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Speckled Trout
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The legend of the wary trout, hinted at in the last sketch, is to be
further illustrated in this and some following chapters. We shall get
at more of the meaning of those dark water-lines, and I hope, also,
not entirely miss the significance of the gold and silver spots and
the glancing iridescent hues. The trout is dark and obscure above,
but behind this foil there are wondrous tints that reward the
believing eye. Those who seek him in his wild remote haunts are quite
sure to get the full force of the sombre and uninviting aspects,- the
wet, the cold, the toil, the broken rest, and the huge, savage,
uncompromising nature,-but the true angler sees farther than these,
and is never thwarted of his legitimate reward by them.
I have been a seeker of trout from my boyhood, and on all the
expeditions in which this fish has been the ostensible purpose I have
brought home more game than my creel showed. In fact, in my mature
years I find I got more of nature into me, more of the woods, the
wild, nearer to bird and beast, while threading my native streams for
trout, than in almost any other way. It furnished a good excuse to go
forth; it pitched one in the right key; it sent one through the fat
and marrowy places of field and wood. Then the fisherman has a
harmless, preoccupied look; he is a kind of vagrant that nothing
fears. He blends himself with the trees and the shadows. All his
approaches are gentle and indirect. He times himself to the
meandering, soliloquizing stream; its impulse bears him along. At the
foot of the waterfall he sits sequestered and hidden in its volume of
sound. The birds know he has no designs upon them, and the animals
see that his mind is in the creek. His enthusiasm anneals him, and
makes him pliable to the scenes and influences he moves among.
Then what acquaintance he makes with the stream! He addresses himself
to it as a lover to his mistress; he wooes it and stays with it till
he knows its most hidden secrets. It runs through his thoughts not
less than through its banks there; he feels the fret and thrust of
every bar and boulder. Where it deepens, his purpose deepens; where
it is shallow, he is indifferent. He knows how to interpret its every
glance and dimple; its beauty haunts him for days. |
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I am sure I run no risk of overpraising the charm and attractiveness
of a well-fed trout stream, every drop of water in it as bright and
pure as if the nymphs had brought it all the way from its source in
crystal goblets, and as cool as if it had been hatched beneath a
glacier. When the heated and soiled and jaded refugee from the city
first sees one, he feels as if he would like to turn it into his
bosom and let it flow through him a few hours, it suggests such
healing freshness and newness. How his roily thoughts would run
clear; how the sediment would go downstream! Could he ever have an
impure or an unwholesome wish afterward? The next best thing he can
do is to tramp along its banks and surrender himself to its
influence. If he reads it intently enough, he will, in a measure, be
taking it into his mind and heart, and experiencing its salutary ministrations. |
Trout streams coursed through every valley my boyhood knew. I crossed
them, and was often lured and detained by them, on my way to and from
school. We bathed in them during the long summer noons, and felt for
the trout under their banks. A holiday was a holiday indeed that
brought permission to go fishing over on Rose's Brook, or up
Hardscrabble, or in Meeker's Hollow; all-day trips, from morning till
night, through meadows and pastures and beechen woods, wherever the
shy, limpid stream led. What an appetite it developed! a hunger that
was fierce and aboriginal, and that the wild strawberries we plucked
as we crossed the hill teased rather than allayed. When but a few
hours could be had, gained perhaps by doing some piece of work about
the farm or garden in half the allotted time, the little creek that
headed in the paternal domain was handy; when half a day was at one's
disposal, there were the hemlocks, less than a mile distant, with
their loitering, meditative, log-impeded stream and their dusky,
fragrant depths. Alert and wide-eyed, one picked his way along,
startled now and then by the sudden bursting-up of the partridge, or
by the whistling wings of the "dropping snip," pressing
through the brush and the briers, or finding an easy passage over the
trunk of a prostrate tree, carefully letting his hook down through
some tangle into a still pool, or standing in some high, sombre
avenue and watching his line float in and out amid the moss-covered
boulders. In my first essayings I used to go to the edge of these
hemlocks, seldom dipping into them beyond the first pool where the
stream swept under the roots of two large trees. From this point I
could look back into the sunlit fields where the cattle were grazing;
beyond, all was gloom and mystery; the trout were black, and to my
young imagination the silence and the shadows were blacker. But
gradually I yielded to the fascination and penetrated the woods
farther and farther on each expedition, till the heart of the mystery
was fairly plucked out. During the second or third year of my
piscatorial experience I went through them, and through the pasture
and meadow beyond, and through another strip of hemlocks, to where
the little stream joined the main creek of the valley.
In June, when my trout fever ran pretty high, and an auspicious day
arrived, I would make a trip to a stream a couple of miles distant,
that came down out of a comparatively new settlement. It was a rapid
mountain brook presenting many difficult problems to the young
angler, but a very enticing stream for all that, with its two
saw-mill dams, its pretty cascades, its high, shelving rocks
sheltering the mossy nests of the phoebe-bird, and its general wild
and forbidding aspects.
But a meadow brook was always a favorite. The trout like meadows;
doubtless their food is more abundant there, and, usually, the good
hiding-places are more numerous. As soon as you strike a meadow the
character of the creek changes: it goes slower and lies deeper; it
tarries to enjoy the high, cool banks and to half hide beneath them;
it loves the willows, or rather the willows love it and shelter it
from the sun; its spring runs are kept cool by the overhanging grass,
and the heavy turf that faces its open banks is not cut away by the
sharp hoofs of the grazing cattle. Then there are the bobolinks and
the starlings and the meadowlarks, always interested spectators of
the angler; there are also the marsh marigolds, the buttercups, or
the spotted lilies, and the good angler is always an interested
spectator of them. In fact, the patches of meadow land that lie in
the angler's course are like the happy experiences in his own life,
or like the fine passages in the poem he is reading; the pasture
oftener contains the shallow and monotonous places. In the small
streams the cattle scare the fish, and soil their element and break
down their retreats under the banks. Woodland alternates the best
with meadow: the creek loves to burrow under the roots of a great
tree, to scoop out a pool after leaping over the prostrate trunk of
one, and to pause at the foot of a ledge of moss-covered rocks, with
ice-cold water dripping down. How straight the current goes for the
rock! Note its corrugated, muscular appearance; it strikes and
glances off, but accumulates, deepens with well-defined eddies above
and to one side; on the edge of these the trout lurk and spring upon
their prey.
The angler learns that it is generally some obstacles or hindrances
that makes a deep place in the creek, as in a brave life; and his
ideal brook is one that lies in deep, well-defined banks, yet makes
many a shift from right to left, meets with many rebuffs and
adventures, hurled back upon itself by rocks, waylaid by snags and
trees, tripped up by precipices, but sooner or later reposing under
meadow banks, deepening and eddying beneath bridges, or prosperous
and strong in some level stretch of cultivated land with great elms
shading it here and there.
But I early learned that from almost any stream in a trout country
the true angler could take trout, and that the great secret was this,
that, whatever bait you used, worm, grasshopper, grub, or fly, there
was one thing you must always put upon your hook, namely, your heart:
when you bait your hook with your heart the fish always bite; they
will jump clear from the water after it; they will dispute with each
other over it; it is a morsel they love above everything else. With
such bait I have seen the born angler (my grandfather was one) take a
noble string of trout from the most unpromising waters, and on the
most unpromising day. He used his hook so coyly and tenderly, he
approached the fish with such address and insinuation, he divined the
exact spot where they lay: if they were not eager, he humored them
and seemed to steal by them; if they were playful and coquettish, he
would suit his mood to theirs; if they were frank and sincere, he met
them halfway; he was so patient and considerate, so entirely devoted
to pleasing the critical trout, and so successful in his
efforts,-surely his heart was upon his hook, and it was a tender,
unctuous heart, too, as that of every angler is. How nicely he would
measure the distance! how dexterously he would avoid an overhanging
limb or bush and drop the line exactly in the right spot! Of course
there was a pulse of feeling and sympathy to the extremity of that
line. If your heart is a stone, however, or an empty husk, there is
no use to put it upon your hook; it will not tempt the fish; the bait
must be quick and fresh. Indeed, a certain quality of youth is
indispensable to the successful angler, a certain unworldliness and
readiness to invest yourself in an enterprise that doesn't pay in the
current coin. Not only is the angler, like the poet, born and not
made, as Walton says, but there is a deal of the poet in him, and he
is to be judged no more harshly; he is the victim of his genius:
those wild streams, how they haunt him! he will play truant to dull
care, and flee to them; their waters impart somewhat of their own
perpetual youth to him. My grandfather when he was eighty years old
would take down his pole as eagerly as any boy, and step off with
wonderful elasticity toward the beloved streams; it used to try my
young legs a good deal to follow him, specially on the return trip.
And no poet was ever more innocent of worldly success or ambition.
For, to paraphrase Tennyson,-
"Lusty trout to him were scrip and share,
And babbling waters more than cent for cent."
He laid up treasures, but they were not in this world. In fact,
though the kindest of husbands, I fear he was not what the country
people call a "good provider," except in providing trout in
their season, though it is doubtful if there was always fat in the
house to fry them in. But he could tell you they were worse off than
that at Valley Forge, and that trout, or any other fish, were good
roasted in the ashes under the coals. He had the Walton requisite of
loving quietness and contemplation, and was devout withal. Indeed, in
many ways he was akin to those Galilee fishermen who were called to
be fishers of men. How he read the Book and pored over it, even at
times, I suspect, nodding over it, and laying it down only to take up
his rod, over which, unless the trout were very dilatory and the
journey very fatiguing, he never nodded!
The Delaware is one of our minor rivers, but it is a stream beloved
of the trout. Nearly all its remote branches head in mountain
springs, and its collected waters, even when warmed by the summer
sun, are as sweet and wholesome as dew swept from the grass. The
Hudson wins from it two streams that are fathered by the mountains
from whose lions most of its beginnings issue, namely, the Rondout
and the Esopus. These swell a more illustrious current than the
Delaware, but the Rondout, one of the finest trout streams in the
world, makes an uncanny alliance before it reaches its destination,
namely, with the malarious Wallkill.
In the same nest of mountains from which they start are born the
Neversink and the Beaverkill, streams of wondrous beauty that flow
south and west into the Delaware. From my native hills I could catch
glimpses of the mountains in whose laps these creeks were cradled,
but it was not till after many years, and after dwelling in a country
where trout are not found, that I returned to pay my respects to them
as an angler.
My first acquaintance with the Neversink was made in company with
some friends in 1869. We passed up the valley of the Big Indian,
marveling at its copious ice-cold springs, and its immense sweep of
heavy-timbered mountain-sides. Crossing the range at its head, we
struck the Neversink quite unexpectedly about the middle of the
afternoon, at a point where it was a good-sized trout stream. It
proved to be one of those black mountain brooks born of innumerable
ice-cold springs, nourished in the shade, and shod, as it were, with
thick-matted moss, that every camper-out remembers. The fish are as
black as the stream and very wild. They dart from beneath the fringed
rocks, or dive with the hook into the dusky depths,-an integral part
of the silence and the shadows. The spell of the moss is over all.
The fisherman's tread is noiseless, as he leaps from stone to stone
and from ledge to ledge along the bed of the stream. How cool it is!
He looks up the dark, silent defile, hears the solitary voice of the
water, sees the decayed trunks of fallen trees bridging the stream,
and all he has dreamed, when a boy, of the haunts of beasts of
prey-the crouching feline tribes, especially if it be near nightfall
and the gloom already deepening in the woods-comes freshly to mind,
and he presses on, wary and alert, and speaking to his companions in
low tones.
After an hour or so the trout became less abundant, and with nearly a
hundred of the black sprites in our baskets we turned back. Here and
there I saw the abandoned nests of the pigeons, sometimes half a
dozen in one tree. In a yellow birch which the floods had uprooted, a
number of nests were still in place, little shelves or platforms of
twigs loosely arranged, and affording little or no protection to the
eggs or the young birds against inclement weather.
Before we had reached our companions the rain set in again and forced
us to take shelter under a balsam. When it slackened we moved on and
soon came up with Aaron, who had caught his first trout, and,
considerably drenched, was making his way toward camp, which one of
the party had gone forward to build. After traveling less than a
mile, we saw a smoke struggling up through the dripping tress, and in
a few moment were all standing round a blazing fire. But the rain now
commenced again, and fairly poured down through the trees, rendering
the prospect of cooking and eating our supper there in the woods, and
of passing the night on the ground without tent or cover of any kind,
rather disheartening. We had been told of a bark shanty a couple of
miles farther down the creek, and thitherward we speedily took up our
line of march. When we were on the point of discontinuing the search,
thinking we had been misinformed or had passed it by, we came in
sight of a bark-peeling, in the midst of which a small log house
lifted its naked rafters toward the now breaking sky. It had neither
floor nor roof, and was less inviting on first sight than the open
woods. But a board partition was still standing, out of which we
built a rude porch on the east side of the house, large enough for us
all to sleep under if well packed, and eat under if we stood up.
There was plenty of well-seasoned timber lying about, and a fire was
soon burning in front of our quarters that made the scene social and
picturesque, especially when the frying-pans were brought into
requisition, and the coffee, in charge of Aaron, who was an artist in
this line, mingled its aroma with the wild-wood air. At dusk a balsam
was felled, and the tips of the branches used to make a bed, which
was more fragrant than soft; hemlock is better, because its needles
are finer and its branches more elastic.
There was a spirt or two of rain during the night, but not enough to
find out the leaks in our roof. It took the shower or series of
showers of the next day to do that. They commenced about two o'clock
in the afternoon. The forenoon had been fine, and we had brought into
camp nearly three hundred trout; but before they were half dressed,
or the first panfuls fried, the rain set in. First came short, sharp
dashes, then a gleam of treacherous sunshine, followed by more and
heavier dashes. The wind was in the southwest, and to rain seemed the
easiest thing in the world. From fitful dashes to a steady pour the
transition was natural. We stood huddled together, stark and grim,
under our cover, like hens under a cart. The fire fought bravely for
a time, and retaliated with sparks and spiteful tongues of flame; but
gradually its spirit was broken, only a heavy body of coal and
half-consumed logs in the centre holding out against all odds. The
simmering fish were soon floating about in a yellow liquid that did
not look in the least appetizing. Point after point gave way in our
cover, till standing between the drops was no longer possible. The
water coursed down the underside of the boards, and dripped in our
necks and formed puddles on our hat-brims. We shifted our guns and
traps and viands, till there was no longer any choice of position,
when the loaves and the fishes, the salt and the sugar, the pork and
the butter, shared the same watery fate. The fire was gasping its
last. Little rivulets coursed about it, and bore away the quenched
but steaming coals on their bosoms. The spring run in the rear of our
camp swelled so rapidly that part of the trout that had been hastily
left lying on its banks again found themselves quite at home. For
over two hours the floods came down. About four o'clock Orville, who
had not yet come from the day's sport, appeared. To say Orville was
wet is not much; he was better than that,-he had been washed and
rinsed in at least half a dozen waters, and the trout that he bore
dangling at the end of a string hardly knew that they had been out of
their proper element.
But he brought welcome news. He had been two or three miles down the
creek, and had seen a log building,-whether house or stable he did
not know, but it had the appearance of having a good roof, which was
inducement enough for us instantly to leave our present quarters. Our
course lay along an old wood-road, and much of the time we were to
our knees in water. The woods were literally flooded everywhere.
Every little rill and springlet ran like a mill-tail, while the main
stream rushed and roared, foaming, leaping, lashing, its volume
increased fifty-fold. The water was not roily, but of a rich
coffee-color, from the leachings of the woods. No more trout for the
next three days! we thought, as we looked upon the rampant stream.
After we had labored and floundered along for about an hour, the road
turned to the left, and in a little stumpy clearing near the creek a
gable uprose on our view. It did not prove to be just such a place as
poets love to contemplate. It required a greater effort for the
imagination than any of us were then capable of to believe it had
ever been a favorite resort of wood-nymphs or sylvan deities. It
savored rather of the equine and the bovine. The bark-men had kept
their teams there, horses on the one side and oxen on the other, and
no Hercules had ever done duty in cleansing the stables. But there
was a dry loft overhead with some straw, where we might get some
sleep, in spite of the rain and the midges; a double layer of boards,
standing at a very acute angle, would keep off the former, while the
mingled refuse hay and muck beneath would nurse a smoke that would
prove a thorough protection against the latter. And then, when Jim,
the two-handed, mounting the trunk of a prostrate maple near by, had
severed it thrice with easy and familiar stroke, and, rolling the
logs in front of the shanty, had kindled a fire, which, getting
better of the dampness, soon cast a bright glow over all, shedding
warmth and light even into the dingy stable, I consented to unsling
my knapsack and accept the situation. The rain had ceased, and the
sun shone out behind the woods. We had trout sufficient for present
needs; and after my first meal in an ox-stall, I strolled out on the
rude log bridge to watch the angry Neversink rush by. Its waters fell
quite as rapidly as they rose, and before sundown it looked as if we
might have fishing again on the morrow. We had better sleep that
night than either night before, though there were two disturbing
causes,-the smoke in the early part of it, and the cold in the
latter. The "no-see-ems" left in disgust; and, though
disgusted myself, I swallowed the smoke as best I could, and hugged
my pallet of straw the closer. But the day dawned bright, and a
plunge in the Neversink set me all right again. The creek, to our
surprise and gratification, was only a little higher than before the
rain, and some of the finest trout we had yet seen we caught that
morning near camp.
We tarried yet another day and night at the old stable, but taking
our meals outside squatted on the ground, which had now become quite
dry. Part of the day I spent strolling about the woods, looking up
old acquaintances among the birds, and, as always, half expectant of
making some new ones. Curiously enough, the most abundant species
were among those I had found rare in most other localities, namely,
the small water-wagtail, the mourning ground warbler, and the yellow-bellied
woodpecker. The latter seems to be the prevailing woodpecker through
the woods of this region.
That night the midges, those motes that sting, held high carnival. We
learned afterward, in the settlement below and from the barkpeelers,
that it was the worst night ever experienced in that valley. We had
done no fishing during the day, but had anticipated some fine sport
about sundown. Accordingly Aaron and I started off between six and
seven o'clock, one going upstream and the other precipitate as if the
whole swarm was still at his back.
No smoke or smudge which we ourselves could endure was sufficient in
the earlier part of that evening to prevent serious annoyance from
the same cause; but later a respite was granted us.
About ten o'clock, as we stood round our campfire, we were startled
by a brief but striking display of the aurora borealis. My
imagination had already been excited by talk of legends and of weird
shapes and appearances, and when, on looking up toward the sky, I saw
those pale, phantasmal waves of magnetic light chasing each other
across the little opening above our heads, and at first sight seeming
barely to clear the treetops, I was as vividly impressed as if I had
caught a glimpse of a veritable spectre of the Neversink. The sky
shook and trembled like a great white curtain.
After we had climbed to our loft and had lain down to sleep, another
adventure befell us. This time a new and uninviting customer appeared
upon the scene, the genius loci of the old stable, namely, the
"fretful porcupine." We had seen the marks and work of
these animals about the shanty, and had been careful each night to
hang our traps, guns, etc., beyond their reach, but of the prickly
night-walker himself we feared we should not get a view.
We had lain down some half hour, and I was just on the threshold of
sleep, ready, as it were, to pass through the open door into the land
of dreams, when I heard outside somewhere that curious sound,-a sound
which I had heard every night I spent in these woods, not only on
this but on former expeditions, and which I had settled in my mind as
proceeding from the porcupine, since I knew the sounds our other
common animals were likely to make,-a sound that might be either a
gnawing on some hard, dry substance, or a grating of teeth, or a
shrill grunting.
Orville heard it also, and, raising up on his elbow, asked, "What
is that?"
"What the hunters call a porcupig," said I.
"Sure?"
"Entirely so."
"Why does he make that noise?"
"It is a way he has of cursing our fire," I replied. "I
heard him last night also."
"Where do you suppose he is?" inquired my companion,
showing a disposition to look him up.
"Not far off, perhaps fifteen or twenty yards from our fire,
where the shadows begin to deepen." |
Orville slipped into his trousers, felt for my gun, and in a moment
had disappeared down through the scuttle hole. I had no disposition
to follow him, but was rather annoyed than otherwise at the
disturbance. Getting the direction of the sound, he went picking his
way the rough, uneven ground, and, when he got where the light failed
him, poking every doubtful object with the end of his gun. Presently
he poked a light grayish object, like a large round stone, which
surprised him by moving off. On this hint he fired, making an
incurable wound in the "porcupig," which, nevertheless,
tried harder than ever to escape. I lay listening, when, close on the
heels of the report of the gun, came excited shouts for a revolver.
Snatching up my Smith and Wesson, I hastened, shoeless and hatless,
to the scene of action, wondering what was up. I found my companion
struggling to detain, with the end of the gun, an uncertain object
that was trying to crawl off into the darkness. "Look out!"
said Orville, as he saw my bare feet, " the quills are lying
thick around here."
And so they were; he had blown or beaten them nearly all the poor
creature's back, and was in a fair way completely to disable my gun,
the ramrod of which was already broken and splintered clubbing his
victim. But a couple of shots from the revolver, sighted by a lighted
match, at the head of the animal, quickly settled him.
He proved to be an unusually large Canada porcupine,-an old
patriarch, gray and venerable, with spines three inches long, and
weighing, I should say, twenty pounds. The build of this animal is
much like that of the woodchuck, that is, heavy and pouchy. The nose
is blunter than that of the woodchuck, the limbs stronger, and the
tail broader and heavier. Indeed, the latter appendage is quite
club-like, and the animal can, no doubt, deal a smart blow with it.
An old hunter with whom I talked thought it aided them in climbing.
They are inveterate gnawers, and spend much of their time in trees
gnawing the bark. In winter one will take up its abode in a hemlock,
and continue there till the tree is quite denuded. The carcass
emitted a peculiar, offensive odor, and, though very fat, was not in
the least inviting as game. If it is part of the economy of nature
for one animal to prey upon some other beneath it, then the poor
devil has indeed a mouthful that makes a meal off the porcupine.
Panthers and lynxes have essayed it, but have invariably left off at
the first course, and have afterwards been found dead, or nearly so,
with their heads puffed up like a pincushion, and the quills
protruding on all sides. A dog that understands the business will
maneuver round the porcupine till he gets an opportunity to throw it
over on its back, when he fastens on its quilless underbody. Aaron
was puzzled to know how long-parted friends could embrace, when it
was suggested that the quills could be depressed or elevated at pleasure.
The next morning boded rain ; but we had become thoroughly sated with
the delights of our present quarters, outside and in, and packed up
our traps to leave. Before we had reached the clearing, three miles
below, the rain set in, keeping up a lazy, monotonous drizzle till
the afternoon.
The clearing was quite a recent one, made mostly by barkpeelers, who
followed their calling in the mountains round about in summer, and
worked in their shops making shingle in winter. The Biscuit Brook
came in here from the west,-a fine, rapid trout stream six or eight
miles in length, with plenty of deer in the mountains about its head.
On its banks we found the house of an old woodman, to whom we had
been directed for information about the section we proposed to traverse.
"Is the way very difficult," we inquired, "across from
the Neversink into the head of the Beaverkill?"
"Not to me; I could go it the darkest night ever was. And I can
direct you so you can find the way without any trouble. You go down
the Neversink about a mile, when you come to Highfall Brook, the
first stream that comes down on the right. Follow up it to Jim Reed's
shanty, about three miles. Then cross the stream, and on the left
bank, pretty well up on the side of the mountain, you will find a
wood-road, which was made by a fellow below here who stole some ash
logs off the top of the ridge last winter and drew them out on the
snow. When the road first begins to tilt over the mountain, strike
down to your left, and you can reach the Beaverkill before sundown."
As it was then after two o'clock, and the distance was six or eight
of these terrible hunters miles, we concluded to take a whole day to
it, and wait till next morning. The Beaverkill flowed west, the
Neversink south, and I had a mortal dread of getting entangled amid
the mountains and valleys that lie in either angle.
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Besides, I was glad of another and final opportunity to pay my
respects to the finny tribes of the Neversink. At this point it was
one of the finest trout streams I had ever beheld. It was so
sparkling, its bed so free from sediment or impurities of any kind,
that it had a new look, as if it had just come from the hand of its
Creator. I tramped along its margin upward of a mile that afternoon,
part of the time wading to my knees, and casting my hook, baited only
with a trout's fin, to the opposite bank. Trout are real cannibals,
and make no bones, and break none either, in lunching on each other.
A friend of mine had several in his spring, when one day a large
female trout gulped down one of her male friends, nearly on third her
own size, and went around for two days with the tail of her liege
lord protruding from her mouth! A fish's eye will do for bait, though
the anal fin is better. One of the natives here told me that when he
wished to catch large trout (and I judged he never fished for any
other,-I never do), he used for bait the bullhead, or dart, a little
fish an inch and a half or two inches long, that rests on the pebbles
near shore and darts quickly, when disturbed from point to point.
"Put that on your hook," said he, "and if there is a
big fish in the creek, he is bound to have it." But the darts
were not easily found; the big fish, I concluded, had cleaned them
all out; and, then, it was easy enough to supply our wants with a fin. |
Declining the hospitable offers of the settlers, we spread our
blankets that night in a dilapidated shingle-shop on the banks of the
Biscuit Brook, first flooring the damp ground with the new shingle
that lay piled in one corner. The place had a great-throated chimney
with a tremendous expanse of fireplace within, that cried
"More!" at every morsel of wood we gave it.
But I must hasten over this part of the ground, nor let the delicious
flavor of the milk we had that morning for breakfast, and that was so
delectable after four days of fish, linger on my tongue ; nor yet
tarry to set down the talk of that honest. weather-worn passer-by who
paused before our door, and every moment on the point of resuming his
way, yet stood for an hour and recited his adventures hunting deer
and bears on these mountains. Having replenished our stock of bread
and salt pork at the house of one of the settlers, midday found us at
Reed's shanty,-one of those temporary structures erected by the bark
jobber to lodge and board his "hands" near their work. Jim
not being at home,we could gain no information from the "women
folks" about the way, nor from the men who had just come in to
dinner; so we pushed on, as near as we could, according to the
instructions we had previously received. Crossing the creek, we
forced our way up the side of the mountain, through a perfect
cheval-de-frise of fallen and peeled hemlocks, and, entering the
dense woods above, began to look anxiously about for the wood-road.
My companions at first could see no trace of it; but knowing that a
casual wood-road cut in winter, when there was likely to be two or
three feet of snow on the ground, would present only the slightest
indications to the eye in summer, I looked a little closer, and could
make out a mark or two here and there. The larger trees had been
avoided, and the axe used only on the small saplings and underbrush,
which had been lopped off a couple of feet from the ground. By being
constantly on the alert, we followed it till near the top of the
mountain; but, when looking to see it "tilt" over the other
side, it disappeared altogether. Some stumps of the black cherry were
found, and a solitary pair of snow-shoes was hanging high and dry on
a branch, but no further trace of human hands could we see. While we
were resting here a couple of hermit thrushes, one of them with some
sad defect in his vocal powers which barred him from uttering more
than a few notes of his song, gave voice to the solitude of the
place. This was the second instance in which I have observed a
song-bird with apparently some organic defect in its instrument. The
other case was that of a bobolink, which, hover in mid-air and
inflate its throat as it might, could only force out a few incoherent
notes. But the bird in each case presented this striking contrast to
human examples of the kind, that it was apparently just as proud of
itself, and just as well satisfied with its performance, as were its
more successful rivals.
After deliberating some time over a pocket compass which I carried,
we decided upon our course, and held on to the west. The descent was
very gradual. Traces of bear and deer were noted at different point,
but not a live animal was seen. |
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About four o'clock we reached the bank of a stream flowing west. Hail
to the Beaverkill! and we pushed on along its banks. The trout were
plenty, and rose quickly to the hook; but we held on our way,
designing to go into camp about six o'clock. Many inviting places,
first on one bank, then on the other, made us linger, till finally we
reached a smooth, dry place overshadowed by balsam and hemlock, where
the creek bent around a little flat, which was so entirely to our
fancy that we unslung our knapsacks at once. While my companions were
cutting wood and making other preparations for the night, it fell to
my lot, as the most successful angler, to provide the trout for
supper and breakfast. How shall I describe that wild, beautiful
stream, with features so like those of all other mountain streams?
And yet, as I saw it in the deep twilight of those woods on that June
afternoon, with its steady, even flow, and its tranquil, many-voiced
murmur, it made an impression upon my mind distinct and peculiar,
fraught in an eminent degree with the charm of seclusion and
remoteness. The solitude was perfect, and I felt that strangeness and
insignificance which the civilized man must always feel when opposing
himself to such a vast scene of silence and wildness. |
The trout were quite black, like all wood trout, and took the bait
eagerly. I followed the stream till the deepening shadows warned me
to turn back. As I neared camp, the fire shone far through the trees,
dispelling the gathering gloom, but blinding my eyes to all obstacles
at my feet. I was seriously disturbed on arriving to find that one of
my companions had cut an ugly gash in his shin with the axe while
felling a tree. As we did not carry a fifth wheel, it was not just
the time or place to have any of our members crippled, and I had
bodings of evil. But, thanks to the healing virtues of the balsam
which must have adhered to the blade of the axe, and double thanks to
the court-plaster with which Orville had supplied himself before
leaving home, the wounded leg, by being favored that night and the
next day, gave us little trouble.
That night we had our first fair and square camping out,-that is,
sleeping on the ground with no shelter over us but the trees,-and it
was in many respects the pleasantest night we spent in the woods. The
weather was perfect and the place was perfect, and for the first time
we were exempt from the midges and smoke; and then we appreciated the
clean new page we had to work on. Nothing is so acceptable to the
camper-out as a pure article in the way of woods and waters. Any
admixture of human relies mars the spirit of the scene. Yet I am
willing to confess that, before we were through those woods, the
marks of an axe in a tree were a welcome sight. On resuming our march
next day we followed the right bank of the Beaverkill, in order to
strike a stream which flowed in from the north, and which was the
outlet of Balsam Lake, the objective point of that day's march. The
distance to the lake from our camp could not have been over six or
seven miles; yet traveling as we did, without path or guide, climbing
up banks, plunging into ravines, making detours around swampy places,
and forcing our way through woods choked up with much fallen and
decayed timber, it seemed at least twice that distance, and the
mid-afternoon sun was shining when we emerged into what is called the
"Quaker Clearing," ground that I been over nine years
before, and that lies about two miles south of the lake. From this
point we had a well-worn path that led us up a sharp rise of ground,
then through level woods till we saw the bright gleam of the water
through the trees.
I am always struck, on approaching these little mountain lakes, with
the extensive preparation that is made for them in the conformation
of the ground. I am thinking of a depression, or natural basin, in
the side of the mountain or on its top, the brink of which I shall
reach after a little steep climbing; but instead of that, after I
have accomplished ascent, I find a broad sweep of level or gently
undulating woodland that brings me after a half hour or so to the
lake, which lies in this vast lap like a drop of water in the palm of
a man's hand.
Balsam Lake was oval-shaped, scarcely more than half a mile long and
a quarter of a mile wide, but presented a charming picture, with a
group of dark gray hemlocks filling the valley about its head, and
the mountains rising above the beyond. We found a bough house in good
repair, also a drug-out and paddle and several floats of logs. In the
dug-out I was soon creeping along the sandy side of the lake, where
the trout were incessantly jumping for a species of black fly, that,
sheltered from the slight breeze, were dancing in swarms just above
the surface of the water. The gnats were there in swarms also, and
did their best toward balancing the counts by preying upon me while I
preyed upon the trout which preyed upon the flies. But by dint of
keeping my hands, face, and neck constantly wet, I am convinced that
the balance of blood was on my side. The trout jumped most within a
foot or two of shore, where the water was only a few inches deep. The
shallowness of the water, perhaps, accounted for the inability of the
fish to do more than lift their heads above the surface. They came up
mouths wide open, and dropped back again in the most impotent manner.
Where there is any depth of water, a trout will jump several feet
into the air; and where there is a solid, unbroken sheet or column,
they will scale falls and dams fifteen feet high.
We had the very cream and flower of our trout-fishing at this lake.
For the first time we could use the fly to advantage; and then the
contrast between laborious tramping along shore, on the one hand, and
sitting in one end of a dug-out and casting your line right and left
with no fear of entanglement in brush or branch, while you were
gently propelled along, on the other, was of the most pleasing character.
There were two varieties of trout in the lake,-what it seems proper
to call silver trout and golden trout; the former were the slimmer,
and seemed to keep apart from the latter. Starting from the outlet
and working round on the eastern side toward the head, we invariably
caught these first. They glanced in the sun like bars of silver.
Their sides and bellies were indeed as white as new silver. As we
neared the head, and especially as we came near a space occupied by
some kind of watergrass that grew in the deeper part of the lake, the
other variety would begin to take the hook, their bellies a bright
gold color, which became a deep orange on their fins; and as we
returned to the place of departure with the bottom of the boat strewn
with these bright forms intermingled, it was a sight not soon to be
forgotten. It pleased my eye so, that I would fain linger over them,
arranging them in rows and studying the various hues and tints. They
were of nearly a uniform size, rarely one over ten or under eight
inches in length, and it seemed as if the hues of all the precious
metals and stones were reflected from their sides. The flesh was deep
salmon-color; that of brook trout is generally much lighter. Some
hunters and fishers from the valley of the Mill Brook, whom we met
here, told us the trout were much larger in the lake, though far less
numerous than they used to be. Brook trout do not grow large till
they become scarce. It is only in streams that have been long and
much fished that I have caught them as much as sixteen inches in length.
The "porcupigs" were numerous about the lake, and not at
all shy. One night the heat became so intolerable in our oven-shaped
bough house that I was obliged to withdraw from under its cover and
lie down a little to one side. Just at daybreak, as I lay rolled in
my blanket, something awoke me. Lifting up my head, there was a
porcupine with his forepaws on my hips. He was apparently as much
surprised as I was; and to my inquiry as to what he at that moment
might be looking for, he did not pause to reply, but hitting me a
slap with his tail which left three or four quills in my blanket, he
scampered off down the hill into the brush.
Being an observer of the birds, of course every curious incident
connected with them fell under my notice. Hence, as we stood about
our camp-fire one afternoon looking out over the lake, I was the only
one to see a little commotion in the water, half hidden by the near
branches, as of some tiny swimmer struggling to reach the shore.
Rushing to its rescue in the canoe, I found a yellow-rumped warbler,
quite exhausted, clinging to a twig that hung down into the water. I
brought the drenched and helpless thing to camp, and, putting it into
a basket, hung it up to dry. An hour or two afterward I heard if
fluttering in its prison, and, cautiously lifting the lid to get a
better glimpse of the lucky captive, it darted out and was gone in a
twinkling. How came it in the water? That was my wonder, and I can
only guess that it was a young bird that had never before flown over
a pond of water, and, seeing the clouds and blue sky so perfect down
there, thought it was a vast opening or gateway into another summer
land, perhaps a short cut to the tropics, and so got itself into
trouble. How my eye was delighted also with the redbird that alighted
for a moment on a dry branch above the lake, just where a ray of
light from the setting sun fell full upon it! A mere crimson point,
and yet how it offset that dark, sombre background!
I have thus run over some of the features of an ordinary trouting
excursion to the woods. People in-experienced in such matters,
sitting in their rooms and thinking of these things, of all the poets
have sung and romancers written, are apt to get sadly taken in when
they attempt to realize their dreams. They expect to enter a sylvan
paradise of trout, cool retreats, laughing brooks, picturesque views,
and balsamic couches, instead of which they find hunger, rain, smoke,
toil, gnats, mosquitoes, dirt, broken rest, vulgar guides, and salt
pork; and they are very apt not to see where the fun comes in. But he
who goes in a right spirit will not be disappointed, and will find
the taste of this kind of life better, though bitterer, than the
writers have described. |
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