Nov. 23, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
659 
“ Now, That Reminds Me.”—VII. 
BY O. W. SMITH. 
Photograph by the Author. 
“Now, that reminds me’’ of a little creek 
I once fished, and where I played, won and 
lost a record-breaking trout. Oh! smile if 
you want to. I know all about the large one 
that got away and that sort of thing, but just 
the same this is a true story. I had the trout 
on the bank and all but in my hands, mind you, 
then lost him, so I know just how large he was. 
The name of the creek I do not remember, 
but I was told that it emptied into one of the 
Chain o’ Lakes near Waupaca, Wisconsin, the 
State that abounds in what one may term imma¬ 
ture streams, though when it comes to grown up 
fish, they can supply them. We reached the 
creek from Amherst, a little town on the Soo 
Line, though I imagine that one could drive from 
Waupaca, or perhaps take a boat from the 
Soldiers’ Home, which is on one of the lakes, and 
reached from the city by electric, but of that I 
am not informed, neither do I know anything of 
the fishing to be had in the lower reaches of the 
creek. Where I fished the stream for the most 
part it was pretty well overgrown with brush, 
and making one's way along the bank was any¬ 
thing but a pleasure. At one place I got into 
a prickly ash thicket, and for ten rods I crawled 
on hands and knees, an attitude suggestive of 
humble invocation, but I fear that I was in any¬ 
thing but a prayerful mood. There were treut 
and some good ones in the little stream, the red- 
spotted species generally, though once in a while 
I took a German brown and I secured a small 
rainbow. 
At one point on the stream I came out in 
an open pasture, rather low land all punched up 
by cattle, but the stream held many good pools, 
so I did not mind the rough ground. After 
working through brush for three hours, open 
fishing is a pleasant relief, and I went to it with 
avidity. Of course I stepped into a hole and 
went down into the black mud well above the 
top of my high boot, but that was to be expected, 
an incident in the day’s work, so I scraped off 
the foul stuff and continued on down stream. 
Spying an up-turned tree with trunk lying length¬ 
wise of the stream some distance below me, and 
surmising from long experience on trout streams 
that the gnawing current would have formed a 
pool beneath it, I made a wide detour and 
stealthily approached, the quaking soil making 
extreme care necessary. I was not disappointed, 
the pool was there, deep, dark and inviting. 
Quickly I made ready my fly, a nondescript but 
successful creation of a Wisconsin angler who 
ties dry flies after no pattern, with wide spread 
eagle wings and of a general dead color. Per¬ 
haps the odd creations would harrow the sensi¬ 
tive soul of the fly artist, but they take fish, and 
are truly wonderfully successful. 
With a little twitch I sent the fly. out upon 
the blue-black water, danced it up stream and 
down, but not a fin stirred. Still I had the 
feeling—you know what I mean—that that water 
concealed a good fish. Throwing the fly back 
of me I circled it through the air to dry, after 
the English method, then brought it down, 
“plop,” upon the water just at the edge of the 
tree trunk. Caught in the circling current, it 
is promptly drawn down under the log, a dry- 
fly gone wet-fishing. I let it go. Suddenly there 
came a half defined tug, then a steady strain. 
“Snagged,” I said to myself, for that was exactly 
what it felt like. Disgusted, I began to pull 
gently, for I did not want to lose the fly, then 
harder and harder. Suddenly I received, an elec¬ 
tric shock, a “chugitty, chug, chug,” that set all 
my nerves atingling. You know the feel of a 
heavy fish when it first awakes to the fact that 
it is hooked. I judged that the fish was beneath 
the log and rooting perhaps in an effort to tear 
loose the hook. I exerted all the strength I 
dared, and for an instant thought that I was 
going to fail to get my capture to fight in the 
open, but steady insistence conquered, as it con- 
“a pool, deep, dark and inviting.” 
quers in the school room, and out dashed the 
trout, tearing the line through the water and 
causing the little pool to boil" as though a sub¬ 
marine volcano had broken out in its depths. 
What would I not have given for a stiff rod, 
even the heavy cane pole of boyhood days? I 
had ceased to desire to play fair, to be a sports¬ 
man; I wanted that fish, and it made little dif¬ 
ference to me how I got him. Forth and back 
he raged, I always straining the rod to the ut¬ 
most, knowing well that only so could I hope to 
conquer him. Once he got back under the log 
and I spent an eternal moment of torture while 
he nosed away, seeming to rid himself of the 
stinging steel which led him where he would not 
go. Suddenly the rod conquered—somehow a 
change in a piscatorial battle is always sudden— 
and my capture was again out in the free water. 
Now, I am not going to tell all that trans¬ 
pired during the ten or fifteen minutes, and it 
may have been sixty; but if you will take all 
the stories of all the piscatorial battles you ever 
heard and combine them into one, it will serve 
as a preface to the story of my battle. Smile, if 
you want to. I have not spent all my days in 
a school room teaching the young how to shoot, 
but have captured some mighty big fish in my 
time, and I want to tell you that the memory 
of that battle in the low pasture dwarfs them all. 
Not because the fish escaped, for remember I 
told you when I began that I captured the fish 
before I lost him. 
Now I hurry to the end and climax of the 
story. The monster gradually weakened, and at 
last utterly vanquished, floated on his side. I 
was a proud man when I bent and slipped my 
hand into the great gaping gills and threw the 
fish out upon the bank, the hook breaking as I 
did so. Proud? Yes, and I had every right to 
be. Not every one and not every day can a man 
play and conquer such a fish in such a pool on 
a four-ounce rod. There have been some su¬ 
preme moments in my life, but that capped them 
all. I thought of the story I would have to tell 
the boys, of the picture I would have to show, 
and of the fish I would have to display. Alas, 
I have only the story; the picture and fish are 
among the things that might have been. 
Briefly what happened. The fish slipped into 
one of those holes which the cows had punched 
through the sod and that hole connected with 
some subterranean passage, probably a muskrat 
hole, that opened upon the creek. When the fish 
disappeared, of course I fell upon my face and 
plunged my arm elbow deep into the hole. I 
touched the body, but it slipped through my 
eager fingers and was gone. All was over but 
the tears. Yes, there have been several moments 
in my life and that was one of them. 
Fishing in California. 
BY GOLDEN GATE. 
The trout fishing season came to a close 
on the 1st of November, and anglers are now 
devoting their attention to steelheads and striped 
bass with splendid catches of these being made. 
Steelhead fishing on the Eel River has been in¬ 
different of late, but in tide water around San 
Francisco Bay some fine catches have been made 
since the early rains. 
Striped bass fishing is affording some great 
sport at the present time, and some very large 
fish for this season of the year are being landed. 
The run of bass has commenced at Wingo 
Slough and many anglers are now visiting this 
popular place instead of the Carquinez Straits 
section where most of the activity has been noted 
of late. At Wingo recently, a 35-pound bass and 
two 25-pound fish were taken the same day. In 
Back-door Slough, a tributary of Napa Creek, 
were landed a 40-pounder and another 35 pounds. 
Even better catches of bass are expected as soon 
as some heavy rains are experienced, as it is be¬ 
lieved that the fresh water will cause the myriads 
of crabs now- in the sloughs to leave for the 
bay. 
San Francisco wholesalers of fresh fish re¬ 
cently asked that a carload of refrigerated sal¬ 
mon be allowed to enter the State from Oregon 
before Oct. 23, so that the fish might be placed 
on sale as soon as the season opened, but the 
Fish and Game Commission refused to grant the 
request on the ground that it would be unfair 
to the bay fishermen to allow the market to be 
filled before they had a chance to make a catch. 
Swordfish fishing is now at its height in 
Southern waters, and a number of enthusiastic 
anglers from San Francisco, among whom are 
Drs. B. F. Alden and J. A. Wiborg, are plan¬ 
ning to leave shortly for Catalina Island for a 
few days’ sport. 
