Part 12

The Bully would have been scared if that possibility had not been denied him. Instead of fleeing in fear he came out from under cover and shouted: “Are you talking about me? You big bluffer! I’ll make you food for the crows.” If the truth must be told, both the combatants used language that was not only exceedingly scurrilous, but shockingly profane. In this gentle exercise the Bully had the best of it and the pond trout became so enraged that he dashed at his enemy with jaws extended. The Bully was so busy swearing that he came near losing his life. As it was, he dodged just in time to prevent those powerful jaws from closing upon him, but not quickly enough to escape a slashing from two big teeth which laid his side open in deep gashes. He was a surprised Bully, but not dismayed.

The battle that followed had no historian. Of much that took place, the whirling and darting, the snapping and struggling, the reports that have come down through the years are somewhat confused and even contradictory. It seems clear that at the first the Bully had the worst of it. Besides the gashes received in the first attack, he lost one fin and a piece of his tail early in the fray. The pond trout had all the advantage in size and was cheered on by his friends; but the Bully’s gymnastic exercises, fighting with the rapids, stood him in good stead now. His muscles were steel, while those of the pond trout had grown somewhat flabby since he had come to content himself with life in the still water. As they feinted and charged and whirled about, the pond champion began to grow short of breath and found increasing difficulty in meeting the rushes of the Bully, who seemed to grow more agile as the battle raged. Then there came a moment when the Bully feinted for his opponent’s tail, and, when the pond trout turned suddenly to guard his caudal extremity, he left his throat unguarded for an instant--and it was all over. Once the Bully had set his teeth into the white throat he shook and raged and tore while the life-blood of his foe gushed out, and the denizens of the pond saw their supposedly invincible warrior die before their eyes.

Nothing is known, certainly, of the Bully’s life after this up to the day that he met his death. It is whispered that before leaving the pond he undertook to capture a white miller that came fluttering over the surface of the water just at dusk one night and found himself fast at the end of a line as in his boyhood. Some even assume to say that after vainly flinging himself into the air in the effort to shake the miller out of his mouth, he said goodbye to those who had been drawn about him by his struggles, and was about ready to give up hope when one last struggle took him over and under a root and he found himself free. They even go so far as to say that for many a day after that the miller stuck to the Bully’s jaw, and that from it floated a fine, white thread.

Another unsupported rumour has it that as he was going up stream one day in a narrow part of the stream he found a fine bunch of branches and leaves, and gladly pushed in among them when he heard a disturbance in the water back of him. No sooner had he entered this refuge than it began to rise out of the water, and he shortly found himself on shore and being handled by an animal that resembled the boy who had given him so much trouble years before, only much larger. Even then he would not give up without an effort, and, summoning all his strength, he gave a mighty squirm and escaped out of his captor’s hands. He struck on the gravel, gave two or three tremendous leaps and was in water again, free.

The Bully had grown to be the biggest trout in all that stretch of water, and his under jaw protruded as far and was quite as hooked as had been that of his vanquished enemy of the pond. An August morning found him well up the river in the dense woods where the water was cool and food was abundant. He had found a place where the water was some four feet deep, and a fallen tree-top made the finest kind of a hiding-place. Just above him was a clear space some two feet in diameter where now and then he could take a bug or a foolish miller. Lying at his ease, he thought with satisfaction of his numerous victories over other trout and of his good fortune in escaping those strange beings which prowled along the shore and threw enticing flies or worms into the stream. Just then--but, before we tell of this incident, we must bring in another story. That morning four men had broken camp some miles down the stream and started on a sixteen-mile tramp back into the woods, where they were to spend a month on the shore of a lake, fishing and hunting. The duffle was piled upon a rude sled drawn along the trail by a horse. When two of the party were ready to start ahead of the others, the guide, Fide Scott, said to one of them, the Preacher, “We’ll follow the river for more than half the way, and if you fellows can catch some trout we’ll have ‘em for dinner.”

The Preacher already had hooks and a line in his pocket, and at once added a supply of fat angle worms from the common stock. They had walked for an hour or more when they came to a point on the river where a tree had fallen across the stream. Just below this natural bridge the water was deep and still, and a great mass of brush seemed to promise an ideal hiding-place for trout. To make conditions exceptionally favourable there was a good-sized open place in the centre of the brush where one might drop his lure without the absolute certainty of getting snagged. The line came out of the Preacher’s pocket in a hurry, the hook was tied on and two exceedingly well-developed worms were looped in such a way as to be as enticing as possible. A piece of alder, six feet or so in length, was pressed into service and everything was ready for the piscatorial adventure. But the pole was too short. Doing his best, the fisherman could not stand on the shore and drop his bait into that open spot in the brush. Only one thing remained, and that was to walk out on the log, from which the bark had dropped away, leaving it as slippery as the cellar door down which the Preacher had been wont to slide as a boy. Slowly and with exceeding caution the adventurer made his way inch by inch along the log until he had reached a point from which he could drop his hook into that most attractive opening in the brush. Balancing himself carefully, he allowed that mass of wriggling worms to touch the surface of the water when--but now we’ll go back to the Bully.

When he saw that bunch of angleworms just above him he forgot the crooked worm which had pricked him in his childhood. He was sure that here was the most satisfying morsel that had ever come his way and rushed for it. He closed his jaws on only a part of the mass, and the rest disappeared, much to his disappointment. What he secured made him eager for more. It was distinctly more palatable than anything he had tasted for many a moon. Just as he was longing for more of the same kind--behold! another bunch of wriggling, squirming worms appeared in almost the same spot. This time he did not propose to lose any of this meal so providentially provided, and he made a rush that enabled him not only to grab the entire mass, but to get it well back in his mouth. Then came that upward pull which he had felt in former experiences. He kicked and struggled and threshed, making the water boil about him. For a little his upward progress seemed to be stayed and he imagined that he would get free after all. Then his ascent began again and continued, despite all his mighty protests, until he felt himself enwrapped and almost smothered by something, he knew not what. The Bully of the Upper Oswe-gatchie never knew what happened after that. He could not see the painfully anxious face of the Preacher endeavouring to balance himself on a peeled log and haul a big trout out of the brush by a sheer pull. He had no knowledge of the fervour with which the Preacher embraced him, or of the perilous journey to the shore along that treacherous pathway. He could not see the comrade of the Preacher when, excited by the splashing made by the Bully in his efforts to get off the hook, he jumped into the stream in his anxiety to be of help.

When the rest of the party came up, there upon the grass lay a noble fish, and the proud Preacher was fairly sizzling with eagerness to tell all about the capture. There was nothing with which to weigh the Bully, but he measured a plump twenty-two inches in length and Fide Scott placed his weight at a good five pounds. That Preacher fairly split the buttons from his coat, swelling with pride when the guide exclaimed: “I’ve lived along the Oswegatchie for fifty years and he’s the biggest trout I ever saw took out of the river.”

_We may say of angling as Dr. Botcler said of strawberries: “Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did”; and so, if I may judge, God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling_.---Izaak Walton, _The Complete Angler._

XIX. OLLA PODRIDA

HE backward look reveals many-isolated bits of experience in the out-of-doors, not one of them important enough to form the nucleus of a story of respectable size, and yet to each one crying out every time we glance in its direction: “Tell about me!” If the reader finds nothing of interest in these odds and ends, he who writes may at least hope to quiet the importunities of these clamorous voices from out of the past.

The Canasawacta Creek is usually a quiet, inoffensive stream, making its way between the low-lying hills of central New York to its union with the Chenango River. The rain had been falling steadily all day and the creek was somewhat swollen when the families in the little hamlet at South Plymouth retired for the night, but no one thought of danger. Shortly after midnight a little chap in one of those homes was awakened by his father, who lifted him out of his trundle bed and wrapped him in a blanket. The lad did not understand what had happened, even when he saw the water ankle-deep on the living-room floor, or when his father carried him through the swiftly rushing flood to the house of a neighbour on the height of land. It never occurred to him to be afraid so long as his father’s arms were about him.

In the sunshine of the next morning father and boy walked hand in hand down the street to the home which they had so hastily abandoned the night before. The creek had returned to its bed and was behaving much as usual. The boy wondered not a little at the flood-wood left stranded against the picket fence, and was not slow to begin an investigation of the changes wrought in his playground by the visitor of the previous night.

Over towards one corner of the yard was a depression in the ground with water still standing in it, and as the lad passed this pool he saw something moving. Although less than three years old, he had learned that a moving object in the water was very likely to be a fish. Young as he was, a great passion of pursuit seized him, and he grabbed with both hands at the object dimly seen through the roily water. Conviction became a certainty as he felt the fish squirm out of his grasp and received a splash of muddy water as the frightened victim struggled in the shallow pool. Clean clothes and a mother’s injunctions were forgotten in the lust of the chase. In he waded and gathered that fish to his heart with both arms. When the father returned from investigating conditions in the house, there stood the lad, wet, muddy, but triumphant. What kind of a fish? The boy neither knew nor cared. It was a fish--and that was quite enough, especially when accompanied by the unquestioning conviction that it was the biggest fish in all the world. Since that boy has grown to manhood he has often said to himself as he looked upon an unpromising bit of water, “You never can tell. If fish are to be caught in your front dooryard, where may you not find them?”

Many trout come to view as we peer into the mists of the long ago, but, among them all, two are in a class by themselves. One of them came out of the Otselic River on a day when the boy had been berrying and had made a failure. Swinging his empty pail, he came to the river just where it had dug its way into the bank and formed a deep pool over which the alders hung. No normal boy goes abroad on any day, save Sunday, without a fishhook and line in his pocket. Bringing forth these essentials to happiness, he found a pole, dug an angleworm from a muddy spot, and dropped his bait just where the water was blackest. Sunfish and perch and eels abounded in this river, but it was not famous for trout. In fact, this boy was not fishing for trout and so was all the more amazed when, after a sharp struggle, he landed a speckled monster on the grassy bank. At least he seemed a monster in size to the boy, and a conservative adult estimate would place the fish at well over a pound.

Now, failure to find berries appeared plainly providential, for here was the empty pail and the trout could be carried home alive. Under the porch at the back of the house was a half-hogshead, set into the ground, into which poured a little stream of pure, soft spring water brought from the nearby hillside through a lead pipe. Did a trout ever have a more ideal place of residence? Here he lived and thrived for many a day, fed with untiring regularity until--just here memory fails. Possibly he died of old age.

The boy had grown somewhat older and had learned to make and use the “snare,” when he went on a visit to friends in Cortland. Cortland is a thriving city now, and even then was a wide-awake and bustling village; but its chief attraction to the boy was its river--the Tioughnioga. No sooner had he said “How do you do?” to his relatives than he hurried to the river bridge to snare suckers. Now don’t sniff, you owners of hand-made split-bamboo rods and scorners of all fishing except that for trout or bass! If you will just think back along the years until you catch sight of yourself as you once were, you will realize that the boy knows but one rule when fishing, and that is, “Get there!” Methods do not matter to him so that he catches fish. Neither has he learned that dainty discrimination among the inhabitants of the water that comes with the years. We know boys, even in these days, who would rather stand on a log and catch unlimited numbers of sunfish, than to fish all day and take a half-dozen bass.

He had borrowed a cane pole, and the line, with the slipping-noose of shining copper wire at the end, was soon dangling over the side of the bridge. Yes, the suckers were still there just about as they had been a month before when he saw them but lacked the paraphernalia for their capture. Of course, they were not good eating, for it was summer-time and their flesh was soft. So, as often as one was derricked wriggling to the bridge, it was thrown back, and the process repeated. Naturally, he sought to catch the biggest ones, and when he discovered one of unusual size lying in the shadow of a rock he was all a-tingle with desire and anxiety. Cautiously he dropped the snare well above the fish and gently guided it down with the current until the copper wire was well back of the gills, and then jerked. Hurrah! he had him! Sucker? Not with that mouth and the beautiful carmine spots upon its sides. It is a trout, and a big one. The suckers had lost their charm, and a bee-line was made for the house of his friends that he might ‘have company in his rejoicing. Passing along the street, proudly dangling the big trout from an alder sprout, he was met by a man who stopped to admire the fish.

“Where did you catch him?”

“Down at the bridge. I snared him.”

“Snared him? Don’t you know that’s illegal?” When the good-natured man, who had not forgotten that he was once a boy, had explained that snaring a trout laid one liable to fine or imprisonment, a scared, small boy sneaked by back-ways, and with the trout carefully hidden under his jacket, to the home of his friends. Heretofore game laws had not entered into his scheme of life. He was worried and unhappy; but nothing happened.

Every fisherman has his favourite lure for bass. Some put their trust in frogs, others swear by minnows. The crawfish, dobson, fly, spoon, worm, lamprey, pork-rind, and almost innumerable other supposed attractions,--each has its enthusiastic champions. But what will you do when all these fail? It came pretty near being that question which was faced by the boy who sought to capture the big bass lying under the Erie Canal bridge. On sunny days one could stand on the bridge and see a score or more of bass resting near the bottom of the canal, but this particular fish, of aldermanic proportions, made all the others seem like infants. The boy could and did catch some of these bass, but the prize fish maintained a tantalizing indifference to all that was offered. Once or twice he had rubbed his nose against a fat minnow that was dangled directly in front of him, but usually he treated the most enticing morsel with utter disdain. The boy had exhausted his repertoire of attractions, when, on a certain morning, he made his way to the bridge with the fixed purpose to ignore the big bass and devote himself to more responsive members of that family. As he trudged along the road he noticed an apple peeling that had been cast away by some passer-by. A part of it was brilliant red. An idea popped into the lad’s mind, only to be turned out of doors as absurd. But it would not stay outside. Again and again it returned asking hospitality, but the boy was firm and continued on his way. Once more, as he fished, that preposterous idea thrust itself upon him, and finally he retraced his steps and picked up the apple-peeling. Going back to the bridge, he fastened a piece of the red peeling to his hook, red side down, stood well out of sight of the fish, and began wiggling his pole in such a way that the brilliant peeling was compelled to dance a jig on the surface of the water. Only a moment of suspense, and then came a strike that almost carried him off his feet. Was it the big one? The pole bent until it threatened to snap in two. Pushing it rapidly backwards through his hands, he grasped the line and proceeded to haul in hand over hand. Of course a number of things might happen, any one of which would be a measureless calamity. But the line did not part, the hook did not tear out, the heavens did not fall, and when at last a noble bass was safely landed on the bridge the boy let out a yell that might have been heard in Syracuse. Five pounds, four ounces, he weighed, and his relatives under the canal bridge knew him no more for ever.

The bass has countless vagaries, and one never knows what he will do under given circumstances. As a father and son were fishing for small-mouth on the St. Lawrence, the senior hooked a fish which broke the snood and went free. Now there is a persistent tradition that, when a bass has been pricked by the hook, he does not bite again until the passing of twenty-four hours or such a matter has served to wipe the experience from his memory. In less than an hour the boy caught a two-pounder having in its jaws the identical snood which the father had lost. The tradition was discredited, unless we assume that the one caught had envied the mouth ornament worn by the one hooked earlier in the day, and, stealing it, had fixed it in his own jaw.

Bass fishing on the Bay of Quinte is famous for its excellence. Not only is there abundance of fish, but they are exceptionally gamey. Their vigour and eagerness to be caught is illustrated by the member of this tribe that jumped into our boat. Every one has heard of the Florida mullet that, attracted by the light in a boat at night, came jumping over the sides in such numbers that they sank the boat and imperilled the lives of those on board. But a bass is no such fool fish as a mullet. If they do any jumping it is usually away from the boat, not towards it. The bass under consideration was hooked in some twenty feet of water, and put up a vigorous fight. The fisherman was compelled to give out line in considerable quantities, but when the fish ran under the boat it was evidently time to “snub” him. No sooner was this done than he gave a leap and landed in the boat from the opposite side.

As a rule, ladies are not enthusiastic devotees of the “gentle art.” One, however, whom we knew somewhat well, became, under the tutelage of her husband, more than a little expert in fishing for bass. She had grown familiar with all their ordinary tricks and knew how to drop the point of the rod to prevent an impending leap, and just when to give out line and when to reel in. Fishing one day on Round Lake, she hooked a bass and proceeded to play it according to the most approved rules. She met every rush and anticipated every jump. Then the line became limp and she said to her husband, “He’s off.” Just then the fish broke water less than two feet away from the boat, flung himself into the air, shook the hook free from his jaws, and was gone. Here was one trick with which the fisherwoman was not familiar. Small wonder that she asked pathetically, “Why did he do it?”

One makes strange catches sometimes. We recall a gentleman who, on his initial experience in trout fishing, was discovered sitting on a log by the stream, examining a strange-looking fish which furnished the solitary evidence of his piscatorial skill. “Is that a trout?” he asked of his friend. “Hardly,” was the reply. “What is it, then?” That question remains unanswered. It was evidently a bottom fish of some kind, and resembled a “hammer-head,” but with some marked differences.

Every one familiar with sea-fishing knows what freaks in form and colouring are brought up occasionally when one is fishing for cod or scup or flounders. It remained for Mt. Desert to take a safe lead of all competitors in furnishing peculiar returns to the fisherman’s advances. We were fishing off the pier at one of the famous summer resorts of this famous island. The fish were not responsive and it was decided to quit. When the fisherman attempted to pull in his line he found that his hook was snagged. Under a strong but steady pull the line began to come in with something heavy dragging at the end. As it made no struggle it could hardly be a fish, and sunken logs and sticks are not frequent in tide-water. Slowly the catch was drawn in until the wondering fisherman could see a jug, brown but not very little, into the handle of which his hook had caught. The wonder was that an empty, corked jug should sink. When it was discovered that a strong cord anchored the jug to one of the timbers of the pier, a suspicion was created that this jug had been caught previously. A somewhat hasty and incomplete examination established relationship between the jug and the Maine prohibition law, but not between the jug and its owner. Can any other fisherman boast of catching the “spirits of the vasty deep”?