunners, dog- 

 fish, sea spiders, robins, and all that disreputable ilk 

 which betimes annoy the angler by occupying his time or 

 stealing bait. We knew every sandbar and shoal where 

 we could catch shrimps and sandworms, and all the tepid 

 shallows in the estuaries where minnows swarmed, and 

 the sedgy shores with their bands of mussels, beds of 

 clams, and colonies of fiddler crabs. 



Egad! what fim it was, and is, to catch the fiddlers 

 away from home, or prod them out of their burrows with 

 a stick! We used to eaU over to the east side of New 

 Haven harbor, near old Fort Hale, and fill our tins on 

 the early flood; or we would find our quarry on the west 

 side marshes to which West River is tribu^tary. A colony 

 of these comical crustaceans reminds me of a prairie dog 

 town in Kansas or Dakota. It is a sort of seashore ana- 

 logue. Each little settler who does not happen to be for- 

 aging or visiting his neighbor is always silting at the 

 door of his dugout, with his big claw swinging menac- 

 ingly over his shoulder, and whenever a person a,p- 

 proaches he bobs down out of view. All the vagrants 

 hustle incontinently, and in half a moment the village 

 seems untenanted, with nothing but empty holes in sight. 

 A few minutes later, however, if all is quiet the 

 community gets alive again, and an expert catcher 

 can fill a two quart can in half an hour. 



In midsummer, when the ebb served, 

 we calculated to run down the harbor 

 under a northwesterly breeze from off 

 the land, and so reached the fishing 

 ground as early as possible on the young 

 flood, returning with the wind fair from 

 the northward in the afternoon. Usu- 

 ally, we were contented to try the "Cow 

 and Calf" rocks off Branford, o'er the 

 ' Monument" near Stony Point, a matter 

 of a dozen miles or so, but the cruise was 

 often extended to the Thimble Islands to 

 the eastward, or to Charles Island, Black 

 Rock, and the Middle Ground, off Bridge- 

 port, to the westward — all favorite f)laces 

 for old fishermen at the present time. On 

 occasion we ventured to Faulkner's Island 

 and beyond, though the latter was seldom 

 attempted in a single day. Trips like 

 these involved the use of a 38ft. jib and 

 mainsail boat called the Eagle, for which 

 we always took the Teazer along as 

 tender; and great were the times we had, 

 sometimes stopping overnight with the 

 light- keeper, or going ashore to dinner 

 at Malachi Krig's at Branford Point, 



or at Double Beach, or at Double Point, Guilford, 

 or Stony Point, where we often met carriage parties who 

 drove down from New Haven to join us in'a chowder or 

 clambake, or a feast of green corn and lobsters. Wonder 

 if they have such flm nowadays! The old parties don't, 

 I know, for most of them are dead; but now and then a 

 survivor turns up unexpectedly in some remote region to 

 talk over the reminiscences which can never be forgot- 

 ten. Six quarts of provender served in wooden kids was 

 the regulation mess at an old-time clambake, and the 

 individual who could not get away with that much had 

 no appetite at all. 



The climax of festivity was in the blackfish season. 

 Odd zooks! what superlative chowdfer those blackfish do 

 make! but hardly equal to sea bass though. Sometimes 

 we caught fine sea bass when we fished for tautog, letting 

 our big sinkers down to the rocky bottom. The blackfish 

 occasionally ran up to ten or twele pounds in weight, 

 though the average was smaller by a good deal, and their 

 humor was capricious. Sometimes, on eventful days, the 

 boats would fill up soon, and on other occasions fishermen 

 would get no fish at all. But John Brooks and I never 

 were "elected." There was one infallible crack 18in. 

 wide between two big rocks at the Thimble Island where 

 we were sure of fish, as a last resort if we failed to find 

 them at the regular trysting places. Indeed, this crack 

 was a clean rift from top to bottom through the very 

 center of the island where Captain Kidd's punch bowl 

 and ringbolt used to be pointed out to the credulous; and 

 as the tide ebbed and flowed through it, the blackfish 

 used it as a sort of thoroughfare, and any one curious 

 enough to peer down into the depths, where the kelp 

 swayed gently with the motion of the current, could see 

 the blackfish lazily sculling through. Then it was fun to 

 drop a fiddler crab directly before the nose of one of 

 them, and see him hook himself incontinentlv; then up 

 with the line hand over hand till we had him floundering 

 on rocks beside us. But the greatest fun was the mystery 

 with all the other fishermen, who came in empty handed, 

 where those blackfish came from. We kept the secret 

 always close and none of them ever guessed. Wonder if 

 it is that way now? 



Mentioning flounders— we had great sport with them, 

 too, in the spring off the draws of Long Wharf and the 

 old Basin Wharf, when the rising tide flowed through. 

 A piece of umbrella wire Sin. long, with a 6in. snood at 

 each end baited with a clam, was the kind of rig we used 

 to supplement a stout line and stiff cane pole. Some- 

 times we would catch a basketful, though it was cold 

 work early in the season, and there were days when the 

 fish froze stiff on the piers. Later, when the weather 

 grew warmer, it was fun to spear them on the flats 

 among the rushes and eel grass, just before and after 

 dead low water, when the tide had run an hour or so. 

 But the trick was to see the fish, for they had a knack of 

 burying themselves out of sight in the ooze. It was only 

 when one moved that he betrayed his whereabouts by 

 stirring up his roil. 



Still earlier in the spring was the frostfish season — 

 frostfish th^n, tomcods in the fall. We used to think it 

 sport watching for them when the harbor was frozen 

 over in the clear space which was left between the 

 wharves and the ice by the rise and fall of the tide. The 

 fish would come up to breathe and look for food, and it 

 was an easy matter to jig them with a triangle of stout 

 hooks bent on to an umbrella wire with a wooden handle 

 attached. In June came the weakfish, or suckermangs, 

 when the channel became a sandbar, and the beach and 

 old Fort Hale would often swarm with fleets of fishing 

 boats. I remember one season when every boat caught 

 weakfish as fast as their occupants could toss their bait 

 over and pull in. They used crabs and shrimps, and 

 fished with hand lines only a few yards long, taking most 

 of the fish near the surface. The fish were fairly ravenous. 



At the Quinnepiac River bridge in July was the favorite 

 place to catch yoimg blue fish, or snapping mackerel, 

 about the size of one's hand. That was about the 



only place and time of year when delicate 

 tackle was in vogue in the forties, for 

 snapper fishing was the special joastime 

 of dilettante anglers, a.nd drew out many 

 who did not show up on other occasions. 

 With float and shrimp and line as fine as 

 gossamer thread, and hooks diminutive, 

 they basketed hosts of these delicate fish. 

 The tide ran through the draw by the old 

 Bell Dock with a rush , and the water fairly- 

 sparkled with the flashing of the silvery 

 fish as they were swept through. About 

 the same time there was splendid sport 

 outside the harbor on the Sound, trollins 

 for large bluefiah. Fleets of white-winged 

 sharpies, and many larger craft, cruised 

 off shore and on in the ever freshening 

 breeze, and sturgeon leaped hilariously 

 and fell again with ponderous splash. In 

 the fall the eels and tomcods would com- 

 mand attention , and there and West River 

 was the preferable fishing ground, though 

 the wharves and the Quinnepiac were not 

 far behind in choice. Indeed, the general 

 round of sport was varied and continuous, though the 

 variety of fish life was less than on the New .Jersey coast. 

 We missed the Spanish mackerel, the sheepshead, the king- 

 fish, and the drum, although occasional representatives 

 of some of these families would be caught in the great 

 menhaden seines which were hauled inside the harbor. 

 The proceeds of these hauls would disclose what kinds of 

 fish inhabited the Sound, and it was interesting to ex- 

 amine them. They used to call menhaden "whiteflsh" 

 in those days, and in July and August the harbors and 

 open waters fairly swarmed with them. My father leased 

 a seining ground at Oyster Point, where a colony of fish- 

 ermen had a fish house, and capstans worked by horses, 

 with seines which w-ould sweep a circuit of a mile. Oc- 

 casionally they would catch a million whitefishat a haul. 

 These were chiefly utilized as fertilizers, and were spread 

 over the fields with pitchforks and plowed in. I remem- 

 ber that while the menhaden were running comparatively 

 few food iish were taken in the seine. There were a few 

 shad, sand poi'gies, and flounders, with a miscellaneous 

 assortment of crabs, eels, horsetish. starfish, jellyfish. 



Here and there blue crabs make their awkward vs ay to 

 spawning places in the sand, swarms of shrimps skitter 

 over the surface of the water; horseshoe crabs crawl 

 mysteriously over the bottom, with motive power in- 

 visible, looking for all the world like spelter wash basins 

 with handles like bayonets, serrated on the edges. Farm- 

 ers gather them in for their hogs, hauling them out of 

 the water with rakes, and when they catch one turning 

 him upside down, with his legs all sprawling, and thrust- 

 ing his tail in the sand to hold him prisoner until the 

 wagon comes around to pick all up ami haul theni away 

 to the pig pens. There is no end of jellyfish in delicate 

 tints of pearl, lavender, mauve, and brown, most of them 

 translucent— beautiful to look at, but apt to sting like 

 nettles when handled. Occasionally one finds a sea 

 urchin which has been wrenched from some distant reef 

 and thrown up on the land wash; with here and there a 

 shark's egg, looking like a pocket book with tendrils at 

 the four corners, and strings of pike with water blisters 

 on them which snap when they are pinched. It is as- 

 tonishing what a variety of forms one finds down by 

 the sea, all of them delectable baits for fish, and what a 

 multitude more the receding tide wiU tmcover — soft clams, 

 skimmers, sand worms, razor clams, scollops, mussels, 

 periwinkles, and diminutive shellfish of many kinds. 



One day two dudes, fashionably equipped and rigged, 

 rowed up the Arthur Kill, abreast of a Ime of boats en- 

 gaged in weakfishing. It was obvious that they were 

 new to the business, although their flannels were the 

 correct thing. They had hardly come to an anchor when 

 one of them caught'a sand porgy. He lifted the quiver- 

 ing trophy inboard and held it up before him, dangling 

 at the end" of the line, himself quite bewildered and evi- 

 dently in doubt what to do with it. Presently he became 

 impressed with the necessity of removing it from the 

 hook; but when he attempted to touch it, it wriggled 

 and he drew his hand back nervously. Then he made a 

 second movement. "Do you think the blarsted thing 

 will nip me?'' we heard him ask his companion. The 

 other could not say. Then he tm-ned in his extremity 

 and appealed to the nearest boatman. "Me boy," he 

 said, "would you mind taking 'im off, if you'd be so 

 kind?" The appeal was so candid and earnest that the 

 other could not decline the favor, notwithstanding the 

 inconvenience it subjected. When the dude had suffi- 

 ciently expressed his thanks for the favor he gave a sigh 

 of obvious relief, and turning abruptly to his comrade 

 wdthout regarding his benefactor any further, he asked, 

 "Don't you think it wa'i rather sudden, the way he took 

 it?" Then he contemplated the dying fish with visible 

 emotion as it lay gasping on the bottom of the skiff, and 

 a regretful qualm came over him. Directly a new idea 

 was born of his solicitude, and he added, "Wouldn't it 

 be a good plan to put a little sea water on 'im? Perhaps 

 'e might revive?" Yea, verily I it is strange what one 

 oftentimes discovers "Down by the Sea." 



COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY HENRV C. SQUIRES. 



