Fish Stories Part 2

SALMON RIVER is a swift flowing stream having an average width of fifty feet, narrowing as it pa.s.ses through gorges and having a number of wide, deep pools in which the larger trout collect.

I have made diligent inquiry as to the reason for this name, and have arrived at the conclusion that it was called Salmon River because there were never any salmon in it, but there should be.

About three miles up stream, the beavers have built a dam across it, backing the water up through a swampy section about a quarter of a mile, flooding both banks of the river through the woods, thus creating a fair sized artificial pond.

Bige and I decided that this would be a good place to fish, but that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to reach the deep water of the channel without a boat. So it was arranged that Bige should take the basket containing food and cooking utensils up over the tote-road, leave it at the beaver dam, then go on to Wolf Pond where we had left one of our boats, and carry the boat back through the woods to the dam where I should meet him about three hours later.

In order to make use of the time on my hands, I put on my wading pants and hob-nailed shoes and proceeded to wade up stream, making a cast occasionally where a likely spot appeared. It was a wonderful morning. The weather conditions were exactly right for such an expedition. I pa.s.sed many spots that would have delighted the soul of an artist. He, probably, would have taken a week to cover the distance I expected to travel in three hours.

I had gone more than half way to the dam, had a few fish in my creel, and was approaching an elbow in the stream. A high point of land covered with bushes shut off my view of a deep pool just around the corner, in which I had many times caught trout. As I came near this bend in the river a most extraordinary thing occurred. I distinctly saw a fish flying through the air over the top of the clump of bushes on the point. A flying fish is not an unheard of thing, indeed I have seen them several times, but not in the mountains, not in these woods, where there are fresh waters only. Flying fish of the kind I know about are met in the Sound and in bays near the ocean. Also, the fish I just then had seen flying above the bushes, did not have the extended wing-like fins of the orthodox flyer. This fish was a trout.

I had seen enough of them to feel sure of that. True, I had seen trout jump out of the water, for a fly or to get up over a waterfall; but I never before saw a trout climb fifteen or twenty feet into the air, over the tops of bushes and young trees and land on the bank.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Wading Salmon River]

This was surely a matter that required explanation. An investigation was necessary, and without hesitation I a.s.sumed the role of sleuth.

Carefully stepping out of the water, I sat on a rock and took off my wading togs, then on stockinged feet and on hands and knees crept up the bank. Peering through the bushes, I saw that since my last visit a large birch tree had fallen across the pool and that the trunk of this tree was partly submerged. Sitting on this fallen tree over the center of the pool was a large black bear. Her back was toward me, and she was in a stooping posture, holding one fore paw down in the water. I was just in time to see a sudden movement of the submerged paw and to see another trout, about twelve inches long, go sailing through the air and fall behind some bushes just beyond where I was in hiding. Rustling and squealing sounds coming from the direction in which the fish had gone, indicated that a pair of cubs were behind the bushes, and that they were sc.r.a.pping over possession of the fish their mother had tossed up to them. It was, perhaps, ten minutes later I saw a third trout fly over the bushes toward the cubs. About this time the bear turned her head, sniffed the air in my direction, and with a low growl and a "Whoof," started briskly for sh.o.r.e, climbed the bank, collected the two cubs and made off into the woods, smashing brush and fallen limbs of trees, occasionally pausing to send back, in her own language, a remark indicating her disapproval of the party who had interrupted her fishing operations.

The mystery of the flying trout was now solved, but a new conundrum was presented to my enquiring mind; namely, how did the old lady catch them? With what did the bear bait her hooks?

I have told the story to many guides and woodsmen of my acquaintance, and from them have sought an answer to the question. Bige expressed the opinion that the bear dug worms, wedged them in between her toe-nails, and when the fish nibbled the worms the bear grabbed him.

Frank referred to the well known pungent odor of the bear, especially of his feet, the tracks made by which a dog can smell hours, or even days after the bear has pa.s.sed. He said that fish are attracted by the odor.

Also that many years ago, he had caught fish by putting oil of rhodium on the bait, and that "fish could smell it clear across the pond." Frank admitted that this method of fishing was not sportsman-like and that he had discontinued the practice. George said he had many times watched trout in a pool rub their sides against moss covered stones and often settle down upon the moss and rest there. He opined that they mistook the fur on the bear's paw for a particularly desirable variety of moss, and so were caught.

At this point in my investigations, I was reminded that a few years ago there was conducted, in the columns of several fishing and hunting magazines, a very serious discussion of the question, "Can fish be caught by tickling?" Many contributors took part in this discussion. There were advocates of both positive and negative side of the question. My old friend Hubbard, an expert fisherman, of wide experience, a.s.sured me that he, many years ago, had discarded the landing net; that when he hooked a lake trout, a ba.s.s or a "musky,"

and had played his fish until it was so exhausted that it could be reeled in and led up alongside the boat, it was his practice to "gently insert his hand in the water under the fish and tickle it on the stomach, when the fish would settle down in his hand and go to sleep, then he would lift it into the boat."

[Ill.u.s.tration: An Expert Trout Fisher]

This testimony took me back in memory to a time, many years ago, at a little red school house on the hill, in a New England country school district, where my young ideas took their first lessons in shooting.

"Us fellers" then looked upon boys of twelve and thirteen years as the "big boys" of the school. We still believed in Santa Claus, and we knew that a bird could not be caught without first "putting salt on its tail." A brook crossed the road at the foot of the hill and ran down through farmer Barnum's pasture. In this brook, during the noon recess and after school had closed for the day, with trousers rolled up and with bare feet, we waded and fished. We caught them with our hands, and we kept them alive. Each boy had his "spring hole," scooped out of the sand near the edge of the stream, in which he kept the fish caught. Of course, whenever it rained, and the water rose in the brook, these spring holes were washed away and the fish escaped. But when the waters subsided, they had to be caught again.

Sometimes, we caught a chub as much as four inches long; and on rare occasions, when a "horned dace, a five incher" was secured, the boy who got him was a hero. It was the firm conviction of every boy in our gang, that, no matter how securely a fish was cornered between the two hands and behind and under a sod or stone, he could not safely be lifted out of the water without first "tickling him on the belly."

Reverting to the suggestion made by Bige. There would be no doubt as to the bear's ability to dig worms. She is an expert digger, carries her garden tools with her. She has been known to dig a hole under a stump or rock, six or eight feet deep, in which she sleeps all winter. I have, myself, seen a bear dig wild turnips and have seen rotten stumps and logs torn to bits by their claws; which was done in a hunt for grubs. I therefore felt certain that if the bear dug any worms she would not use them for fish bait, but would herself eat them.

With a judicial att.i.tude of mind, considering all the evidence submitted, including my own early experience, I have arrived at the conclusion that the trout was first attracted by the odor of the bear's paw, then rubbed against the soft fur, when the bear wiggled her toes and tickled the fish on his belly, whereupon the trout settled down in the bear's paw, went to sleep and was tossed up on the sh.o.r.e to the waiting cubs.

END OF FISH STORIES