Days in the OpenCrandall, Lathan A. (Lathan Augustus)
General
Days in the Open
Crandall, Lathan A. (Lathan Augustus)
Fishing
On our way out we had noticed an attractive looking stream which we
crossed some ten miles from Manitowaning. Just by the bridge over this
stream stood the remains of an old mill, half fallen down and with the
timbers of the dam furnishing ideal hiding places for trout. When
this spot was reached on the return trip the pull was too strong to
be resisted and, hitching the apology for a horse to a nearby fence,
preparations were made for a foray upon the unsuspecting fish.
Fly-casting was out of the question and, after choosing a new snood
of double gut and covering the hook with an exceedingly plethoric
angleworm, the bait was cautiously dropped into the rushing waters at
the upper side of the ruins of the flume. Slowly the line was paid out
and the lure allowed to go far down out of sight. Zip! Yank! Tug!--and
it’s all over. Under the conditions, any such thing as playing the fish
was out of the question, and the straight-away pull parted that new
snood as if it had been made of a single strand of cotton thread. Our
humiliation was complete, and with a thoroughly chastened spirit the
horse was untied and the homeward journey resumed. That night as we told
the champion fisherman of the village of the experience at the old mill,
he poured a little balm upon our sore spirit by exclaiming, “That’s no
trout, that’s a whale. There isn’t a fisherman within twenty-five miles
of the old mill who has not hooked that fish and lost him.” Strange,
isn’t it, how other men’s ill fortune takes some measure of the sting
from our own?
But this is no tale of woe. On another day, and on the same stream that
flows by the old mill, the elect-lady and her unworthy consort spent
hours that are a joy to recall. It was only eleven miles to the point
recommended by our friendly adviser, and the horse was reasonably
ambitious. We had laid in a supply of provisions and took along a
skillet. A perfect day and perfect comradeship, plenty to eat and the
novelty of unexplored territory, made it certain that, fish or no fish,
the hours would pass pleasantly. As so frequently happens when we are
not very particular whether the fish bite or not, they elected to
be friendly. The stream where we visited it ran through meadow and
pasture-land, with a luxuriant growth of alders along its banks. The
open spaces afforded opportunities for my lady to try her hand at trout
fishing, and the other member of the party could wade the stream and
test the more inaccessible places. The water was almost ice-cold,
the stream having its rise less than a mile away in a great, bubbling
spring. Owing to the colour of the water the stream is called the
“Bluejay.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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