Over the Enfield Dam. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
In 1872 I put in the summer at Enfield, Conn., 
trying to mend up a pair of bad lungs and went 
fishing almost every day that the weather was 
pleasant and the conditions right. There were 
black and striped bass in the river. I had almost 
fallen heir to the river, for Orson Parsons, who 
lived on the river bank, was dead. He was a 
good quiet man who cultivated his little patch 
of four acres—at times rather under protest— 
and then fished and fished and fished. Shad and 
menhaden in the spring, varied occasionally by 
skinning the trout brooks for miles around, 
then bass and eels all summer. I offered to hire 
his boat in the spring from his sister who lived 
on the old place on the river bank and mourned 
his loss as a woman will one who is gentle and 
has had to be taken care of like a big child, and 
she told me that I could use Orson’s fishing 
things all I pleased and said in a hesitating way 
that if I could get some fish that she would like 
one once in a while, for she had not had a fish 
since her brother died. So, always when I 
locked the boat to the little pier I went up and 
spread the fish before Miss Emily and made her 
take more than she wanted. I supplied half a 
dozen old maids and widows, with fish all sum¬ 
mer, and gradually gained health and strength 
till by the first of June I was much better. 
One day in June I was at the head of the 
canal on the west side of the river and saw two 
men in a boat above the dam that ran across 
the river. One was rowing as near the edge as 
he dared and the other was casting over the 
dam. I recognized them. The oarsman was 
Captain Douglass, a retired river man, and the 
fisherman was Dr. H. A. Grant, of Enfield. The 
doctor was using a long salmon rod and soon 
had a strike and the fight was on. It was a 
hard place to land a fish, for the water passed 
over the dam four feet deep and if a boat got 
too near, over it would go, and it was an awful 
place to get out of. 
The doctor handled his fish like an artist. 
Douglass rowed carefully and finally when the 
fish was tired, edged over to my side of the river 
and the Doctor scrambled out and handed me 
his rod down over the end of the dam and came 
down quick and grabbed it. The bass was pull¬ 
ing like a mad horse, but the doctor soon had 
it close to the bank and Douglass had him in 
the landing net. He was a beauty. A striped 
bass weighing twelve pounds and ten ounces. 
“Now, Willie, I want to warn you,” said the 
doctor, “that is a very dangerous place to fish. 
If you go out there without an expert oarsman 
you will go over the dam and will probably get 
drowned.” 
“Yes, sir,” I answered meekly, but I meant 
to have a try at it if I was drowned twice. For 
the next two weeks I listened to the deep, sullen 
throbbing roar of the water going over the dam 
and it kept calling me; so on July 4 I got Ed 
Dwight, who was a good swimmer, and we got 
our boat up over the dam. We stripped off 
nearly all our clothes and hid them on the bank 
and at it we went. I rowed first and Ed soon 
landed a four-pound black bass. “It’s as easy 
as shootin’ fish,” said Eddie with a broad ex¬ 
pansive grin. ‘Let me row and you ketch one.” 
I had borrowed my uncle’s salmon rod, reel 
and line, worth about $40, and soon had a small 
whale on the line and we had a time getting 
to shore and landing him, but we got him at last 
and he weighed ten pounds. We put the two 
fish with our clothes and went for another. I 
swung the rod and cast a dace about a foot 
long over the dam. In a few minutes I had a 
strike and the fish put his tail out of water. It 
was as broad as a palm leaf fan and I think 
he must have weighed forty pounds. Out went 
a hundred yards of line. Ed was too intent on 
CROOKED LAKE FISHING BOATS. 
Photograph by N. E. Spaulding. 
watching me. The current caught the boat and 
over we started. Just as the boat went over the 
dam like a bucking horse I threw the rod and 
jumped over the dam as far as I could. I landed 
on my stomach and slid twenty feet before I 
went down. I was on top in a minute two hun¬ 
dred yards below. I trod water and looked back. 
Here came Ed close behind me. Soon the boat 
came down full of water. I had tied the oars 
on to the boat. I saw the butt of Uncle Charley’s 
salmon rod once and that was the last of it. We 
caught the boat and got the water out of it by 
the time we got a mile down stream. I lost 
Aunt Marsh’s wash tub that I had my live bait 
in—I had borrowed it without asking her. 
We rowed ashore, went up and got our two 
fish and our clothes and went down stream to 
the old Enfield bridge and fished some there 
with our lighter rods. 1 do not remember what 
we caught, but we agreed not to say anything 
about going over the dam. 
The next day I saw Dr. Grant and he cor¬ 
nered me and said: “You must be a good swim¬ 
mer, Willie.” 
“How did you find it out,” I asked. 
"Douglass was w r atching you with his spy 
glass from the cupalo of his house and saw 
you go over and then saw you both when you 
caught your boat and went ashore.” 
“You can have your dam, doctor; I don’t 
want any more of it,” I told him, but I changed 
my mind and tried it again in about two weeks. 
We did not go over the dam that time. We got 
several nice bass, but we concluded it was not a 
nice place and I never tried it again. I got a 
scolding from Aunt Marsh. I got her a new 
tub. Uncle Charlie would not let me pay him 
for the rod and we ate a $40 bass for supper. 
He said it was a fine fish, but a trifle expensive. 
W. J. D. 
Aransas Pass Tarpon Club. 
Akron, Ohio, Nov. 5 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: Knowing your kindly disposition to 
all matters pertaining to sports, I take the liberty 
of asking you to kindly print the inclosed article, 
which was taken from the Los Angeles Ex¬ 
aminer, and bears upon tarpon fishing, a sport 
which is getting to be very popular and much 
sought after. The article speaks for itself, and 
I will speak in behalf of our association and 
say that we will heartily appreciate anything 
which you can do to assist us in encouraging the 
fine art of angling. 
“A. W. Hooper, of Boston, Mass., vice-presi¬ 
dent of the Aransas Pass Tarpon Club, a well- 
known frequenter of Catalina waters, bordering 
Catalina Island, California, has again come into 
prominence by accomplishing one of the most 
difficult feats known in angling. 
“Fishing at Aransas Pass, Texas, with the 
regulation Catalina light tackle, he caught a 
tarpon measuring five feet eleven inches, the 
biggest silver king ever caught with a six-ounce 
tip and nine-thread line. 
“L. P. Streeter, president and founder of the 
Aransas Pass Tarpon Club, held the record up 
to the time of Colonel Hooper’s achievement 
with a tarpon measuring five feet nine inches. 
Though the tournament season of the club does 
not close until Nov. 1, it is not likely that Mr. 
Hooper’s record will be beaten with a nine-ounce 
tackle this year. It took one hour and thirty 
minutes to land Hooper’s fish, and the angler 
caught no less than eleven tarpon in eight days’ 
fishing. 
“To catch a tarpon on light tackle had been 
declared impossible until Mr. Streeter demon¬ 
strated the feasibility of the feat and organized 
the Aransas Pass Tarpon Club for the purpose 
of stimulating interest in light tackle fishing in 
the waters frequented by the silver king.” 
I have received very many flattering letters 
from sportsmen who have visited Tarpon, Texas, 
in search of tarpon, and I am sure that none 
has regretted the expense and time spent while 
there. Our association, as you know, is encour¬ 
aging light tackle and sportsmanlike methods in 
all kinds of angling, especially tarpon and all 
other salt water game fish. 
J. E. Pflueger, Cor. Sec’y. 
