FOREST AND STREAM 
211 
Bill and The “Red Bird” 
Gorgeous of Plumage and Awesome of Decoration it Yet Proved That the Mind of Man is 
Weightier Than a Ten Pound Bass 
T was toward the end of an ex¬ 
tremely dry August when I 
was invited to join my old 
friend Bill who had been camp¬ 
ing for several days on the 
Chickahominy River, in the 
tide water section of Virginia. 
He was out after the large¬ 
mouthed black bass which make these waters 
well worth the angler’s time. Bill had been fish¬ 
ing for four days, when I joined him, and had got 
but one rise during this time. I suppose I must 
concede that he is a fair bait caster and knows 
the habits and feeding grounds of these bass as 
well as any man in the country, but, with all the 
tricks he could conjure to entice the wily moss 
backs from their cool loafing places under the 
lily pads and old “laps,” nothing had proved 
successful. Only one rise in four days—think 
of thatl And Bill was not a loafer either; he 
always put both head and hand into his work, no 
matter what it might be. 
So, when I reached his big tent, pitched near 
Captain Tom’s vegetable garden, I found him in 
anything but exuberant spirits. He was, how¬ 
ever, hard at work on something, and after set¬ 
tling my duffle in the tent and changing to soft 
shirt and “sneakers,” I went over to him, where 
he had established his workshop, under a big red 
oak, and inquired as to “what kind of hicky- 
doddle he might be making?” He informed me 
that he was manufacturing “a bait that ’cordin’ 
to my dope ought to git ’em.” It seemed that 
Bill had lost the day previous the only red sur¬ 
face lure he possessed—the only lure which had 
brought a rise—and although he didn’t “hang 
much faith on reds,” yet he was going to “take 
the tip and make me a reddish floater.” He had 
found an old, dry, well seasoned, fence post of 
red cedar, and split from its heart a rectangular 
block, about 4V2 inches long. He had about 
finished the rough torpedo-shaping of the block 
with a jack knife, when I arived on the scene 
and must volunteer as first assistant and consult¬ 
ing engineer. We had no tools except our jack 
knives, a pair of small pliers and a key-hole saw, 
but substitutes were found quickly. I located a 
discarded “bait” bottle up the shore and broke 
this into convenient size pieces for scraping down 
the block to proper symmetry and smoothness. 
While I was engaged in this, Bill had found a 
piece of old wire and “diamond pointed” a short 
straight piece to be used as a drill. 
After much sweating and strong language we 
finally finished boring the hole through the cen¬ 
ter of the block lengthwise, for the wire axis on 
which the head turns. 
The aluminum wings for the head seemed to 
stump him at first, but soon the top of a tomato 
can was fashioned into the standard wing pattern 
and the burred edges smoothed off on a stone. 
By Tenderfoot. 
Next, we sawed the torpedo through at the 
big end, and there was the head and body separ¬ 
ate and ready for assembling. The tin wings were 
tacked on to the head with cigar-box brads; the 
axis passed through the hole, and the eyes turn¬ 
ed up at the head and tail ends for the swivel 
and gang hooks respectively. 
The hooks and screw eyes for the side gangs 
were taken from an old white bait, which I 
happened to have in my box, and quickly attached 
to the new work of art. The lure was now 
finished and we must hasten to try it out. Bill 
attached it to his line and, after casting a few 
times from shore, we both decided that the head 
worked beautifully on the retrieve and that noth¬ 
ing more could be asked of it. “This is a bird,” 
says Bill, “a regular red bird” and we christened 
it “Red Bird” on the spot. 
As the heat of the day was now about over, 
we decided to go up the river to an old sunken 
wharf where the big ones usually lay. So we 
hurried to embark in Bill’s skiff with all our 
angling paraphernalia. 
On the way up the river to the “good place,” 
we must pass much apparently good feeding 
ground near the lily pads; so I agreed to do the 
paddling after we reached the old wharf, if Bill 
would paddle for me to cast on the way up. He 
agreed to this arrangement and we started. 
I used my favorites; the Blue Nose floater, 
Yellow Kid, and a white floater, but nary a rise 
did your humble author get. The old Blue Nose 
would rise gracefully and land within a foot of 
some cluster of pads, with no cuss-producing 
back-lash to mar the cast, but to no avail. Then 
the Yellow Kid would go scouting into the very 
center of some little piece of open water far 
back among the lilies and be retrieved—some¬ 
times steadily and again with intermittent jerks 
only to end with the same result each time. When 
I occasionally glanced at Bill I found a set grin 
on his ugly countenance and this finally grew 
monotonous. I asked him if he had any sugges¬ 
tions to make. Did he desire to criticise either 
my method of casting or my selection of spots 
in which to cast? He only grinned a bit wider 
and kept silent. Finally I laid my rod aside and 
asked him to change places with me, if he “want¬ 
ed me to paddle the-boat.” 
‘A right,” says Bill. “Guess you aint goin’ to 
make much time with Mr. Bass up among them 
pads. I fished all this water over ’bout ten 
times durin’ the last few days and come to the 
conclusion that bass just must be around them 
lily pads, ’ceptin’ they aint. No, sir!” said he, 
“bass is just like people; when the weather gits 
hot they want to leave home and go somewhere 
it’s cooler and more comfortable.” 
We changed places in the boat and I began 
to paddle. 
“Hit ’er up till we get about castin’ distance 
and a half from the wharf, and then work all 
the way around slowly like,” Bill remarked, as 
he started in to fasten the “Red Bird” on more 
securely and make a few preliminary casts. 
We soon arrived at the spot selected and I 
began paddling slowly around the long sunken 
wharf. 
After a while I remarked as how “you could 
cast your head off and never get a rise this hot 
weather.” 
“Don’t know but what you’re right,” he re¬ 
plied, ‘but I am goin’ to give this here Red Bird 
a fly or two more any how.” 
I was paddling along slowly, alternating the 
paddle strokes with slaps at mosquitoes which 
were holding high carnival on the back of my 
neck. 
Bill was gracefully soaring the Red Bird first 
over hand and then under hand, with his flat 
trajectory, as he called it, and we were arguing 
as to whether too much “splash” of the lure 
attracted or frightened a bass, when—splush! 
“Strike,” yells Bill, “got him cornin'; he’ll weigh 
’bout three pounds!” Then later, “by golly, watch 
him go, will yer; aint he a devil though! Say, I 
got some fish here, boy, you know that?” and 
many other remarks of a like nature which were 
accompanied by a great deal of chuckling and 
child-like exclamations—all of this much to my 
disgust, for I hold that the strict silence of an 
angler, while playing his fish, is a true hall mark 
of the genuine article. 
Well, after much manipulation and conversa¬ 
tion, the bass was finally netted very skillfully 
by your humble servant, and found to weigh just 
2% pounds—but nothing to go crazy over, as I 
remarked to Bill. I have never been able to 
understand why a grown man should lose his 
mind about one small fool bass, but they do; 
and one might suppose the “wealth of the Indies” 
lay at their feet, from the ecstasy exhibited by 
some. 
I sort of figured that this was an idiot bass 
which had escaped from the bass asylum, and 
never once thought that the performance would 
soon be repeated; but strange things happen in 
this life. About ten minutes later, while I was 
paddling along sub-consciously, watching a musk¬ 
rat swim across the bow of the boat, and rumin¬ 
ating over the perversity of bass in general, there 
came an explosion which sounded like a mixture 
of the tongues of Babel, with pure English ex¬ 
pletives thrown in not too sparsely. 
“A whale,” gurgles Bill, “a great big man- 
eater, Boy! 
“Great Guns From Halifax, the biggest bass 
in the world, and I missed. Did you see him 
rise?” 
I replied, in a dignified way, that I had seen 
nothing, but if he didn't quit trying to upset the 
boat and scaring all the fish for miles around, 
