Apkil 3, 1898.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
269 
the sublimity of anger when you tossed his hook into 
the river. At that time you weighed at least two tons, 
and your face was a bulletin board, for your thought." 
"Come now, what did I think?" 
"You did your thinking in your native tongue, and it 
flashed out of your e.yes as from a semaphore, from 
which I read, 'You great big hulking- scoundrel' — then 
a few untranslatable words — 'I've a good mind to throw 
you m the river after your con-dem-dem-nable fly.' The 
man speaks no English, but he understood you, as I 
did, and he moved ofi and left the British navy in pos- 
session of the river. It was grand and I enjoyed it. 
I always enjoy a man when he is righteously angry, and 
my anger wholly subsided when yours blazed up. Shall 
we go in with our fish?" 
We went, and turned in to the landlord, subject to 
uur order, twenty-one trout that weighed about T2lbs. 
Two stages had arrived, and as we looked over the reg- 
ister the Captain found that a London friend, a Mr. 
Colborn, had arrived, and as I mechanically ran down 
the list I read "Erastus Corning, Jr., New York." I 
knew that young Corning, of Albany, was studying, or 
prete?]ding to study, in Berlin, and had seen him there, 
but as St. Blasien was not Berlin I introduced myself. 
"Certainly," said Tip — his nickname — "I rcmembc 
meeting you on a Vermont stream when fishing with 
Bishop Doane, of Albany, and telling you that the 
Bishop would never make an angler because he could 
not bite a worm in two." An evening at whist, Colborn 
and Corning were winners, and then for the fishing. 
The morning opened with a drizzling rain, and after 
breakfast. Capt. Malcolm brought forth two rubber coats 
which would reach below the tops of our waders. Our 
friends were similarly equipped, and away we went. 
Our perftiits included guests, and after what had passed 
there was no inclination to sqeeze the contra'ct too hard. 
On the upper water that day the rain came down in fine 
and in great drops, in mists and in showers, but we 
fished. At noon we assembled under the bridge for 
luncheon and a smoke with the general swapping of 
fish yarns, which anglers invent and relate while the fish 
are resting, and perhaps are doing the same thing, and 
then we deployed and went up stream to fish down; we 
all agreed on this. 
There are fly-fishers, good men and true, who believe 
in casting the fiy up stream. Bless them! They are 
brothers of the angle, and if thej' find sport in having 
a fly drift down on them instead of drifting it down 
on a trout let them do it. It was a good trouting day, 
and we all made good creels. We had agreed to let 
Colborn and Corning start first, one on each side of the 
river, and Malcolm and I to follow half an hour later. 
In my experience the second, or even the third or fourth 
man has as good chances as the first, on a fairly stoclced 
stream. The first one does not get a rise from one-tenth 
of the trout that are rising, and within half an hour the 
trout have forgotten the disturbance he made and some 
are ready for the next angler. 
It is a curious fact that most fish bite well, if not 
better, when it rains; not onlj^ those fish which rise to 
the fly when the ruffled surface of the water hides the 
fall of the line, leader and fly, but bottom feeders, like 
catfish and others, do the same. The fact, for it is a 
fact, is well known to every schoolboy angler, but 
seems to have escaped the searching gaze of science. 
Perhaps more insects fall into the water then and more 
angle worms are drowned out of their burrows and 
get into the streams. If that is not the true solution 
I can't guess any more. 
One may not get wet in rain when clothed as we 
were, but there is a feeling of dampness and of chilliness 
after half a day of it, for a little rain is apt to get in at a 
man's neck and in at the sleeve of his casting arm, no 
matter how he ties his cuff or tries to protect it. Even 
when an arm hangs by the side water will creep up the 
cuf? of a waterproof. A good fire will dispel dampness, 
but that creepy, chilly feeling can best be banished by 
internal applications. As soon as we arrived at the 
Hotel et Pension we shed our waterproofs and banished 
dampness and chills. 
Capt. Malcolm was enthusiastic as the contents of 
the creels were displayed, and danced about in glee. 
"One of the happiest days of my life. I've had such 
days in other lands, but never expected to have one in 
Germany; here are nearly seventy fine trout taken in a 
legitimate manner in less than a day by a quartette of 
anglers — two from America and two from England. It's 
grand! Why any one of us can take more trout than 
that old poacher right on his own water and let him 
use all the abominable devices that he knows. You 
two gentlemen should have been here yesterday when 
my little American friend cut the hook froifi the line 
of the fisherman and kept it to show to me. The big fel- 
low never made an attempt to recover it; I think he saw 
a. danger signal and — " 
"Nothing of the sort, gentlemen," I broke in with, 
"the man did not know my language, nor I his, so talk 
would have been wasted; he waited for Capt. Malcolm 
to come around by the bridge and right his wrong 
because he could talk to him, but the Captain fell short 
of his expectations, for he threw his fly, worm and sinker 
out into the river, and talked as I've heard mule-drivers 
talk when the pontoon trains were stuck in the mud. 
not the same words of course, but with the same earnest- 
ness and emphasis. Not I, but the Captain drove the 
man from the river, and we have not seen him since." 
"That fine lot of trout," said the Captain, "would 
make the old fisherman groan with agon}^ He would 
mentally figure up the avoirdupois and groan again 
as he translated the weight into marks and pfennigs 
at market rates. I really think that if Mather and I 
were bigger men or the poacher had not been so big- 
some one would have got a good ducking in the river 
Alb yesterday. But dinner is ready, and I have bespoken 
a private table for four, where we may toast the health 
of all honest anglers and invoke confusion to all poach- 
ers. 
Capt. Malcolm' was at his best that evening, he went 
over the incidents of the day as if it was the night after 
a naval engagement and he was recounting the maneu- 
vers of hostile fleets. Said he: "Just as I lost a trout 
that had become entangled in some submerged willows 
and took part of my casting line with him, and was re- 
pairing damages, I heard Mather's reel sing and stopped 
to watch him. He had a fine trout that fought hard for 
every inch of line^ but was humored, carefully played and 
reeled in when possible, but although gently handled for 
some ten minutes, more or less, the fish broke away at 
the supreme moment when the landing net was partly 
underneath it^ — a case of light hooking, because I could 
see by the continued casting that the fly was not losL." 
"A similar thing happened to mc," said Mr. Corning, 
"I had a trout in the landing set and had lifted it out 
of the water, when it slipped through a couple of broken 
meshes and tore tlie hook out of its jaw and left with- 
out an adieu. Mr. Colborn lost a good one that fairly 
unhooked itself in the net and flopped out over the rirn. 
Colborn, after you ring for the kellner we will listen to 
your explanation of this bit of remissness on your 
part, and unless you can show extenuating circumstances 
it may be necessar)' for you to ring again." 
In the morning oxtr party of the forn^er day bl^&ke Itp, 
Corning and Colborn going ofl" into the unknown some- 
where, while 1 did not need mucli urging to go around 
by Aibbruck, Schaffhausen, Rhinefelden and Basel, with 
fishing here and there. If you are not wearied with this 
partial account of the trip some time, not tliis load ot 
poles, nor this summer, I may feel like inflicting the rest 
of the trip on you, when I think you can stand it. 
But I am impelled to say that Capt. Malcolm and I 
corresponded for some years about the few pounds of 
trout we took together and got lots of fun out of it, no 
matter if the postal revenues of both countries were in- 
creased away beyond the market value of all the fish 
we cauglit. We were not interested in postal revenues, 
not a little bit. what we cared for was fly-fishing for 
trout. A'^d we wrote about it. Then came long inter- 
vals between letters and finally silence. 
.\ letter from Mr. Schuster's son said: "In reply to 
your letter of July 27, 1894, to my father I will say: 
My father died Feb. 23, 1891, of heart disease, aged sixty- 
tight. Capt. George John Malcolm, of the British Navy, 
went to Spain for his health and died in Sevilla, Jan. 
17, 1884. 
And I had been Irving to get a letter to this most 
charming gentleman and angler for more than a year 
after he had left Germany. If he is conscious now I 
hope he may know what I have said of him and how 
I appreciate?! his bluff, honest character as well as 
liis hospitality to myself, a stranger in a strange land. 
He tried to make it appear that the obligation was en- 
tirely on his side and that my company offset all the ex- 
penses of a trip which was as enjoyable to me as to 
him; but I have a notion that the party of the second 
part was under such a Chimborazo of obligations that 
he could not crawl out if he would. 
Fishing Up and Down the Potomac. 
"Wide Water. 
Nearly fifty miles down the Potomac ,on the Vir- 
ginia side, just before reaching Atrquia Creek, the his- 
toric, is the little station of Wide Water. A post-office, 
with money-order facilities, an express office and a store 
all run, at first sight, for the convenience of the one 
citizen in evidence; but the community grows on the 
stranger; more houses, and prosperous, lie scattered 
about, a good deal of business centers here, and mail is 
put on and off for two or three mail routes into the 
back country. 
The present merchant, postmaster, etc., lives in the 
house on the hill, an old shooting lodge that belonged 
to Fitzhugh Lee, and our host and his good wife make 
it so pleasant for us we are tempted each visit to make 
it the last and stay; no doubt the same temptation beset 
those who were fortunate enough to enjoy the friend- 
ship and hospitality of its former owner. 
The eldest of three little ones, who assist in our wel- 
come, gravely informs us at once, by Avay of introducing 
himself, that he is a "crackajack," and subsequent devel- 
opments confirm us in the opinion that he deserves the 
title. The house by now seems sadly in need of reno- 
vation as you walk up the steep path to its wide porches, 
but when you stop oh the threshold and turn around 
you have no thought for anything save what lies before 
you — the finest view on the Potomac — and there are 
many attractive scenes on this beautiful river. 
It is a sea. Directly opposite on the Maryland side 
lies Liverpool Point, and the swampy inlet of Mallows 
Creek, but one distinguishes nothing but the dark out- 
line of the further shore, miles away. To the south lies 
Clifton Beach, but it is the miles of water between that 
has given this place its appropriate name. 
Here one of the longest seines on the Potomac is op- 
erated, but the picturesque hauling must wait for another 
time. 
At the foot of the hill, within a stone's throw of the 
house, Meadow Branch makes into the river, and just 
before reaching it surrounds a tiny island on which are 
the ruins of an ornamental simimer house and bridge, 
where it is said refreshments were once dispensed to the 
thirsty. The county is dry now, and one must go some 
miles to find anything better to drink than is furnished 
by the numerous fine springs in the neighborhood. 
Meadow Branch is not a large stream, though mak- 
ing some pretensions in a freshet, but it has brought 
down sand enough in its long life to shallow the bay at 
its mouth and build shelving beds of sand far out in 
the river, where we stood one summer midnight at low 
tide and watched the hauling of a seine. 
A few yellow perch and sunfish venture over the 
shoals at its mouth to spend their summers in the pools 
of its lower course, but not many. 
Up and down the beach is fair white perch fishing 
when the water is clear and the tide is right and the 
sun low; but the .strip of grass and moss extends so 
far out as to be discouraging. In places where use of 
boats has cleaned a channel through the saragossa, good 
white perch fishing may be had with bait at nearly any 
hour. But we came after bass. A mile up the branch, 
which has a lazy course through marshy meadows, 
though with high hills on either bank, stands a flour 
mill. Our host has a couple of Texas ponies at the 
store door, hitched to a fix, and we get in with some 
misgivings. They are hitched loosely, or seem loose, 
they are so small, but of that breed that covers fifty or 
sixty miles in a day, and then clirab a tree for diversion 
if a scrap of paper blows across their path- But w« 
are reassured by their businesslike way of starting off, 
though for the first hundred yards one thinks he's do- 
ing the role of running mate — and we forget the team 
for the next ten minutes while we enjoy the sandy drivn 
between green fields and through shady lants. 
Only one incident occurs to mar the pleasure of the 
ride — and the day's sport. A four-leaved clover stands 
out in, a bunch by itself close to the road in such plain 
\ lew that one might have seen it from a balloon. When 
my companion's attention is called to it he goes into 
mild hysterics. He is one of the least superstitious of 
men, and one of the most sanguine of anglers, and they 
are a hopeful race — but he has several fixed ideas, and 
the firmest of these is that a four-leaved clover is notfj- 
ing more nor_ less than a "hoodoo" that will spoil the 
best day's fishing ever invented. 
That any one should attach any importance to seeing 
the moon over cither shoulder, or spilling salt, or the 
thousand incidents that are here and there supposed to 
affect our future, or presage joy or grief, seems to him 
but arrant nonsense, but a four-leaved clover — that's dif- 
ferent. 
The miller stands in his door with smiling welcome, 
and cheerfully gives us the freedom ot the run. We stop 
to see the old-fashioned overshot wheel driven with 
water from a short race from the dam a hundred yards 
away, and then drive on to the bank of the lake. 
The dam is built at the point of a V across a ravine, 
where two streams come together to make Meadow 
Branch, and the back water makes two arms away from 
the center of the lake far up their courses. The apron 
of the dam is isft. or more below the running boards, 
and the deepest water behind it is said to be 20ft. 
The lake was stocked some years ago with black bass, 
part of a consignment intended for some other planting, 
and these have thrived and multiplied until the lake has 
jilenty, and _ furnishes first-rate fishing when the wat«r 
is clear, which was seldom last year — a record year for 
mud throughout all this country. 
Bass of 5lbs. have been taken here, though just above 
3;4 were the largest ones we have l.Tnded. With 50Z. 
rods it is beautiful sport, and we have had wiearly as 
mucii fun losing some we were sure were much larger. 
As Henry Van Dyke, whose sketches are the pearls 
of angling literature, puts it: "The spectacles of regret 
always magnify;" and again: "Our best blessings, like 
our largest fish, always depart before we have time to 
measure them." 
There is an older one: "Blessings brighten as they 
take their flight." And it is the common experience of 
anglers, told in all languages, that the fish which gets 
away is larger than any brought to net. 
The hills about the lake are well wooded, and there 
are a good many squirrels, but they are the little gray 
squirrel, and nearly as shy and hard to get as the big 
bass. We gave them a trial one day when the water 
had .gone muddy over night, and the fly was hopeless; 
We hunted faithfully, and heard and saw squirrel« 
enough, but the trees are large and the woods were 
strange and the hills steep, and there may have been 
other reasons, such as lack of skill, which never sug- 
gested itself to us; but at any rate we did not seriously 
thin their ranks, and as we left the edge of the woods, 
and the shadows were lengthening, we could hear the 
.saucy chatter of a gray jingo who had persistently stayed 
in his hole while the enemy was in sight. We were not 
sure of his language, but the tone of triumph and defi- 
ance seemed to its to convey the idea he was inciting 
his comrades to make a sortie and exterminate us. 
The only boat on the lake is a scow, nearly as wide 
a.? it is long, and the only paddle a board nailed to a- 
sycamore pole. Paddling on one side, as one must, and 
sitting in the right-hand corner of the stern, the prow 
of the boat was the angle diagonally opposite, and this 
crossways course of the heavy box was slow and pain- 
ful to the motorman. 
We never found the depths clear, but our last surface- 
clear day we had paddled each other an hour apiece, and 
come in for lunch; and there is no pleasanter time in 
such a trip than the nooning. Drip coffee, without 
which our day would be incomplete, and a pitcher of cold 
milk which the miller's kind wife had sent down to m 
had washed down the rather elaborate lunch we are fond' 
of taking when it is convenient. A stretch on the grass 
under a great oak, watching the clouds even as Irving- 
did after his failure, but with less than his disappoint- 
ment, we were enjoying the sweet luxui-y of the first 
whiffs when the miller's younger brother offered to take 
one of us up the lake to the extreme end, among some 
, grassy channels wc had not the patience or muscle to 
explore. 
The offer was too tempting, considering the labor in- 
volved, to refuse; and one of us immediately stepped 
into the ark with the lad. and were pushed off with a 
bon voyage for our hour's cruise. 
Patiently, from necessity, the shore was whipped, all 
the way up, among the logs and brush which lined it, 
and only a few flies were lost, and only then because 
time and la'bor were of essence, and it was cheaper to 
yank the fly off than to paddle the barge 50ft. back. 
Nothing for all this labor but the satisfaction of seeing 
when too late a great break from two or three good 
fish lying in unsuspected because impossible places; and 
we came at last to the channels in the tall grass on a 
smaller scale, but otherwise much resembling those in 
a tidewater marsh, and we were astonished to find the 
place seemed alive with bass. The water was fairly 
clear, with a bottom of marshy mud, and every fish 
that moved left a spreading cloud of creamy mud in his 
wake in his wild rush for deep water, and these boils 
were all about us; further on, nearer the grass patches, 
they were on the feed, but our craft was so unwieldy 
it was difficult to approach with the necessary quiet. 
Fortimately it was comparatively steadj', and admitted 
the effort of long casts; we worked Ifard at both ends 
of the boat — the paddle for quiet and the rod for reach — 
and found pretty sport. In two of the channels wa 
picked up a dozen good fish, one of 3J^, one of 3 and 
one of 2]^lbs. we kept, and the rest we tenderly re- 
placed; and some of them would have been prizes on 
other days we have known. 
The other two channels were not disturbed, for at 
(he other end of the lake we knew there was an anxious 
angler who was entitled to his share of . undieturbesJ 
