FOREST AND STREAM 
269 
Bass Fishing on the Delaware River. Photo by C. L. Pedder 
through it and I know. The chicken alone would 
strain it, and when it comes to the buckwheat 
cakes, and the steaming coffee, and the apple 
pie, the poor book would burst its covers in 
shame. It was a dinner fit to set before a king. 
And the king was worthy of the feast. He re¬ 
galed us with stories of the natives in the 
neighboring country, stories of his experiences 
in politics, and in the bond business, stories that 
had nothing to do with any of these things, and 
more than one cacophonous peal of laughter 
went around the table. 
When the dinner was over, we repaired again 
to the store. He got out a device that he called 
Zig Zig, which consisted of a board with a narrow 
alley along each side, and a number of wire, 
wickets and cages between the alleys. You shot 
a marble up one of the alleys, and it rolled 
down among the wickets, knocking against them 
all the way, until finally it came to rest in one 
of the cages. There were numbers giving dif¬ 
ferent values to each cage, and you counted each 
one in which the marble delayed or stopped. We 
hung over this breathlessly, the gambling run¬ 
ning high with pennies and nickels, till nine 
o’clock came and we left for our tent. 
The next morning we got -up early enough to 
make preparations for a day’s fishing. Neither of 
us mentioned breakfast. We merely got into the 
car and drove over to the King’s without a word. 
After breakfast, he handed us each a can of 
worms, which at first we refused, as we had 
brought plenty of flies, but he urged them on us 
in case of emergency, so we put them in our 
baskets, together with a lunch that he had ready. 
We ran the car three miles up the road, walked 
another mile across a meadow, cut through a 
deep fringe of woods, tied on our flies, and -be¬ 
gan to fish. 
We fished along down stream, trying this fly 
and that until we had sacrificed an hour or so 
for art’s sake, but had no concrete evidence in 
the way of anything piscatorial. True, Dick had 
caught his trousers, and his hat, and I had twice 
broken my line trying to pull down several trees 
whose branches overhung the stream. But we 
could not coax the trout out of their apathy. 
It may have been that the stream was too swoll¬ 
en, or the sun too bright, or the season too 
early, for flies. I patiently explained all this 
to Dick, when he reminded me of the tales I had 
told him at that first luncheon o-f ours, and 
asked me to tell him again what a trout looked 
like, so he could describe one to his wife when 
he got home. 
Then we tried worms. At once the trout 
awoke from their lethargy, forgot the poetic side 
of life, and began to take an interest in prac¬ 
tical matters. Soon we had taken three or four 
fingerlings, and after Dick had enjoyed a strike 
of more than usual vigor, and I had landed a 
nice ten-inch trout fro-m the same spot while he 
was putting on another -worm, we decided it was 
best to separate. The situation was rather too 
strained. 
So 1 went ahead down the stream until I had 
put a sufficient number of bends between us for 
safety, leaving in sadness several likely looking 
pools to him, and began to fish on my own ac¬ 
count. Something was wrong, and after I had 
tried it an hour or so without success, I gave it 
up and sat down to eat lunch. Then I lit my 
pipe and stretched out on the grass at full 
length, wondering how Dick was coming along. 
Gradually a sense of complete contentment stole 
over me, and I began to philosophize dreamily. 
This was surely an ideal way to live. There 
were no trains to catch here; no bills to worry 
about; no book agents with the latest history of 
the world to beguile out of the office; no street 
cars to dodge; no mad rush for money to keep 
a man on edge with tense nervousness. After 
all, I mused, perhaps Karl Miller had the right 
idea, living this kind of life from year’s end 
to year’s end. Just then a deer-fly struck my 
cheek with the velocity of a bullet, ripped out a 
piece of flesh, and carried it off in his jaws, 
buzzing derisively. I leaped to my feet with a 
snort, and decided to keep moving. I would 
fish down to the car and wait there for Dick. 
Presently I came to a swift riffle leading into a 
deep, quiet pool of considerable size. 
If I had not determined to make -this relation 
strictly truthful; if I had n-crt resolved to leave 
nothing out, -but tell all the facts without reserva¬ 
tion, I would eliminate the ensuing adventure, 
if only for the sake of novelty. For who ever 
heard of a fishing tale without its story of the 
big one? But I must not allow the mere desire 
for originality to interfere with the truth. I 
must adhere rigidly to the facts. So the inci¬ 
dent will have to be admitted. 
I cast my hook, baited with a worm, into the 
white water that swirled between two boulders. 
As it bobbed along into the whirlpool below, it 
was suddenly deflected by some side current into 
the quiet pool beyond, and came to rest under 
the shadow of a ledge of rock overhanging the 
edge, just beside a dimly outlined form that 
looked like a sunken -rock or waterlogged piece of 
tree trunk. This vague form moved aside. 
You have guessed it. It was the Big Trout. 
Lj'ing d-own there in the bottom he looked to 
be nearly as long as my arm and a good deal 
thicker. My eyes bulged out. My knees trembled. 
My rod shook and fluttered in my excited hands. 
I choked -off the shout that -was about to leap 
from my open mouth, took myself in hand, and 
sat down to arrange my disturbed senses in their 
proper places. Should I call Dick? Perish the 
thought! I would land this trout by myself and 
punish Dick for his remarks of the morning. I 
detoured stealthily through ‘the brush until I 
came out into the open just behind the ledge of 
rock that projected over the pool, and peered 
cautiously over the edge. The trout was still! 
there. 
I selected the fattest, juiciest worm in the can 
and impaled him squirming on the hook. I worked 
my way flat on my stomach until my head and 
one arm were over the ledge, and gently lowered 
the line, slowly, very cautiously, till the worm 
dangled exactly in front of those lazy eyes. The 
big mouth quivered, half opened—then the trout 
pivoted on his tail, turned his back on the feast, 
and went on calmly balancing himself on his 
fins. The insulted worm writhed in humilia¬ 
tion. I tried again. 
It is unnecessary to relate the various means 
I used in the attempt to land that fish. And 
finally—- 
He fought like the game creature he was, but 
the line held strong. When I landed him at last 
I threw my arms around him and hugged his 
flapping body to my breast. I laid him on the 
grass to admire him gloatingly. What a beauti¬ 
ful creature a trout is! Take him just out of 
the water with his wet, rainbow tinted sides 
flashing in the sun. Give him a background of 
green grass to set off his colors. See how 
garishly the various hued spots decorate his 
velvety skin. Note the lithe grace of his body, 
tapering and then spreading into the tail. Ob¬ 
serve the delicacy and yet the strength of his 
frame. Can you think of any wild creature that 
can equal him for beauty? 
With the trout slung over my shoulders, I 
followed the stream to the car, and waited there 
for Dick, who soon returned with a nice basket 
of sixteen very fair trout. I shall not attempt 
to describe his astonishment when he saw my 
prize, and I will not even mention his unworthy 
jealousy. We took them all to Miller’s and 
wc ; ghed and measured the big one. The length 
from nose to tip of tail was twenty-eight inches 
and it weighed a little over four and a half 
pounds. 
We had it for supper at Miller’s, baked and 
stuffed, and laid out in a long platter, its sides 
dripping with juice. Its flesh was firm as it 
went into one’s mouth, but broke away into 
nothing -but flavor as soon as it got there. The 
(Continued on page 305.) 
