July 5, 1913 
FOREST AND STREAM 
9 
Memories of the Old Major 
A FISHERMAN’S memory is a great pic¬ 
ture gallery, on whose walls faces and 
places hang close together. Scenes are 
so associated with persons that the memory of 
one recalls the other. Mountain summit, forest 
trail, firelit camp, cattle ranch, sea beach and 
trout stream, with the picture of each comes 
the vision of some good comrade, whose wit or 
shrewdness, courage or woodsmanship and good 
fellowship made the scene memorable. So the 
thought of the weeks spent years ago by the 
Minnesota Lake always brings to mind the old 
Major, the genial, big-hearted Irish angler, who 
brought the spice for the company, and by his 
chance acquaintances of a summer outing. 
Two of us had gone out in search of a 
vacation and a little fishing. As our point of 
departure we chose Minneapolis. When in doubt 
where to go for fishing, consult the leading- 
dealer in tackle. There is usually some enthu¬ 
siastic angler, who is glad to post one as to 
places and local conditions. So we found it 
in this case. Following the directions given us, 
we came to an ideal fisherman’s rest, on the 
shore of a lake that was one of a chain of 
seven. There we spent the long days of late 
June, camping at noon for dinner on some 
island, and returning when the after glow of 
the sunset was red in the sky. As is customary 
in such places, the old inhabitants would tell 
us that we ought to have been there ten years 
before, when they could go to the passes be¬ 
tween the lakes and throw out the fish with a 
pitchfork by the wagon load. My answer was 
that I could go down to the docks in New York 
at any time, if I wanted such exercise, and 
throw fish out of the smacks by the ship load. 
A quivering rod, a singing reel, a vibrant line, 
and one good fish plunging at the end are worth 
more than a ton of fish on the marble slabs of 
the market. 
The most notable of the little company that 
gathered round a cheery fire in those summer 
evenings was the old Major, who had retired 
from business, and was living where he could 
indulge the closing years of his life with the 
sport he loved. His mind full of memories 
of fishing, he would tell us stories by the hour. 
He had fished for muskallonge, but would never 
call them anything but pickerel. One evening 
he told of catching one. He said: “I was out 
trolling, with Jim to row me. We fished for 
an hour and niver had a boite. Says I, ‘Jim, 
there’s a big one round here, for all the little 
ones have run away. Row me across the mouth 
of that little bay.’ But there was nothin’ doin’. 
So I said, ‘Row me over there again; he is 
down there a-meditatin’ mischief.’ As he rowed 
me across I had a strike, as if I had hooked a 
stame-boat goin' down stream with a freshet. 
Sure, an’ I knew I had the king of all the 
pickerel. He came up out of the water, stood 
on his tail, and gnashed his teeth at me. Then 
he ran till he took out most of niy line, an’ 
then he went up in the air, as if he was goin’ 
to shwim in the clouds. And then he started 
for the boat, with his mouth open, and his teeth 
showin’ clear down to his gullet, and the spoon 
By EDWARD STANLEY 
rattlin’ in his jaws. Jim got scared and hollers, 
‘Look out, Major, he’s goin’ to sink the boat.’ 
I says, ‘Jim, you kape the boat a-goin’, and I’ll 
find to the pickerel, if he’s the divil himself.’ 
So I got in me loine, and Jim swung the boat 
round, just in toime, and the fish wint by loike 
a torpedo boat. Then he turned and wint for 
us again. This toime he came out of the 
watther and sailed over us. We ducked just 
in toime. His tail caught me ould hat off me 
head.” 
Here one of the boys chuckled. The old 
man looked at him severely and said: "If ye 
don’t belave it, I can show you the hole in the 
hat. After that he wint down under the boat, 
up on the other side, and into the air again. 
But by this toime he had wound the loine round 
the boat, and he fell into it, and we fell on top 
of him. I skinned me knuckler, and Jim his 
nose, and we broke an oar on him before we 
had him dead. Glory be, I niver saw such a 
soight. Our boat was half full of watther and 
fish, all blood and slime, and Jim and me all 
done up.” 
“Major,” said one of the company, “how 
big was he?” 
“When we came ashore,” said he, “his tail 
was stickin’ over the soide of the boat. He 
was a real fish; not loike thim that thim ex¬ 
cursionists brought in yisterday; no bigger than 
lid pincils.” So he turned us away from his 
fish, and his story, to vent his wrath against 
the people who brought in strings of little fish. 
The next day a company of men stopped 
over on their way from a fishing trip further 
west. That evening one of their number was 
telling stories of muskallonge. The old Major 
sat quietly listening. Presently a story was told 
of seeing something fuzzy in the corner of a 
fish's mouth while playing it, and of finding, on 
landing it, that it had a young woodduck in its 
mouth, not yet swallowed when it took the 
fisherman’s bait. The Major beckoned to me, 
"Come over here.” When I had drawn my 
chair up by his side, he said: "Did you hear 
that shtory?” 
"I have heard a lot of pretty good stories 
to-night,” I said; “which one do you mean ?” 
“I mane,” said he, “that shtory about the 
pickerel with the mudhin in its throat. After 
that, don’t you byes wink and poke one another 
when I tell a shtory. 1 niver can bate that. A 
pickerel with a mudhen in its throat.” His anti¬ 
climax was better than the story had been. 
After one of those days that will come on 
even the best fishing waters, when we had toiled 
all the day and caught nothing, on coming in 
we found that the Major had been out for an 
hour and brought in a good string of bass. 
Someone asked him, “Major, how is it that we 
have been out all day and had no luck, and you 
in an hour, and only a few rods from the dock 
have beaten us?” 
"That reminds me,” said the Major, “of 
one toime down by the Mississippi River. I 
was goin’ out one mornin’ for the day’s fishin’, 
and as I went along the bank of a slough, I 
saw a party of men down by the water. They 
called to me to come down. When I got down 
there one of them said to me, ‘Major, we’ve 
tried everything and can’t get a bite. Show us 
how to catch a fish.’ 
“ ‘Well,’ says I, 'I’ll show you. I’ll catch 
just two fish, and then I’ll go about my own 
business.’ 
“I baited my hook and threw in where a 
tree forked under the water, and I pulled out 
a croppie. Then I baited up again and caught 
another. ‘Now,’ says I, ‘there’s my two fish, 
and I’m goin’.’ 
“‘Oh, but Major,’ says he, ‘you haven’t 
shown us how you do it!’ 
“‘Well,’ says I, ‘I put on my bait so. Then 
I sphit on it. Then I turn it over so and sphit 
“HE WOULD TELL US STORIES BY THE HOUR.” 
