680 


© 
REG. U. S. Pat. Off. 

The Greatest Sporting Goods 
Store in the World 
Gun Trails 


Wherever they lead, they 
start right here, where the 
full outfit is supplied— 
For moose in the bogs of 
New Brunswick or elk in 
Jackson’s Hole—for bear in 
the Louisiana canebrakes or 
deer in the Adirondacks. 
For canvasbacks on the celery 
flats of Currituck, quail in the 
Carolina stubble and turkey in the 
live-oak hammocks of Florida. 
Guns, ammunition, dog supplies, 
sport duffle, clothes and footgear, 
in complete variety. 
United States Agents for West- 
ley Richards & Company and Hus- 
sey English Shot Guns and Rifles, 
Manlicher Shoenauer, Mauser and 
other imported big game rifles, ex- 
press rifles and three-barrel guns, 
Purdy, Lang and Woodward, and 
all the standard American guns. 
dibercrombie 
& Fitch Co- 
EZRA H. FITCH, President 
Madison Avenue and 45th St. 
New York 
“Where the Blazed Trail 
Crosses the Boulevard” 
| 

In writing to Advertisers mention Forest and Stream. 
My Bass Stream 
‘““Old Friends Wear Well,’? Hence the Fascination of 
Fishing a Stream Known to One in Youth 
By J. M. EASTER 
S I sit here lean- 
ing back against an 
elm tree that sends 
its shade out across 
a favorite pool in 
this bass stream of 
mine and look across 
its dock-lined  sur- 
face to the fields be- 
yond, dotted here 
and there with rapid 
grazing sheep, and listen to the plain- 
tive bleat of the young lambs and to 
the whistle of a Bob-White calling to 
its mate, what this stream has been to 
me in my life flashes across my mind 
and leaves most pleasant thoughts and 
recollections for me to peruse and 
dream over. How much it has meant 
to me! 
My acquaintance with it began as a 
small boy of eight or nine. A cousin, 
years older than I, who went on long 
tramps to explore every nook and 
cranny near home and at a distance, 
and who used to allow me to accom- 
pany him and to whose long strides I 
had to take a hop and a step to keep 
up, took me out along its banks on one 
of our trips. Later I came back with- 
out him and I found the stream allur- 
ingly fascinating, coming back to it 
time after time. 
How I like to look back on those days, 
when as a barefooted youngster, I with 
one or two others of the same caliber 
would trudge out to this stream, three 
miles from our homes, to fish it with 
our penny lines or to hunt its banks 
for the elusive frog. How we delighted 
in wandering along it, poking in the 
weeds and grasses to scare out frogs 
or snakes, turning up stones to look 
for crawfish or, sitting on some bank 
over a large pool, fish it, baiting our 
hooks with worms and how delighted 
we would be if we caught a mess of 
sunfish or “sunnies,” as we called them. 
I can recall in those days how we used 
to wonder why the large black fish we 
saw among the docks would not take 
our bait and many a time we would 
throw our worms under their noses to 
be disdainfully ignored and they would 
flash away like lightning at the sight 
of us. 

HERE were quantities of those 
black looking fellows then in this 
stream of mine, which we could see 
plainly by sneaking up quietly to the 
edge of the banks. How few there are 
now. The city, only four miles dis- 
tant then, has gradually crept up to it 
and a growing suburb has taken pos- 
session of one side of it. The boys of 
the place have of course discovered the 
fish in the stream and I suspect that 
they gig and net them, in fact I know 
that they net, as I have found pieces 
of old nets lying in the stream. Woe 
to the boy whom I catch doing such 
things! There can be no other reason 
for there being so few fish here now. 
I could not have caught many out of 
it myself and there are only three or 
four others that I know of, besides my- 
self, who fish it or know that there are 
bass in it. And boys do not know how 
to fish bass, judging from my own lack 
of knowledge at that age. 
O one of us has ever caught many, 
as these bass are extremely shy, 
living in such a shallow stream as this, 
and then bass are such uncertain feed- 
ers. We are lucky to catch five or six 
in a day’s fishing, more often coming 
away without a fish and the most I 
ever have taken in a day is eight. 
There have always been plenty of small 
fish in the stream and the fish have 
been depleted in other ways besides 
hook and line. 
And so it comes back to some other 
source and falls on the netting and gig- 
ging of the boys of the neighborhood. 
Bass are such rapid multipliers that 
there is no other way of accounting for 
it. The pity of it! How quickly a 
place changes! But I am going to de- 
rive and reap all the benefit I can from 
the stream before the city itself takes 
possession of it. 
have the memory to dream over and re- 
member fondly as I do this afternoon. 
I recall to mind afternoons when we 
boys would come out to the swimming 
hole in the woods, where we disported, 
filling the air with our shouts and 
laughter. In that same swimming hole 
I have cast out across it and have land- 
ed many a fine bass. The boys still 
use that hole, as I have found out much 
to my sorrow. Some afternoons as a 
last resource, after a fishless day, I 
have slipped down to the hole only to 
find a crowd of laughing boys had 
taken possession of that fine bit of bass 
water. I would pass by and on to- 
wards home, smiling to myself, as I re- 
called my own pleasure that I had 
there as a hoy, I would wonder what 
It will identify you. 
And after that I shall” 
i i i 
