102 
FOREST AND STREAM 
[Jan. i6, 1909. 
Bass Fishing in the Rideau Lakes. 
Concluded from page 62. 
The wind had risen and kicked up quite a 
bit of a sea as we started out again, and in vain 
we threshed the waters in every direction. 
Finally we struck it rich. Pulling along close 
to the shore on the sunny and sheltered side 
of a big island, we tried casting within a foot 
or two of the land toward every big stone or 
protruding stump we saw. The fish were there 
and we got so close that we could see them 
dart out from the shelter of some stone or log 
and grasp our bait. One big Oswego bass, lying 
within a foot of the shore, gave us the best 
fight of the day. When the bait fell within six 
inches of his nose, he claimed that bait for his 
own. He got it, and then 
his sluggish majesty 
started for a bed of 
weeds a few yards off. 
It was up to me to get 
him away from this, but 
it took all I knew and 
all Dan could yell at me 
to do it. We carefully 
and gradually edged the 
boat into deep water, 
and then our shoal 
water friend forced me 
to give him slack as he 
plunged for the bottom 
and served notice in an 
unmistakable way that 
he intended staying 
there. The steady pull 
of the bent rod brought 
him up, and after sev¬ 
eral short rushes he 
caved in and was slowly 
brought within reach of 
the landing net. 
Anyone who doubts 
the truth of the follow¬ 
ing part of this yarn 
and wants evidence as 
to its correctness, can 
forward me a two cent stamp. If no stamps 
come to hand it will be assumed that those who 
have read have believed, and fair warning is 
hereby given that this evidence, such as it is, 
will be used hereafter to re-establish a slightly 
damaged reputation as a relator of fishy tales. 
Making hay while the sun shone, we passed 
backward and forward along a big island on 
Opinican Lake in the Rideau chain which shel¬ 
tered us, but not the fish, from the winds of 
adversity until we had threshed nearly every 
foot of water along its shore, now and again 
catching a fish, but meeting many a slip between 
cup and lip, as some fish which soon became ten- 
pounders in our minds left our neighborhood 
in the most distressingly abrupt manner. Sev¬ 
eral of them seemed hurt. 
After leaving the shelter of the island, we 
were crossing a bit of roueh water when I 
felt what seemed like a half-hearted bite, and 
nervously struck as I expected nothing here, and 
was merely letting the bait troll behind. As I 
.struck, the line gave a bit, and then was fast. 
It is common when one hooks a big fish in an 
unexpected place to think one has struck a snag. 
This was no snag; it was a real live fish and 
it was having the time of its life. So was I. 
Pull! Didn’t it pull ? Greedy for the line was 
no name for it. It took all I had to lend just 
then and wanted more. Then my little rod had 
its say, and though it bowed as politely and 
deeply as a Frenchman, it declined to go into 
the fish’s parlor in sections, but was willing that 
the interesting attachment should continue. 
“Hold him,” yelled Fred; “hold the beggar 
till your rod will make a hoop for a puncheon.” 
“It will make a mighty poor hoop for any¬ 
thing if it breaks,” I panted. “I wonder if it’s 
a shark. No fish in this lake can fight like this.” 
The other party to the line attachment was 
not saying anything. It was just busy. Its 
rushes were fierce and prolonged, so when it 
sailed into the air and we saw it was just a 
good-sized pike, astonishment came into our 
faces. Dan had kept quiet, but when he did 
interject any advice it was in an awed tone as 
though I had hooked a whale. He broke forth, 
“Be the powers, but Oi niver saw a pike that’s 
no bigger than he ought to be fight like thot. 
Sure, the very divil must be inside av him. Cut 
the line, Sor, ’tis mad he is.” 
“Cut nothing. Of course he is mad; wouldn’t 
you be if you were prancing round at the end 
of a line with a hook in you? Get that net 
ready; he is weakening.” 
He showed it by running out twenty feet of 
line which I had coaxed on to the reel, and 
jumping three feet out of the water. “Indade, 
if thot’s the way he’s weakening Oi’d better get 
some grub riddy, for we’ll be here all noight 
if the tackle houlds.” 
The fish continued to hang out the notice that 
this was his busy day, and I did not need to 
hang out anv notice to that effect. With the 
perspiration in beads on my brow, anyone could 
see that I was getting all that was coming to 
me. The worst of it was that the fish did not 
appear to be coming to me. He was as skittish 
as a two-year-old. and every time I enticed him 
a few feet in my direction he left that neighbor¬ 
hood without saying by your leave. Once I 
thought he was gone. The line suddenly slack¬ 
ened. “Oh, he’s gone,” I moaned. “I’ve lost 
him.” 
“No, no, there he is; he’s gone under the 
boat,” said Fred, and sure enough he had, and 
I barely got the line around the stern before 
it tightened. 
The last rush under the boat where our fish 
had a better view of us must have convinced 
him that we were not such bad fellows after 
all, for presently he was gently urged to the 
side of the boat and lifted in. The secret of 
the whole fight was that the pike had missed 
the bait, but the hook had not missed him, and 
was so firmly imbedded in the flesh at the base 
of the dorsal fin that it had to be cut out. No 
wonder he could fight. This, too, accounted for 
something I had never 
seen before, a pike leap¬ 
ing out of the water 
when hooked. The 
peculiar way in which 
he was caught, and the 
pressure of the line 
must have forced him 
sometimes to rush at 
such an angle that he 
shot out of the water. 
A. C. Shaw. 
Two Veterans Cone. 
Two prominent mem¬ 
bers of the Fly Fishers’ 
Club, of London, died 
recently. They were 
Basil Field and T. P. 
Hawksley. 
Mr. Field’s age was 
seventy-four years. He 
was one of the original 
members of the famous 
club, and was its presi¬ 
dent in 1896 and 1897. 
In a recent issue of the 
Field appears the fol¬ 
lowing tribute to his 
inventive genius; 
“As an all-round fisherman, there have been 
very few men who could equal him. He was 
extraordinarily fertile in expedients for over¬ 
coming difficulties and disposing of obstacles, 
and the inventions which bear his name testify 
to his practical grasp of an angler’s needs. His 
fishing coat was illustrative of his ingenuity; 
it was designed to meet every need, and fitted 
with surprising little pockets, loops, buttons and 
other devices for insuring that everything needed 
in a day’s fishing should be exactly where it was 
wanted, exactly when it was wanted. His ex¬ 
perience of different waters was very wide, and 
of each he could tell many interesting and amus¬ 
ing stories. It was a liberal education in fish¬ 
ing matters to listen to his tales of salmon van¬ 
quished against most formidable odds, of sus¬ 
picious trout beguiled with the aid of a floating 
leaf or piece of weed, or of perch cozened out 
of low, clear water by means of a cunningly 
offered drop minnow. Basil Field was one of 
the best fishermen this generation has known.” 
Mr. Hawksley was also an original member 
of the Fly Fishers’ Club. His age was seventy 
years. A surgical instrument maker by profes¬ 
sion, and an angler by choice, it was not re¬ 
markable that he should have devoted his skill 
so successfully to perfecting the excellent fly- 
tyer’s vise and the vacuum dressed braided silk 
lines that bear his name. 
MUD LAKE AND ITS ISLANDS. 
