Aug. i 6, 1913. 
FOREST AND STREAM 
203 
State Sportsmen’s tournaments. Take a good 
look at him! That kind, honest face would be 
a passport anywhere. To me he was always the 
same lovable boy to whom I looked up as 
guide, philosopher and friend on my first fishing 
trip away back in the forties. I think I am a 
better man for knowing Retib Wood when he 
was a big boy and I a child. From him 1 
learned that the world was round—“rounder 
than a marble,” he said—and I saw that the sky 
was the upper half and that we were inside the 
world; if he knew better he never explained the 
matter. 
Reuben’s humor was manifested in the use 
of strange words, which he probably manufac¬ 
tured, as I never heard them from any other 
person. A bad knot in a fish line was a 
“wrinkle-hawk,” an excellent thing was “just 
exebogenus,” a big fish was “an old cod- 
walloper,” and a long-stemmed pipe was “a 
flugemocker.” What a blank page is a boy’s 
memory that such things written on it remain 
indelible for over half a century when more 
important ones have failed! The name of Reub 
Wood conjures up these trifling things, which, 
if heard ten years ago, would have been forgot¬ 
ten. But he had such a strong individuality 
that a person who only met him for ten minutes 
would be impressed by it, and would know 
him in after years; with wonder that he should 
carve his personality on the mind of a child? 
Impressions of other men and boys in that 
small village are also quite distinct, and, as is 
usual in such places, there is more profanity and 
obscenity heard by a boy than in cities, for the 
tough boy in small places excels in such things, 
and it seems to me that he was worse then than 
now. But the worst that I ever hearl Reub say 
was “Gosh hang it,” under the provocation of 
having to cut a fish hook out of his thumb. 
His mind was as pure as his life, and that is 
more than can be said of many who live straight 
enough, but have to resist temptation frequently. 
A man is not so much to be judged by his 
actions as by his thoughts, if you only knew 
them, and Reub’s thoughts were his spoken 
words. 
In Greenbush he was employed in the 
bakery of Jonas Whiting, where he learned the 
mysteries of bread and cakes, and when he 
went to Syracuse he blossomed out as a caterer 
for balls and parties, and then established a 
business in fishing tackle, now carried on under 
the name of “Reuben Wood’s Sons.” His old 
cash book is still extant, and was not only what 
its name implied, but was day book, journal and 
ledger all in one, with a margin for a weather 
record which contained such items as “Gone 
hunting,” “Went after ducks,” “Gone a-fishing,” 
etc. This is indefinite, and one wonders what 
the result may have been until we strike the 
entry: “Wood returned from Piseco 1 with 250 
lbs. of trout.” 
In that early day, in the fifties, Onondaga 
Lake abounded in pickerel and eels, and Reub 
and his companions often made a night of it, 
taking them with torch and spear, as was the 
custom of the time, and the catch went to their 
friends and the poor. When this mode of fish¬ 
ing became unpopular and unlawful, in later 
years, Reuben was one of the foremost in sup¬ 
pressing all kinds of fishing that the law for¬ 
bade; but at the time of which we speak there 
was neither law on the subject nor public senti¬ 
ment against spearing. He followed the cus¬ 
tom of the day, merely drawing the line at fish¬ 
ing on Sunday. 
A chum of Reub’s was Mr. Charles Wells, 
of Wells, Fargo & Co.’s Express, and they went 
shooting and fishing when the spirit moved. 
Mr. Wells had not only all the railroad trans¬ 
portation necessary, but could have trains 
stopped anywhere in the woods if necessary, 
night or day, by flag or fire signal. This brings 
a sigh, not of envy, but merely a wish that such 
conditions existed to-day and I was “in it,” as 
the saying goes. 
One day in the fall of 1857 a report came to 
Mr. Wells that there were “rafts of ducks” on 
Cayuga Lake, one of those numerous large 
lakes of Western New York lying some thirty 
miles west of Syracuse, and a famous one for 
ducks. He told Reub just in time for him to 
gather his muzzleloader and ammunition and 
get the next train going to Cayuga, at the foot 
of the lake via the “old road” of the New York 
Central R. R., a road then so slow that it took 
the best part of a day to get there. Wells had 
his camping outfit, and they camped for the 
night. As Reub told me the story years after¬ 
ward, daylight found him in an old dugout, the 
only semblance of a boat at hand, while Wells 
had a good place on the shore. The ducks were 
flying down the lake and Wells had killed sev¬ 
eral, and was signalling him to come and pick 
them up, when a great flock of bluebills came 
up the stream and turned directly over Reub’s 
head. As he let both barrels go the dugout 
somehow let him go into ice-cold water, but he 
hung on to his gun and got ashore chilled to 
the bone, and took the first train for Syracuse, 
where he traded his gun and equipments for a 
Knight’s Templar badge and other things, and 
from that day foreswore the gun and devoted 
his energies to wielding the rod. 
About this time Mr. Wells learned to fish 
with the fly and taught Reuben the art, to which 
he became devoted. It was long after this that 
I met Reuben, the occasion being the tourna¬ 
ments of the New York State Association for 
the Protection of Fish and Game, where he was 
a frequent competitor in the fly-casting tourna¬ 
ments, but never would allow himself or his 
brother Ira to win first prize because of a 
chivalric idea that another competitor—to whom 
he always deferred—should not be beaten. 
Either of them could outcast the other man, 
whose hoggish nature never allowed him to 
acknowledge the knightly courtesy-—if he had 
the capacity to appreciate the sacrifice. Not 
until the State Association held its tournament 
at Brighton Beach, Coney Island, in June, 1881, 
did Reuben Wood ever have a chance to cast 
unhampered by his sentiment. Here he had a 
new competitor with a great local reputation, 
who had never cast in a State tournament be¬ 
fore. This was in the two-handed salmon rod 
contest, and Reuben won the first prize, valued 
at $50, with a cast of no feet. His brother Ira 
came second, with 101 feet. Harry Prichard 
cast 91 feet, and F. P. Dennison 94 feet. All 
but Prichard were members of the Onondaga 
Fishing Club, of Syracuse, and cast with the 
same rod—a split-bamboo, won by Reuben in 
the tournament at Buffalo in 1878; length, 17 
feet 1 inch. As there was an allowance of 5 feet 
for every foot of rod in length, Mr. Prichard 
was allowed 9 feet 10 inches because his green- 
heart rod (made by himself) was 1 foot 10 inches 
shorter than the one used by the others; hence 
his amended record of 91 feet had an allowance 
of 9 feet 10 inches, making it 100 feet 10 inches, 
giving him third prize over Dennison. 
In 1883 Prof. Spencer F. Baird appointed 
Reuben to take charge of the angling depart¬ 
ment of the American display at the Interna¬ 
tional Fisheries Exposition in London, an ap¬ 
pointment of which he was justly proud, as he 
wrote me in a farewell letter, and on June 11 
he took part in the English fly-casting tourna¬ 
ment at the Welch Harp, where he won first in 
salmon casting with an 18 foot split-bamboo 
rod, scoring 108 feet, Mr. Mallock casting 105 
feet with an 18-foot greenheart rod. In the 
single-handed trout contest he won first with 
82^2 feet over four competitors. In a contest 
with two-handed trout rods, a thing unknown 
in America, Mr. Mallock won first with 103 feet, 
and Mr. Wood took second prize with 102 feet 
9 inches. His many trophies in the tourna¬ 
ments in Central Park, New York city, are 
familiar to readers of Forest and Stream. 
He died at his home in Syracuse on Feb. 
16, 1884, in his sixty-second year. Mr. R. B. 
Marston, editor of the English Fishing Gazette, 
said of him: “I know many an angler in this 
country will feel sad at hearing genial, jolly, 
lovable ‘Uncle Reub’ has gone to his long rest. 
During his stay in this country he never failed 
to make friends of all who came in contact with 
him. I shall never forget the enthusiasm and 
almost boy-like glee with which he enjoyed a 
fishing trip with me to the Kennet, at Hunger- 
ford. Pie would stand for hours on the old 
bridge watching the trout and marveling at their 
cuteness. The system of dry fly-fishing pleased 
and astonished him greatly, and he told me he 
meant to try it on some wary old American 
trout he was acquainted with. Then he would 
show us some of his long casting with a split- 
cane rod. If we in this country, who only knew 
him so short a time, feel his loss so keenly, 
what must those home friends of his feel—his 
family and that wide circle of acquaintances who 
were proud to call him friend?” 
Iiis death was very sudden—he fell dead 
while entering his dining room. In addition to 
his love of the rod he was for many years an 
active member of the Syracuse Citizens’ Corps, 
and later of the Sumner Crops, two well-known 
military organizations. He was also a member 
of the Baptist Church, and his name was a 
synonym for all that was honest and manly. 
The last time I met him he referred to our first 
fishing experience by saying, “Fred, are you 
catching many turtles now?” And the answer 
was, “No, Reub, it keeps me busy watching 
wood ducks light upon the trees.” 
Lobsters in Lower California Waters. 
Consul Claude E. Guyant, acting as vice 
consul at Ensenada, Mexico, says: 
To protect the stock of crustaceans in the 
waters of Lower California, the local Mexican 
authorities have prohibited the catching of lob¬ 
sters during May, June, July and August. In 
the season just closed, comprising February, 
March and April, 500 crates of lobsters, weigh¬ 
ing 770,000 pounds and valued at $4,527, were 
shipped from this port to San Diego for dis¬ 
tribution to American markets. 
