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”?

Perhaps the Deacon had an experience as exciting, if not as satisfactory, as that ever allotted to any fisherman. He and his son and the Preacher were fishing on Big St. Germain. The hotel was provided with a porch which ran along the entire front. As the party came in from an afternoon with the pike, the rods were placed against this porch, butts on the ground and tips projecting above the porch roof. The Preacher was the first to finish his supper, and as he came out the front door a peculiar combination of sounds was heard. Spitting, snarling, scratching were mingled with the clicking of a reel. It was the Deacon’s reel that seemed to be working alone and unaided, and the mystery was solved only when it was discovered that a cat had climbed upon the porch roof, swallowed the minnow that the Deacon had failed to remove from the hook, and was now making frantic efforts to escape. When the Deacon was informed of what was certainly nothing short of a cat-astrophe, he hastened to the rescue. Then and there was furnished such an exhibition of artistic and skilful handling of a rod as few have been permitted to witness. If a ten-pound trout instead of a cat had been at the end of the line, the Deacon could not have done better. Did the cat run up the side of the building, the Deacon paid out line. Did it run down again, he reeled in. His poise and calm were admirable. Once, indeed, when the youngster giggled, the Deacon’s voice was heard remarking that he did not see anything to laugh at. This furnished an atom too much for the Preacher’s self-control, and he hurried into a boat and rowed hastily out to the middle of the lake where he could give vent to the emotions which rent and tore him. An hour later, when the Preacher returned, all was peaceful. Despite the Deacon’s skill—possibly because of it—the cat had gotten off.

Did you ever see a muskallonge walk over the water on its tail? It is not claimed that this is its favourite method of taking a stroll, but only that under certain exceptional circumstances it may be induced to disport itself in this manner. W. G. had always felt like fishing, but circumstances had not permitted much indulgence of this inherent desire. When he had succeeded in making arrangements for a trip to Pike Lake and found himself on the twenty-five-mile drive from the railway station to the lake, he was happy. To be sure, the city-dweller was not quite prepared for the quiet of the woods, and when night came he was heard to aver that it was so still it made him nervous. However, on the whole, he found the experience quite to his liking, and entered with enthusiasm upon pursuit of the valorous muskallonge. It was the first one he struck which furnished the remarkable phenomenon of walking upon the water. He was trolling with a steel rod and plenty of line out, when a careless muskie grabbed the hook. The figure which a moment before had been relaxed and seemingly inert, became a mass of steel springs. Over that placid face came a look of such fierceness as fairly to frighten his boat-mates. He began to reel, but that did not at all satisfy his desire for speed. Casting the rod aside, grabbing the line and standing up in the boat, he jerked that muskallonge in, seemingly a rod at a jerk. To the onlookers the fish seemed to touch only the high places on the water, and then only with his tail. Not one muskie out of a thousand has a mouth tough enough to stand such treatment, but this was an exceptional fish. He came walking into the boat as if he had been accustomed to such violent exercise from childhood. We did not need to club him; he had died of surprise.

It was a muskie that furnished us with an introduction to those tricky scales which some unregenerate fishermen are said to use. We had journeyed to the Ottonaby Lakes, north of Port Hope, in search of bass and muskallonge. The senior member of the party had never caught a specimen of the latter, and was up at sunrise every morning to be rowed up and down until breakfast-time in pursuit of this gallant fish. When the Preacher came down to breakfast one morning there was the old gentleman, the centre of an admiring group gathered about a muskallonge. There could be no doubt as to its genuineness, but when the Senior announced that it weighed thirteen pounds, the Preacher was stunned. He thought of certain fish of which he had heard whose great weight was found to be due to some pounds of shot that had been surreptitiously poured down their gullets. One look at the honest face of the Senior dispelled all such suspicions.

“Who weighed him?”

“I did,” answered the landlord. “He goes a little over thirteen pounds.” After breakfast the troubled Preacher went behind the bar in search of those scales, and was caught in the act by the landlord.

“What do you want?” questioned the proprietor.

“I want to weigh that fish.”

In a low voice that could not reach the Senior in the adjoining dining-room, the landlord said: “Never mind. I’ll tell you. That fish weighs just five pounds.”

And that unsuspicious old man went back home and bragged of his thirteen-pound muskie, while the Preacher said never a word. What’s the use of spoiling a good story?

Some people seem to be naturally skeptical about fish stories. They should not be, for tales of piscatorial adventure are peculiar in that, no matter how big they are made, they can never equal the facts. The Preacher had just come to his new parish, and after a month or so of work there had taken a trip to the Nepigon. He could do nothing less, on his return, than tell stories of big trout, for there were no others to tell about. At the dinner table in one of the homes of his parish he had been relating some of his fishing adventures on the famous stream, of an eight-pound trout taken at Victoria Pool and the numbers that went four and five pounds each, when the hostess, a vivacious and witty woman, threw up her hands and jocularly exclaimed: “For Heaven’s sake! What sort of a pastor have we drawn?”

It was a year or two later that the Preacher, when spending a few days on Tomahawk Lake, caught a muskie that went a little over seventeen pounds. Recalling the skepticism of his parishioner, he had the fish packed in a box where it could lie out at full length, surrounded it with moss and ice, and expressed it to the doubter. When he reached home again the skeptic had been soundly converted from the error of her ways. On their first meeting after the reception of the muskie, she said: “Pastor, after this you may tell any fish-lie you like and I will swear to it.”