June i6, 1900,1 
FOREST 7 AND ^ STREAM. 
469 
One day in the cooling water time, as we lay sleeping 
under a half-sunken log, a crippled miller floated gently 
down near my mate's head. Before I could caution her 
she rushed to seize it like a flash. I darted after, hoping 
to throw her off the bait, but came too late, for she was 
caught upon the hook. I tried to lead her toward the logs 
and roots, but the cruel line prevented Avith its tightening 
at each move. I guided where the pool was deepest, then 
on the bottom had her drag to free the hook. How long 
we lay thus I could not tell; I was all fear, my stout 
heart grew sick. I dared not let her know the peril, but 
made light of it to give her heart. Soon the line reeled in 
so that against her will she was drawn toward the 
bank, where stood a little Scot, of unexcited mien, han- 
dling rod and reel with the calmness of a certainty. I 
urged her then to spare no ounce of strength, to dart, to 
swerve, to pull, to jump, to break the surface waters, to 
shake her head, for this was the final struggle to decide 
her life or death. At last her rushes grew less strong, she 
tired, gasped, then feebty floundering turned upon her 
side, then slowly floated to the surface with gently moving 
gills. _ The man made ready then a long landing net. She 
saw it, revived her failing strength to dart off once 
more, to join me below with eyes so sad, so hopeless, that 
their look haunted me to death, yet I was helpless ; could 
only touch against her sides to let her know my love, my 
grief, my powerlessness. 
She must have then given up, for after one faint run 
she turned upon her side again, was drawn toward the 
shore until the deftly wielded net had encircled her. The 
little Scot shouted in triumphant tones to men up stream, 
"I've got grandma — five pounds and one-eighth." Others 
approached. They handled her so gently, so lovingly, with 
so much care, gazing in wonder at her blood red sides, her 
pink dyed spots, I marveled at their cruelty in following 
her to death. 
■My heart being sad to breaking, I then forever left 
that pool, so full of those shadows which shut out the 
sun.shine of life. Time gave me no companion, no further 
happiness, yet I lived on a dormant, tedious life. 
IV. 
The river had been again hidden from the sky by its 
coat of ice, the freshets come and gone, the younger trout 
sported in play about my stand, yet nothing gave me joy. 
One day as I was lying underneath an overhanging 
bank, listless, perhaps half asleep, two men made a most 
stealthy approach. Having spied the water's lay, they 
cautiously retired. Both were men of middle life and 
strongly built. One was dark, his hair somewhat long 
and streaked with gray. Upon his face a long, dark mus- 
tache failed to conceal his mouth. He was broad of 
beam, his massive legs and hips showing more of strength 
than ideal form. His companion was like him in girth, 
but of better form. His gray hair was short, his face was 
smooth. They were well equipped to deceive trouts, for 
soon I saw them first select with care, then attach, their 
varied flies before they cast. Standing well back up 
stream, almost concealed from sight, they raised their 
rods above their heads in long and swinging semi-curves. 
Their lines at each cast would longer grow in endless 
flights before they fell above our heads in graceful curves, 
dropping the long leaders with their flies gently as falling 
leaves upon the pool to flutter like the helpless insects 
they appeared. The foolish trout then rushed to strike 
until full ten had found their creels. The others, learning 
of the snare, refused to strike, although they cast a 
hundred times. When no more struck, these men came 
boldly forth to where an ice-cold spring came in. It was 
near my lair. I could hear and see them well. The darker 
man said, "Let's light up and take a drink," producing 
therewith a wondrous flask. Both sat themselves upon the 
bank, when each in turn took a long and loving drink, 
then lying flat, buried nose and lips deep in the cool 
spring. Rising, they wiped their moist faces with hands 
or sleeves, then drew out their pipes to taint the air with 
fragrant smoke. 
Contented they sat, talked a while of luck, disputed as to 
the merits of their fl.ies — the grizzly-king, professor, ibis, 
brown-hackle, Parmachenee-belle — which made the longest 
cast, expressed regret neither could catch me with all his 
skill, said luck was hard that Scottish Will could beat 
them at this game, that he it was who caught my mate. 
Again dipping their faces deep in the stream they left'for 
waters down below, teasing each other with good 
natured chaff. Aware I was the trout now hunted by 
all men and boys alike, I grew more cautious still, fed 
only by night that in the day I might lay hidden in the 
darkest holes. Daily these two, Scottish Will, with many 
other men, whipped our stream, the one more anxious 
than the rest to make me his prize. 
I still lived on to see scores of my kind drawn to 
shore, struggling in vain to free themselves, while churn- 
ing the pools into a white foam in mad breaks from death. 
One night I failed to feed. When day broke I swam 
into an Open, deep, broad pool, whence one might see 
above, below, around, thinking perhaps a floating worm, or 
fly, might safely come my way. I lay upon the watch 
beneath a half-buried root, motionless, except my slowly 
moving fins and gills. The sun's rays had just broken 
through the leafy banks, latticing the water's surface 
with a thousand bars ; the crisp forest air was filled with 
songs of many birds, giving the token that danger was not 
near. At length a great moth miller darted from the bushy 
bank to cross the stream, but midway lost its head. 
Struggling to regain its flight, it fell helpless on the pool. 
I darted forth to seize the prize, hut somehow it gathered 
strength to fly away, raising itself into the air almost my 
length. In my pursuit, cutting the water after it, I seized 
the miller in midair, then curved myself for the return. 
Striking the water I was jerked upon my side, a sharp 
barbed hook being driven deep into the lower mouth 
■with a torturing pain. 
More angry at my carelessness than at being caught. I set 
mj'self to test the angler's skill against my royal strength. 
At first I ran to shelter in the deepest place, trying to 
free the hook by rubbing on the sand, shaking my head, 
dragging on the line. These tactics were futile, for the 
barb was driven home too deep. When tension came 
pulling toward the shore, I made a vicious run clear across 
the pool, making his reel sine so loudly it could be dis- 
tinctly heard. This rush forced the angler from his hiding 
place to the open bank the better to give me fight. He 
was an oldish man of somewhat slender form,_ with skin 
burned almost black with wind and sun, his hair .matched 
with a black beard cut medium clos^ in which but few 
white hairs were seen; an old felt hat a tramp might 
shun shaded his piercing eyes. Beside him stood a guide 
prepared to give him aid. As I rushed out he gave me 
line, but without slack. His eyes were ablaze with the 
fire of strife, his scalp a-tingling, his form alert to move 
to meet my every play. He quickly stopped my race to- 
ward a, snag filled hole, forcing my head about, although 
he bent his slender rod until its quivering tip was driven 
to touch his hand. He then tried to force me up stream to 
unencumbered water. Seeing this I rushed toward him to 
gain slack line, which done, I started on an upward 
curve which carried me into the air my full length, where, 
shaking defiance at my enemy, I ran toward a distant 
sunken log, reached it in a flash, slid half-way beneath 
its shelter, when again that ever active, iron wrist regained 
control upon the line to hold me fast, leaving me to lay 
awhile and sulk. Soon both tired of this quiet play, when 
he tried to drag me by a gentle, steady pull toward His 
stand. My weight was, however, too great for such a strain 
upon his slender rod. Again we both rested. I being first 
to moA^e, made for him with a speed never reached by 
living trout; his line doubled half back to his feet before 
I broke the waters to let him see my strength was yet in- 
tact. Time and again I dragged his subtle rod to right 
or left in rapid SAverves, testing its tenacious strength to 
the last point, until he in fear for it Avas forced to seek a 
better vantage ground from which to carry on the fight, 
and where his keen eyes could follow each move of mine 
sharply as the kingfisher when diving for bis prey. How 
long Ave contested for the mastery I could not tell. I 
know my struggle covered the entire pool, until it was 
Avhite with foam, "and perspiration rolled from his dark 
face in mighty drops. When my great strength was 
someAvhat gone, he drew me in with a care Avhich gave 
no slack of line, tOAvard his stand Avhere he Avas now in 
the stream knee deep. Although exhausted, weary, yet I 
was determined to escape. When he drew me in close 
enough for his guide to rush out waist deep to net me 
up, using all my remaining strength, I wriggled hard, then 
shot away against a killing pull of the hne, until I col- 
lapsed from sheer loss of pOAver, became helpless as a 
floating tAvig, turned on my back, again to be reeled in until 
the guide reached out to dip me up. As he approached I 
spent my last ounce of strength in feeble dying spurts, 
then giving up resignedly, I saAv the fatal net dip quick 
beneath my panting sides, a sudden lift, the cool air 
touched my flesh, cutting the dripping globes of Avater 
from my form to sink deep in the sands. 
Just then the sun broke past a floating cloud, accentuat- 
ing my brilliant hues and spots a thousandfold. My vic- 
tor, Avith a firm, yet gentle, hand removed me from the 
net, then disengaged the fly so tenderly one Avould have 
thought he Avished to spare me pain. Deftly he slipped a 
pocket scales beloAV m}- gills before he held me up with 
triumphant sparkling eyes. He spoke in tones of pride, 
"Well, Billy, we've caught the big one noAv. See ! Full 
five and a half." 
My senses failed, but as they passed aAvay I seemed to 
float into a stream full of eternal sunshine, beauty, peace 
and rest. 
There was my loving mate, more beautiful than when 
she first came to me. She lay in peaceful shade until she 
saAv my coming, when, drifting without apparent motion to 
my side, she welcomed me to an endless love, an eternal 
peace, into a pool Avherein may live only those trouts Avhose 
lives have been beyond reproach. 
Fishing with the Doctor. 
Just about a mile beloAv where the river leaves the 
long, still pools that curve around the shores of Station 
Island, and quite in the midst of the broken rapids, is the 
peaceful little village of Waterville. It nestles comfortably 
in a corner of the long valley that reaches down beside the 
Miami of Lake Erie, till it finally ends in the lake itself. 
All the country round is full of traditions and historical 
associations, and Waterville is CAddently so well satisfied 
with its past record that it ncA-er cares to do anything 
further in the Avay of making itself famous. It Avas 
a part of the pioneer life of the State, and as a frag- 
ment of the "first society."' it is placidly indifferent to 
the Avorry and scramble of the newer and nervously am- 
bitious communities which have sprung up loAver down the 
river, and which, in the vicissitudes of business, have 
swept ruthlessly by it in the mad rush for precedence, 
leaving it idly dreaming on the banks. 
Watertown and its surrounding territory made one of 
the halting places of the pioneers of the valley, in their 
lingering march to the hereafter, and perhaps for this 
reason it is so loath to mingle in the latter day rush of 
men and things. Those earlier pioneers — the deer and the 
wild turkey and the black bass — Avere once familiar forms 
in its borders, but two of them have long since disap- 
peared, and the third is gradually growing more and 
more rare as the years pass. 
It is at Waterville that the Doctor lives, himself _ a 
descendant of pioneer stock and fully versed in their his- 
tory and traditions. For more than fifty years he has 
dAvelt in the vallej^, and has come to know all its secrets. 
The Avays of the Avild creatures of the wood and the Avater 
are a part of these secrets, and Avith these no man is 
more conversant than he. Even the fish in the river — 
oh, 5'es, the fish in the river have had abundant cause to 
realize the extent of his knoAvledge, and many a wary 
bass, if he Avere still alive to tell it, could narrate a moving 
story of the Doctor's Aviles. For he knoAVs all the pools 
and sunken ledges, and reads the signs of the water 
as one reads the pages of the printed book. So. when the 
Doctor goes fishing it is with none of those alluring but 
numerous uncertainties Avhich, for the ordinary fisherman, 
turn all the blossoms of hope into the blighted fruit of 
failure. With the Doctor, to go fishing and to bring back 
fish are as directly and inevitably related as cause and 
effect. It runs witiiout saying, therefore, that under such 
circumstances the Doctor's rod Avaves frequent invitations 
to his finny friends, and that he often drops a seductive 
fly, or a still more enticing spinner, under their very 
noses. For the Doctor is a firm believer in the efficacy 
of these lures, and Avhile he takes kindly to the minnow 
in its season, he does not, like so many of his less worthy 
and more inconsistent confreres, preach one thing and 
practice something entirely different. 
But there is something that the Doctor enjoys far more 
than fishing, and that is to see some other man engaged 
ill the art piscatorial on his favorite AA'ater The Doctor's 
house is situated upon the riyer bank^ and so it fares that 
every man Avho comes to cast a line in the stream must 
needs encounter it on his Avay thither. Pass it he does 
not, for the Doctor is fain to reach out a Avelcoming 
hand, and to bring forth for the edification of his A-isitor 
one of his rare old tales of the early days Avhen the riA^er' 
teemed Avith fish, and the electric road and the bicycle had 
not yet begun to Avork its devastation. ■ " f 
Did you ever go fishing Avith the Doctor? If not, then' 
you have never realized all the possibilities Avhich a day 
upon the ri\'er has in store for you. To catch fish 
vicariously is the Doctor's highest pleasure, and the suc- 
cess Avhich attends his own efforts never fails to \A'ait upon.' 
his guests. No matter hoAv skillful or hoAv inexperienced 
the fisherman may chance to be, the Doctor's eyes and 
fingers, his treasures of fishing lore, are completely at 
the disposal of his guest, and many a man has left the river 
after such a day, fairly drunken Avith delusions of his 
|0Avn skill, so adroitly does the Doctor exploit for the bene- 
"fit of the tyro all the Avondrous acquirement that has 
come to be a part of himself. More than that, many a 
man has carried his catch into the neighboring city and 
boastfully and mendaciously lauded his OAvn prowess to 
his envious friends, forgetting completely by the time he 
reached home the true occasion of his Avell filled creelv- 
Perhaps the Doctor does not knoAV this, but if he does, it 
makes no difference in his reception of the next man who' 
presents a draft on his unfailing hospitality. For AVhether 
friend or stranger, the result will be the same Avhen the- 
next call is made upon him, and all his faA^orite pools, all 
the unsuspected hiding places of the lurking bass are 
freely submitted for the Ausitor's pleasure. - 
Ah, if the Doctor Avould only talk, Avhat vivid romances-^ 
AvoA-en by some leading attorney, a railway superintendent 
or a "Gunckel"'* Avould pale their ineffectual fires and ' 
stand gray and haggard and undone before the keen light 
of the Doctors testimony! Luckily for these, he is as- 
discreet as a maiden of tAventy-seven, and every man Avho - 
carries away from the Doctor's preserves a string of; 
bass and an entrancing story of how he caught them, is 
morally certain that there will be no after explanations by. 
his host to bring him into confusion. 
Fifty years is a long time to keep your illusions and 
your enthusiasm. The Doctor has kept his, in spite of 
the gathering cares of life and the vexations incident to an 
extensive country practice. In the half-century that he . 
has dAvelt beside the Miami of Lake Erie, he has gathered 
a wealth of experience and adventure compared with 
which the ordinary fortune in stocks and tnerchandise 
seems very commonplace. Season after season he has 
pursued his favorite pastime, and with each recurring 
year the dormant zest flames anew in his aAvakened veins. 
There be da}'S Avhen of necessity he fishes alone, since no 
man comes, and the fish are eager to be caught. But the 
edge of his enjoyment is not a whit blunted by the fact 
that his experiences are only a repetition, a score of times 
multiplied, of those of last year and the year before. 
Long may he flourish, melloAved and rejuvenated by the 
Avater and the sunshine, to keep alive the traditions of 
the angle, and to dispense, Avith unstinted generosity, the 
hospitality of a true fisherman ! Jay Beebe. 
Toledo, O., June 8. 
*This is a generic term, and signifies (in Toledo and vicinity) 
one who fishes principally in his "imagination. Hence "Gunckel- 
ism," a statement or story which is not hampered too plosely by 
the dull restraint of fact. , ■ , 
ANGLING NOTES. 
A Commonplace Pond. 
Mr. D. R. Marshall^ of Ncav York city, sends me this 
letter: "Would not an answer to the following interest 
many readers of Forest and Stream? What, if' any- 
thing, can be done for a pond of i,ooo acres, containing 
pickerel, perch and bass, mostly small and apparently 
underfed? It is among the New England hills, 600 feet 
above tide water. Its greatest depth is about 50 feet, 
average 20 to 25. Bottom, mud, gravel, rocks and sand, 
largely mud, but 100 acres or more of hard sand, with 
shallow water. There is considerable pickerel grass, 
so called, and not much else in the way of weeds. Like 
himdreds of similar ponds, it seems to have escaped the 
notice of Fish Commissioners, who no doubt have all 
they can do looking after more important sheets of 
water; yet the many get their fun at such commonplace 
ponds, while the few can go to the wilds of Canada, and 
the many flock to the little country towns in increasing 
thousands every year." 
The history of this New England pond is probably 
but the history of hundreds of other similar ponds in 
NeAv England and the Middle States. It is quite likely 
that it furnished a fair amount of fishing for perch, pick- 
erel and bullheads, and the fish furnished food for those 
who sought them. Then the black bass craze invaded 
New England, when the first black bass Avere taken from 
New York and planted in a pond at East Wareham, 
Mass., and the fish became so popular as a game fish 
that every one Avished the Avaters they fished stocked with 
them. Unfortunately, as it has proven, the black bass is 
a hardi' fish, and bears transportation well, and a very 
few serve to stock a considerable area of water, and 
they spread from one pond or lake to another, and 
everything Avent well for a time, and the black bass was 
hailed as the game fish of the people — a game fish that 
could be propagated at one's A^ery door, in pickerel 
ponds, in riA-ers where trout would not survive because, 
of the high temperature of the water, and in Canada even. 
Gradually the pickerel disappeared from the pickerel 
ponds, and the black bass flourished for a time; then a 
change came. The native fishes that the farmers and 
their sons had been content to catch on holidays and 
CA-enings decreased rapidly, and the game black bass did 
not replace them. A fcAV big bass were taken occasion- 
ally, but the most of the black bass Avere small — too 
small to comply with the legal requirements of the fish 
laAvs — and the fishing Avas of the most uncertain kind. 
It Avas discovered, as later it was also discovered con- 
cerning the introduction of the German carp, that the 
fish had been introduced into unsuitable waters, and 
that they were there to stay, for they could not be taken 
out. 
Where the bass have been planted and have eaten all 
the availible food, more food must be fumi?hed, and 'th* 
