FISHING IN BOOKS
"SIMPSON.--Have you ever seen any American books on angling, Fisher?"
"FISHER.--No, I do not think there are any published. Brother
Jonathan is not yet sufficiently civilized to produce anything
original on the gentle art. There is good trout-fishing in America,
and the streams, which are all free, are much less fished than in
our Island, 'from the small number of gentlemen,' as an American
writer says, 'who are at leisure to give their time to it.'"
--WILLIAM ANDREW CHATTO: The Angler's Souvenir (London, 1835).
That wise man and accomplished scholar, Sir Henry Wotton, the friend
of Izaak Walton and ambassador of King James I to the republic of
Venice, was accustomed to say that "he would rather live five May
months than forty Decembers." The reason for this preference was no
secret to those who knew him. It had nothing to do with British or
Venetian politics. It was simply because December, with all its
domestic joys, is practically a dead month in the angler's calendar.
His occupation is gone. The better sort of fish are out of season.
The trout are lean and haggard: it is no trick to catch them and no
treat to eat them. The salmon, all except the silly kelts, have run
out to sea, and the place of their habitation no man knoweth. There
is nothing for the angler to do but wait for the return of spring,
and meanwhile encourage and sustain his patience with such small
consolations in kind as a friendly Providence may put within his
reach.
Some solace may be found, on a day of crisp, wintry weather, in the
childish diversion of catching pickerel through the ice. This
method of taking fish is practised on a large scale and with
elaborate machinery by men who supply the market. I speak not of
their commercial enterprise and its gross equipage, but of ice-
fishing in its more sportive and desultory form, as it is pursued by
country boys and the incorrigible village idler.
You choose for this pastime a pond where the ice is not too thick,
lest the labour of cutting through should be discouraging; nor too
thin, lest the chance of breaking in should be embarrassing. You
then chop out, with almost any kind of a hatchet or pick, a number
of holes in the ice, making each one six or eight inches in
diameter, and placing them about five or six feet apart. If you
happen to know the course of a current flowing through the pond, or
the location of a shoal frequented by minnows, you will do well to
keep near it. Over each hole you set a small contrivance called a
"tilt-up." It consists of two sticks fastened in the middle, at
right angles to each other. The stronger of the two is laid across
the opening in the ice. The other is thus balanced above the
aperture, with a baited hook and line attached to one end, while the
other end is adorned with a little flag. For choice, I would have
the flags red. They look gayer, and I imagine they are more lucky.
When you have thus baited and set your tilt-ups,--twenty or thirty
of them,--you may put on your skates and amuse yourself by gliding
to and fro on the smooth surface of the ice, cutting figures of
eight and grapevines and diamond twists, while you wait for the
pickerel to begin their part of the performance. They will let you
know when they are ready.
A fish, swimming around in the dim depths under the ice, sees one of
your baits, fancies it, and takes it in. The moment he tries to run
away with it he tilts the little red flag into the air and waves it
backward and forward. "Be quick!" he signals all unconsciously;
"here I am; come and pull me up!"
When two or three flags are fluttering at the same moment, far apart
on the pond, you must skate with speed and haul in your lines
promptly.
How hard it is, sometimes, to decide which one you will take first!
That flag in the middle of the pond has been waving for at least a
minute; but the other, in the corner of the bay, is tilting up and
down more violently: it must be a larger fish. Great Dagon! There's
another red signal flying, away over by the point! You hesitate,
you make a few strokes in one direction, then you whirl around and
dart the other way. Meantime one of the tilt-ups, constructed with
too short a cross-stick, has been pulled to one side, and disappears
in the hole. One pickerel in the pond carries a flag. Another
tilt-up ceases to move and falls flat upon the ice. The bait has
been stolen. You dash desperately toward the third flag and pull in
the only fish that is left,--probably the smallest of them all!
A surplus of opportunities does not insure the best luck.
A room with seven doors--like the famous apartment in Washington's
headquarters at Newburgh--is an invitation to bewilderment. I would
rather see one fair opening in life than be confused by three
dazzling chances.
There was a good story about fishing through the ice which formed
part of the stock-in-conversation of that ingenious woodsman, Martin
Moody, Esquire, of Big Tupper Lake. "'T was a blame cold day," he
said, "and the lines friz up stiffer 'n a fence-wire, jus' as fast
as I pulled 'em in, and my fingers got so dum' frosted I could n't
bait the hooks. But the fish was thicker and hungrier 'n flies in
June. So I jus' took a piece of bait and held it over one o' the
holes. Every time a fish jumped up to git it, I 'd kick him out on
the ice. I tell ye, sir, I kicked out more 'n four hundred pounds
of pick'rel that morning. Yaas, 't was a big lot, I 'low, but then
't was a cold day! I jus' stacked 'em up solid, like cordwood."