J an, 7, 1892.1 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



B 



zatiou with its railroads and canals took every vestige o c 

 its beauty away forever. I remember when I used to si 

 on our piazza on a quiet summer evening, watching the 

 striped bass as they made the water fly in chasing chubs 

 on a shallow bar ou the opposite side of the river, and 

 wishing I could catch them, but I did not know and 

 nobody could tell me how it could be done. I knew they 

 took live bait, so 1 would take a stone a few feet from the 

 hook, then put on a live minnow aud throw it out with 

 one end fastened to a stone on shore. Two or three lines 

 were sometimes out, and when they were pulled in the 

 chub was almost always scaled from head to tail. They 

 seldom hooked themselves, because when they strike the 

 bait they always run a few feet before they attempt to 

 swallow it, and "the anchoring stone will jerk it from their 

 mouths. On cloudy days they would bite eo fast that it 

 kept me busy putting on fresh bait, but few of them were 

 brought to land. Had I known the art of trolling, even, 

 I might have had rare sport, and it almost makes me 

 weep to think of what T lost through ignorance, The 

 largest one 1 ever caught was an eight pounder, though 

 very large ones were often caught in the shad net?. 



Well, the milk is spilled and there's no use in crying 

 over it. Like love's young dream, 



"'Tis light that ne'er shall shine again, 

 On life's dull stream." 



Oh what a bsastly change has come over our glorious 

 land of liberty since that time! 



A few years ago I made a visit to my native place. 

 Like the author of "Lines to a Trespass Sign," I felt like 

 wandering over my old stamping ground, merely to stir 

 up some old-time sentiment in my sluggish blood and 

 wake up old associations: but alas! when I wandered out 

 with my gun I cotild scarcely find a trace of the old-time 

 scenery, for the woods had been cleared away and the 

 fields cleaned up to such an extent that I scarcely re- 

 cognized the place; and when, after a diligent search, 

 my dog came on a covey of quail the sound had scarcely 

 got away from my first 'shot before I heard a loud voice 

 saying unto me, " We don't allow no shootin' bore, now 

 you git!" I got. And has our boasted land of liberty 

 come to this? Is our new country already worn out? Are 

 we to submit to the kicks and cuff^ of wealth and selfish- 

 ness that the trampled-on masses are subjected to in 

 aristocratic England? Go to! A few years ago the sel- 

 fishness of a few wealthy men, who would buy up nearly 

 a county so that they could monopolize all eport, excited 

 my disgust so that I "up and at 'em." I roused their ire 

 to such a pitch that nothing would have delighted them 

 more than to see my carcass chop'd up into catfish bait ; 

 no one raised a finger to save me from their furious 

 wrath, but now, after dove-eyed peace has reigned so 

 long, I pick up a stray number of Forest and Stream 

 and find such sentiments as these: "We must have 

 more and better legislation or soon we shall have our- 

 selves to blame for the loss of nature's gifts in mountain, 

 stream and field— all gone to the till of avaricious specu- 

 lators or to the keeping of men whose wealth gives them 

 advantages over the poor, which makes nature herself 

 weep." The author of "Lines to a Trespass Sign" now 

 adds his strong testimony to the principles that I con- 

 tended for. Yet in the day of my direst need, when the 

 weight of the wrath of mine enemies fell on me and 

 crushed me as the fall of an eider down bed from the top 

 of a ten-story house would crush an elephant, he smote 

 me not, seeming not to realize the fact that 

 "A friend in need 



Is a friend to ." 



St, ArjQUS'tTNK. Fla. DlTJYMUS. 



THE BIG TROUT I LOST. 



AT ten years of age I was "bound out" to a farmer 

 away up in the Green Mountains of Vermont, far 

 away from large settlements, where the woods and waters 

 were well stocked with game and fi3h. B^rom my earliest 

 recollection I had been eager for hunting and fishing: but 

 at my new home no time was allowed for such indulg- 

 ences, except it was gained on a stint. In fact, both 

 master and mistress were constantly scolding me for my 

 penchant, always asserting that such pursuits were a 

 mark of a ne'er-do-well. Just the same, however, they 

 would eat the game and fisb. 



On day, before I was out of my teens, I had finished a 

 hard stint at about 2 o'clock, and was soon on a stream 

 that ran through the farm, and while the sun was yet 

 well above the horizon was back to my starting place 

 with all the trout I wanted to lug; and no fingerlings, for 

 the stream was literally swarming with weil-grown fish. 

 I rarely went that I did not get one or more of 2 lbs. and 

 upward. On this occasion I had two such on my string. 

 Just above where I was to leave the stream was a fine 

 hole at a big boulder which jutted out from the bank. 

 Here I had often found a solitary big trout, so I went to 

 try for another. Sure enough, as I peered over there 

 was one, and the largest T had ever seen. The largest on 

 mv string were babies to it. 



Patting two big worms on my hook, I let it down from 

 the quick water above, wide of him at first, but as he did 

 not uotice it L at last let it down plump to his mouth, 

 when he lazily took it. Then with all my strength I gave 

 him the grand "yank," and away up and backward he 

 went, free from the hook, the last glimpse I had of him 

 he was still going out over a field of grain and I was 

 tumbling backward off the rock. I remember how I 

 chanted with exultation as I got up and started for my 

 big trout; but for all my seeking he was not to be found; 

 and when this was realized I cried as if my heart would 

 break. Then 1 comforted myself with the thought that 

 p-rhaps my master would come with me in the morning 

 and help search, it was such a big one. But not so; he 

 j j ered me for telling a fish lie, and when I cried at his 

 refusal he threatened me with a strapping. That night, 

 and for many thereafter, I cried myself to sleep over my 

 loss; and even new, after the lapse of more than half a 

 century, 1 keenly regret it. 



The time came in three or four weeks to cut the grain 

 where my prize was lost; and there, where a large clump 

 of grain stood many inches taller than the rest, still dark 

 greon and growing, lay the skeleton of my big trout 

 almost intact. I reviewed it with mingled feeling of 

 pride and sorrow, and burst into tews. My master gazed 

 spellbound and speechless. His face was a study as he 

 realized its enormous size: thus I construed it. At length 

 I ventured, timidly to be sure, to ask if he then thought 

 I had told Mm a fish lie; when he found speech and 

 fnovted out, "Huh ! I should think any blank fool could 

 have found him," Hunter. 



LONG WASH, THE FISHERMAN. 



FROM April 1 to Nov, 1 is the trout season in Califor- 

 nia. When I was a boy in a country neighborhood 

 within 80 miles of San Francisco there were large trout 

 in the stream that crossed the farm, and any boy who 

 had a little patience could carry them home— a dozen or 

 so, at least, for every Saturday morning. No one ever 

 dreamed of taking trout out of season; it was a quiet and 

 intensely rural community, game and fish were very 

 abundant, and, what was of more importance, the habits 

 of the growing boys upon questions of sport were more 

 or less formed upon excellent models. 



It was our good fortune to have a large number of 

 genuine old Sportsmen among the American settlers of 

 the valley. They and their sons did much to form pub- 

 lic opinion. When the trout season came in, the small 

 and well-stocked streams in the mountains and within a 

 few hours' drive were nearly always fished over by the 

 I same groups or families of anghrs. The Tysons went 

 to Stonv Brook, while the Overackers preferred the 

 Arroyo Mucho. Some went to the Calaveras and others 

 to La Honda. There was room for all and within easy 

 reach. 



Long Wash Hardy was one of the best fishermen of 

 his day. He was a Missourian of varied aptitudes, as 

 good a sharpshooter in 1861-63 as the township afforded, 

 a natural inventor and, in point of dry humor, a Western 

 Sam Lawson, somewhat mingled with a Fishin' Jimmie. 

 When 1 was a boy of 12, following him up a Coast Range 

 canon, the easy grace with which his long, lean figure 

 slipped silently over rocks and through all sorts of 

 brush and undergrowth was my constant delight and 

 hopeless admiration. He could fairly float his loose, ill- 

 jointed anatomy over any conceivable obstacle and into 

 the exact spot from which to make a cast into a pool. I 

 have long since learned that his fishing was pure genius, 

 even better worth emulaiion than I used to think. Two 

 hours of the early morning was all he would ever use, 

 and often he would hardly be gone from the camp for an 

 hour before he came back with what he would gravely 

 announce to be "all the trout that a Christian ought to 

 gather in." On one occasion he asked me to go along, as 

 he "only had one fish to catch , but that was a hard one," 

 and he "wanted a witness." We slipped into the bushes 

 and took a path over the hill to the bend of a famous 

 trout stream. Here, as Wash told me, he had labored 

 for two seasons with a giant of the trout family, and 

 here I watched him try every wile of the art with all- 

 conquering skill and patience, until the dark cold waters 

 were cleft by the shining, leaping beauty, and he carried 

 back the largest trout of the year in all that trout-loving 

 country side. 



In those days no one took baby trout; the dear little 

 "fingerlings" were always left to supply the streams. 

 One young fellow made a catch of more than a hundred 

 mountain trout in one day's fishing. 



As he came back he met a party of four of the oldest 

 anglers in the district. They stopped to compare notes, 

 and none of the oldsters had more than twenty-five. 

 They had taken all they wished and had then loafed 

 about in the shade until it was time to start for home. 



"Now, see here," quoth one of them to the young man, 

 "don't you feel sorter as if you had been pluggin'" green 

 watermelons and wastin' things generally? Three whole 

 days outdoors up in the canon that ye might have had 

 out of Wild Cat Creek, all gone to smash because ye 

 wanted to get yer name in the county newspaper!" 



Long Wash Hardy knew every trout stream of the 

 Coast Range throughout the central counties— the San 

 Pablo, Pinole, San Lorenzo, Alameda and their tributa- 

 ries in Alameda: the Guadalupe Arroyo Seco, Carnaclero, 

 Las Lagas and others in Santa Clara; Corte Medera, Lag- 

 uaitas, Nicasio and San Geronimo in Marin; the San 

 Francisq into, Ynagas, Cupertino, and Redondo in San 

 Mateo, and the innumerable mountain waters of Santa 

 Cruz, Wealthy men used to write to him asking that he 

 would go with them on long camping expsditions, but he 

 never sold his fishing lore. As the streams near his 

 home began to fail because they were so hardly treated 

 by the careless horde of "anyhow" fishermen Wash grew 

 melancholy over the impending desolation. He occa- 

 sionally amused himself by taking a large speckled trout 

 out of some pool from which no trout had been caught 

 for a decade, but when summer campers filled the Ala- 

 meda canon and quarry men spoiled Stony Brook he 

 "pulled up stakes" and went back into the Sierras. If he 

 is still in the laud of the living he is among the glacier- 

 fed streams in the land of the sequoias on some settler's 

 claim twenty miles from tourists and them who slaughter 

 the gentle "fingerlings," 



But if the shresvd, kindly fisherman is in such a wild- 

 erness, it may bs that he is a dangerous man for the un- 

 sportsmanlike amateur to come across. I remember tbat 

 his growing wrath against such always seemed to con- 

 tain certain dire possibilities, and every year when the 

 tide of travel flows from the cities to the higher moun- 

 tains I somewhat expect to hear of a catastrophe, It 

 once happened to Wash that, while climbing up a xjreci- 

 pice to a higher level of a stream, he slipped into the 

 water. He was carried over a waterfall of considerable 

 height and only escaped alive because the pool below was 

 of unusual depth. After that experience he often alluded 

 to the much-despised "pot-fishers" as "fellers that ort ter 

 be dropped down a waterfall." I should hate to be guilty 

 of unprofessional fishing behavior above the Yosemite 

 Falls if Wash were to be a witness of the affair, for our 

 ancient alliances on long-forgotten trout streams would 

 ouly prove to be an aggravation of the original offense, 

 and I make no doubt the saucy water -ouzels darting 

 through the eddies of the river 2,000ft. below would 

 presently be astonished by the flash of a descending 

 angler. 



Wash, as I remember him, was far removed from the 

 "ne'er-do-weel" tribe. His endless contrivances kept 

 him in sufficient funds and even gave him some capital 

 to invest. He could bud and graft with the best profes- 

 sionals, he was a tamer of colts, a rare one to work with 

 the tools of carpenter and blacksmith, and he could 

 superintend any sort of outdoor work. The boys in the 

 old-fashioned neighborhood used to plan out Crusoe 

 islands, vast, undefined, overflowing with animal and 

 vegetable lbe; but when it came to the culmination of the 

 ideal, room was always made for Wash in the boat of dis- 

 covery. It was felt that island life would otherwise lose 

 all its zest, and that most of the arts of life could thus be 

 transported in one complete and universal bundle. It 



was understood that every other grown person had set- 

 tled habits, family bonds and various unbreakable servi- 

 tudes. But Wash had never put his head under any 

 yoke; he always seemed nearly as independent as a, boy 

 who bad a dollar of pocket money every week of his life. 

 Then, too, lie could teach anything and everything to a 

 boy— that is, if he chose to do so. Of course, as we all 

 knew, he would never, never teach any fellow all of the 

 ins and outs of his trout craft. That was too much to 

 expect; if we were in his place we would not do it our- 

 selves. Yes, give us Wash and a desert island— a large 

 one with real savages — and we would never care to come 

 back. 



That was more years ago than one likes to say. The 

 boys are as widely scattered over the world as if they had 

 indeed floated off on separate ships. If they think of 

 Wash it is as frequenting the old haunts, But I often 

 picture him to myself as enjoying his siesta— for that 

 was his weakness— his noontime hours under some great 

 pine of the high Sierras. He is smoking his brierwoud 

 pipe and reading for the hundredth time his well-beloved 

 "Universal History, in three volumes, with colored plates ;' 

 that and Byron's poems and an illustrated Shakespeare 

 were the only books he used to own, and I cannot imag- 

 ine him as reading any others. There is venison in his 

 cabin and trout for the pan (if it is in the season); there is 

 a garden on the hillside; the mountain children go a. mile 

 out of their way to ask him questions, and watch him 

 fashioning some wonderful thing in the cool mornings or 

 quiet afternoons. The wind moves in the pine tops; the 

 squirrels shake the small cedar cones to the ground; the 

 sweet freedom of the unfenced forest is about him as be 

 reads, and if he looks up, the gleam of the snow range 

 shines between the trees. He hardly remembers that he 

 ever lived in the little valley of farms and lowland pas- 

 tures beside San Francisco Bay. Chas. H. Shinn. 

 San Francisco, Cal. 



WAS IT "BEWITCHED?" 



THE Editor's suggestion, in regard to a collection of 

 reminiscences of the old days and times, recalls the 

 strange old flint-lock companion of my early days, the 

 unaccountable perversity of which, upon occasions of the 

 most intense interest, seemed to my young mind posi- 

 tively uncanny and bewildering. 



Little wonder to me that there was among the old 

 hunters of the primitive times long gone, an occasional 

 one, uneducated save in the lore of the wilderness, who 

 became firmly grounded in the old European belief in 

 witchcraft ; and still less is it a matter of surprise if any 

 were occasionally " pestered " with a gun of such singu- 

 lar antics as at times cropped out with that same old 

 flint-lock shotgun. 



A well made gun was this old single barrel, and one 

 which threw small shot well, and after weeks and months 

 of sport developed but one peculiarity objectionable to 

 the eager boy who carried it, for while in almost num- 

 berless instances it hag proved its perfect readiness to 

 "go off "at any small game which persistent hunting- 

 brought into sight, no amount of " monkeying" ever did 

 or ever could induce the disappointing old thing to shoot 

 at deer. It wasn't a deer gun, and it simply would not 

 by any hocus-pocus be induced to fire while a deer was 

 looking down its muzzle. 



To be sure, I had upon several occasions when no flints 

 were procurable at the village store, successfully hunted 

 rabbits with it when I was obliged to aim at bunny sit- 

 ting in her form and then striking a match upon the leg 

 of my trousers, stir the powder in the pan with the burn- 

 ing stick until an explosion occurred : it apparently had 

 no intention of disappointing the excited young sports- 

 man whose beating heart shook the long barrel until an 

 accurate aim seemed impossible, but reserved all its 

 stubborn perversity for the supreme moment when a 

 graceful deer stepped out into an opening and for a few 

 almost breathless moments faced the half-crazy boy, who 

 would gladly have given all his small possessions in ex- 

 change for one sounding report just when he wished it 

 with all the eager desire of a heart which had for the 

 moment forgot to beat. 



Once while hunting partridges (not quail) I had seated 

 myself by a stump in an old abandoned clearing to eat 

 my noonday lunch, when, hearing a slight rustling near 

 by, I glanced over the top of the stump and there, not 

 four rods distant, above the top of another stump, rose a 

 graceful head surmounted by a glorious pair of antlers, 

 and nearly a dozen times did I pull trigger on those great 

 liquid eyes, staring wonderingly into mine, and as many 

 times did the faithless flint fail to send a spark of fire 

 where it was needed so sadly. 



Again, upon finding that deer were beginning to come 

 out,of the great tamarack swamp into the oak grove 

 along the river: apparently in quest of acorns, I loaded 

 the oil gun with a ball just small enough to roll down 

 tbe barrel, with fifteen small buckshot on top of it, 

 (what a marvel tbat the average boy does not blow out 

 nis small brains on numberless occasions) and with the 

 sun within half an hour of setting, seated myself at the 

 foot of a small oak at the edge of the grove on the side 

 of the tree next the swamp where I could overlook the 

 open ground in front of me, Not five minutes had passed 

 when a little yearling doe was seen directly in front, 

 three hundred yards distant, walking directly toward 

 me. 



Tripping gracefully forward, straight as a line, she 

 came on. Directly in line between us, about thirty yar ds 

 distant from me, grew a small oak shrub, and through 

 the openings in its frost-bitten leaves I watched her 

 with gun cocked and presented. As she reached the 

 bush and stepped out to go around it she caught sight of 

 me and stopped instantly. With elbow resting on my 

 knee and with aim as true as for target work I pulled the 

 •faithless trigger. 



Vh-ivMl lick ! responded the wretched gun. Fire flew 

 from the flint in all directions — except the right one. 

 Reaching forward my forefinger 1 drew back the 

 hammer and pan-cover, while the pretty creature in 

 front cocked her little head to one side and stared more 

 fixedly than before. Again and again for more than a 

 dozen times was the interesting pantomime repeated un- 

 til (it being her supper time, she couldn't wait forever), 

 she threw her little flag into the air and galloped slowly 

 around to my right until the evening breeze gave her the 

 scent, and again, in plain view, and not fifty yards dis- 

 tant, she stopped and snuffed the tainted air. 



I watched her delicate nostrils dilate with the scent 



