May 12, 1906.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
755 

Queer Modes of Fishing. 
BY JOHN HAWKINS. 
WueEN reading Robinson Crusoe or some 
similar solitary life and adventure, many a lad 
has wondered what he himself would do if 
chance should suddenly place him in an unin- 
habited land with none of the appliances of 
civilization to aid him in procuring food. If 
natural conditions were favorable, the case 
would not be so desperate as one might think. 
The earliest men in Europe, as well as in 
some other parts of the world, lived near the 
seashore or on the banks of rivers. Experience 
taught them that the water was much more 
likely to furnish sustenance than the land; for, 
while it is almost impossible to take birds or 
quadrupeds without arms or traps of some kind, 
fish may be caught with no other implements 
than these with which nature has furnished 
every man. The art of fishing is thus older 
than the art of hunting; and in remote rural 
districts many methods of fishing, called into 
being by the necessities of primitive men, sur- 
vive as the sports of their descendants. 
A favorite summer amusement in some parts of 
the South is grabbling. “Grabble” is a good dic- 
tionary word, meaning “to grope or feel with the 
hands,” and it describes accurately this method 
of fishing. In such rivers as the Broad and 
Saluda, in South Carolina, shoals abound—shal- 
low places where the channel widens out, the 
water tumbles over broad ledges of rock, and 
where the bed of the stream is thickly strewn 
with boulders of every shape and size. Under 
many of the larger rocks are hollows. com- 
municating with the outer waters by one or more 
small passages, and in these hollows catfish 
love to. lie, particularly in very warm weather. 
To catch them it is only necessary to wade in 
the shoals until a suitable rock is found, shut 
up all the passages but one, insert the hand 
through that one, grabble until a fish is found, 
grasp it carefully to avoid the spines, and bring 
it out. In this manner twenty or thirty pounds 
of fish are often caught in a few hours. 
An expert grabbler may fish alone, using 
small stones to close the holes by which the fish 
might escape, but it is usual for several boys to 
go together, one doing the grabbling, another 
stringing and carrying the fish, and the rest 
using their hands or feet to prevent the fish 
from escaping from their hiding places before 
they are caught. The most favorable depth of 
water is from two to four feet. Sometimes a 
dozen fish may be found in one place, and again 
‘a hollow may prove empty. 
When one has become accustomed to it, grab- 
bling is an attractive sport, combining as it does 
the pleasures of both bathing and fishing. The 
fisherman will sometimes grasp a moccasin or 
other snake instead of a fish; but the danger 
from this source is much reduced by the fact 
that the snake is under water and therefore not 
likely to strike. This and other slight elements 
of danger only add spice to the sport. There are 
swift sluices to wade, where weak legs shake 
like reeds or where the footing may be entirely 
lost. One may be wading confidently along 
in two or three feet of water and suddenly 
plunge into a pool ten feet in depth; but most of 
those who go grabbling are expert swimmers, 
and fatal accidents are rare. 
Where small ponds abound, stirring up the 
mud at their bottoms until the water is 
thoroughly muddy, will cause the fish to rise 
to the surface, where they may be easily caught 
with the hands. Sometimes, in the low country 
of South Carolina and Georgia, an alligator is 
aroused and the sport thus considerably en- 
livened. 
Searcely less primitive than grabbling and 
muddying, is striking. Armed with long- 
handled paddles, or even with rude clubs broken 
from trees, the fishermen wade at night up shal- 
low creeks, carrying torches, and spearing or 
striking the fish seen lying at the bottom of 
the stream. Stunned or killed, the fish rises to 
the surface and is picked up. ms 
Somewhat more artificial, but still very rude, 
is another mode of taking fish practiced in the 
South. Of all the varieties of fish which run 
up stream at certain seasons, none go higher 
toward the very fountain-head of their native 
waters than pike and pickerel. They may be 
seen in spring and early summer ascending little 
ditches or making their way through tangled 
growths in marshy woods where few would 
suppose a fish without legs could go. It is an 
easy matter at such times for barefoot boys to 
hem them in and catch them in their hands or 
kill them with sticks; but usually a better plan 
is adopted. The young fishermen break a stout, 
flexible switch, bend it in the form of a hoop, 
and cover it with interlaced twigs. This they 
use as a seine or net, or set it in a narrow 
place in the stream and drive the fish into it 
by stirring the water with sticks. 
A visit to the National Museum, at Washing- 
ton, will suggest several other methods of fish- 
ing with only such material as nature provides. 
There also one may learn how to produce fire 
for cooking his fish, without matches, flint and 
steel, or anything more elaborate than a few 
simple sticks of wood. 
A Colorado Canyon: 
THE engraving with this title will call up many 
memories to the men who have been accustomed 
to fish the lovely trout streams of the south 

Photo by Fred’k H. Chapin. 
Rocky Mountains, Here is a stream which W. 
N. Byers would have delighted to follow up; amid 
such surroundings would “Bourgeois’—L, RB. 
France—have evolved those simple but delightful 
thoughts with which he used to charm us all in 
bygone years. 
This photograph was taken years ago by Mr. 
Frederick H. Chapin, author and mountain 
climber, and it cannot be presented at a better 
time than now when Colorado anglers are look- 
ing up their flies for the mountain brooks. 
A Big Trout from the Croton. 
Dansury, Conn., May 1.—Editor Forest and 
Stream: Mr. William R. Silvernail, a native of 
Ancram, N. Y., and an ardent fly-caster, caught, 
on Saturday, April 28, in Croton River, in 
Brewsters, N. Y., a brook trout weighing three 
pounds and six ounces. 
The fish was caught on a 6-o0z. lancewood fly- 
rod and single gut leader, and fifty-five minutes 
were rquired to land it. It was brought to this 
city to be mounted by Mr. J. Thomas, and will 
be exhibited in this city for a brief time. 
This is interesting, as it is the largest brook 
trout caught in this vicinity in years. Also, its 
extraordinary fighting qualities were remark- 
able. C. M. SNELL. 
A COLORADO CANYON. 
