The Game Fish, of the Northern States and British Provinces / With an account of the salmon and sea-trout fishing of Canada and New Brunswick, together with simple directions for tying artificial flies, etc., etc.

by Robert Barnwell Roosevelt

He is indeed the prince of monsters, the paragon of giants; so thick, so deep, with so small a head for so large a body; such brilliant hues: the fins so red, the blue and carmine spots so numerous and delicate. I wash him off and stand gazing at him in my hand regardless of further sport. I have captured the king, and care not to follow his subalterns. I lay him gently in my basket; he will not lie at full length. I cover him with moss, filling the little room left, and forcing my way through the overhanging bushes, and, reaching the broad light of day, proudly await the arrival of my companion. Then the moss is carefully removed, and the beauties of my darling are unveiled, and flash and gleam in the sunlight.

There are several ways of landing a trout, but not all equally sportsmanlike. Large trout may be gaffed, small ones landed in a net, and where neither of these means is at hand, they must be dragged out of water, or flirted up among the bushes, according to the taste of the angler and the strength of his tackle.

A tyro was once fishing on the same boat with me, using bait, when he struck his first trout. One can imagine how entirely misspent had been his previous existence, when it is said he had never taken a trout, no, nor any other fish before. It was not a large fish; such luck rarely falls to the share of the beginner, and in spite of what elderly gentlemen may say to the contrary, an ignorant countryman, with his sapling rod and coarse tackle, never takes the largest fish nor the greatest in quantity. Were it otherwise, sportsmen had better turn louts, and tackle makers take to cutting straight saplings in the woods. My companion, nevertheless, was not a little surprised at the vigorous rushes the trout made to escape, but his line being strong and rod stiff, he steadily reeled him in. Great was the excitement; his whole mind was devoted to shortening the line, regardless of what was to be done next. We had a darkey named Joe with us to row the boat and land the fish, and our luck having been bad during the morning, he was delighted at this turn of affairs, and ready, net in hand, to do his duty. The fish was being reeled up, till but a few feet of the line remained below the top, when, with a shout of “land, Joe, land him,” my companion suddenly lifted tip his rod, carrying the trout far above our heads. There it dangled, swaying to and fro, bouncing and jumping, while the agonized fisherman besought the darkey to land him, and the latter, reaching up as far as he could with the net, his eyes starting out of his head with wonder at this novel mode of proceeding, came far short of his object. Never was seen such a sight; the hopeless despair of my friend, the eagerness of the darkey, who fairly strove to climb the rod as the fish danced about far out of reach. What was to done? The line would not render, the rod was so long we could not reach the tip in the boat; and the only horrible alternative appeared to be my friend’s losing his first fish. The latter, however, by this remarkable course of treatment, had grown peaceable, and when he was dropped back into the water, made but feeble efforts, while my companion, as quietly as he could, worked out his line till he could land him like a Christian. Great were the rejoicings when the prize earned with so much anxiety was secured. That is the way not to land a trout.

One afternoon of a very boisterous day, I struck a large fish at the deep hole in the centre of Phillipse’s Pond, on Long Island. He came out fiercely, and taking my fly as he went down, darted at once for the bottom, which is absolutely covered with long, thick weeds. The moment he found he was struck, he took refuge among them, and tangled himself up so effectually that I could not feel him, and supposed he had escaped. By carefully exerting sufficient force, however, the weeds were loosened from the bottom, and the electric thrill of his renewed motion was again perceptible. He was allowed to draw the line through the weeds and play below them, as by so doing they would give a little, while if confined in them he would have a leverage against them, and could, with one vigorous twist, tear out the hook. When he was somewhat exhausted, the question as to the better mode of landing him arose. The wind was blowing so hard as to raise quite a sea, which washed the weeds before it in spite of any strain that could be exerted by the rod, and drifted the boat as well, rendering the latter almost unmanageable, while the fish was still so vigorous as to threaten at every moment to escape. I besought the boatman, who was an old hand and thoroughly up to his business, to drop the boat down to the weeds and let me try and land my fish with one hand while holding the rod with the other. He knew the dangers of such a course, and insisted upon rowing slowly and carefully for shore at a shallow place sheltered from the wind, although I greatly feared the hook would tear out or the rod snap under the strain of towing both weeds and fish; once near shore, he deliberately forced an oar into the mud and made the boat fast to it, and then taking up the net, watched for a favorable chance. He waited for some time, carefully putting the weeds aside, until a gleaming line of silver glanced for a moment beneath the water, when darting the net down, he as suddenly brought it up, revealing within its folds the glorious colors of a splendid trout. That was the way to land a trout under difficulties, although I still think I could have done it successfully by myself.

Generally, the utmost delicacy should be shown in killing a fish, but there are times when force must be exerted. If the fish is making for a stump, or even weeds, he must be stopped at any reasonable risk of the rod’s breaking or the fly’s tearing out. A stump is the most dangerous; one turn round that, and he is off, leaving your flies fast probably in a most inconvenient place and many feet below the surface of the water. But remember the oft-repeated maxim of a friend of the writer’s, who has been with him many a joyous fishing day, that “One trout hooked is worth a dozen not hooked.” Small trout are more apt to escape than large ones, because the skin round the mouth of the latter is tougher. With either, however, there is risk enough, the hook is small, and often takes but a slight hold; the gut is delicate, and frequently half worn through by continual casting.

Fish are, in a majority of instances, hooked in the corner of the upper jaw, where there is but a thin skin to hold them; by long-continued struggle, the hole wears larger, and finally, to the agony of the fisherman, the hook slips out.

There are occasions when force must be exerted, and then good tackle and a well-made rod will repay the cost. At dusk one night I cautiously approached the edge of a newly-made pond that was as full of stumps as of fish, both being about the extreme limit, and casting into the clear water, struck a fine fish of three-quarters of a pound. Not one minute’s grace did he receive, but I lugged and he fought, and after a general turmoil I succeeded in bringing him to land, in spite of weeds and stumps and twigs, which he did his best to reach. The same was done with seven fish after a loss of only three flies, and with a rod that weighed but eight ounces.

A rod is not so apt to break from a fair strain as from a short twist; of course, if you strike a large fish as you raise to cast, or catch in the bushes behind you when your line is extended, any rod may break. This, however, rarely happens, and you are as likely to break the tip by trying to pull the line through the rings with your hand, or by lifting a small trout out of water and swinging it in past you, as in any other way. In drawing a fish to shore when you have no landing net, step back and bring the strain evenly on your rod, and it will rarely give way. If you find the fish takes down the current and you are unable to hold him, follow him if you can, and if not, point your rod toward him and bring the strain on the line. The hook may tear out, or the gut may break, or even the line may be lost, but you will save your rod, while otherwise you would probably lose both.

In landing a fish, wait till he is pretty well exhausted, bring his mouth above water and keep it there till he is drawn into the net, and warn your assistant to remove the net at once if he gets his head down. By diving after him with the net, the assistant would certainly not catch the fish and might tangle one of your other flies. The fish should be led into the net, and the latter kept as still as possible; he knows as well as you do what it is for, and if his attention is drawn to it, will dart off as madly as ever.

There are occasions and situations where a fly cannot be used, and a minnow—called down East, from the Indian name mummychog, a mummy—cannot be obtained. In such cases it becomes necessary to fall back upon first principles. A grasshopper, twitched along the surface of the water in a way called skittering, is an effective bait, although an imitation grasshopper, as well as an imitation minnow, does not answer and will not deceive trout. Salmon and trout roe are used, and it is said, contrary to the writer’s experience, with great success. Gentles, which are grubs hatched in meat that has been fly-blown, are a favorite bait in Europe; but, in spite of their beautiful name, are horrible objects and not in vogue with us. Caddies, or the larvæ of the Phryganidæ in their cases, are also in use there, but not here. We must, therefore, have recourse to the angleworm.