Superior Fishing / Or, the Striped Bass, Trout, and Black Bass of the Northern States

by Robert Barnwell Roosevelt

The weather had been hot and dry; the water had fallen and become transparent as crystal; the fish were shy and cautious. After exhausting my ingenuity in selecting new flies to suit their capricious tastes, I had settled upon one of bright yellow, which, if the gentlemen did not wish to eat, they did seem to enjoy inspecting; they rose to it freely, and after I had tried in vain to strike them, curiosity induced me to keep count of their number.

Fourteen times had they risen and disappeared uninjured; fourteen times had my nerves tingled, and my blood started; fourteen times had sudden hope turned to bitter disappointment, till anticipation settled down into dull despair. Only those who have themselves had such painful experiences can appreciate my feelings; the continual tantalizing approximation to success, to be followed by agonizing failure; the renewed hope that the next rise would result in the capture of a fish ever to remain unfulfilled; the desperate effort to strike quicker or to cast more attractively; all these and many other feelings swarmed through my heart, as fish after fish approached his fate, and invariably escaped.

They seemed to be feeding, as it is called, and when the fly passed they rose, and turning over like a porpoise chasing mossbunkers, seemed to take it in their mouths. They did not spring out of water in the gaiety of reckless play, but acted as they would have done if swallowing the natural insect. Not that it is certain that salmon feed on flies; but while they can rarely be taken while playing, they often can be when acting in a manner resembling feeding.

My patience not exhausted, for it never is while fish will rise, I directed the canoe to be dropped towards the lower end of the fishing-ground, and stepped from it to a rock in the stream, and then casting the farthest and lightest possible, was rewarded. A magnificent fish rose; was secured by a quick turn of the butt, and stung by the unexpected pain, fled down the current. Away he went, on without a pause, the reel hissing, the line unwinding, and darting into the water, till having exhausted seventy-five yards of line, and being partially turned by its weight and the resistance of the click, he stopped with a heavy surge, and heading back, approached as fast as he had fled. Instantly and instinctively my hand fell upon the handle of the reel; it would not turn, no effort could budge it; conceive my feelings now, if mortal man can conceive them. The fish coming towards us, the line lying in a long heavy bag behind him, threatening to sink and catch round some rock, or by its slacking up release the hook; I jerked in the line, thinking a grain of sand might have penetrated between the plates, and tried the handle first one way, then the other, in vain.

This all passed with the speed of thought, but the fish was approaching as quickly; there was nothing left but calling one of my men to tell him to take in the line, hand over hand, and holding it in a loose coil, be prepared to pay it out on the next rush. Then thinking that the plates must be bent, I took from my pocket a screw-driver that I always carried, and unloosened every screw. There I stood, grasping in one hand the rod, while the tip bent to the motions of the fish, with the other working away at the reel; beside me my best man, slowly drawing in or paying out the line as need must; both of us eager, anxious, and startled at this new mode of killing salmon; the fish, vigorous as ever, making continual and sustained rushes, but fortunately none as extended as his first.

I had freed every screw in the reel, but without any result; it was as immovable as ever; there was no resource but to do the best we could, in our original mode of proceeding, under the circumstances. Never before had a fish proved himself stronger or braver; for a good half hour he kept us on the stretch, and then sulked. Stationing himself in the edge of the current, he held his own doggedly; fifteen minutes of such behavior exhausted our patience. If I tried to lead him towards the shore, he took advantage of the eddy to resist; if to turn him the other way, he braced himself against the current; a severe strain, however, brought him to the surface, and revealed the fact that he was not sulking at the bottom, but resolutely swimming, head up stream, in the current.

Not a little surprised, we tossed in a pebble, then a stone, at last a rock, when, indignant, he fled down stream; fifteen minutes more of exciting contest, several rushes when he was on the point of being captured, resulted at last in bringing him flouncing on the gaff out of water. He only weighed fifteen pounds, but had been hooked foul, the point having penetrated at the hard bone near the eye.

I then sat down deliberately to discover what had happened to my reel; it seemed to be in perfect order, but would not move; I tried to drive the shaft out of its bearing with the mallet—a heavy club of wood used to kill the fish after they are gaffed, but only after a good hour’s work did I succeed in separating it, and found that for want of oil the two surfaces had become almost solid. They were as bright as burnished gold, and had evidently been heated by the first desperate rush of the fish; after being touched with a drop of oil and replaced, they worked beautifully.

It is curious to note how, in salmon-fishing, accidents will happen when the fish is on the hook; if the line is weakened, or the leader fretted, or the rod strained, the weight and power of the fish expose the weakness; if anything is aught but perfect, it gives way at that critical moment. In trout-fishing you are apt to discover the defects in time, and in bass-fishing the tackle is coarse and strong; but in salmon-fishing you first learn their presence by their parting. Never use a doubtful strand of gut, or a second-quality hook; never tie a knot without thoroughly testing it, and never use a leader that is in the least worn.

The best line by far, for both salmon and trout-fishing, is the braided silk covered with a water-proof preparation, and tapered to the fineness of the gut-leader. If this can be obtained no other should be thought of, but if it cannot, the others are about on a disgraceful par of mediocrity; the one that is usually praised, that of silk and horse-hair mixed, being, if possible, the worst, for while it has the weakness of the horse-hair, and water-soaking capacity of the silk, it has a difficulty especially its own, arising from the protrusion of short ends of hair that have broken or rotted off, and which are continually catching the rings, or guides. The common silk line may be coated with raw linseed oil by stretching it in a garret or some place shaded from the sun, and rubbing it with a cloth soaked in the oil; several coats must be applied, allowing each to dry before a renewal, and care must be taken to avoid exposure to the sun’s rays, which will rot the line. If thoroughly coated it will answer nearly as well as if prepared in a more scientific manner.