720 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Dec. 6, 1913. 
bend, and let fly. To my surprise the bird only 
woke up and wondered where the noise came 
from. Pat says I should have awakened him 
first, so as to get a chance of putting a pellet 
into his head. 
But greater was my surprise when with a 
tremendous whirr an endless number of teal rose 
from behind the bend. I emptied my full-choke 
barrel into the pack and brought down one. We 
sureiy had luck on our side that day. The whole 
park flew down the river again—Pat’s position 
was on the bank. I watched the birds go by him 
and again I witnessed a pretty sight. Two of 
the leading birds left the pack and dropped into 
the river as Pat emptied his two barrels. Be¬ 
fore the rest of the birds had time to toss and 
get beyond range Pat had reloaded and bagged 
one more. Big fool that I was, though! I did 
not think of reloading also until I saw. three teal 
which Pat had rattled coming straight over me. 
I don’t know how I managed it, but I grabbed 
at my cartridge belt and slipped the first shell I 
laid my hand on (it was a No. 9 shot shell, for 
snipe). Anyway, it answered the purpose very 
well, and my killing average went up a few points. 
I heard another report coming from Pat’s way, 
and just had time tc see a “singleton” splash in 
the river Quite pleased with myself on the 
whole, I picked up my two birds and joined Pat, 
who was intently waiting for a cripple to appear 
above water again. This cripple was also hauled 
ashore after awhile. Half a dozen teal in the 
space of half an hour was very satisfactory to 
both of us. 
We then walked along the edge of the second 
marsh and enjoyed a good hour’s snipe shooting. 
I was getting more used to their way of flying 
and managed to kill four out of nine chances, 
losing one in the reeds. Pat killed six more out 
of eleven chances, losing one. At the third marsh 
the birds began to be wild, rising over thirty 
yards away. I brought down one more, so did 
Pat. Just before we were getting ready to leave 
the place and return to the town, we spotted a 
OW, that reminds me” of an experience 
I had some years ago, indeed have had 
four or five times, though one particu¬ 
lar incident looms large on memory’s horizon. 
With us in Wisconsin the trout season opens on 
the fifteenth of April, fully fifteen days too early, 
the first of May would be better. April is a pro¬ 
verbially fickle month, though not always is it the 
“showers that bring May flowers” with which she 
greets the ardent angler on Opening Day; more 
than once has she levied on grim winter for sup¬ 
plies and hurled in the fisherman’s face biting 
hail and blinding snow. April seems to take de¬ 
light in wooing us with fair days and balmy- 
winds during the first half of her allotted time, 
so that we will take the field on the fourteenth, 
rods furbished and tackle shipshape, so that she 
can nearly freeze us to death on the fifteenth. 
However. I once got the better of her in spite 
of a real blizzard with which she greeted the first 
day of the trout season. Two or three times she 
had sent me home fishless, that is when I could 
get home for the drifts, but that year I got home 
ali right and with a creel full of fish, too. 
That year the first half of April had been 
fine, suspiciously so, though of course that fact 
never bothered me at all; I went ahead getting 
ready for opening day with the usual optimism 
which characterizes the enthusiastic disciple of 
couple of teal feeding in an open spot. Pat now 
did the stalking, which caused one of them to 
come over me, whose flight my second barrel 
stopped. 
Our time limit was more than up. We waded 
to the boat and rowed to the first marsh, the 
scene of the early morning’s torture. Pat went 
ashore and stalked a lonely teal, which he suc¬ 
ceeded in shooting. 
Pat’s sympathy was finally aroused when we 
returned to the hotel and he saw the color of 
my feet up to the ankle as I was scraping the 
black mud and slime off them in the hewn-trunk 
bath. A hurried lunch, a scramble through the 
crowded troops at the railroad station, and we 
were homeward bound. Soon after we started a 
policeman went through the cars taking the names 
and addresses, names of ancestors to a couple of 
generations, ages, and similar useless information, 
of all the passengers. The joke occurred when 
my turn came and the poor policeman tried to 
write down Massachusetts in Turkish He fell 
down altogether there, to his, our, and the pas¬ 
sengers’ amusement. 
I felt warm and dry and snappy again, and 
was beginning to forget the previous night’s and 
the same morning’s agony. As the domes and 
minarets of old Stamboul began to be silhouetted 
against the flaring, lurid winter sunset, I began 
to think with fond regret and recollections of the 
desolate marsh, the high purple Ismidt mountains 
and the dark blue Gulf; and when I remembered 
the falling night on the “bloody morass” and the 
whirr of wings and the splash of my first mallard 
in the near-by stream, I felt a queer sort of long¬ 
ing to be freezing again at Ismidt Then each 
lurch of the train would swing the “bag” hang¬ 
ing on the rack—16 snipe, to teal, 3 mallard, t 
widgeon—a fine sight. 
The time came for Pat and me to part com¬ 
pany. He kindly shared the bag, although he had 
killed two-thirds of it. As we shook hands I 
asked Pat: 
“Can you get off a couple of days next week, 
so we can run down to Ismidt again?” 
Father Tzaak, and two or three days before the 
law was out I was ready for the great occasion. 
The night before the opening day the wind veered 
around into the northeast and blew great guns 
right off from icebergs, at least it felt that way. 
Up to that moment I had provided no bait, the 
weather had been so fine that I knew I could de¬ 
pend upon the feathers; but that cold wina sent 
me out into the garden with a lantern mining for 
worms, for I have found the fuzzy wuzzy litres 
aimost useless in the early spring unless the 
weather be warm and pleasant. All night long 
the wind roared about the house, causing the 
windows to rattle, and disturbing many a silent 
ghost. I was up at four o’clock because I had 
lain awake the greater portion of the night. With¬ 
out disturbing the rest of the household, I went 
down to the kitchen and prepared a cup of coffee, 
and while drinking it read from that book'of 
perennial youth, “The Complete Angler,” written 
by one Walton, of whom you may have heard. 
When I stuck my nose outdoors I had more than 
half a mind to return to the warm kitchen and 
spend Opening Day with Izaak Walton, but the 
hand of custom was hard upon me—it was the 
first day of the season and I must needs wet a 
fly. 
I made my way to the livery barn through 
a night as black and forbidding as ever greeted 
an axious angler after the winter solstice. The 
air had that peculiar nip which indicated the near 
proximity of snow. I routed the night man in 
the stable out of his warm bed—he had promised 
to have my rig ready at four-thirty sharp—and 
the things he said while feeding, and the half 
hour that I was compelled to wait while the horse 
ate its oats, would not look well in print. Had 
1 gone where that man consigned me I would not 
have caught many trout, neither would I have 
frozen. But at last, just as a gray, unsatisfactory 
light stole into the world from somewhere, I 
drove out of the stable. The' night man had so 
far forgiven me that he insisted on my accepting 
the loan of a heavy fur overcoat, though I think 
'a generous tip had had something to do with his 
changed feelings; be that as it may, I was thank¬ 
ful for the coat more than once during the day. 
The snow was falling thickly, blindingly, long 
before I reached the stream, such a storm as one 
seldom sees so late in the season. I drove the 
horse into a thick grove of small pine on the 
windward side of a hill, piling every available 
blanket and robe, including my fur coat, upon 
him, I left him to discuss a little bundle of hay 
which I had instructed the barn man to fasten 
behind the rig. There were oats in a bag with 
which to regale the horse at noon, though I much 
doubted my using them. Every moment the storm 
increased in violence, and when I stepped out 
from the sheltering pine I faced such a whirling 
cloud of flakes that I agreed with everything the 
driver had said of me earlier in the day; but I 
went on to the stream, which I found bank-full 
and running thick with new fallen snow. I was all 
alone in the world, for all the world was shut out 
from me by the snow, and I much doubt if there 
was another angler so foolhardy as to be out in 
that tempest. 
True to the traditions of the day, I fastened 
on a fly, I do not now remember what particular 
pattern I selected, I only know that it was un¬ 
availing. I was not surprised. It could not have 
been otherwise. Then I changed to a hook and 
worm, and let the garden hackle run out with the 
current. I had little faith that it would woo 
anything from that snow-flaked water, yet there 
came a prompt jerk upon the line and I reeled 
in a good fish. Again I let out my line and again 
the bait was promptly taken and a fish creeled. 
Standing in my tracks I took nine fish as fast 
as I could reel them in. Then I went a little 
further down the stream to another pool with 
which 1 was acquainted and I duplicated the ex¬ 
perience, taking eleven fish. Then back to the 
first and taking five. So it went. I gyrated be¬ 
tween those two pools taking fish constantly. The 
line froze in the guides and I was compelled to 
melt the ice away with the warmth of my hands, 
though it seemed to me that they would freeze 
while doing, so. Almost before I realized it my 
basket was full. Oh, I know this sounds like a 
veritable fish story, but I affirm upon my honor 
that it is the unvarnished truth. Once since then 
I made a good catch just before a snow storm 
and returned as the blinding flakes began to fall; 
but upon the occasion of which I am speaking I 
caught the fish in the very midst of a terrible 
snow. 
I made my way back to the horse through 
snow already quite deep, and that beast greeted 
me with a glad neigh. Now a part of Opening 
Day program is the dinner in the open, but 
it was obvious that that number had to be cut 
out. I hitched up and started back for town. 
I had secured a good catch of trout, but I had 
neither seen a flower nor a bird, both of which 
should enter into the make up of an Opening 
Day. Still I was not dissatisfied, for I had ob- 
“ Now, That Reminds Me.” 
By O. W. SMITH. 
