July 11, 1896.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
m mid ^iv^r ^iBfiing. 
MEN I HAVE FISHED WITH. 
I.— Reuben Wood. 
This noted Bportsman, who for nearly half a century 
made his home in Syracuse, N. Y,, was well known 
throughout the State, and it was my good fortune to have 
him as an instructor in the art of angling in earliest boy- 
hood. We were bom in the then small village of Green- 
bush (opposite Albany), he in December, 1822, and I 
•eleven years later. 
Almost every man who has passed the half-century 
milestone on life's journey loves to imitate Lot's wife and 
look over his shoulder, and usually the retrospect is pleas- 
ant because we do not remember clearly; we conjure up 
the roses in the pathway and the small thorns are indis- 
tinct in the distance; a faint humming of the bees whose 
honey we stole brings no remembrance of the penalty 
paid for it; the wound of the sting is cured by the honey 
— 'n memory, at least. Poor indeed is the man of fifty 
who has no wealth of retrospect and who thinks the pun- 
ishment of Lot's wife was fitted to the crime! It was 
cruelly unjust, and in compensation at this late day she 
should be sainted perhaps with the name and title of 
Saint Salina. Here 1 pause to ask if there is really any 
such thing as an occult cerebration which caused my pen 
to turn to thoughts of Lot's wife while writing an apology 
for looking back at the boyhood of a citizen of Syracuse, 
N. Y., the great salt-producing city of the Statt? 
There are men who never could have been boye — en- 
gaged in boyish sports and had a boy's thoughts. Every- 
one has known such men. Men who must have been at 
least fifty years old when they were born — if that event 
ever happened to them — and have no sort of sympathy 
for a boy nor his ways; crusty old curmudgeons who 
never burned their fingers with a firecracker or played 
hookey from school to go a- fishing. They may be very 
endurable in a business way, but are of no possible use as 
fishing companions. I speak by the card, for I've been 
in the woods with them, 
Reuben Wood was a boy, and was one to me as long as 
he lived. We were boys together, he being a big boy 
when I was but a little one; he was at our house a great 
deal, and is among the earliest of memories. He was 
"Reub" all through life to all his familiars, and they were 
many. 
It was a summer day, and I was some some six or eight 
■summers old when Reub came down the street with some 
fish that he had caught in a stream then the northern 
boundary of the village, but now in it and fishless. After 
much solicitation he agreed to let me in the party next 
day, Bruin and me. Now, Bruin was a big Newfoundland 
■dog belonging to my father which Reub had taught to 
ipick me up whenever he said, "Bruin, go fetch Fred," no 
imatter what screams, kicks and protests his burden made, 
and this was one of Raub's jokes which I did not appre- 
ciate. We started, Bruin and 1 in high glee. Reub cut 
some poles, rigged the lines, floats and hooks and put on 
the worms, and he soon had a perch, a monster it seemed 
then, and does yet, while the sunfish that tried to run 
away with my float and .whioh Reub helped to land prob- 
ably weighed more than the grocer's scales could tell; it 
must have been as big as 100 modern ones, and Reub said 
"it was as big as a piece of chalk." Such was the first 
experience in angling, as clear in memory as if only a 
week ago. 
A little pond turtle stuck his head up near the float, 
looked at it and at us, and paddled to the bottom in the 
funniest way. Reub called it a "skiUypot," but he had 
funny names for everything. Then I caught a perch, 
actually bigger than the sunfish, and a new world seemed 
to open, but the spines of the fish cut my hand and the 
world was not so bright. Five fish came to my lot in all, 
but Reub had about twenty, some perch, sunfish, two 
bullheads and an eel. He said that I let the fish eat the 
worms off. I saw a turtle climb on a log while Reub was 
up the bank after worms and I went out on the log to get 
it, but the turtle slid into the water and so did I. A 
Bcream brought Reub, who whistled for Bruin and ordered 
him to "Fetch Fred," and he did. O, the dripping of 
clothes and the splashing of shoes as we went home, and 
the tearful tale of a turtle who wouldn't wait to be 
caughtl This last seemed the greatest cause of grief and 
afforded Reub and other boys a text for teasing, which 
they worked to an annoying extent, and it was long be- 
fore he would take me fishing again, saying, "No, you'll 
go diving for turtles." This occurred about 1840 and 
Reub referred to it the last time I saw him, in 1883. 
At this time Greenbush was a very quaint little vUlage 
on the upper Hudson, whose connection with the outside 
world was by the Albany stage to Boston and by ferry to 
Albany. No railroad entered it, and in fact the only one 
at that time in the whole State of New York ran from 
Albany to Schenectady, and hauled its cars to the top of 
the hill by a stationary engine before hooking on the light 
locomotive. The place was favorable for the development 
of character, imhampered by the conventionalities which 
come from contact with outside people, and Reuben grew 
to manhood there and retained a quaint simplicity all his 
life, a rugged, honest nature, whom it was refreshing to 
know and a lovable man to meet. If, as a boy, he ever 
indulged in forays on the fruit and melon patches of the 
farmers the fact is unknown to me. That 1 did is certain, 
but the disparity of years forbade comradeship in such 
nocturnal pleasures. He was large, strong and heavy of 
movement, with a deep chest voice, even when a boy, 
that was remarkable. His brother Ira, nearer my age, 
resembled him in this and other particulars, and in both 
there was an air of honesty and truthfulness, not so fre- 
quent in boys, which was fully borne out in their charac- 
ters as men. 
In later years I had a joke on Reub which was 
originally on me as a boy, but later knowledge reversed 
it. With some other boys one day I had been fishing 
away up the hill in the pond of the locally famous 
"red mUl" and had seen a pair of wood ducks 
alight upon a tree. We somehow knew that they 
were wild ducks, but had no idea that the term included 
more than one kind, for at that day we only knew one 
sort of tame ducks. To see a duck light on a tree was 
strange, and I told Reub of it and he spread the incredible 
story, for he knew nothing of wood ducks, and the laugh 
was on me. "Seen any ducl:^ lightin' on trees la^ply?" 
a oonaiaoi?^ ao4 aunoymg; salutation, years Utex; 
the question was turned on Reub. I fished with him 
many times as a boy, never after he left Greenbush for 
Syracuse, in 1852; but we metoccasionally after 1876 when 
thrown together at fairs and fly-casting tournaments, and 
he seemed to be the same boy that somehow had gray hair. 
The picture of him gives an excellent idea of his 
manly face, but the cigar I do not recognize. This is not 
remarkable, because he used from a dozen to twenty each 
day, and there are people who might not recognize his 
picture without a cigar of some kind. The badge upon 
his corduroy coat is a certificate that he is a member of 
the Onondaga Fishing Club, of Syracuse, which was al- 
ways represented at the Stite Sportsmen's tournaments. 
Take a good look at himl That kind, honest face would 
be a passport anywhere. To me he was always the same 
lovable boy to whom I looked up as guide, philosopher 
and friend on my first fishing trip away back in the for- 
ties. I think I am a better man for knowing Reub Wood 
when he was a big boy and I a child. From him I learned 
that the world was round, "rounder than a marble," he 
said, and I saw that the sky was the upper half and that 
[REUBEN WOOD. 
we were inside the world; if he knew better he never ex- 
plained the matter. 
Reuben's humor was manifested in the use of strange 
words which he probably manufactured, as I never 
heard them from any other person. A bad knot in a fish 
line was a "wrinkle-hawk," an excellent thing was "just 
exebogenus," a big fish was "an old codwalloper" and along 
stemmed pipe was "a flugemocker." What a blank page 
is a boy's memory that such things written on it remain 
indelible for over half a centurv when more important 
ones have faded! The name of Reub Wood conjures up 
these trifling things, which if heard ten years ago woidd 
have been forgotten. But he had such a strong individu- 
ality that a person who only met him for ten minutes 
would be impressed by it and know him in after years; 
what wonder that he should carve his personality on the 
mind of a child? Impressions of other men and boys in 
that small village are also quite distinct and, as is usual in 
such places, there is more profanity and obscenity heard 
by a boy than in cities, for the tough boy in small places 
excels in such things, and it seems to me that he was 
worse then than now. But the worst that I ever heard 
Reub say was "gosh hang it," under the provocation of 
having to cut a fish hook out of his thumb. His mind 
was as pure as his life, and that is more than can be said 
of many who live straight enough, but have to resist 
temptation frequently. A man is not so much to be 
judged by his actions as by his thoughts, if you only 
knew them, and Reub's thoughts were his spoken words. 
In Greenbush he was employed in the bakery of Jonas 
Whiting, where he learned the mysteries of bread and 
cakes, and when he went to Syracuse he blossomed out 
as a caterer for balls and parties, and then established a 
business in fishing tackle, now carried on under the name 
of "Reuben Wood's Sons." His old cash book is still ex- 
tant, and was not only what its name implied, but was 
day book, journal and ledger all in one, with a margin for 
a weather record which contained such items as "Gone 
hunting," "Went after ducks," "Gone a-fishing," etc. 
This is indefinite, and one wonders what the result may 
have been until we strike the entry: "Wood returned 
from Piseco with 2501bs. of trout." At this date no man 
knows whether they were brook or lakers, fontinalis or 
namaycaish. In that early day, in the fifties, Onondaga 
Lake abounded in pickerel and eels, and Reub and his 
ppmpaiuQjis ot^v^ wade a m^k\ pf it, tafewg \Uqv^ wifeh 
torch and^spear, as was the custom of the time, and the 
catch went to their friends and the poor. When this 
mode of fishing became unpopular and unlawful, in later 
years, Reuben was one of the foremost in suppressing all 
kinds of fishing that the law forbade, but at the time of 
which we speak there was no law on the subject, nor pub- 
lic sentiment against spearing. He followed the custom 
of the day, merely drawing the line at fishine on Sunday, 
A chum of Reub's was Mr. Charles Wells, of Wells, 
Fargo Co.'s Express, and they went shooting and fishing 
when the spirit moved. Mr. Wells had not only all the 
railroad transportation necessary, but could have trains 
stopped anywhere in the woods if necessary, night or 
day, by flag or fire signal. This brings a sigh not of 
envy, but merely a wish that such conditions existed to- 
day and I was "in it," as the sayinsr goes. One day in 
the fall of 1857 a report came to Mr, Wells that there 
were "rafts of ducks" on Cayuga Lake, one of those 
numerous large lakes of western New York lying some 
thirty miles west of Syracuse, and a famous one for 
ducks; he told Reub just in time for him to gather 
his muzzleloader and ammunition and get the next train 
going to Cayuga, at the foot of the lake via the "old 
road" of the New York Central R. R., a road then so slow 
that it took the best part of a day to get there. Wells 
had his camping outfit and they camped for the night. 
As Reub told me the story years afterward, daylight 
found him in an old dugout, the only semblance of a boat 
[ at hand, while Wells had a good place on the shore. The 
ducks were flying down the lake and Wells had killed 
several, and was signaling him to come and pick them 
up, when a great flock of bluebills came up the stream 
and turned directly over Reub's head. As he let both 
barrels go the dugout somehow let him go into ice-cold 
water, but he hung on to his gun and got ashore chilled 
to the bone, and took the first train for Syracuse, where 
he traded his gun and equipments for a Knight's Templar 
badge and other things, and from that day foreswore the 
gun and devoted his energies to wielding the rod. 
About this time Mr. Wells learned to fish with the fly 
and taught Reuben the art, to which he became devoted. 
It was long after this that I met Reuben, the occasion 
being the tournaments of the New York State Association 
for the Protection of Fish and Game, where he was a fre- 
quent competitor in the fly-casting tournaments, but 
never would allow himself or his brother Ira to win first 
prize because of a chivalric idea that another competitor 
— to whom he always deferred — should not be beaten. 
Either of them could outcast the other man, whose hog- 
gish nature never allowed him to acknowledge the 
knightly courtesy— if he had the capacity to appreciate 
sacrifice. Not until the State Association held its tourna- 
ment at Brighton Beach, Coney Island, in June, 1881, did 
Reuben Ward ever have a chance to cast unhampered by 
his sentiment. Here he had a new competitor with a 
great local reputation, who had never cast in a State tour- 
nament before. This was in the two-handed salmon rod 
contest, and Reuben won the first prize, valued at $50, 
with a cast of llOEt. His brother Ira came second, with 
101ft. Harry Prichard cast 91ft,, and F. P. Dennison 
94:ft. All but Prichard were members of the Onondaga 
Fishing Club, of Syracuse, and cast with the same rod — a 
split-bamboo, won by Reuben in the tournament at Buf- 
falo in 1878; length, 17ft. lin. As there was an allow- 
ance of 5ft. for every foot of rod in length, Mr. Prichard 
was allowed 9ft. lOin. because his greenheart rod (made 
by himself) was 1ft. lOin. shorter than the one used by 
the others; hence his amended record of 91ft. had an 
allowance of 9ft, lOin., making it lOOft. lOin., giving him 
third prize over Dennison. 
In 1883 Prof. Spencer F. Baird appointed Reuben to take 
charge of the angling department of the American display 
at the International Fisheries Exposition in London, an 
appointment of which he was justly proud, as he wrote 
me in a farewell letter, and on June 11 he took part in 
the English fly-casting tournament at the Welch Harp, 
where he won first in salmon casting with an 18 ft. split- 
bamboo rod, scoring 108ft.; Mr. Mallock casting 105ft. 
with an 18ft, greenheart rod. In the single-handed trout 
contest he won first with 82ift. over four competitors. In 
a contest with two-handed trout rods, a thing unknown 
in America, Mr. Mallock won first with 105ft., and Mr. 
Wood took second prize with 102ft. 9in. His many- 
trophies in the tournaments in Central Park, New York 
city, are familiar to readers of Forest and Stream. 
He died at his home in Syracuse on Feb, 16, 1884, in his 
sixty-second year. Mr. .iR. B. Marston, editor of the 
English Fishing Gazette, said of him: "I know many an 
angler in this country will feel sad at hearing genial, 
jolly, lovable *XJncle Reub' has gone to his long rest. 
During his stay in this country he never failed to make 
friends of all who came in contact with him. I shall 
never forget the enthusiasm and almost boy-like glee 
with which he enjoyed a fishing trip with me to the Ken- 
net, at Hungerf ord. He would stand for hours on the old 
bridge watching the trout and marveling at their cuteness. 
The system of dry-fly fishing pleased and astonished him 
greatly, and he told me he meant to try it on some wary 
old American trout he was acquainted with. Then he 
would show us some of his long casting with a split-cane 
rod. If we in this country, who only knew him so short 
a time, feel his loss so keenly, what must those home 
friends of his feel — his family and that wide circle of ac- 
quaintances who were proud to call him friend?" 
His death was very sudden. He fell dead while enter- 
ing his dining room, and his family doctor said that the 
heart had become diseased from excessive smoking. In 
addition to his love of the rod he was for many years an 
active member of the Syracuse Citizens' Cori)S, and later 
of the Sumner Corps, two well-known military organiza- 
tions. He was also a member of the Baptist Church, and 
his name was a synonym for all that was honest and 
manly. The last time I met him he referred to our first 
fishing experience by saying, "Fred, are you catehing 
many turtles now?" And the answer was, "No, Reub, it 
keeps me busy watching wood ducks light on the trees." 
Fred Mathe??. 
New Jersey Weakfishing. 
Waretown, N. J., June 26, — Mr, John Westcott an<| 
two friends, stopping at the Bay View House, caught 
fifty-seven weakfish to-day. Mr. B. Brooks and tw6 
friends took ninety-one. All were in good condition and 
of nice size. ' 
July 6. — Nine different parties were out from the Bay 
View House for two days past and all made good catches 
of weakfish, from thirty to oyer one hundred to a boat. ' 
