FEB. 10, 1906.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 


SEA ANID RIVER FISHING 



A Comical Side Also. 
A FRIEND said to me a few days ago: “I sup- 
pose that you enjoy your angling days im- 
mensely; I can imagine that every hour you 
spend in that way must be a sweet memory.” 
I replied: “Yes, that is true, as a rule; but 
there is at times another side to the pleasures 
of angling, as there is to everything else.” 
A fishing incident afterward came to my mind 
that would have made me add, “There is oc- 
casionally a comical side also.” 
It was years ago, just how many years I can- 
not undertake to say, for with those of us who 
have begun to reckon more from what is left 
than from what has gone before, time does not 
seem to linger. 
I had arranged with my friend, Will B., that 
he should join me in a day’s trout fishing in a 
pretty brook out at Sharon, where we had 
many times previously found good sport. The 
day came, and when we took the road for that 
fifteen-mile drive it was yet a full hour before 
daylight. On our way out, as we neared Great 
Blue Hill, Will touched my arm and said: “Say, 
there’s a hobo just ahead of us. I saw him come 
out of that yard on the left. He has a bag on 
his shoulders. Been stealing something as sure 
as you’re a foot high. Let’s follow him up a bit.” 
I touched up the ponies, and when we came 
up with the man I understood the conditions at 
once. I whispered to Will: “That’s the very 
man we want to see. He is the Blue Hill 
Weather Sharp, and is on his way to his sta- 
tion at the top of the hill. His instruments are 
in that bag you saw. Ask him as to the weather 
prospects.” 
Addressing the man, Will asked, in his most 
insinuating tones, if there was any impropriety 
in the request for a little advanced information 
on the weather question, adding that we were 
out for a day’s fishing; were in doubt about the 
weather and hoped it would not rain. The ob- 
server turned toward us and very courteously 
said that all the signs -indicated a fair day 
throughout; that he felt safe in promising us an 
unusually fair day; that he was most happy to 
be of service, etc. We thanked him, and he 
went his way up the hill. 
As I said before, it was then very early in the 
morning, just the dull gray of dawn. Will 
looked at me with a queer smile and said, “Why, 
that’s a colored man. A good joke on us. 
What does he know about meteorology and 
such deep sciences?” 
I replied, “That’s the observer—the man him- 
seli—and he knows his business.” 
Will was silent for a moment, and he seemed 
to have something on his mind. Finally he 
said: “This is a revelation to me! What an 
age we live in! Who would have dared to say 
forty years ago that we should live to see a 
colored man with such deeply scientific attain- 
ments? That man is an ornament to society. 
It is an honor to know such a man. His race 
must feel great pride in him; and he seemed so 
gentlemanly and so modest, too. He does not 
appear to be at all conceited over his important 
and responsible station in life, etc., etc.” There 
was a lot more to it—high-flown and flowery 
expressions of praise and admiration—that I 
will not attempt. Will’s vocabulary is immense. 
He is never luke-warm; and whether in praise 
or in censure, there’s no chance to misunder- 
stand him. 
Arrived at our destination, we got out our 
fishing tackle and left the team in safe hands. 
Will remarked, “We will leave our rubber 
capes in the wagon. We don’t need them. We 
have assurance of fair weather from the highest 
authority in the State. ‘That man knows his 
business’ (quoting me). 
Now, if I should be at all inclined to side- 
track, for the moment, my own train of com- 
monplace thoughts, and to borrow an expres- ° 
sion or two, I might find that right here is my 
opportunity to say something after this fashion: 
“The saffron morn with early blushes spread, 
Now rose refulgent from Tithonus’ bed.” 
Aurora’s grief for her long-lost Memnon was 
in profuse evidence that morning; etc., etc. But 
I cut that all out. I prefer to state the simple 
fact that there had been an unusually heavy dew 
that morning, and to observe that this has al- 
ways been considered a sign of coming fair 
weather. 
It was then broad daylight, an ideal day, but 
rather too bright for our sport; that is to say, 
it was an ideal day up to about mid-afternoon, 
when some heavy clouds came into the west, 
followed very soon by a slight sprinkle that 
brought a few peculiar remarks from Will. 
Soon thereafter there came a perfect deluge. 
For two mortal hours it came in one unbroken 
sheet. While it lasted, nothing since the time 
of Noah could have been much worse. We were 
then a long way from any shelter, and we 
‘stumbled along in the bed of the swollen and 
discolored brook with more rain water than 
fish in our creels; our pockets, and even our 
boots, were filled with it. 
Will was just ahead of me, and from what I 
overheard from time to time it seemed to me 
that the “Queen’s English’ was being pretty 
roughly handled—handled as only Will can do 
it when there is occasion. Finally he made a 
mis-step and fell full length into the brook. 
When he got up again his face was a study. 
I said, “See here, if you don’t watch out you'll 
get wet.” Then came the explosion. His re- 
marks could have been heard half a mile away. 
“Get wet!” he roared. “I got into the brook 
to dry myself! 
“See here,’ he continued, “for the last two 
hours I have been kicking myself to think what 
a consummate ass I made of myself this morn- 
ing with my platitudes, my sentimental gush, yes 
my unmitigated rot about the advancement and 
the elevation of the ‘colored man and brother.’ 
It just galls me to think how I slobbered over 
that ordinary, ignorant, upstart of a nigger! 
‘Knows his own business,’ does he? He doesn’t 
know as much as a yellow dog!” 
I draw the veil. There was a lot more to it, 
and it was worse; but never mind. Finally he 
wound up with this: “Why don’t you say 
something?” 
When I saw that the safety valve had ceased 
to work, I ventured something like this: “I 
very much fear that you are showing an un- 
charitable spirit. Is it not written, ‘A prophet 
is not without honor except in his own country,’ 
and further, that ‘it is not given to man to know 
the future’ ?” 
Will smiled a very sickly smile, and he said, 
“Ves, I suppose that’s so. , Give us some more 
of that scripture, I feel the need of it.” 
For the sake of the crude moral that the 
story carries with it, if for nothing else, we may 
be excused for the relation. It was Hosea 
Biglow who so wisely believed in the safety of 
his ‘Grand’ther’s rule’: ‘Don’t never prophesy 
onless ye know.” JoHN Fort ter, JR. 
Boston. Mass. 
An Ormond Fishing Water. 
THE picture of an Ormond fishing water on 
the cover of the last issue was from a photo- 
graph by Mr. N. L. Stebbins, of Boston, whose 
excellent work in yacht photography has long 
been familiar to the readers of this journal. 
Florida Game Fishes. 
With Notes by Dr. James A. Henshall. 
(Concluded from last week. 
THe BiuerisH (Pomatomus saltatrix).—Pop- 
ular names of this widespread species are horse 
mackerel, mackerel, snap-mackerel, snapping 
mackerel, snapper, blue snapper, skip mackerel, 
whitefish, tailor, greenfish, skip-jack, salt-water 
jack and bluefish. 
In Florida the species is best known by small 
examples, but schools of adults occur at certain 
seasons. Two or three pounds is a fair average 
weight. Further north large individuals are com- 
mon; specimens weighing 40 or 50 pounds and 
measuring five feet are recorded, but the average 
weight now is under 10 pounds. The young fish 
are very thin, but the old increase greatly in 
plumpness. 
The best known method of taking bluefish is 
by trolling at the surface with a squid of metal 
or bone, to which is attached a piece of white rag 
or part of an eel skin. In tide rips with a mod- 
erate breeze, this is very effective and full of ex- 
citement. Heaving and hauling in the surf, par- 
ticularly near the mouths of small streams, into 
which alewives are passing, is a favorite pastime. 
At Indian River Inlet, according to Dr. Ken- 
worthy, “small bluefish congregate in numbers 
during the winter months and at times will not 
refuse a fly.” Artificial minnows are used with 
a light rod where schools of the young are seen 
feeding near the surface, and shrimp make a good 
bait under similar conditions. 
“The bluefish is abundant on the east coast of 
Florida. At Jupiter Inlet and Lake Worth I have 
had fine sport bluefishing. The usual way of fish- 
ing for them is by trolling with the hand-line 
from a sailboat with a pearl, bone or metal squid, 
trolling spoon, or even a bit of pork-rind or a 
white rag affixed to a hook, They are taken in 
this manner up to 10 pounds weight, though they 
usually run from 3 to 6 pounds. 
“The hand-line for trolling should be fifty 
yards of No, 1 braided linen or cotton line, or 
even a larger size, to prevent cutting the hands. 
The hook should be a Sproat of O’Shaughnessy 
— 4-0 to 6-0 is large eonugh. 
“But the preferable and sportsmanlike method 
of angling for the bluefish, or for any other fish 
for that matter, is with rod and reel. A light 
striped bass rod or a heavy black bass rod can 
be utilized, but a rod that I originally devised 
for the black bass fishing of Lake Erie (where 
a very heavy sinker is used) is just the tool for 
bait-fishing for bluefish and most of the coast 
fishes that run up to 10 or 15 pounds in weight, 
and where a heavy bait or sinker is cast from 
the reel. F 
“This rod is in two pieces (one joint), is 7% 
feet long and weighs about nine ounces, and is 
made of ash and lancewood or split-bamboo. A 
good multiplying reel of medium size and a 
braided linen or silk line No. 3 or size E and 
Sproat hook 4-0 to 5-0, with gimp snell to with- 
stand the lancet-shaped teeth, are the other neces- 
sary articles of tackle for bluefishing. 
“For bait, a small mullet or other small fish, 
three to six inches long, is best, which is to be 
cast from the reel as in striped bass or black bass 
fishing. A sinker should not be used, except a 
small brass swivel. The fishing should be prac- 
ticed from an anchored boat in the _tideways, 
though in Florida the shores of some of the nar- 
row inlets answer as well. The sport of the 
angler will be more assured if he will employ 
‘chumming’ as for striped bass by chopping up 
the mullet and throwing on the surface of the 
water to attract the fish. The bluefish is very 
gamy on the rod, frequently leaping from the 
water when hooked like the black bass, and will 

