472 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
LDec. 11, 1897. 
MEN I HAVE FISHEU WITH. 
LX.— Hon. Amos J. Cummlngs. 
WiLMURT Lake nestles on a mounlain top and is a perfect 
bowl, in wliose clear waters every passing cloud is reflected 
and each long-legged lieron that stands on its shores seems 
to be doubled. It is one of the most charming of Adiron- 
dack Lakes and one that is but little known, for its waters 
liave not been open to the public for many years. It was 
owned by Hon. 0. B. Matteson, of Utica, N. Y., and was 
reached by a thirty-mile drive from several stations on the 
Ulica & Black Eiver R. R. Ten or a dozen years ago I 
fished it frequently, in company with your correspondent 
Piseco and others. 
After a steep two-mile climb, up which horses could 
hardly scramble, but could slide down, one could enjoy the 
crystal gem in its setting of hills while wailing for the boat 
and regaining breath. There was quite a party of us at the 
lake some dozen of years ago: Mr. John D. Hewlett, of 
Cold Spring Harbor; Hon. E. G. Blackford, U. S. Senator 
Warner Miller, and others. A bugle note sounded at the 
landing, and we were speculating who it might be as they 
embarked. I took the field glass and said: "That's Amos 
Cummings, but I don't know the other man," and when he 
stepped ashore he introduced us to Prank Lincoln, a profes- 
sional entertainer and humorist, who made things very inter- 
esting for all, especially for Eliza, the colored housekeeper, 
and the only woman on the mountain. She looked under 
the house for cats, dodged ventriloquial bumble bees and 
ran outdoors to see who called '"Liza!" "I 'clar' to good- 
ness. I doan on'stau' 'bout dese yere things. 
I spects I'se gittin' 'witched." 
"Fred," said Amos, "Frank Lincoln wants 
to take a trout. He never saw one until he 
watched one of the boatmen cleaning some. 
Tou know the lake, and I want you to put 
him where a trout never comes. I will not 
trust him with my fly-rod, but I'll cut him a 
sapling, tie a line to the end of it, put on a 
worm, and then we'll give him advice — one 
on each side." 
"But there are no angleworms in this thin 
soil of the garden, which probably freezes 
down to the rock, although the men have 
planted them here. There are none in the 
woods," 
"Didn't anyone bring worms?" 
"No," said I, and then added: "Perhaps 
Senator Miller may have some, but I wouldn't 
ask him. He came in his last night with 
some tine trout, and as I looked 'em over I 
saw what I thought to be a small portion of 
a worm, but it might have been part of the 
tail of a newt which a trout had bitten off 
and threw out when caught. Why not rig 
your friend up with a fly? We can give him 
more advice about casting than about worm- 
fishing, and so get more fun out of him. He 
seems to get fun out of everything, and I'll 
lielp you get some out of him." 
Amos went off and cut a pole that was fit 
to do duty in a hopyard, and said: "Here, 
Frank, is a rod for you. It's light and 
springy, and I'll rig you up a line and fly." 
Lincolo lifted it, shook it with great ap- 
parent labor, and asked: "How many feet of 
lumber would this thing make?" 
Amos appealed to me, and I assured Mr, 
Lincoln that Adirondack trout were the 
strongest fighters known; that there was no 
compromise between a limber bamboo rod 
and a stiff pole, "for," said I, "if you get a 
big one, it will break any intermediate thing, 
and no angler likes to lose his largest fish, 
although he often does." 
He watched me closely. Evidently he sus- 
pected Amos, for he knew him, while 1 was a 
stranger and might possibly be honest. Amos 
put on the biggest black bass fly in my book, 
and we took our fly-rods and the novice to the 
lake. I had selected a shallow place near 
some drift stuff, where there was less than 
2ft. of water, and we cast. "Don't thresh 
your fly on the water as if you were pounding out rye with 
a flail," said Amos, and he landed a fly lightly on the water 
.50ft. away. "Thai's the way to do it." 
"Yes," said I, "give your fly time behind you, and then 
when the line is — " 
"I've got one," said Lincoln, and he actually snaked in 
and landed a trout that weighed Sibs. Not a fish weighing 
over 1+lbs. had been taken from the lake that summer, and as 
Amos and I walked mournfully up to the cottage we made 
no remark. Lincoln was exultant when he learned that his 
fish was the largest of the season. The party was arriving 
in boats from different parts of the lake, and when all were 
in he addressed them in thiswise: "Gentlemen: Luck has 
struck a greenhorn after its usual fashion, and that trout 
will be sent to the Lamb's Club, ia New York, in the morn- 
ing. They will never believe that I caught it unless I can 
send your signatures to a statement of fact that I did catch 
it, and I think it will go if you'll all be good enough to sign 
it except Cummings." After Pete had boxed the fish and 
the paper had been signed, Lincoln read it over and re- 
marked: "There's a heft o' good names there as witnesses, 
but I think it'll take more than that to make the Lamb's Club 
believe it." 
When we were alone I said to Amos: "The worst of it is 
that we were casting proper trout flies in a proper manner 
while guying Lincoln, one each side of him, and we did not 
get a rise, while he slapped out a big bass fly and, having 
the longest pole, knocked the persimmon." 
" 'A fool for luck' is an old saying," said Amos; "and 
while Frank is a bright fellow, he may be classed with the 
fools, as far as fishing goes. But you must remember that 
we were showing off to him, and casting away beyond his 
big trout in order to try his ambition to get out a line along- 
side ours. The big trout happened there, saw his fly, but 
did not see ours, and he got the prize. Still, it is ever the 
same. Gamblers fear a greenhorn more than a fellow who 
knows something of the game, and as smoke in camp is said 
to follow beauty, so luck is apt to favor the novice. Let us 
impress upon Lincoln that it was solely by our advice, born 
of lont' experience in the ways of trout, that he captured the 
big fellow. " 
We could easily get Amos started to talk of Horace 
Greeley, and he had a fund of anecdote relating to that 
eccentric editor who infused his strong personality into his 
paper and made it an engine of great power in shaping the 
destiny of the country. Amos was a peripatetic printer at 
an early age. Born in Broomecounty, N. Y., May 15, 1841, 
as the encyclopedias say, he was an apprentice in a printing 
oflace a dozen years later, and then started out to set type 
and fish in every State in the Union, and wound up as an 
assistant editor on the New York Tribune, where, as the 
confidant of JVIi-. Greeley, he acquired a fund of anecdote 
which he relateb with a droll humor tinctured with carica- 
ture, for of Amos it can be said, as Hamlet said of Yorick: 
"A fellow of infinite jest, * * * that were wont to set 
the_ table in a roar." A good part of the Greeley stories were 
political and depended somewhat on the Greeley drawl and 
would lose in type. But the printing case and the editorial 
desk gave Amos all the education he has, and it is a broad 
one. I've heard him at the festive board, listened to his 
camp stories and then have wondered if it was the same man 
who hurled statistics at Congress when he was working to 
build up our navy. 
"My time is limited," said Amos, "and I came up here to 
take a few trout and hurry back. I want you to put me on 
the best water in the lake to morrow, for I must leave next 
morning, and I know that you are working for Matteson, 
helping him to sell this lake, and if there is any good fishjng 
here I want to have one day of it." 
"Did Matteson tell you 1 was working for him?" 
"Not in explicit terms, but he intimated that you knew 
the lake better than anyone now on it, and that I should see 
you. I see you now— life size — and what do you propose to 
do?" 
"I propose to go out with you in the morning and try and 
AMOS "5. CUMMINGS. 
put you where there are some good trout; but, Amos, my 
boy,' just get hold of the fact that June is passing, and as 
the shore and surface water warms up the trout go into 
deeper waters, and when they do this they do not rise freely 
to the fly ; they are too deep to see it, or if they see it they 
don't care to rise through the warm water for it. Frank 
]jin coin's big trout would not have been found there a week 
from now, and fly-fishing on Wilmurtis about ended for the 
season, except in the spring holes " 
In the morning we took a turn up the lake before break- 
fast, for Elizi had declared: "'Less you gemmen bring in 
some trout 1 dunno 'bout breakfas'; dey ain't a bit o' ham 
no' a aig in de camp, an' Pete he done gone down to de 
Mountain Home fo' to get p'ovisions fo' dinner, an' I spects 
he'll get a lamb an' some ham an' aigs, but dat ah '11 be on'y 
in time fo' dinnah." And so it was a case of necessity that 
we should fish for an hour or more. We passed Senator 
Miller and Mr. Blackford; both reported a few fish, but we 
went up to the further end, where there were several 
springs, and took half a dozen good trout in about half an 
hour. 
"We've got our breakfast," said Amos, "let's go in; Black- 
ford has started already, and the Senator has his landing net 
under a fish. How is the water where he is fishing?" 
"He is anchored just where he can cast to his right near 
the bunch of grass, where there is 4ft of water, or a little 
to his left, where there is 15ft. He knows this lake better 
than I do, or better than any man now on it. Pete and the 
other man employed here don't seem to know much about 
the depth of water and the location of the springs." 
I was rowing and Amos sat in the stern, where he could 
see ahead. "I remember what you said about bait yester- 
day," he said, "and I've been watching the Senator. He 
makes a cast occasionally and lets his fly sink, if he has a 
fly, and I don't know but he is fishing in the deep water; his 
boat hangs so that it is hard to tell." 
At the landing there was a general show down of trout, 
none over lib., but plenty for a hungry lot of anglers. Amos 
handled the Senator's rod. examined his boat, and then when 
we were alone said: "His flies are all right and soaked, 
there was no trace of a worm in the boat, nor of a bait box 
in his clothing. If he is using bait he ia doing it very 
well." 
While we were in the boat we compared our youthful 
vagabond days, and I learned that while I was in Kansas 
lamenting that the fighting was all over, and thinking of 
joining William Walker, the filibuster, iu Nicaragua, Amos 
was there with him on his last expedition to that country. 
I knew much of his editorial and military career, but nothing 
of his filibustering hfe, and we had much in common. We 
had been restless young men, seeking adventure rather than 
wealth, only wanting to know where a fight was going on in 
order to be in it. I knew that he had been the eHitor of the 
New York Tribune, under Greeley ; of the Sun, under Dana, 
and of the Express, under Eraslus Brooks; that he had been 
Sergt.-Major of the Twenty-sixth N. -J. Vols., and had a 
medal of honor from Congress for gallantry on the field; but 
that he had been with Walker in 1857, when he was only 
sixteen years old, proved that he had the true spirit of the 
adventurer — that spirit which we admire in those old Norse- 
men, pirates if you will, but pirates in a day when every 
man's hand was against all who did not speak his language. 
Those were the days when the children of the coast of Corn- 
wall prayed: "God bless daddy, God bless mammy; God 
send a ship ashore before morning." But the viking in his 
supplication said: "Oh, Lord, I do not ask thee for riches; 
I only ask to be put within sword's length of the man who 
has them." There was no universal brotherhood of man in 
those days, and it is only a theory to-day. Nations have 
monopolized the freebooter's trade, but shoot the individual 
who practices it. Amos and I, with our love for adventure, 
which might include a little fighting, would have enjoyed 
life hugely about four centuries ago; but then we would not 
be enjoying life to-day, and so there are compensations for 
all things, good or evil. 
So far our tastes were alike. Amos is a 
politician and I am not. He is a member of 
the Tammany Society, was a delegate to the 
Democratic National Conventions of 1892 and 
1896, and will have served twelve years in 
Congress when his present term expires. He 
has been chairman of the Committee on Con- 
gressional Library, and as often as his party 
has been in the ascendancy he has occupied 
the important position of chairman of the 
Committee on ISTaval Affairs, and here his 
most important work has been done in earn- 
estly advocating a navy which shall be suf- 
ficient to protect over 7,000 miles of sea coast, 
if we include Alaska. ' He has steadily com- 
bated the idea that, because we can put two 
millions of men in the field at the tick of the 
telegraph, we are secure from attack; for our 
extended coast, with its wealth of cities, is 
our vulnerable point if attacked by a hostile 
fleet. 
"Amos," said I, "in your wide experience 
in fishing, tell me, what do you recall as the 
most enjoyable of all kinds, or in what State 
or Territory did you cast your lines in the 
most pleasant place?" 
"That qutstion requires a review of a life- 
time of frtquent fishing. I have fished from 
almost every dock in New York and Jersey 
City; off Robin's Reef ; the Romer Shoals, in 
Prince's B.iy; the Great and the Little Kills; 
the headwaltrs of the Arkansas; San Lorenzo 
Creek, Cal.; Magdalena Bay, Lower Cal, ; on 
the nor' west banks of the Miramichi; iu 
Lake Ontario; the Yosemite Yalley; the 
Wasatch Range; Mobile Bay; Mosquito La- 
goon; Indian River; Lake Worth; all over 
the Adirondacks, and in more places than I 
could name at one sitting. There were days 
of good fishing and days when the fish were 
not there or not in the humor to bite — every 
angler has met such days — but they were ail 
enjoyable at the time and again in retrospect, 
but I could not single out a day nor a place as 
affordmg the most enjoyable fishing. Can 
you name fuch a time or place?" 
"Yes. The lime was every Saturday in the 
fishing season when I was a schoolboy, and 
the place the river and streams near Albany, 
N. Y. I go out now with such rods and tackle 
as I never saw in those days, travel night and 
day to get to a lake or stieam and enjoy it; but 
somehow there is not the enthusiasm of boy- 
hood in it, and I'd give this whole trip for half a day with 
my schoolmates of half a century ago on the old Popskinny 
Creek, hauling in perch, bullheads, shiners, and an occa- 
sional eel." 
"I see," Amos replied, "some one has written: 
4 " 'What are life's triumphs we straggle to vrin. 
To the first little shiaer we caught with a pin?' 
"I don't know that I quote correctly, but that's the senti- 
ment; and I agree with you about the charm of boyhood 
fishing, for my youthful fishing from the docks holds a place 
in memory equal to the fighting of a big trout in rapid 
waters, in later years. But you forget that as time changes 
we change with it, and I could not sit on a dock to-day and 
fish, and the chances are that you would not enjoy the fish- 
ing of your boyhood." 
I realized that what Amos said was true, but his philosoph- 
ical view of it had somehow never occurred to me before, 
and it caused me to wonder if I had really changed so much 
that I would not enjoy the fishing in the old ways, in the old 
places, and with the old boys, which seemed at that time to 
be all there was in life beside the dull routine of the school- 
room. Ah, me! I lear it may be so, but I don't wish to be- 
lieve it. 
Perhaps I said something like that, for after awhile Amos 
remarked: "When I was about seven years old my people 
moved to Honesdale, Pa,, and one day I ran away with some 
older boys and went to Bunnell's Pond. They cut me a pole 
and rigged it with line and bait, and we fished from a boat 
which was fast to -he shore. I soon pulled up a sunfish 
which was actually bigger than Joseph H. Choate's hand, as 
I remember both, and I ran three miles in the hot sun to 
show the fish to my mother. 1 doubt if I ever had greater 
pleasure in fishing than on that day. In 1869 Gilbert Lowe, 
then a well known politician, taught me to use a rod and 
reel for weakfish and striped bass in Prince's Bay. and I be- 
came an enthusiastic fisherman, writing up my exploits each 
week for the Sun, and after taking salmon in the northwest 
branch of the Mirimichi and other fishes in the places I have 
told you of, the memory of that big ;unfish in Bunnell's 
Poud fingers as my grandest effort in the way of fishing." 
Somehow I always think of myself as a boy, and when 
a man is a candidate for President of the United States 
and his age is given at many years below mine I wonder if 
