Sept, i, 1906.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
337 
Some Experiences and Reflections 
of a Black Bass Angler. 
Here, in New England, the days of which the 
angler, through the bleak, dreary months, was 
dreaming, have come, aye! many of them have 
already gone. Abundant rains have kept green 
grass and shrub and tree, and on every side 
vegetation is luxuriant. As in years past, so 
now, the streams and lakes reflect the beauty of 
their banks and the glory of the heavens above; 
shimmer in the sunshine, and with paler glow, 
but more fascination, in the silvery moonlight. 
Out away from the busy mart, the din of the 
city unheard, its smoke unseen, its heat unfelt— 
here, with nature, one can but see that there is 
a real noetry to life, romance as truly as prose. 
And whether the doughty bass is in much evi¬ 
dence-or no, there is for the angler, as he joy¬ 
ously seeks his quarry, what a thousand-fold 
repays his coming to the sparkling waters—re¬ 
newed health, and a vision of life and of God 
that can but give him strength and faith and 
wisdom as he later faces the problems that con¬ 
front us all. 
I reached my summer cottage by the lake 
several days before the bass season begins, to 
find, unexpectedly, my fishing boat sadly requir¬ 
ing attention, and no one to make it seaworthy 
but myself. Fortunately, I bad time before the 
law was off to devote to the work, and it was 
not long ere I had her again in commission. 
The task was so much enjoyed that I straight¬ 
way looked around for other worlds to conquer, 
i. e., another boat to repair. My eye lit upon a 
cedar rowboat of mine, once a beauty, but 
greatly the worse for wind and wave, cold and 
heat, and any amount of neglect. Her shape 
was charming, but, oh, the gaping seams and 
the innumerable wounds inflicted by time’s 
tooth and man’s hands! Could anything be done 
to restore such a poor old wreck even to a half 
respectable existence? I'll try, I said. It can do 
no harm to try. And so I 'set to work. 
Upside down I laid the boat; scraped the bot¬ 
tom, gave it a coat of paint, and over that 
stretched canvas, which I soaked with boiled 
linseed oil. and, when sufficiently dry, gave three 
coats of light-gray paint. Then I put a very 
thin coat of tar on the bottom, as far as the 
waterline, and a two-inch strip of galvanized iron 
along the keel, bent to round over it, held by 
small brass nails. That, too, I gave a thin 
coat of tar. Right-side up I now turned the' 
boat, and after carefully scraping and sand¬ 
papering the inside, laid on three coats of' 
mahogany japalack. Unseemly holes were, of 
course, properly puttied up. 
My! my! when the job was done the little 
thing looked as pretty as a picture! Done, did 
T say? No, not done, for I went to work and 
ran a snow-white band about three inches broad 
around her, and tacked brass let'«>:rs on each 
side of her prow, declaring to all onlookers her 
strange name of Juma. Now she was done? 
No. so. Delighted with her appearance, wife 
and daughters most tastefully made cushions 
for her of red burlap, fitting the seats exactly, 
tufted with numerous little burlap button's de¬ 
vised by the ingenious mind and fabricated by 
the deft fingers of the angler’s helpmeet. 
At last the boast rested on the waters of the 
lake, and there she rides this moment, admired 
not only by the angler’s family, but by all who 
have looked upon her; and it is hard to believe 
that so dainty a craft could have been produced 
out of what seemed to be only a wreck. 
So- here is a suggestion for you, reader: 
With a little thought and time and canvas and 
paint and the like you can restore to usefulness 
and beauty that good old boat of yours which 
you are about to consign to the refuse-pile of 
the have-keens. Let me assure you that there 
is lots of fun in such employment; and let me 
say that while it should be done for obvious 
reasons under a roof, it should be as much in 
the open as possible, for we go into God’s un¬ 
spoiled territory to breathe the fresh air and be 
out of doors. 
Well, for some reason, where I am summer¬ 
ing, the bass have not been as willing as a year 
ago to seize the lure. Anglers of experience 
have put their heads together to discover why, 
but unavailingly; various methods of fishing and 
a large variety of baits have secured no better 
results appreciably; and so there has been im¬ 
patient waiting and recourse to pickerel fishing 
and even yellow perch. Indeed, some have oc¬ 
casionally joined the rustics in an evening’s at¬ 
tack on the lives of sundry pout. 
But. doubtless, by and by the gamy bass will 
put himself again in evidence. The pliant rod 
will bend gracefully under his wild dashes for 
freedom; the reel will sing the old song, and 
every pleasure the angler knows in a battle 
royal with a fish, in valor equal to any “inch 
for inch and pound for pound,” will be experi¬ 
enced and the days of waiting forgotten in the 
days of realization. 
Now this is not saying that no bass have been 
caught. Occasionally the spinner, now and then 
the minnow, but more often the humble, wrig¬ 
gling worm has enticed one to the fateful hook 
—just enough to make the angler feel that his 
game is hidden in the depths about him, and 
hopeful of luring him to frequent combat at no 
distant hour. 
We tell almost always of successes in our fish¬ 
ing, seldom of the days when the creel remained 
empty, though we did our best; and in this we 
follow a good rule. Why bother ourselves and 
others with what turned out in a way we did not 
wish? But once in a while it is wise to hark 
to such experiences, and good to talk anent 
them. Often we make the great blunder of 
thinking that to be the end of the jaunt, or what 
is fatal, the object of life, which is only, after 
all, an incident. I have been amazed and dis¬ 
gusted to find intelligent men fuming and dis¬ 
agreeable because, forsooth, the fish did not 
bite! I once saw a man, for whom I had had 
considerable respect, thrash the water violently 
with a twenty-five dollar six-ounce split bam¬ 
boo rod because a large bass got off his hook! 
Shades of Julius Caesar and other ancient 
worthies, verily ’tis passing strange how 
stupidly sometimes we confound the true object 
with the mere incident! 
We put time and cash in rod and reel, line and 
hire, carefully plan for our fishing ground, think¬ 
ing of the big fellows to lie quiet on the moist 
moss in our capacious creels, vanquished by our 
skill; yet, after all, it is not the game, nor its 
pursuit, but the outing itself with all that be¬ 
longs to it, and, above all, it is the freshened 
blood, and strengthened muscles, and invigorated 
nerves, and the braced-up will, and a mind with 
clearer sight, and a heart of better cheer and 
larger hope. These are not mere incidents, and 
of these we can make ourselves reasonably sure. 
The fish we may not get; but this other, ah! we 
may, and return to the study, or office, or shop 
with a new song in our mouth. 
So far had I written yesterday. As I glance 
over it, it strikes me as good sense. But to¬ 
day I returned from a morning on the lake with 
overflowing creel. To-day the shining spoon 
scarcely touched the water before the bass 
would have it; and the minnow was at a pre¬ 
mium. And so I have another day with a story 
to tell, a story of how the warriors bold and 
I had it out. Splendid sport it was! Yes, my 
arm did tire from many an encounter. I recall 
each swish and swirl and leap; I see it all again; 
I hear the singing of the reel! Ah! ’twas 
rapture; ’tis supreme joy to live over! Yet I 
am satisfied only for the nonce. To-morrow I 
must at them again! But suppose the former 
state of things shall have returned? No biting 
worth speaking of; and suppose it continues to 
the very end of the season? Well, I will not be 
cross and silly. The exercise here, the fresh 
air, the fine scenery, the wholesome food, the 
refreshing rest of the night—these are doing 
worlds for me; and when the time comes to 
turn my face cityward, shall I not do so with the 
keenest pleasure, knowing that I have what I 
really came for, renewed health and strength 
and vision and courage to play part in life’s 
great drama to which the good God has ap¬ 
pointed me? The fishing tackle—bamboo rod 
and braided line, singing reel and shining lure, 
and all the rest—shall I not tenderly lay aside, 
superlatively thankful for the life-giving sojourn 
anear the limpid waters where nature’s Maker 
speaks to man in the somberness of the forest, 
the melody of the birds, the beauty of the 
heavens, and the peace, the spirit-soothing, alto¬ 
gether lovely peace of the night? And it will 
do no harm, perchance, if yesterday, with -its 
empty creel, be lost to memory, and only to-day 
recalled—the day when the bass and I fought 
to the finish, and my creel-strap, to my heart’s 
delight, almost cut into my shoulder as I climbed 
the little hill to my tree-embowered cottage, 
C. W. MorroVy - . 
From the Be&verkill. 
At last we have had heavy rains to raise and 
cool the streams. Day by day for two weeks 
the river dwindled, clouds of dust rose frorii the 
roads and accompanied every passing vehicle, 
and for several days it was too hot to fish. 
I do not object to low water if the weather is 
cool, as I have had fair sport under such con¬ 
ditions. For instance, we had delightful days 
and nights until Friday of last week, and the 
trout were active and on. the feed. Of course, 
they were' very shy. Small flies and finest gut 
were required, and a long cast upstream was 
absolutely necessary. With three figs in my 
pocket in lieu of dinner, I began work last 
Thursday, about 10:30 A. M., quite near the 
house, and enjoyed every minute of the day 
until 4:30 P. M. Where trout were not in evi¬ 
dence I caught big chub, which gave the same 
sport for a moment; in fact, they fooled me 
beautifully. One is quite sure that lie has a fine 
trout until something queer in the play, or the 
glimpse of a silver side, undeceives him. Be¬ 
fore returning home, I washed the slain in an 
ice-cold spring, then placed the chub in the 
basket first, with eight fine trout above. This, 
yon must confess, was much the best arrange¬ 
ment. Would you have shown the chubs on 
top? Why, man, you would have received 
credit for chubs only. * 
It pays to take a little pains with one’s fish 
after they are reduced to possession. Coarse 
grass in the creel and an occasional sprinkling 
with cold water will keep trout bright and fresh¬ 
looking. I hate to see them turned out in a mass, 
mouths open and stiffened into deformed shapes. 
Friday and Saturday were hopeless from an 
angler’s point of view; but now conditions are 
different, and we may hope for a few first-rate 
days before the close of the season. Few men 
have much to complain of this year, if they 
have had time to go a-fishing. 
I see that a writer in the New York Sun 
states that dry fly-fishing is unknown in this 
country, or. if known to a few, is not practiced 
successfnlly. He is quite mistaken. The dry 
fly has been used on many streams in the Middle 
States for years. It was not unknown to Uncle 
