April is, 1905.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
296 
lok my minnow with a rush that nearly gave me a 
: /ous chill. The trout love a riffle that is long and 
callow and not too swift, more like a mill-race than 
lything else. How well I remember such a riffle, seventy- 
re yards long, that I could fish through, catching a half- 
: !en trout and then walk back to the head and fish 
I irough again, getting nearly as many- the second time as 
le first. The trout must have just moved out of my way 
5 I fished down and then taken their old places again 
' ?Iow the big stones. But when the trout have gone up 
rough the riffles and are found at the foot of the next 
io\ above, the minnow fisherman must get out his fly- 
id or give up for the season. It must be understood that 
have been talking of a large stream, where the angler 
^cs a long cane rod, a good reel, a well enameled line, 
three-foot leader with a swivel at each end, and a No. 
Sproat or a No. 22 Cincinnati bass hook. I know every 
)ck in such a stream that is fifty miles in length, that 
IS pools a half mile long, fifty yards wide, and of un- 
lown depth. I have known a minnow fisherman to 
itch in one day in this stream three trout whose aggre- 
ite length was fifty-four inches, and on another day to 
tch twenty-two trout, none of which was under thirteen 
ches in length. 
The fisherman who uses a grub or a sawyer must be a 
, ill-fisherman, and must be content to sit and wait until 
: le fish swim around his way. He catches the very 
; r<?est trout, and when he has caught half a dozen such is 
i eil content. Who knows that he doesn't get his reward 
I It of sitting quietly on a rock smoking his pipe, watch- 
' g his line for the long-delayed bite, and occasionally 
king a glance at the brown mountain across the stream 
: cm him? He begins his fishing in March, ostensibly for 
lub, but if you could examine his coattail pockets as he 
; ends his way homeward in the evening, you would prob- 
)ly find a big trout or two stowed away there. But he 
' IS lived on salt pork all winter, and why not let him 
ive his trout in peace? He will not catch any great num- 
; =r. and he disdains the basket of little fellows that the 
ude fisherman says he likes best because he cannot catch 
e other kind. 
To the red-worm fisherman all streams and seasons are 
.od. In March he, too, will carry home a trout in his 
)attail pocket and a string of suckers in his hand. Some- 
. nes he is not a still-fisherman, but will fish a stream for 
veral miles, playing his red-worm in a way to entice a 
3od many fine trout. I used to meet in the early season 
ich a fisherman on a rocky mountain stream who would 
ive more trout than any other fisherman that I would 
eet. He always carried them in a tin bucket with a 
1 on that had a round hole cut in the middle through 
hich he stuck his trout. I was always surprised to find 
s trout so cool and firm, but I suppose he set his bucket 
the cold water while fishing a pool. But generally your 
•d-worm fisherman wants a. mountain brook, where he 
uieaks along behind the bushes and logs and drops his 
ait into the little pools without exposing any more than 
.Vie tip of his rod. Watch him and you will find that he 
eways jerks toward the bank, and if the little trout flies 
. <T the hook, he is sure to land somewhere on the bank. 
- ice went fishing with a man from the city who fished 
ily with red-worms. In the morning he started up one 
-If these little mountain brooks and was gone until dark, 
^len he came in he was a sight. The gnats had just 
asted on him, and his hands and neck were puffed up 
ntil he appeared to be deformed. He had not cleaned 
trout all day, and when I, to relieve him, offered to 
ean them, I found I should need a darning needle to do 
; no knife blade was fine enough. I cleaned a few of 
, le largest and allowed the rest to float away on the 
.ream. . , c . e 
The fly-fisherman gets out his rod about the first ot 
. lay and from, that time until the close of the season 
e IS cock of the walk. He loves the swift riffles m the 
/!irge open stream, where he has room for his back cast, 
nd where the swift current helps him to hook and drown 
is trout. He will begin the season with a gray fly, 
iiade up to imitate the fly that crawls out on the stones 
iriong the edge of the stream and curls its tad up over its 
iack— the stone fly; and if he strikes a day when the 
rout are feeding on this fly, he will not care to trade 
" [laces with a king. I have seen a long pool m which for 
s entire length large trout could be seen breaking the 
;ater for these flies, and to cast when a trout broke 
leant to get a rise and to hook a trout. To fish a good 
mg riffle when the trout are greedily feeding on this fly 
to have an experience that will make up for many a 
: oor dav. . , , 
; Late in the season when the water m the large streams 
as a temperature above sixty-five degrees, the trout 
ather at the cold springs along the bank or at the mouth 
f cold mountain brooks. Here the fly-fisherman catches 
lem in the morning, at noon and again in the evening; 
t noon, because then his rod makes no shadow on the 
ip-ater. I knew an old tail-race that emptied some cold 
. ^ater into the head of a large dam and that was rem- 
:orced at its mouth by several very cold springs. Here 
he trout would gather in a vast school, the smallest 
■ rout nearest the shore and the large trout farthest out in 
ae stream. I reached this place one dark afternoon when 
: strong wind was sending little waves across the cove 
i/here f knew the trout lay. At nearly every cast a trout 
: ose to each fly, and they were big ones, too. Occasionally 
I landed two, but usually one was enough to fight with, 
f hey took the fly, as large trout will in such a place, by 
lust rolling over in the water. I can see yet, in my mind's 
lye, those big red sides turning over on the surface. I 
lad an hour of such sport as one does not often have in 
his commonplace world, and then I had enough trout to 
; atisfy any decent angler. 
' With an experience with the fly I must close this arti- 
le. I had left home with a companion one afternoon to 
'rive across the mountains to a little hotel on the banks 
.f a stream that I have fished for many years. We 
! cached the hotel about eight o'clock, and I hurried down 
0 the mouth of a little cold brook that emptied into a 
arge, deep, dark pool in the main stream. There was a 
■ery 'light rain, making it such an evening as the fly- 
isherman loves. My tail-fly was a brown hackle, and my 
iropper a white miller on a poor gut. I do not now 
ecollect what the third fly was. It was nearly dark, and 
iter casting two or three times just at the point where 
he brook emptied, I heard a splash, and for an instant 
thought I had missed my fish. Then I felt such a rush 
is one seldom feels on a trout rod. I was sure I must 
have hooked something bigger than a fish. I thought of 
a. ^yater animal and of a water bird that might have been 
swimming along under the bank. Six times the thing 
crossed the entire stream, and six times I reeled it back 
to me. By this time I had decided that it was a fish, and 
I asked my companion to get in behind it when I should 
pull it into a little gutter made by hauling a saw log 
through the bar. When I pulled the fish into this place, 
he stepped in behind it and threw it out on the stones. 
It was a trout, 18^ inches long, the largest trout I have 
ever caught, hQoked under the adipose fin near the tail. 
It had struck at the white miller, tore it off, and then 
hooked itself on the brown hackle. It was fisherman's 
hick. Charles Lose. 
The Song of the Spear. 
I have a new song to sing — 
A song of shallow seas, turquoise and purple, gleaming 
and clear as glass; 
Of quiet bays shadowed by dark overhanging man- 
groves, with roots like spiders; 
Of jagged and water-worn rock and ripples breaking 
around great heads of coral; 
Of wide flats, brown and yellow over the sands and 
seamed with winding blue channels; 
Of the solemn figures and hoarse voices of the herons 
white and blue; 
Of blazing sun, pale blue sky and soft and balmy 
breaths of air; 
Of emerald cays, ringed with white beaches sparkling 
like diamonds and set in saphire, turquoise and 
amethyst. 
There the great ray, the devilfish, powerful, swift, 
mighty, tons in weight, spreads his huge black 
wings; 
The sawfish, broad and strong, brandishes his ser- 
rated blade; 
The shark, stealthy, fierce and ravenous, lies in wait 
for his prey; 
The sea turtle, longer than a man, sleeps floating on the 
quiet waters; 
The tarpon, gleaming in silver mail, leaps into the sun 
and crashes back into the sea; 
The porpoise rolls over the waves, appearing and ■van- 
ishing again and again; 
The stingray lurks in the shallows, ready to wield his 
barbed and poisoned lance. 
See the light boat steal along, driven by a noiseless 
paddle; _ _ 
The standing figure poised in the bow, alert, silent and 
watchful; 
The heavy shaft, barbed with steel, grasped in the right 
hand, the coil of line in the left. 
Look!- the keen eye catches the faint shadow that tells 
of a great fish. 
A whispered word, a cautious retreat, a circuit to 
avoid the watchful eyes; 
A stealthy approach, a wave of the hand, the paddle 
stops, the boat glides on without sound. 
The long shaft rises slowly and is poised for the cast. 
Suddenly the spear flashes through the air and vanishes 
in the depths; 
There is a wild rush through the water, a fierce strain 
on the line; 
The prey darts madly away, the barbs sunk deep in its 
side; 
The boat swerves fiercely and races along, driving 
surges and spray from its bow; 
Then come minutes and hours of fierce struggle, of 
hope and fear, confidence and doubt, until at length 
the quarry, exhausted, yields. 
And the trophies of victory are taken, honorable, wit- 
nesses of skill and endurance. 
Worthy the object, the slaughter of the fierce and rav- 
enous beasts of the sea. 
Great is the sport, demanding patience, caution, skill, 
strength and courage. 
The ignorant may scoft' at it and speak of it as coarse, 
bloody and brutal. 
Even I, the fly-fisherman, in the days of my darkness 
and folly, have so believed; 
But now I have learned to know better, and so will 
the others also; 
And sportsmen in years to come will rejoice in a new 
pleasure and praise and extol it; 
And some may thank me, and say, "He pointed the 
way and I followed." 
So, with full heart and voice, I sing the first notes of 
my new song. 
The devilfish, the shark, the sawfish, the stingray, the 
porpoise, the turtle of the sea; 
The light boat, the silent paddle, the watchful eye, the 
cautious stalk; 
The steady poise, the quick and mighty effort, the arrow 
flight of the barbed lance; 
The wild rush of the quarry, the sudden and fierce strain 
on the line; 
The surges, the flying spray, the boat half full of water; 
The long struggle, the hope and fear, the joy of vic- 
tory, the pang of defeat; 
The sport of sports, the pleasure of pleasures, the joy 
of joys, the rapture of raptures; 
The point, the barb, the socket and the shaft, the har- 
poon, the lily iron, the turtle peg, the grains; 
I sing the song of the spear. 
A. S. J. Newberry. 
Ttowt Fishing: in the Sapphite Cottntry* 
Lake Toxaway, N. C, April 6.— Trout, both speckled 
mountain and rainbows, have begun to rise to flies in 
earnest. Mr. O. M. Cleveland, of Newburgh, N. Y., 
had fine fishing on the Horse Pasture River on two 
successive days, taking limit of handsome fish. He 
pronounced the Horse Pasture River the finest stream 
he had ever fished, from both standpoints of scenery 
and number and quality of fish. Mr. B. M. Caldwell, 
of Wheeling, W. Va., has also been fishing on the 
Horse Pasture and White Water Rivers, and pro- 
nounces them excellent. J. C. B. J 
A Fish Which Eats Cattle. 
The pirantha (Serrasalmo piraya) is a very abundant 
fish over the whole of equatorial America. It is about 
8 inches long and 4 inches deep, with a thickness of 2 
inches or less. Its jaws are furnished with very sharp 
triangular teeth, placed irregularly. The back shows 
bluish reflections, while the sides of the belly are red; 
the body is covered with little scales. 
This little fish is a fierce and extremely voracious 
flesh eater, and what seems very curious is that in the 
Island of Marajo, situated at the mouth of the Amazon, 
it has become an actual pest to cattle raisers. 
The piranha lives in shoals in the rivers and brooks 
of the delta, going up with the tide as far as the mead- 
ows, whence often it is not able to descend, having 
allowed itself to be surprised by the ebb. In such 
cases it i§ often found in such great quantities that the 
natives have no trouble in killing it by hundreds by the 
most rudimentary processes, and often merely with 
their machetas. 
At the beginning of the rainy season — that is to say, 
toward January — these fish ascend the watercourses and 
spread over the meadows submerged by the rains and 
which remain under the water until July, and often until 
the end of August. During all this time the piranha 
lives in the meadows, feeding upon whatever falls to 
his teeth. Cattle are then exposed to incessant attacks. 
It is above all cows and mares that have the most to 
suffer from its voracity. On the farm, Dunas, Island of 
Marajo, my father lost, during the rainy season from 
January to July, 1899, about four hundred cows and 
mares, whose teats had been wholly or partly cut of? 
by the piranha. Some of therh had even had the ud- 
ders partly eaten. During the rainy season the cattle 
*pass practically the whole day in the water, which often, 
on a clay soil, reaches a depth of 24 inches. They browse 
on the grass, which always reaches the surface, and it 
is not until toward evening that they leave the water to 
go and spend the night on the woody islands. 
The piranha even attacks alligators, when, for ex- 
ample, the wound of a bullet in the muscles of the tail 
has weakened the giant. The blows of the tail and the 
irregular movements of the wounded creature lead the 
spectator to understand that these terrible little fish 
have commenced their work of dissection. 
The abundance of these infernal fish is such that if 
one plunges into the water the skin of a freshly_ killed 
capybara to take it out again in two or three minutes, 
a resistance is felt and the skin is heavy with the im- 
mense quantity of piranhas that have attached them- 
selves to it. Their triangular teeth anchored in the 
prey do not let go their hold, and the fishes may be 
drawn up out of the water rather than abandon their 
feeding ground. No animal falling into the water 
escapes this creature, which well deserves the pictur- 
esque name given him by the natives, scissor fish. No 
matter what part is scratched, a drop of blood, a lit- 
tle wound, will attract the first bite, and only a few 
minutes will suffice to transform man, beef, or horse 
into a skeleton with will lack even some of the small 
bones and all of the cartilages. 
My father was obliged to consider the destruction of 
the piranha on his property, and this is how he takes 
it: Before the meadows become dry, we construct light 
barricades on the little watercourses by means of barn- 
boos split in two or four. We leave them there until 
the water has almost all run off from the brook. The 
piranhas, finding them.selves stopped by these barriers, 
we have every facility for killing enormous quantities, 
after which we raise our improvised barrier and let the 
other fishes go down to the river in peace. 
When the piranha is little, he is good to eat. In fish- 
ing, the. small hooks are attached to iron or copper 
wire, but this last if often cut by the teeth. With a 
hand-line, fifty or sixty may be taken in an hour, and 
even many more, if one is in a good place. However, 
one must be careful while fishing not to allow his legs 
and feet to be bitten. The leather of shoes is_ not a 
sufficient protection against the bite of the piranha, 
w^iich is very painful, and unhappily very easily be- 
Q.' iTies poisoned. — Abstracted from Bulletin de la 
S »ciete Centrale d'Agriculture et de Peche. 
A Very Wise Old Trout: 
We had been in camp a week or more enjoying the 
long June days, the cool nights and the solitude of the 
great forest. There had been no rain for sometime, 
and the streams were low and as transparent as air. 
Except an hour each morning and evening, we found 
it next to imposible to catch trout; in vain I recon- 
noitered the pools, changed flies and kept myself as far 
as possible in the background. 
One day while following the windings of a beautiful 
stream, which led on through the deep silent forest, I 
came in sight 'of an unusually promising pool, and de- 
termined, if possible, to see if it really contained any 
trout. Taking to the woods and making a wide half 
circle, I came alongside of the pool. Halting about 
twenty yards from the bank, I sat me down upon a 
log, and drew from the back of my hunting coat a sand- 
wich. How small it looked! — dried to a crisp about the 
edges with here and there clinging a bit of down from 
a last year's bird — a morsel, which, if offered to me by 
my wife, would have been sufficient grounds for a 
divorce. But circumstances alter cases, and I do not 
recall ever eating a sandwich with more relish. If I 
removed the feathers, the act has escaped my memory. 
Leaving my rod and reel on the log, I got down on 
l\\ fours and made my way toward a big beech standing 
close to the pool and bending to a 45 degree angle 
over the water. When half the distance had been, 
covered, I went flat to the ground and crawled slowly 
to the roots of the beech._ Arriving there, I began a 
sort of snake process, which finally brought me to a 
standing position, close against the tree. All this was 
done in a slow and deliberate way. I firmly believe 
that fifteen minutes was consumed in rising from the 
ground to a position flat against the tree. 
Having attained this position, I began to move my 
head slowly to one side, until at last I came in full 
view of the pool, and this is what I saw: The clear. 
