310 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[April 22, 1899, 
The Hook and L 
Every fisherman has heard his well -meaning but non- 
fishing friends exclaim: "Oh, I haven't the patience 
to fish!" as though that was all that went to make up a 
fisherman. Usually you smile or murmur vaguely that 
everything comes to him who waits, but now and then 
someone will come over the well-worn phrase on whom 
you can pour out your phials of wrath in telling him that 
he also lacks skill, energy, brains, and the gift. Patience, 
with them means a rod, a body of water, and hours of 
time, and frequent repetitions of the dose. Patience, in- 
deed! Why, some of the most successful fishers I have 
ever been with have made the air quite blue around them 
with the fervency of their remarks when flies were 
missed, leaders breaking, rods a-smashing! I have seen 
a fouled reel cause an ardent fisherman to show what 
patience was in his make-up. 
I am afraid we are misunderstood and the noble art 
of angling not appreciated. One time an elderly min- 
ister of .great scholarly attainments was preaching the 
baccalaureate sermon at the commencement of a young 
ladies', seminary. His subject led him to speak of the 
art, and he called it "the peaceful and unexciting pur- 
suit of angling." What think you of that? You who 
have had the black bass jumping, "crazy for the fly." 
The. fisherman knows hopes, fears, longings and tri- 
urap.hs that come not to ordinary mortals, and they are 
as dear and as slow to be relinquished as the dreams of 
an opium eater. But how different in the effect on body 
and mind— the difference of life and death. Fishing 
never kept a man down. Look for proof at the number 
of noted men Avho have been fond of fishing, and when 
a great man fishes at all he fishes to perfection. 
Boys are fishermen ex officio, but they do not take to 
it ^seriously. When they grow up it is only a small per 
cent, that go to fishing in earnest. Of all my boy friends 
I believe that I am the only one who ca'-es to fish, and 
I . often think .af the very first fish I ever caught and 
wonder- if there was any foreshadowing of my fate in the 
circumstance. - 
^^here were five boys whose ages ranged from five to 
seven,, aiid we very carefully set our fishing poles at the 
root of a big Cottonwood tree and went away to play. 
When we returned we found that a big sucker had been 
caught and that he had roamed around among the dif- 
ferent lines until they were wound into one. We landed 
.^he big fish, as long as any of our arms, nor stood upon 
the order of landing. A man came by and a season of 
•breathless suspense ensued while he was tracing the 
su,^ker. When the lines were untangled the sucker was 
f6;ijjjdirto be -on my line, and I ran home with it in my 
arms. I am the only one of that hopeful group who 
casts a line in the water to-day. 
Maybe circumstance has most to do with making a 
■tfian a fisher, even as the taste of mutton makes a sheep - 
killing dog out of a nonentity." But not all. There may 
have .been, inany a man who from want of chance has 
lived and died without knowing his capabilities as ;i 
fisher, or what life held for him. "Some mute, inglo- 
rious Milton" whose lot forbade. 
I think all fisherm^en are proud of their proficiency in 
the craft, and look down somewhat on those who do 
fish as well as they. They may not brag about it, 
after the manner of me, but in their inmost souls they re- 
spect not the frantic efforts of a superior in most things 
in his endeavor to whip out a Hne length of his rod. I 
have been with gray-haired men who had made a suc- 
cess of life and to whom I must have deferred in all 
things else, for whom I had a kind of a contempt, of 
which I was ashamed, when fishing with them, for the 
unskillful way in which they handled themselves in their 
futile endeavors to extract fish from the water. It prob- 
ably never occurred to such a man that there was any 
special reason he should be expected to fish well. 
I once fished with a gentleman who had never realized 
that there was any particular sleight in the art of angling. 
We were just established in a camp in the woods at the 
forks of an ideal trout stream. The north fork came 
down with that clear amber color which water gets by 
flowing through spruce woods, and the south fork slight- 
ly discolored by the mud it drained from a bog. This 
mud is deposited in twelve or fifteen miles, and the whole 
stream becomes again as clear as crystal. There was a 
gentleman in the party, a wholesale merchant, who was 
paired with me for the south fork. His rod and ac- 
coutrements looked suspiciously new, but it was net 
until he respectfully asked me to put a worm on the hook 
that I knew he was new to the business. We started up 
the south fork, a stream about 20ft. broad, and I let hirn 
go ahead — the most pronounced act of self-denial that the 
trout-fisher- knows. He did not care to lead the way, 
and telling him the proper distance to keep behind me 
I had the glory, of casting in the stream the first line 
that had been cast maybe in months. 
About the time we separated C. stepped on a smooth 
stone and fell down on his back in the ice-cold water. 
He tried to make a few remarks on the mishap and t^he 
contractions of his throat were awful. I advised him to 
set his teeth together and not try to explain how it hap- 
pened for fifteen minutes or so,, and his remarks would 
be more connected. This is the only way to hide all 
.signs of the effect a sudden ducking has on a man. 
, Having saved my manners and secured the place 
aheady we gradually worked our way up the stream, cast- 
m^- a fly in the likely places and taking a trout too fre- 
qu.ently, for my number would soon be reached, there 
being several other fishermen out. 
At a bend in the stream where some big bouldens 
marked a- geological change, in the, face of the country, 
when standing on a large rock, I had a rise from a big 
trout and I triM "for some minutes to get him to change 
his -mind about rejecting the fly, but to no purpose. C. 
overtook ine,.; and clatTibered over the boulders near me. 
Just then hi.s feet slipped and he saf down very violently 
on a big stone and a crash followed. Now mo.st of reg- 
ulated families and camps have a small supply of some 
stimulant on hand in case of accident, but it is an un- 
written law in our camp that no one is to carry a bottle 
with hijn after the manner of that small supply in a 
pocket flask vulgarly called a "tickler," and also that it is 
to be used in moderation. Anyone so far forgetting him- 
self as to attempt to celebrate the first founding of the 
forest, or for other seemingly good reasons, has the 
pleasure as well as the privilege of contributing the sum 
of $5 and Upwards, which is applied, to the reduction of 
the sum total of the expense fund. 
C. being on his first trip was excusable for not know- 
ing of this rule. His tickler was an elaborate leather- 
bound flask, the property of the captain of the gang, to 
whom it had been presented by someone he thought a lot 
of. He prized it very highly. Therefore, when C. put it 
in his hip pocket and sat down very hard it gave way, 
and great was the catastrophe. The flask was ruined, to 
say nothing of spr. fru. 
Continuing up the stream,, saving the adults and casting 
back the infants into the water to grow bigger, we Avorked 
our way up the stream. The overhanging boughs made 
casting difficult, and C.'s remarks when his line became 
entangled in a tree for the twentieth time were very edify- 
ing. 
_ About a mile or so up I found that I had upwards of 
thirty-five trout in the basket, all that it was given me to 
catch. The uninitiated might argue that troiit being 
plenty, they could be caught and put back, as they were 
so plentiful. I am not that kind of a fisherman. There 
has to be a chance of acquiring to make pleasure for me 
in the complex sport of fishing. I dreamed of the de- 
lights of catching a tarpon until someone told me the 
fish was no better than carrion when caught. Since then 
I have not hankered after such sport. 
C. and I sat down on a flat rock in the middle of the 
stream and he looked at the fish. He had not been able 
to secure one, little or big. We sat there talking and 
becoming acquainted. He gave me the first idea of his 
powers as raconteur, for as such he is unsurpassed. It 
was his graphic description later of my enthusiastic re- 
marks in landing a big fish that leads me to retaliate in 
a slight degree. There we sat, I with my rod in my 
hand, with the line and leader gathered in an orderly 
manner. C. sat with the water washing around his fee:, 
with his back down stream. His rod was on his shoul- 
der and the line trailing down stream. The bait was a 
fat fivshing worm, which the strength of the current kept 
on top of the water. C. was telling a rollicking Irish 
story when a good-sized trout took the bait and gave the 
rod a wrench. C. jumped up and very coolly led it m 
and remarked: "That was easy!" 
Since then, when, after toiling with the rod and line 
for hours, and there seems to be nothing in the waters 
under the earth, a fish takes the lure in the twinkling 
of an eye and is taken in turn, I Jose sight of all the labor 
of the hours which brought me nothing and think how 
easy it is to catch fish. . Andrew Price. 
Marlinton, W. Va. ' •■■1- 
New England Angling. 
Boston, April 15. — Mr. H. F. Hathaway is a Someryille 
trout fisherman of considerable reputation; that is, a rep- 
utation of always getting some. Saturday, April I, he 
was early on a brook in Concord that he has the acquaint- 
ance of, and brought back to Boston seven fine trout. 
ThenextSaturdayeveninghisfriendJackson,also a fisher- 
man, methim at whist and inquired if he had secured any 
trout that day. He explained that he had taken several; one 
of loin. in length and two of I2in. Fishing' down on the 
Cape has generally been disappointing, the sportsmen re- 
turning without any or with three or four. But Mr. 
Luther Little, an enthusiast concerning Cape fishing, 
with Dr. ■ (he stipulates that his name must not 
be mentioned, since it injures his practice for his pa- 
tients to know that he goes a fishing), and Dr. Richardson 
have fished one or two Saturdays at a pond they own in 
Centreville. The first Saturday brought them 36 good 
trout. The next Saturday Mr. Little got seven trout, 
one weighing ij^lbs. Grover Cleveland and A. C. Bene- 
dict, of New York, have come around for the spring fish- 
ing on the yacht Oneida. At Buzzard's Bay they were 
joined by A. H. Wood, of Boston, At first they fished 
Nine Mile Pond, near Centreville, which they own, and 
later went down to the Cape to some waters near Sand- 
wich. The amount of their catches is not generally 
known, though reported to have been good. 
Mr. L. Dana Chapman, secretary and treasurer of the 
Megantic Club, made his annual report to the directors 
last Tuesday. The condition of the club financially is ex- 
cellent. Payment and discharge of the mortgage on the 
club's property has been made. Payment of all notes pay- 
able and outstanding bills, with accrued interest to date, 
has been made. Bonds which would regularly have been 
paid in August next have been taken up. Every dollar of 
outstanding indebtedness incurred for supplies purchased 
for the coming summer, has been paid, and a comfortable 
balance stands to the credit of the club. Six gentlemen 
have just been proposed for membership. The directors 
have voted to purchase several new boats and canoes. At 
the opening of the season the members will find every- 
thing in first-class shape. The season is unusually late, 
the woods still being full of snow and the lakes ice-bound. 
The report in the papers about the slaughter of deer on 
the club's reserve is entirely unfounded. That such 
slaughter has been carried on is doubtless true, but it has 
been done many miles north of or east of the Megantic. 
Mr. Chapman is well satisfied that the deer have been let 
alone on the lands of the club, since the close season 
begun. 
April 17.— There is little that is new about the ice that 
still locks most of the New England fishing waters. The 
Penobscot has just opened up to Bangor; two or three 
weeks late. No salmon are yet reported to have been 
taken by anglers at the Pool, though they are tried for 
every day. The Kennebec opened up to Waterville late 
last week; fully three weeks behind last year. Sebago 
Lake is not yet open, and is now 11 days behind last 
year. The fishermen here, of the Sebago Club, are en- 
tirely discouraged about visiting their camp on the 19th; 
reports Saturday .stating that the ice is still .solid. Mr. 
H. Staples Potter has just returned from a fishing and 
outing trip of several weeks in Florida waters. He made 
his headquarters at Punta Gorda, sailing in a yacht into 
different fishing waters. He reports that the tarpon havf 
been very late about coming in this year : though he sue 
cfeeded in getting two ; one weighing iSolbs. These gave 
him all the .sport he could desire. Other fishing was fine, 
in many varieties. Mr. Dean, well known for his tarpon 
record, was there, but also found the tarpon late. Soma 
of the fishermen here are planning for brooks in New 
Hampshire on the 19th, which is Patriots' Day in this 
state, a legal holiday. Saturday tackle was being looked 
over and put in order. Several sportsmen, with rods and 
reels in hand, left for the Cape on the morning trains. 
L. T. Smith mentions taking 20 good trout in private 
waters on the Cape one day last week. These owners 
of private waters do not like to mention their successes; 
it gives away too much to the local poachers. Lake 
Webb. Weld, Me,, Fish and Game Association, held its 
annual meeting Saturday evening, April 8, and elected 
the following board of directors: E. W. Pratt, R. E. 
Scamman. J. A. Witham, A. M, Child, H. A. Coburn, H. 
M. Barrett, C. G. Dummer, F. S. Schofield and R. G. 
Dummer. The directors were to have a business meet- • 
ing Saturday evening, April 15. Special. 
In the Pound-Net. 
BY FRED MATHER. 
The trout season on Long Island has been dull so far, 
It opened on March 29, and will open in the rest of the 
State of New York on the i6th. The weather has been 
raw, rain fog and east wind, conditions favorable for 
bringing on rheumatism, but not calculated to awake the 
appetite of a trout. A few trout were taken on Long 
Island by those who will fish on the opening day if they 
do not wet a line again all summer. They remind one of 
the "firstnighters" at a New York theatre. There are 
probably two thousand persons in New York City who 
never visit a theatre except on the first night of the pre- 
sentation of a new play, and they are disconsolate when 
two new plays are presented on the same night. Their 
faces are familiar at the box offices, and they know each 
other by sight; they have one trait in common and that 
is all. There are such anglers, in New York City, at 
least, and it is their boast that they have not missed an 
opening day in a certain number of years, and they can 
tell you how the weather was on the opening day ;i 
dozen years ago, who fished and what the catch was. 
This is simply a fad, like the first-night theatre fad, 
the collection of postage stamps or knot-holes. It is not 
a legitimate subject for ridicule, because some of us do 
not care for that sort of thing. Some twenty years ago 
more or less, the law for long Island trout opened on 
March i, and I have known men to go there and fish 
in the teeth of a howling gale, when their lines were 
coated with ice, and they were clad in ulsters. If a man 
considers this to be sport, who shall say him nay? Men 
have pursued the musk-ox and the barren ground cari- 
bou into the. Arctic circle, where they could barely find 
food for their dogs, on which their lives depended, and 
suffered hunger to the point of starvation, and called it 
sport. Some of them wrote books of their adventures, 
but a book would not coiripensate for the suffering;; there 
was the dare-devil spirit of the Vikings behind it all, 
and perhaps this spirit, in a lesser degree, animates the 
trout fisher who disdains all discomforts. 
Men not only look at things differently, but the same 
man will view them in different lights as he gets .older, 
and therefore we should let every fellow, seek his pleas- 
ure in his own way, within legal bounds. Forty years 
ago the question of physical discomfort, to me, was not 
a factor in any proposed sport; to-day it is the prime 
one. Then, to tote solbs. of venison and a lolb. rifle for 
ten miles, with clothing wet through and frozen On the 
outside, was a mere incident that enhanced the sport; to- 
day the game would not be worth the ice, and both veni- 
son and rifle would be thrown away and never be re- 
gretted. Fifty years ago I stripped and swam through 
floating ice about looyds for a mallard, and was in the 
icy water nearly half an hour; but I got _ my duck and 
thought nothing of it then. To-day that bird would rep- 
resent half a dollar; then it was invaluable, and I would 
risk life for it, although the risk was not thought of. 
To-day such an exposure, if I would make it, would end 
up with muffled drums and "three rounds blank." 
As the melancholy Jacques says: 
"And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe. 
And then from hour to hour we rot and rot; 
And thereby hangs a tale." 
Baying Fish to Take Home. 
We are built on different lines. This is not stated as 
a new or a startling proposition, because men have be- 
come familiar with this fact in centuries long agone. 
They have also observed that the same rule which gov- 
erns men may also be applied to wives. As one who has 
had much experience in angling, as well as in other de- 
partments of life, let me say to young anglers, tell all 
the fishing yarns you can invent at the club or to the 
sitters around the country grocery, but be dead square 
with your wife. If you have that false idea that it is 
disgraceful to come home without a fish after a day's 
angling, banish it and tell the truth. Many of us have- 
fished with success varying from a grand catch to little 
or nothing. There is nothing to be ashamed of in com- 
ing home empty-handed; many hunters of big, and small 
game do it. ' 
We have all done it since the days of St. Peter, who 
said: "We have toiled all night and caught nothing." 
This had just been written when in came my neigh - 
bor, Mr. P. C. Macevoy, with a story of a man who 
had' been fishing and caught nothing, but was disposed to 
deceive his wife by buying some fish on his way home. 
It was not an unusual case, but his story moved me to 
put it in rhyme, and here it is; it seems best to call it 
An Angler's Pipes. 
The angler hastened toward the brook, 
As the brown thrush piped its lay. 
He sorted his flies of gaudy dies, 
Awd guessed what his preel would weigh. 
TTi.s flies fell light on the waters bright. 
While a robin piped a tune; 
But none of his flies could coax a rise. 
And the sun was marking noon. 
So he dropt his reel in the etnpty creel, 
And sadly piped his eye; J 
