398 
FOREST AND STREAM 
July, 1918 
but somehow he seemed to be sleepy 
The author making a graceful cast after 
practicing only a few minutes 
Here is a lifelike, full-length portrait of 
the playful sea salmon that jumped 
POLING PEQUISSET POOLS WITH PETER 
“NEWT” NEWKIRK RELATES HIS EXPERIENCES IN MORE OR LESS PRIVATE 
POOLS WHILE PURSUING SALMO SALAR ON ITS ANNUAL HOLIDAY FROM THE SEA 
OR years I had read tall tales about 
catching that royal fighter, the Atlan¬ 
tic Salmon, and had bent my ear until 
it nearly broke every time I could listen 
to an angler who had indulged in this 
sport, but I had never been there myself. 
Therefore you can imagine that anticipa¬ 
tion w. s high within me when, on a bright 
and crisp latter-June morning, I stepped 
into the bow of a 20-foot canoe in front 
of Pete Lanigan’s camp on the Pequisset 
River and tucked my feet under me, while 
Pete, able-bodied guide, got in astern, 
pushed off into the current and began 
poling upstream. 
You, Gentle Reader, are probably anx¬ 
ious to get to fishing. So am I—therefore 
I will not go into details about how I first 
got into touch with Pete and corresponded 
for weeks with him relative to this trip, 
outfit, etc. Suffice to say that here I was 
faring forth on the swiftly sliding bosom 
of the Pequisset for my first whack at the 
big fellows which journey up the fresh¬ 
water streams on their annual pilgrimage, 
but spend the rest of the year “somewhere 
in the Atlantic.” 
I had arrived the evening before and 
had talked fishing prospects with Peter un¬ 
til he began to yawn his head off. Then 
I bunked up to ponder what he had told 
me and to sleep fitfully, only to dream that 
I was connected with the biggest silver 
monster that ever came out of the Pe¬ 
quisset and to wake up suddenly with my 
heart going a mile a minute. 
Most of the Pequisset water is leased by 
sportsmen from New York, Philadelphia, 
or Boston, but Lanigan’s land abutted on 
two pools which he held for himself and 
the few fishermen he entertained during 
the summer. A curious character was 
Peter—tall, lank, lean, lithe, with a merry 
smile and twinkling gray eyes which over¬ 
looked nothing. He was as strong as a 
bull, but as gentle as a kitten and talked 
with a curious drawl. He was that sort 
of guide that would make a sportsman say 
to himself, “Well, I’ll go the limit with 
this guy—I’m in good hands.” That was 
Lanigan. 
“We’ll whip the Boulder Pool first,” says 
Pete as he drove the canoe easily up¬ 
stream, poling against the six-mile-an- 
By NEWTON NEWKIRK 
hour current, “and if we don’t get nothin’ 
there, we’ll come back for lunch and spend 
the afternoon at the Ledge Pool below 
camp. We ort to dig one out somewhere 
today—right straight ahead as the bow 
pints you’ll see a deer.” 
Sure enough, standing knee-deep near 
the right bank, a little way upstream was 
a handsome doe. Presently she heard the 
click of the canoe-pole and with wide eyes 
and ears erect, watched us steadily draw¬ 
ing nearer, then suddenly she whirled and 
in two bounds was in the brush giving us 
a farewell wave with her “white flag.” 
After 15 minutes poling we came up 
to Boulder Pool, so named because of 
a great big rock in midstream at the 
lower end of it. This pool was perhaps 
200 yards long. It was merely a broaden¬ 
ing and deepening of the river as con¬ 
trasted with the swifter and shallower 
water above and below it. At no place 
was the pool more than five feet deep and 
the bottom was plainly to be seen. As Pete 
pushed up over the bar into the pool he 
hugged the left bank closely and reversed 
his pole, using the unshod end to make less 
noise. Pushing well above the pool-head 
he swung the canoe out into the current 
letting the bow turn down stream and when 
he had drifted to our first position he 
dropped anchor (a heavy lead weight run¬ 
ning thru a pulley at the stern) and there 
we hung with the water sliding swiftly 
by under us. 
Pete moved forward just behind me. 
“Now, sir,” says he, sweeping his eyes 
over the pool and taking a squint at the 
sky, “I think we’ll offer ’em a Black Dose, 
double-hook, number eight — leetle too 
bright for a very gay fly today, don’t you 
think?” “Pete,” says I, “if what I don’t 
know about this game was in a book it 
would keep you in readin’ matter all win¬ 
ter.” Well, Pete tied a Black Dose on the 
end of my nine-foot leader and told me 
to go to it. 
Now casting a fly with a double-handed 
rod 16 feet long and weighing 15 ounces 
is a different proposition from swinging a 
five-ounce bamboo with a simple wrist 
movement. According to instructions from 
Pete I began with a short line (not much 
longer than the length of the rod), flip¬ 
ping the fly first at a right angle to the 
canoe on one side, then on the other. Soon 
as it struck the water the current carried 
it around in a quarter circle until it hung 
below the bow and as it swung around I 
gave it a gentle twitching motion which is 
supposed to make an old bull salmon hun¬ 
gry for feathers. After making these two 
casts I stripped off say four or five feet 
of line from the reel and repeated the op¬ 
eration, casting on one side, then on the 
other. After I had out all the line I could 
cast without hanging myself Pete would 
pull anchor and drop the canoe down a 
bit, when I would start in casting again 
where I left off. Thus the pool is covered 
from top to bottom. If there is a salmon 
in it he sees your fly (unless he is blind 
or has his eyes shut) and if he wants it 
he will take it, and that’s all there is to it. 
W i had half fished the pool without, 
any indication there was a fish in, 
it when suddenly at the lower end 
of the pool a beautiful salmon shot into I 
the air four or five feet and after making, 
a graceful rainbow curve and reflecting the 1 
sunlight from the silver of him dived back 
into the pool with a mighty splash! “Gee- 
whizz !” I gasps aghast, nearly dropping 
my rod overboard; “Pete, was that a sal-; 
mon, or a whale?” “’Bout a twelve 
pounder,” grins Pete. “Twelve pounder!” 
sneers I; “why, man, I’ll bet that salmon, 
was two yards long and weighed forty 
pounds!” “They alius look bigger than 
they be,” says Pete. As we worked down 
in casting where the fish had broken water 
I was all nerved up expecting a strike at 
every cast, but there was nothing doing. 
Pete explained that a breaking fish seldom 
takes a fly and it worked out in this in¬ 
stance, although we changed flies twice 
and covered the pool a second time. Bv 
then it was noon and we returned to camp 
for lunch. 
It was nearly 3 p. m. before we voyaged 
down river to Ledge Pool, about a mile, 
below camp. Sailing down the Pequisset 
is a cinch—with the swift current for mo¬ 
tive power all the canoeman has to do is 
steer, but poling upstream takes skill, plus; 
elbow-grease. Shooting a stretch of white 
water brought us into Ledge Pool and £ 
