FOREST AND STREAM. 



[April 21, 1894. 



MY FIRST TKOUTING EXPERIENCE. 



The hour is 7 in the morning. The sun is struggling 

 mightily to peep out from behind its purple curtain of 

 thick clouds. The stream is babbling and tumbling 

 along, just down there in the woods at the foot of the 

 rugged old hill. 



At least, that is probably what I would have written, 

 before the poetry had vanished out of the old hill and 

 dark woods, and cool, inviting stream. But I had never 

 been trout fishing in all my life; much less had I ever 

 caught a trout, so it was only natural that, as I stood upon 

 the summit of the hill and surveyed the scene of the 

 work in hand, I should see nothing but green beauty, and 

 pleasant retreats, and refreshing waters. I should see 

 something different now, after the tragedy, or farce, or 

 what you will, that was there enacted. 



Two neophytes and an expert were the dramatis per- 

 sonce; L., the strong, sturdy man, who worked out doors 

 from season to season, and who had agreed to show us the 

 best fishing we had ever seen; H., the bantam weight 

 little bookkeeper, wiry and tough as whip cord, who had 

 beguiled me away from my clients and my books; and I, 

 pale and slender, brimful of conceit in my own powers 

 of endurance, and longing for a breath of spring forest 

 ozone. 



After we had descended the hill, the burst of scorn with 

 which H. greeted the dancing little brook was a magnif- 

 icent masterpiece. "Was that the place," he demanded, 

 "where we were to catch such numbers of trout, of giant 

 size, as we had promised our friends we were to do? Why, 

 the water wasn't a foot deep, etc. , etc." 



I thought that perhaps we were about to catch some 

 minnows to use as bait for the big fellows; I'd heard of 

 such things, but I did not know that in my creel was a 

 small tin box full of nasty, wriggling worms and grubs. 

 Nor, by the way, did I know how much that creel 

 weighed. I thought at 7 o'clock that 51bs. would be a big 

 estimate; at 1 o'clock 25 would have been nearer the 

 mark. 



L. only said sententiously, "Rig up." It beats all how 

 decisive old trout fishermen become, in time. They must, 

 somehow, catch the snappy, no-room-for-argument spirit 

 of their favorite quarry. 



The splendid luck which I had fondly anticipated at- 

 tended us from the start. H. carefully laid his tip down 

 upon the moss, and in less than ten seconds I had stepped 

 squarely on the middle of it. Of course I didn't mean to, 

 but that made no difference. It never occurs to a fellow 

 with eyes like telescopes that a near-sighted man cannot 

 see every little thing like a tip, when he has left his spec- 

 tacles fifty miles behind him. Before H. had fairly got 

 under good scolding headway, however, the damage had 

 been repaired after a fashion, thanks to L.'s handiness 

 with an old bayonet of a thing that he sarcastically called 

 his pocket knife; it looked more like an abbreviated cav- 

 alry sabre. 



In the meantime, following his instructions, I prepared 

 my own tackle, unearthed the worms from beneath my 

 sandwiches and proclaimed myself ready to catch a fish. 

 Stepping cautiously out upon a bit of stone I tossed my 

 line down stream just in front of an old mossy log. No 

 bite, so I went along a few yards further and did the 

 same thing again. This time a queer little jerk at the 

 end of the line warned me that a fish of some kind had 

 taken the bait. But I didn't jerk back, oh no, I only 

 swished the line swiftly across the stream and said, 

 "Scat, you little fool!" 



"Catch that fish!" cried L. softly to me. 



"He's too small," I whispered back, "he'll scare the 

 big ones." 



"Catch that trout!" again commanded my instructor, 

 and I proceeded to obey. He took the hook the very 

 next time and I dangled him out. L. said he was a 

 "beauty," and he did look rather pretty as he flopped 

 around on the bank, all golden and red, and full six 

 inches long. 



"But say, you," exclaimed L., "if you think all you've 

 got to do is to walk down this creek and have 'em jump 

 into your basket from under the bank you want to mend 

 your ways of thinking. That's a trout, that's the way to 

 catch 'em and that's the last time I want to see you 

 scorn Providence when she just flings fortune at your 

 head. Ten to one you won't catch another all day." 



I took my reproof meekly, and harmony restored, 

 a-down the winding stream we all three started, L. 

 ahead, H. next and I last. Suddenly the woods rang 

 with a frightful yell, which startled an old crow in the 

 top of a neighboring tree so badly that he nearly fell off 

 his perch and went clamoring away through the air like 

 mad. A scared look in H.'s direction revealed that fish- 

 erman cavorting around on the bank like a darky at a 

 husking bee, and vainly clutching at his first trout swing- 

 ing gracefully from a dead branch over the water, just 

 out of his reach. How that "beauty" got there I couldn't 

 quite make out; he certainly didn't grow there. Perhaps 

 H. could have told, but he wouldn't; perhaps a tangled 

 fish line, wound dozens and dozens of times around every 

 twig on the branch, had something to do with it. At any 

 rate we rescued the trout, line and all; and after some 

 more mild comments from L. upon the baselessness of yank- 

 ing a fish into the treetops of the next county, we drifted 

 along. 



In five minutes L. was out of sight. He had the most 

 astonishing trick of disappearing from right under our 

 noses, that mortal man ever could acquire. How he would 

 thread his way through a network of brush and limbs 

 that apparently would have stopped a rat-terrier, and that 

 H. and I never attempted to penetrate. It was not a great 

 while after he had vanished before I wanted to borrow 

 that mighty pen-knife. L. said he wanted to use it also, 

 after I had done with it; just as though I would let him 

 have it, there in that vast forest whose solitude was ten- 

 fold, now that L. had disappeared from sight! Oh, how 

 endless it seemed, and how somber and wild it suddenly 

 grew! Why, what would I do, in case a bear or a cata- 

 mount sprang out from behind some fallen tree, to claim 

 a dinner? I wanted that knife very much; and the more 

 I thought about it, the more I wanted it; so taking my 

 line from the water, I started rapidly ahead to find L. 

 Now, the sober truth of the matter is, I did not overtake 

 that man for near an hour. When at last I did come up 

 with him, he was sitting on a mossy log, calmly waiting 

 for us laggards, more than a mile from where he left us; 

 and he had pretty good evidence that he had fished most 

 of the time, too. | 

 We both waited for H,, whose speedy arrival told that 



he hadn't fished much of the time, and whose first breath- 

 less demand, "L., let me take your knife," caused L. to 

 smile. But I had the weapon, and I wasn't done with it 

 either, although it lay stowed away in the right hand 

 pocket of my coat. A few minutes' breathing time were 

 allowed H. and myself, and then we were up and at it 

 again. This time it was for me to make some remarks to 

 L. , and I think he must have been impressed with my 

 language, or my manner or something, because he kept 

 to the rear and within easy hail the rest of the morning. 

 But in ten minutes H. and I were whelmed in difficulties. 

 If travel along that infernal stream had heretofore been 

 hard to us, that which we now encountered was simply 

 excruciating. The brook took its course through a 

 tangled growth of hemlock, and sapling and willow; and 

 it wound, and turned and twisted around on itself, and 

 choose the most mucky, oozy portion of what I took to be 

 a young Dismal Swamp in which to make its bed. I 

 punctured a great hole in one of my heavy shoes, by 

 stepping sidewise upon a sharp, iron-like stub, and ripped 

 my clothing in more than a dozen places. It would have 

 been a tremendous task for me to have walked through 

 there unencumbered by fish-basket and rod; with that 

 impedimenta I was in a continual drooping despair of 

 ever getting out alive. That fishing-rod seemed to assume 

 the unwieldy proportions of a gigantic pine; and the hook 

 and line developed into a fifteen-fathom cable with an 

 anchor at the end of it. I tried to fish; but, alas! the hook 

 would catch in some old, sunken log. In trying to un- 

 tangle that the rod would mix itself up with the limbs 

 and branches around and overhead. Many times when I 

 wanted to go to one side of an intervening tree that rod 

 would insist on traveling another way. How it would 

 shoot up through the brush tops; how it would whip itself 

 around some slender tree jut when I desired to cast my 

 bait into some quiet, limpid pool, from which L. would 

 subsequently be sure to take a beauty; and how it would 

 hang my line a dozen feet overhead just at the moment I 

 wanted to use it myself. In one of my struggles with 

 rod, line and underbrush, H., who fished pretty close to 

 that penknife, somehow got mixed up with his parapher- 

 nalia. In the excitement a lithe sapling was bent to the 

 ground by me, and when released it carried skyward with 

 it a good-sized piece of his trousers. How I thanked my 

 stars that those spectacles were not astride my nose, even 

 though I couldn't see ten rods without 'em. I couldn't 

 have kept them there an instant. Once in a while L. 

 would appear serenely to view and exclaim, "Just got a 

 fine one back there by the root of that old stump;" and it 

 was always sure to be the very place where H. and I had 

 vainly tried to cast our lines. However, we two slowly 

 achieved success, at the rate of a trout an hour; but 

 when 1 o'clock came I struck for grub. Out from 

 the mess of fish and worms I rescued a substantial 

 lunch, and quickly put it where it would not make 

 my back ache any more. L. and H. were prob- 

 ably better fishermen than I, but when it came to 

 lunch, I was away ahead. Half an hour for rest, and L. 

 gave the word to start in again. He might as well have 

 told me to fly! I was exhausted, disgusted, humiliated. 

 My legs were stiff from sitting still, and I quietly informed 

 my companions that I was going back to the house. It 

 took L. about ten seconds to comprehend what I meant: 

 then he went all to pieces, and acted like an idiot. Said 

 he, "Well, you are a good one! Why, you haven't seen 

 any trout fishing yet; wait till we get down to the 

 swamp — " 



He never finished that sentence, because I promptly 

 injected some vigorous king's English into it. If he 

 wanted me to wait till I g< >t into the swamp, I wanted 

 him to tell me where I had been for the last four hours. 

 Then he changed his tune and sang wonderful songs of 

 great trout which were anxiously awaiting our advent 

 "only about half a mile below here." However, I con- 

 sulted my lame legs, sore foot and brief but bitter experi- 

 ence, and very shortly ended the argument by unjointing 

 my rod and setting out across lots for home. I was com- 

 pletely done up for the rest of that day, and what galled 

 me most was that H. had outworked me. It seemed 

 funny; I could have put him over my shoulder in a 

 scrimmage, but he had bested me then, and badly, too. 

 Three hours after I got home H. and L. arrived. The 

 former had a creel pretty full of trout, but a suspicious 

 emptiness in L.'s basket accounted for that all right. A 

 hearty supper was eaten, plans laid for the next day's 

 sport, and candle-light found me snug in bed. 



******* 



It seemed to me that I had only just closed my eyes 

 when that owl L. came booming into the room with 

 "Come, get up here, breakfast's ready, so's the horse, 

 and we must get an early start, for a whole crowd are 

 going down to Little-River-and-we-must-get-there-first- 

 or-r-r-buzz-z-zm-ni-" Yank! and the bed clothes went 

 flying into the far corner of the room. Why couldn't 

 that devil have let me sleep a few minutes. I soon heard 

 him hammering away at H.'s door, and judging from the 

 racket which immediately issued from the room he was 

 giving that gentleman some assistance in getting up. I 

 arose, tottering across the floor on my lame legs, and 

 after a refreshing scrub, went down to a glorious break- 

 fast of fried trout. How good they did taste; I thought 

 H. would eat till he burst. 



"Say, L. ," said he suddenly, "where did you get these 

 fish?" 



"Oh, you and I caught 'em yesterday." 



The look of blank dismay which broke over poor H.'s 

 face was pitiful to behold. 



"I intended to take my fish home," he wailed, "and 

 here you've made me eat every cussed one." 



Breakfast done, we drove five or six miles across the 

 country and struck the same stream where it had grown 

 into proportions which justified the name of Little River. 



"That is the place to catch fish," said I, "this idea of 

 tramping over a whole township to catch a trout is all 

 nonsense. I'm going to stand right here on the bank and 

 fish all day in that deep pool." 



"No you aint either," replied L., crescendo, "you're go- 

 ing to hoof it down the current just three miles, and back 

 again up to that old saw mill about a mile above here, to- 

 day." I collapsed. 



Our horse was duly cared for in a neighboring barn, by 

 a big, blue-eyed farmer whom L. knew, and once more 

 we started in. The stream here issued rut of the most 

 dreadful looking swamp I ever saw; the one in which I 

 had yesterday fought, and from which I had ingloriously 

 fled, was respectable farm land compared with it. But for 

 half a mile or more, the river then ran in the clear, open 



meadows. And here we saw another exhibition of L.'s 

 great skill as an "across country" fisherman. Before H. 

 and I had reached the first fence, he was over the third, 

 and going in apparent disregard of his errand in that part 

 of the world. It was only apparent, however, as was 

 afterwards proved. Blessings on him! He meant to do 

 the right thing by us, and sincerely undertook to teach us 

 how to do it. As well might the sailing kite have attempted 

 to teach the average rooster how to soar. He probably 

 forgot all about H. and me, ten minutes after he wet his 

 line. 



Deserted by L. , we two determined upon a course of 

 action for ourselves. H. was to take one side of the 

 stream and I the other; by keeping pretty close together, 

 and giving each other points from our personal experien- 

 ces, it was H.'s idea that we might "catch on to the hang 

 of the thing, without L." 



That gentleman was soon lost in the shadow of the far- 

 away woods, along which, at the foot of a giant hill, the 

 brook skirted for a quarter of a mile, but neither H. nor 

 I waB in any hurry to leave that pleasant mead. 



"All solid ground to walk on here, and nothing over 

 your head but the sky," was the way he put it. 



Pretty blue and white flowers dotted the turf in won- 

 derful profusion, their fragrance lingering with us long 

 after they themselves had been left behind. The air was 

 warm, and balmy, and delicious; bluebirds everywhere 

 were warbling their liquid springtime song; the peeping 

 grass was green and velvety beneath our feet, and from 

 the woods on the distant hillside, dark and solemn, the 

 murmur of the rapid rushing little river was borne back, 

 dreamily and pleasantly, to our ears. 



"Verily, this is the poetry of life," thought I; "How I 

 should like to linger here by the hour, solitary and 

 alone " 



An ear-splitting screech from H. set the echoes ring- 

 ing, and waking once more to the sterner realities of life 

 I discovered that individual making a desperate effort to 

 grant my mental wish, fo far, at least, as his presence was 

 concerned. A slight commotion in the grass on the oppo- 

 site side, followed by a light plunge into the water, 

 needed but the one word wildly yelled byH., ' 'S-n-a-a-k-e!" 

 and I had the explanation of it all. Another nice feature 

 of this delightful recreation. L. had assured us that it 

 was too early for snakes to be out. I succeeded after a 

 time in coaxing H. back to the stream, down which he 

 meandered very gingerly for nearly three miles, finding 

 L„ at an old bridge, just below which the water formed a 

 deep black pool thirty feet in circumference. This was 

 the terminus of our excursion in that direction. Into 

 that pool we eagerly cast our lines, L. trying patiently 

 every known art to the fisherman, or at least saying that 

 he did, to entice a trout from its lair. No use, not even 

 a nibble from what looked to me to be the most promising 

 bit of water we had yet seen. 



L. claimed to be amazed; he dwelt at length upon the 

 size and numbers of trout which he had taken from that 

 pool in days gone by, until H. said quietly, "Look here, 

 L., we're too frail to stand that ail at once." L. quit. 



We fished back up stream more rapidly than coming 

 down, and finally arrived at the spot where we began 

 that morning, near the swamp. The brook here cut 

 directly across the end of this swamp, and emerging on 

 the other side for a rod or so, turned around almost upon 

 itself and flowed through the very heart of it. What a 

 place for a tenderfoot to be caught in! At the very worst 

 spot on the creek, I had the good fortune to kill a really 

 fine trout. The water here came tumbling over the ex- 

 posed root of an old tree, and with many a swirl and 

 foaming eddy, shot swiftly under the green, mossy bank. 

 I cast directly into that miniature maelstrom, the hook 

 went swinging in to the dark cavity, and flash! I had 

 him. I won't repeat the story; you Forest and Stream 

 readers know just what I would like to say, so I won't say 

 it; only, as I lifted the glorious fellow out, and chased 

 him flopping around over half an acre of dense under- 

 brush, I felt something of the triumph of a true trout 

 fisherman in all his glory. He weighed one pound. 



That encouraged me to go on. Proceeding a few rods 

 further, we came to a wide tract of cleared lowland. 

 Later in the season it would probably have been a pretty 

 good pasture; now, however, it was a gigantic mud hole 

 concehled beneath a last year's growth of coarse grass. 

 Along the margin of this lowland the creek ran a short 

 distance. A wide and deep ditch, draining the water 

 from the flat here emptied into the stream, its opening 

 being just at a point where the creek itself emerged from 

 under a dreadful mass of underbrush. H. was ahead, I 

 next, and L. somewhere behind, owing to an accident to 

 his rod, which had detained him. We two could have 

 been easily pardoned for the error we made, of taking the 

 wrong watercourse and fishing patiently up the ditch for 

 ten rods. When we discovered our mistake, instead of 

 going directly back, as we should have done, we thought 

 to save time by cutting across the marshy flats and strik- 

 ing it further up. As I said, the stream turned off from 

 the flats aluiost at a right angle, so of course the further 

 we went, the further out of the way we were. Over an 

 hour did we struggle in that wandering maze, fighting 

 several million varieties of swamp flies meanwhile, until 

 H., up to that time chock full of pluck, cried out, 

 "Enough! Let's quit and go home." We never saw the 

 stream again. I never want to. 



A long, weary tramp brought us to the place where our 

 horse was put up, and while resting we were joined by 

 our burly, blue-eyed friend, the good-natured farmer. He 

 seemed to take a real interest in our hardships, looked over 

 our fish, complimented me upon my good fortune, and 

 gave us a lot of advice about trout fishing which I, for 

 one, will never follow. Some time later L. put in his ap- 

 pearance, "wet, and soiled, and wearied." I went for his 

 creel, and the very first fish I brought to light was a 

 "darling," about four inches long. L. blushed deeply, 

 and became very glum indeed, while H. and I were 

 making the neighborhood echo to our howls of laughter. 

 He didn't even smile, but grumbled something about 

 "catching it for luck." Fifteen minutes afterward, when 

 we were well on the road toward home, L. turned sav- 

 agely upon us with, "You blanked fools, didn't you know 

 that man was the game constable, and the crankiest one 

 in the business?" 

 How should we? 



A faithful summary of my experience as a trout fisher- 

 man would read about as follows: Disbursements, six 

 dollars, three days, lots of good energy, my profane 

 vocabulary several times over. Receipts, 500 fly bites, 

 scratches too numerous to mention, a lame foot, violent 



