Sept. 13, 1913. 
FOREST AND STREAM 
339 
Fishing Within City Limits 
(Tibbits Brook) 
By HERBERT JANES 
D O you know the tiny Tibbits? Perhaps it 
is your friend incognito. The last time 
you were strolling round Van Cortlandt 
did you notice the little brook that feeds the 
lake? That is it; but I imagine that you did not 
know its name. It comes down through Dun- 
woodie, and winds along a marvelously tortuous 
course, mostly smothered and invisible in one 
of the rankest and densest bits of cover you 
ever saw. That is its salvation. You simply 
can’t get at it. 
I mean you frivolous pleasure folk; you 
who wear silk hose and Boston garters on an 
outing and always take a girl along and not a 
rod. But I can reach it; for in my old fishing 
rig and tall hip boots it takes a dour swamp 
indeed to keep me out. And then I never take 
a girl; I would not know what to do with her, 
but my rod, ah! that is another matter. I can 
manage that; and the brook is calming, sooth¬ 
ing, medicinal, and girls are not. 
At the end of the Subway I took the trolley 
to Cary] avenue and then walked over the hills 
until I reached the swamp just south of Dun- 
woodie. I intended to fish down stream. Hang 
the ethics of fly-fishing. I would like to be in 
a balloon and watch Mr. Halford go down that 
swale. I wonder if he ever swears. 
Speaking of that eminent fisherman, I had 
in my pocket a box of his beautiful flies, a fine 
tapered leader, and I carried a 4k2-ounce rod. 
Now, I suppose you will think me slightly 
“touched.” Well, you may. I rarely carry any 
other rig with wet flies, too, of course, no mat¬ 
ter what stream I am fishing; the brawling, 
obstreperous Beaverkill, or the timid, bashful 
Tibbits. 
Near the head of the stream lies a good 
sized pond through which it flows, with the 
ruins of an old ice house at its upper end visible 
above the long grass. In this charming bit of 
water, heavily wooded on one side, and cut into 
innumerable bends and coves of lush meadow 
on the other, I hoped to first drop my wet 
flies. 
And now came a sudden disillusionment, for 
as I swung into view of its placid waters my 
ears were debased with youthful shouts and 
laughter. Some two dozen urchins were splash¬ 
ing and howling in delight amid its cool em¬ 
braces, turning the pure, clear water into an 
ugly brown. No “Fishing Jinimys” were they, 
silent as the trees, with an alder pole and bit 
of string, lying on the bank with eyes glued to 
the line, waiting for that mystic twitch. Well, 
in my regret, I flung toward the little naked 
devils a soft, benignant oath, and rounded up 
the shore to the further end. 
Here I made up my rod and cast out upon 
the hopeless waters, hopeless because they had 
roiled it from head to toe, and on rafts of old 
boards and boxes had churned its usually 
smooth surface into a miniature Lake Superior. 
The little Cahill fell flat and nerveless, pros¬ 
trate on the turbid sheen. It seemed to curl 
its feathers in disgust at the unsavory bath, just 
as a real Cahill (if there is such a thing) would 
curl up its nose at a dose of ipecac. 
So I reeled in my line and strolled back 
among the bathing satyrs, who were clustered 
near the old broken spillway through which 
Mistress Tibbits began her circuitous rambles 
into the bog below. 
Now if this pen were not dull and rusty, i 
should wax eloquent; I should bring from the 
invisible a picture of the shrine at which I 
worship, where amid tall rushes and drooping 
sedge grass her purling murmurs mingle with 
the rustle of the leaves and the buzz of many 
insects. Yes, ’tis only a little brook stealing 
timidly among the wildest tangles; coy and shy 
of the open, yet with bland innocence opening 
her arms in unexpected spots to the wooing 
sunbeams slanting through the brake. And how 
they warm her bosom with their loving rays, 
piercing into the lucid depths fascinating swirls 
of topaz, amethyst and gold. 
Into the hidden mysteries of this jungle 
nymph I pushed, crowding through vast clumps 
of elderberry shrubs and struggling over quak¬ 
ing tussocks, capped with wire grass, sinking 
nearly to my knees in the soft ooze, where the 
venomous mud sprang a violent attachment for 
my boots. The cat briars and brambles 
scratched and tore at my intrusion and formed 
a doughty rampart to- screen my lady in, secure 
from prying eyes and depredating hands. 
Through this luxuriant maze I slowly 
wedged my way; dropping my fly now and then 
in some open stretch, where the gentle current 
whirled about the tall cat-tails and under droop¬ 
ing alder boughs. But no sudden rise broke the 
quiet mirror or carried that poignant flop to 
my eager ears. 
Hungry and somewhat wroth with my way¬ 
ward mistress who had not vouchsafed one in¬ 
timation of her finny wards, I climbed upon a 
huge bare trunk which spanned the brook, to 
rest and eat my evening lunch. As I sat upon 
the smooth whitened frame of that fallen giant, 
the sun streaming down in broken bursts of 
splendor, through the swimming clouds, my 
thoughts fled back into a misty past and 
fashioned glories of that pregnant swamp in 
days long gone. Days when the bleached and 
massive trunk beneath me spread its graceful 
arms amid a thousand others which lined the 
edges of the swamp. When the woodcock, that 
mystic of the woods, bored about the succulent 
roots, and the woodduck dropped on quivering 
wings to feed among the luscious grasses. 
Drifting into reveries of that golden past 
when the bog teemed with wild life now gone 
forever; drowsy with that mysterious rhythm 
nature plays upon invisible chords, I was 
startled from my daydreams by a loud, quack! 
quack! quack! directly behind me. As I turned 
quickly, two black ducks flew swiftly past, so 
close to my head, that had I raised an arm I 
could have touched them. Instinctively I 
reached for my rod—pshaw. I thought it my 
twelve-bore—while the two ducks sank into the 
stream some fifty yards away, still blightly 
chanting their, quack! quack! quack! A dense 
screen of alders immediately in my rear had 
completely hidden my figure until they were 
almost upon me, and they were past before they 
realized the proximity of their enemy and lover. 
This sudden visitation, this blending of 
mental visions and tangible realities, for a 
moment confused my listless spirit and I hardly 
knew whether I was awake or had actually 
fallen into slumberland. At that stage a gentle, 
muffled, quack! quack! came from below, and 
I knew they were not spectres come to mock 
me. 
As I shook the ashes from my briar and 
thrust it in my pocket, once more there floated 
through the thicket a soft and guttural, quack! 
"Feeding and ha.ppy,” thought I, ensconced in 
their green pasture, for the wild tang had van¬ 
ished from their cry, and it sung domestic music, 
comfortable and quiet, like, “horses chawin’ 
hay.” 
Below the log where I was perched the 
brook broadened and ran clear of bush for 
twenty or thirty feet, with an impenetrable bank 
of alders on one side bending out over the 
water. For some time I had been watching this 
expanse, hoping to see a break or some move¬ 
ment in the stream, but its quiet face showed 
not a ripple of life to quicken my expectancy. I 
had been using a pale watery dun, No. 14, dry, 
but they would have none of it; so I changed 
to a blue-winged olive. A back cast was im¬ 
possible, so I twitched out the fly as best I 
could, with plenty of slack, and it drifted down 
with the gentle current. As the line straight¬ 
ened an eddy caught the fly and swayed it under 
the alders—when, a splash, a tug, and before I 
knew it. away went my line far under the bush. 
The surprise was so complete that I lost my 
equilibrium and slid from my seat into the 
brook, sinking deep in the soft mud. I was fast 
and could not budge, and in a most exasperat¬ 
ing predicament. However, if that was a trout 
I would wiggle out of my boots and swim if 
necessary to bag him. There I stood, the water 
nearly to my thighs, with a dangerous bend to 
the light rod and not a tremble to the line. To 
force the issue I gave him more of the butt, with 
several quick strains, and a violent jerking elec¬ 
trified my arm and sent my spirits skyward. 
Quiet followed, and not a tremor came back to 
me for perhaps a minute, when, without a per¬ 
ceptible quiver, my rod flew up, and the little 
savage that was trying my soul darted like a 
shot clear across the stream. By some miracle 
the line had freed itself, and with wild haste I 
ripped in the slack, and there he was, struggling 
and splashing on a taut line among the 
grasses and wild cabbage leaves of the opposite 
bank. 
Then I knew, and my heart beat quick with 
joy; I could see the gold spots in the wonderful 
tourmaline and feast my eyes on his iridescent 
beauty. He dashed about those cabbage leaves 
(Continued on page 350.) 
