Let us suppose that you are in New York. At the termination of the voyage, when you were not engaged in admiring the pretty residences on the wooded slopes of Staten Island, you would look occasionally to the right upon Long Island, one of the lungs of New York, though the city has in itself so clear an atmosphere that people are able to build marble houses with impunity. Still, in the heat of summer the citizens—and small blame to them—make it a rule of flying nearer the ocean, and Long Island is one of their handiest and most appreciated resorts. There are upon it many trout preserves; "ponds" they are called, but we should give them the higher title of lakes with a clear conscience. They are generally maintained by clubs of wealthy members, and each has its comfortable house.
The earliest trout fishing to be found in this country is here. April 1 is the opening day, and the season opened well, though a snap of rough weather during the last fortnight interfered with sport. There are numbers of lady anglers, members of the Long Island colony, and two of them to my knowledge made capital baskets during the Easter week. A New Yorker gets through his business in the city before luncheon, and then, in a couple of hours, he is at the Long Island clubhouse getting into his fishing suit. Fly-fishing only is practised, and the fish are principally fontinalis. Unless otherwise stated, this species is always intended in any reference to trout.
Our brother anglers here are, as a rule, keen sportsmen and honest men, meaning that they are glad whenever they can assist another in securing the recreation which makes fishermen kin all the world over. My chief trouble was that I could make no manner of use of a tantalising list of kindly invitations to cast a fly in Long Island. Then there is another and smaller island at a greater distance, Martha's Vineyard, beloved of old whalers, where there are well stocked trout streams; but it goes quite without saying that all the water near New York City is preserved. Outside, in New York State, the trout fishing opens on April 15, and the favourite country is in the Adirondacks, where the wood-built veranda'd clubhouses are pitched here and there over a vast tract of woods, beside lakes and streams. To reach the Adirondacks you have a fifteen hours' journey by rail, and waggon tracks over hilly, and not macadamised roads, that will account for from two to fifteen hours more, according to the retreat chosen. You are here quite out of the world, and for the nearest fishing grounds you may leave New York by the evening train to-day, and be at work at even-tide to-morrow.
From Boston, the quiet city of studious men and women, who regard their old town still as the "hub of the universe," there are endless possibilities, more or less inland. Connecticut, Vermont, and mountainous New Hampshire, abound in charming minor streams and picturesque scenery. The delights of this New England fishing and camping have been faithfully immortalised in that incomparable prose idyll "I Go a Fishing," by Prime. Maine, however, is the United States angler's paradise. This involves at least a twenty-four hours' journey by rail and steamer, if you would reach the famous lake region of that sporting state. The trout run large, and I have seen the skin of a handsome 9-lb. fontinalis killed there with the fly. There are declared to be even bigger fish than this; but 4-lb. and 5-lb. fish are considered really good specimens. The average is not lower than 2 lb., and 3-lb. fish may be taken as "good." The flies used are never smaller than our sea-trout size, and they are more often larger; but the best anglers catalogue you as a lubber if you wield anything heavier than a boy's rod. I have looked over some fly books in active service, and when some day I find myself in that log-house in the Maine woods which I have in my notebook, I will back my selected half-dozen of our English, Irish, and Scotch sea-trout and lake flies against the best of the Orvis favourites.
Philadelphia, which, from my all too passing and superficial view of it, has the most English-looking suburbs of any city I have seen, does not count for much with the angler. There are some streams in Pennsylvania which yield plenty of small trout, and if you know the proper places, at the head waters and elsewhere, the Delaware and Susquehannah rivers, which, in crossing them, I was assured contained no game fish at all, have very fair black bass streams, while there are what we should rank as burn trout in most of the tributaries tumbling down through the woods and the mountains and hills. As for salmon, I may here remark that I could only hear of one pool in the United States where Salmo salar can be caught. There are heaps of salmon on the Pacific slope, but they are not salar, and not sportive in the rivers to the fly. This pool is the watery fretwork of a dam where the tidal portion of a fifty-mile length of river is ended, and the salmon are therefore caught in brackish water always with the fly. Seventy were taken there the previous year.
Washington—the city still of magnificent distances, though it is gradually filling in the blanks, and is looked forward to as the coming city of the leisure and pleasure classes, who shall live unpolluted by the rank snobbery of New York fashion, the chicanery of Wall Street, and the genius of the almighty dollar, which rules in other cities—Washington, I regret to find, is no better for the angler than Philadelphia. But you get bass fishing in the historic Potomac, and small trout in the hill country of Maryland and Virginia.
On the face of it, Chicago, with its surroundings of prairie and lake, would not tempt the angler. Yet it is in this respect most fortunately placed, and I made the acquaintance of many anglers of the right sort, and enthusiastic enough for anything. It is a marvellous city, of really magical growth and extent, and the energy of the people is appalling. But it is nonsense to call it magnificent in anything but its enterprise and the size of its buildings towering to the sky, and not beautiful. Moreover, it is smoky. Hence the anglers are numerous; they have many incentives to flee from it. The lake yields no angling for the skilled rod. The boys and loafers get, however, plenty of 1/2-lb. perch. The nearest respectable sport for the fly or minnow man is with black bass, in the smaller lakes and connecting rivers within two or three hours' railway journey; and there are six or eight other percoid forms such as striped, calico, and rock bass, and several of the sunfishes, all of which take a fly. The game is not of high repute all the same, and they are somewhat slightingly spoken of as "only pan fish." But they run from 1/2 lb. to 3 lb., and rise voraciously. The next best sport with black bass, which is the game fish most sworn by in this district, is in Northern Illinois and Indiana, fifty miles and more by train from Chicago. Farther afield still are the streams and lakes of Wisconsin, which may be brought into a day's work by starting early. In Northern Wisconsin there are trout in the streams, and muskalonge galore in the lakes. Altogether it is a very fly-fishing state, and heavy creels can be made from the streams falling into Lake Superior. The Michigan and Montana streams enjoy the distinction of holding the indigenous grayling, which take the fly freely, and have their enthusiastic admirers, who protect and cherish them. They are, however, decreasing in numbers and their establishment in other states was still problematical. A 2-lb. Michigan grayling is the maximum, so far as the experience of native observers can fix it. A pound is an honest sample for the creel.
The black bass, as I have said, are prime favourites in the angling resorts of the interior. They spawn any time, according to locality, between April and July; but there is a brief spell of smart fishing before they get on the shallows. This happens during what is called the "spring run"; that is to say, when they are moving from the deep waters of their winter quarters (some think that they hibernate) to the sandy shallows (if they can get sand) of the streams and lakes. Before this, however, the pike-fishers have been having sport, if the waters allow it, in March. The winters here are often open, that of which I saw something, with a snow tempest of three days, being the exceptional season of ten years at least. Sometimes the enthusiasts are piking even in February, getting fish from 2 lb. to 20 lb., which Dr. Henshall, the well-known author and naturalist, pronounces true Esox lucius. This is the fish we often read of as the pickerel, and it is taken with a local minnow some 3 in. long, or one of the spoons, of which America is the cradle.
The black bass, it may be premised, has been transplanted to many states where it did not previously occur, and has taken most kindly to the waters of middle and eastern states, where the croakers predicted it would and could never thrive. The fly-fishers prefer wading, and use a fly large as a small salmon pattern, gut of Mayfly strength, line of corresponding size, and the light ten-feet built-up cane rods, which were first brought into general action in this country. The custom is either to cast across, with a tendency downwards, and to work the fly slightly as it swings round, or to cast down and work back. Three or two flies are used. Minnow fishers are in a minority, and fly-fishing is reckoned the correct method by the angler. Dr. Henshall had had so many "records" that he could not remember offhand his best with fly; but his heaviest bag—and he did not confess it with any pride—was, spinning with the minnow, seventy black bass, averaging 2 lb., in a day. The biggest fish are in the lakes; but a 4-lb. specimen is large anywhere, save in the Gulf States, where all fish seem to reach abnormal dimensions. June and July are the best months for sport in these North-Western States; August, as in England, is a depressing month for the angler; but fishing becomes merry in September and October, and is pursued with zest in the cool evenings, at which time the gorgeous tints of the American fall are deepening. Altogether the autumn fishing is the most enjoyable; for, while the conditions just indicated are to be considered, the water has become thoroughly settled, and there are no fears of flood and disturbance. After spawning, the bass is quickly in condition; as a matter of fact, it is seldom out of it.
There was some rare fun one day with a brace of alligators sent by express from Florida. They were the patriarchs of a considerable consignment, and arrived pretty miserable five days back in wooden boxes. They were put into a lagoon in the open grounds. Then we had bitter wintry gales with snow flurries, and a blizzard which, had the season been earlier and the ground frozen, would have given us a foot of snow. Anyhow, it made the temperature of the lagoon a very unsuitable figure for the alligators, and they had to be looked promptly after. They were driven at length into a bay with poles, and pretty furious they were, lashing round with their tails and snapping viciously. As these fellows were 10 ft. long, the men told off to the duty had to proceed warily, and after an hour's exciting sport succeeded in lassoing them one after the other round the neck, yanking them ashore, and bustling them into wooden cases made expressly for their accommodation. They were at once taken to the warm interior of the horticultural building, and I saw them spending their Sabbath in some degree of comfort in the tepid water of the basin, without even guessing that in the old country it was Shakespeare's day.