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 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 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 around that and he is off, leaving your flies 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, who had 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 around 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 struggling 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 a 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 Severn fish after a loss of only three flies and with a rod that weighed only eight ounces.
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.
The trout is admitted to be the most beautiful of all our fish; not so large or powerful as the salmon, he is much more numerous, abounding in all the brooks and rivulets of our Northern States. He lives at our very doors; in the stream that meanders across yon meadow, where the haymakers are now busy with their scythes, we have taken him in our early days; down yonder in that wood is a brook filled with bright, lively little fellows; and away over there we know of pools where there are splendid ones. Who has not said or thought such words as he stood in the bright summer’s day under the grateful shade of the piazza running round the old country house where he played—a boy?
He does not make the nerves thrill and tingle like the salmon, he does not leap so madly into the air nor make such fierce, resolute rushes; he has not the silver sides, nor the great strength; but he is beautiful as the sunset sky, brave as bravery itself, and is our own home darling. How he flashes upon the sight as he grasps the spurious insect, and turns down with a quick little slap of the tail! How he darts hither and thither when he finds he is hooked! How persistently he struggles till enveloped in the net! And then with what heart-rending sighs he breathes away his life! Who does not love the lovely trout? With eye as deep and melting, skin as rich and soft, and ways as wildly wilful as angelic woman—who loves not one loves not the other. Who would not win the one cares not to win the other. Strange that man should kill the thing he loves but if to possess them kills them, he must kill. If women, like the Ephemerae, died, as they often do, in their love, we should still love them. Such is man; do not think I praise him. No one kills fish for the pleasure of killing; but they cannot live out of water, nor we in it, therefore one of us must die.
The man who kills to kill, who is not satisfied with reasonable sport, who slays unfairly or out of season, who adds one wanton pang, that man receives the contempt of all good sportsmen and deserves the felon’s doom. Of such there are but few.
We seek this, our favorite fish, in early spring, when the ice has just melted, and the cold winds remind one forcibly of bleak December, and when we find him in the salt streams, especially of Long Island and Cape Cod; but we love most to follow him in the early summer, along the merry streams of old Orange, or the mountain brooks of Sullivan county; where the air is full of gladness, and the trees are heavy with foliage—where the birds are singing on every bough, and the grass redolent of violets and early flowers. There we wade the cold brooks, leafy branches bowing us a welcome as we pass, the water rippling over the hidden rocks, and telling us, in its wayward way, of the fine fish it carries in its bosom. With creel upon our shoulder and rod in hand, we reck not of the hours, and only when the sinking sun warns of the approaching darkness do we seek, with sharpened appetite, the hospitable country inn, and the comfortable supper that our prey will furnish forth.