Woodcraft Part 2

His minority report goes unheeded. The camp is roasted out. Strong hands and hand-spikes pry a couple of glowing logs from the front and replace them with two cold, green logs; the camp cools off and the party takes to blankets once more--to turn out again at 5 A.M. and inaugurate breakfast.

The fire is not in favorable shape for culinary operations, the heat is mainly on the back side, just where it isn't wanted. The few places level enough to set a pot or pan are too hot; and, in short, where there is any fire, there is too much. One man sees, with intense disgust, the nozzle of his coffeepot drop into the fire. He makes a rash grab to save his coffee and gets away--with the handle, which hangs on just enough to upset the pot.

"Old Al," who is frying a slice of pork over a bed of coals that would melt a gun barrel, starts a hoa.r.s.e laugh, that is cut short by a blue flash and an explosion of pork fat, which nearly blinds him. And the writer, taking in these mishaps in the very spirit of fun and frolic, is suddenly sobered and silenced by seeing his venison steak drop from the end of the "frizzling stick," and disappear between two glowing logs. The party manages, however, to get off on the hunt at daylight, with full stomachs; and perhaps the hearty fun and laughter more than compensate for these little mishaps.

This is a digression. But I am led to it by the recollection of many nights spent in camps and around campfires, pretty much as described above. I can smile today at the remembrance of the calm, superior way in which the old hunters of that day would look down on me, as from the upper branches of a tall hemlock, when I ventured to suggest that a better fire could be made with half the fuel and less than half the labor. They would kindly remark, "Oh, you are a Boston boy. You are used to paying $8.00 a cord for wood. We have no call to save wood here. We can afford to burn it by the acre." Which was more true than logical. Most of these men had commenced life with a stern declaration of war against the forest; and, although the men usually won at last, the battle was a long and hard one. Small wonder that they came to look upon a forest tree as a natural enemy. The campfire question came to a crisis, however, with two or three of these old settlers. And, as the story well ill.u.s.trates my point, I will venture to tell it.

It was in the "dark days before Christmas" that a party of four started from W., bound for a camp on Second Fork, in the deepest part of the wilderness that lies between Wellsboro and the Block House. The party consisted of Sile J., Old Al, Eli J. and the writer. The two first were gray-haired men, the others past thirty; all the same, they called us "the boys." The weather was not inviting and there was small danger of our camp being invaded by summer outers or tenderfeet. It cost twelve miles of hard travel to reach that camp; and, though we started at daylight, it was past noon when we arrived. The first seven miles could be made on wheels, the balance by hard tramping. The road was execrable; no one cared to ride; but it was necessary to have our loads carried as far as possible. The clearings looked dreary enough and the woods forbidding to a degree, but our old camp was the picture of desolation. There was six inches of damp snow on the leafless brush roof, the blackened brands of our last fire were sticking their charred ends out of the snow, the hemlocks were bending sadly under their loads of wet snow and the entire surroundings had a cold, cheerless, slushy look, very little like the ideal hunter's camp. We placed our knapsacks in the shanty, Eli got out his nail hatchet, I drew my little pocket-axe and we proceeded to start a fire, while the two older men went up stream a few rods to unearth a full-grown axe and a bottle of old rye, which they had cached under a log three months before. They never fooled with pocket-axes. They were gone so long that we sauntered up the band, thinking it might be the rye that detained them. We found them with their coats off, working like beavers, each with a stout, sharpened stick. There had been an October freshet and a flood-jam at the bend had sent the mad stream over its banks, washing the log out of position and piling a gravel bar two feet deep over the spot where the axe and flask should have been. About the only thing left to do was to cut a couple of stout sticks, organize a mining company, limited and go in; which they did. Sile was drifting into the side of the sandbar savagely, trying to strike the axe-helve and Old Al was sinking numberless miniature shafts from the surface in a vain attempt to strike whisky. The company failed in about half an hour. Sile resumed his coat and sat down on a log--which was one of his best holds, by the way. He looked at Al; Al looked at him; then both looked at us and Sile remarked that, if one of the boys wanted to go out to the clearings and "borry" an axe and come back in the morning, he thought the others could pick up wood enough to tough it out one night. Of course n.o.body could stay in an open winter camp without an axe.

It was my time to come to the front. I said: "You two just go at the camp; clean the snow off and slick up the inside. Put my shelter-cloth with Eli's and cover the roof with them; and if you don't have just as good a fire tonight as you ever had, you can tie me to a beech and leave me here. Come on, Eli." And Eli did come on. And this is how we did it: We first felled a thrifty b.u.t.ternut tree ten inches in diameter, cut off three lengths at five feet each and carried them to camp. These were the back logs. Two stout stakes were driven at the back of the fire and the logs, on top of each other, were laid firmly against the stakes. The latter were slanted a little back and the largest log placed at bottom, the smallest on top, to prevent tipping forward. A couple of short, thick sticks were laid with the ends against the bottom log by way of fire dogs; a fore stick, five feet long and five inches in diameter; a well built pyramid of bark, knots and small logs completed the campfire, which sent a pleasant glow of warmth and heat to the furthest corner of the shanty. For "night-wood,"

we cut a dozen birch and ash poles from four to six inches across, trimmed them to the tips and dragged them to camp. Then we denuded a dry hemlock of its bark; and, by the aid of ten foot poles, flattened at one end, packed the bark to camp. We had a bright, cheery fire from the early evening until morning, and four tired hunters never slept more soundly.

We stayed in that camp a week; and, though the weather was rough and cold, the little pocket-axes kept us well in firewood. We selected b.u.t.ternut for backlogs, because, when green, it burns very slowly and lasts a long time. And we dragged our smaller wood to camp in lengths of twenty to thirty feet, because it was easier to lay them on the fire and burn them in two than to cut them shorter with light hatchets. With a heavy axe, we should have cut them to lengths of five or six feet.

Our luck, I may mention, was good--as good as we desired. Not that four smallish deer are anything to brag about for a week's hunt by four men and two dogs. I have known a pot-hunter to kill nine in a single day. But we had enough.

As it was, we were obliged to "double trip it" in order to get our deer and duffle down to "Babb's." And we gave away more than half our venison. For the rest, the ill.u.s.tration shows the campfire--all but the fire--as it should be made.

CHAPTER V Fishing, With And Without Flies--Some Tackle And Lures--Discursive Remarks On The Gentle Art--The Headlight--Frogging

THERE is probably no subject connected with outdoor sport so thoroughly and exhaustively written up as Fly-fishing and all that pertains thereto. Fly-fishing for speckled trout always, and deservedly, takes the lead. Ba.s.s fishing usually comes next, though some writers accord second place to the lake trout, salmon trout or land-locked salmon. The mascalonge, as a game fish, is scarcely behind the small-mouthed ba.s.s and is certainly more gamy than the lake trout.

The large-mouthed ba.s.s and pickerel are usually ranked about with the yellow perch, I don't know why: they are certainly gamy enough. Perhaps it is because they do not leap out of water when hooked. Both are good on the table.

A dozen able and interesting authors have written books wherein trout, flies and fly-fishing are treated in a manner that leaves an old backwoodsman little to say. Rods, reels, casting lines, flies and fish are described and descanted on in a way and in a language, the reading whereof reduces me to temporary insanity. And yet I seem to recollect some bygone incidents concerning fish and fishing. I have a well-defined notion that I once stood on Flat Rock, in Big Pine Creek and caught over 350 fine trout in a short day's fishing. Also that many times I left home on a bright May or June morning, walked eight miles, caught a twelve-pound creel of trout and walked home before bedtime.

I remember that once, in Michigan, on the advice of local fishermen, I dragged a spoon around High Bank Lake two days, with little result save half a dozen blisters on my hands; and that on the next morning, taking a long tamarack pole and my own way of fishing, I caught, before 10 A.M., fifty pounds of ba.s.s and pickerel, weighing from two to ten pounds each.

Gibson, whose spoon, line and skiff I had been using and who was the fishing oracle of that region, could hardly believe his eyes. I kept that country inn, and the neighborhood as well, supplied with fish for the next two weeks.

It is truth to say that I have never struck salt or fresh waters, where edible fish were at all plentiful, without being able to take, in some way, all that I needed. Notably and preferably with the fly if that might be; if not, then with worms, grubs, minnows, gra.s.shoppers, crickets, or any sort of doodle bug their highnesses might affect. When a plump, two-pound trout refuses to eat a tinseled, feathered fraud, I am not the man to refuse him something more edible.

That I may not be misunderstood, let me say that I recognized the speckled brook trout as the very emperor of all game fish, and angling for him with the fly as the neatest, most fascinating sport attainable by the angler. But there are thousands of outers who, from choice or necessity, take their summer vacations where Salmo fontinalis is not to be had. They would prefer him, either on the leader or the table; but he is not there; "And a man has got a stomach and we live by what we eat."

Wherefore, they go a-fishing for other fish. So that they are successful and sufficiently fed, the difference is not so material. I have enjoyed myself hugely catching catties on a dark night from a skiff with a hand-line.

I can add nothing in a scientific way to the literature of fly-fishing; but I can give a few hints that may be conducive to practical success, as well with trout as with less n.o.ble fish, In fly-fishing, one serviceable four-ounce rod is enough; and a plain click reel, of small size, is just as satisfactory as a more costly affair. Twenty yards of tapered, waterproof line, with a six-foot leader, and a cost of two flies, complete the rig, and will be found sufficient. In common with most fly-fishers, I have mostly thrown a cast of three flies, but have found two just as effective, and handier.

We all carry too many flies, Some of my friends have more than sixty dozen and will never use a tenth of them. In the summer of '88, finding I had more than seemed needful, I left all but four dozen behind me. I wet only fifteen of them in a seven weeks' outing. And they filled the bill. I have no time or s.p.a.ce for a dissertation on the hundreds of different flies made and sold at the present day. Abler pens have done that. I will, however, name a few that I have found good in widely different localities, i.e., the Northern Wilderness of New York and the upper waters of Northern Pennsylvania. For the Northern Wilderness: Scarlet ibis, split ibis, Romeyn, white-winged coachman, royal coachman, red hackle, red-bodied ashy and gray-bodied ashy. The ashies were good for black ba.s.s also. For Northern Pennsylvania: Queen of the waters, professor, red fox, coachman, black may, white-winged coachman, wasp, brown hackle, Seth Green. Ibis flies are worthless here. Using the dark flies in bright water and clear weather and the brighter colors for evening, the list was long enough.

At the commencement of the open season and until the young maple leaves are half grown, bait will be found far more successful than the fly. At this time the trout are pretty evenly distributed along lake sh.o.r.es and streams, choosing to lie quietly in rather deep pools and avoiding swift water. A few may rise to the fly in a logy, indifferent way; but the best way to take them is bait-fishing with well-cleansed angle-worms or white grubs, the latter being the best bait I have ever tried. They take the bait sluggishly at this season, but, on feeling the hook, wake up to their normal activity and fight gamely to the last. When young, newborn insects begin to drop freely on the water about the 20th of May, trout leave the pools and take to the riffles.

And from this time until the latter part of June the fly-fisherman is in his glory. It may be true that the skillful bait-fisherman will rather beat his creel. He cares not for that. He can take enough; and he had rather take ten trout with the fly, than a score with bait. As for the man who goes a-fishing simply to catch fish, the fly-fisher does not recognize him as an angler at all.

When the sun is hot and the weather grows warm, trout leave the ripples and take to cold springs and spring-holes; the largest fish, of course, monopolizing the deepest and coolest places, while the smaller ones hover around, or content themselves with shallower water. As the weather gets hotter, the fly-fishing falls off badly. A few trout of four to eight ounces in weight may still be raised, but the larger ones are lying on the bottom and are not to be fooled with feathers. They will take a tempting bait when held before their noses--sometimes; at other times, not. As to raising them with a fly--as well attempt to raise a sick Indian with the temperance pledge. And yet, they may be taken in bright daylight by a ruse that I learned long ago, of a youngster less than half my age, a little, freckled, thin-visaged young man, whose health was evidently affected by a daily struggle with a pair of tow-colored side whiskers and a light mustache. There was hardly enough of the whole affair to make a door mat for a bee hive.

But he seemed so proud of the plant, that I forebore to rig him. He was better than he looked--as often happens. The landlord said, "He brings in large trout every day, when our best fly-fishermen fail." One night, around an outdoor fire, we got acquainted and I found him a witty, pleasant companion. Before turning in I ventured to ask him how he succeeded in taking large trout, while the experts only caught small ones, or failed altogether.

"Go with me tomorrow morning to a spring-hole three miles up the river and I'll show you," he said.

Of course, we went. He, rowing a light skiff and I paddling a still lighter canoe. The spring-hole was in a narrow bay that set back from the river and at the mouth of a cold, clear brook; it was ten to twelve feet deep and at the lower end a large balsam had fallen in with the top in just the right place for getting away with large fish, or tangling lines and leaders. We moored some twenty feet above the spring-hole and commenced fishing, I with my favorite cast of flies, my friend with the tail of a minnow, He caught a 1 1/2 pound trout almost at the outset, but I got no rise; did not expect it. Then I went above, where the water was shallower and raised a couple of half-pounders, but could get no more, I thought he had better go to the hotel with what he had, but my friend said "wait"; he went ash.o.r.e and picked up a long pole with a bushy tip; it had evidently been used before. Dropping down to the spring-hole, he thrust the tip to the bottom and slashed it around in a way to scare and scatter every trout within a hundred feet.

"And what does all that mean?" I asked.

"Well," he said, "every trout will be back in less than an hour; and when they first come back, they take the bait greedily. Better take off your leader and try bait."

Which I did. Dropping our hooks to the bottom, we waited some twenty minutes, when he had a bite, and having strong tackle, soon took in a trout that turned the scale at 2 1/4 pounds. Then my turn came and I saved one weighing 1 1/2 pounds. He caught another of 1 1/4 pounds and I took one of 1 pound. Then they ceased biting altogether.

"And now," said my friend, "if you will work your canoe carefully around to that old balsam top and get the light where you can see the bottom, you may see some large trout."

I did as directed, and making a telescope of my hand, looked intently for the bottom of the spring-hole. At first I could see nothing but water; then I made out some dead sticks and finally began to dimly trace the outlines of large fish. There they were, more than forty of them, lying quietly on the bottom like suckers, but genuine brook trout, every one of them.

"This," said he, "makes the fifth time I have brushed them out of here and I have never missed taking from two to five large trout. I have two other places where I always get one or two, but this is the best."

At the hotel we found two fly-fishers who had been out all the morning. They each had three or four small trout. During the next week we worked the spring-holes daily in the same way and always with success. I have also had good success by building a bright fire on the bank and fishing a spring-hole by the light--a mode of fishing especially successful with catties and perch.

A bright, bull's-eye headlight, strapped on a stiff hat, so that the light can be thrown where it is wanted, is an excellent device for night fishing. And during the heated term, when fish are slow and sluggish, I have found the following plan works well: Bake a hard, well salted, water Johnnycake, break it into pieces the size at a hen's egg and drop the pieces into a spring-hole. This calls a host of minnows and the larger fish follow the minnows. It will prove more successful on perch, catties, chubs, etc., than on trout, however. By this plan, I have kept a camp of five men well supplied with fish when their best flies failed--as they mostly do in very hot weather.

Fishing for mascalonge, pickerel and ba.s.s, is quite another thing, though by many valued as a sport scarcely inferior to fly-fishing for trout. I claim no especial skill with the fly-rod. It is a good day when I get my tail fly more than fifteen yards beyond the reel, with any degree of accuracy.

My success lies mainly with the tribes of Esox and Micropterus. Among these, I have seldom or never failed during the last thirty-six years, when the water was free of ice; and I have had just as good luck when big-mouthed ba.s.s and pickerel were in the "off season," as at any time.

For in many waters there comes a time--in late August and September when neither ba.s.s nor pickerel will notice the spoon, be it handled never so wisely. Even the mascalonge looks on the flashing cheat with indifference; though a very hungry specimen may occasionally immolate himself. It was at such a season that I fished High Bank Lake--as before mentioned--catching from twenty to fifty pounds of fine fish every morning for nearly two weeks, after the best local fishermen had a.s.sured me that not a decent sized fish could be taken at that season.

Perhaps a brief description of the modes and means that have proved invariably successful for many years may afford a few useful hints, even to old anglers.

To begin with, I utterly discard all modern "gangs" and "trains,"

carrying from seven to thirteen hooks each. They are all too small and all too many; better calculated to scratch and tear, than to catch and hold, Three hooks are enough at the end of any line and better than more. These should be fined or honed to a perfect point and the abrupt part of the barb filed down one-half. All hooks, as usually made, have twice as much barb as they should have; and the sharp bend of the barb prevents the entering of the hook in hard bony structures, wherefore the fish only stays hooked so long as there is a taut pull on the line.

A little loosening of the line and shake of the head sets him free. But no fish can shake out a hook well sunken in mouth or gills, though two-thirds of the barb be filed away.

For mascalonge or pickerel I invariably use wire snells made as follows: Lay off four or more strands of fine bra.s.s wire 13 inches long; turn one end of the wires smoothly over a No. 1 iron wire and work the ends in between the strands below. Now, with a pair of pincers hold the ends, and using No. 1 as a handle, twist the ends and body of the snell firmly together; this gives the loop; next, twist the snell evenly and strongly from end to end. Wax the end of the snell thoroughly for two or three inches and wax the tapers of two strong Sproat or O'Shaughnessy hooks and wind the lower hook on with strong, waxed silk, to the end of the taper; then lay the second hook at right angles with the first and one inch above it; wind this as the other and then fasten a third and smaller hook above that for a lip hook. This gives the snell about one foot in length, with the two lower hooks standing at right angles, one above the other and a third and smaller hook in line with the second.

The bait is the element of success; it is made as follows: Slice off a clean, white pork rind, four or five inches long by an inch and a half wide; lay it on a board and with a sharp knife cut it as nearly to the shape of a frog as your ingenuity permits. p.r.i.c.k a slight gash in the head to admit the lip hook, which should be an inch and a half above the second one and see that the back of the bait rests securely in the barb of the middle hook.

Use a stout bait-rod and a strong line. Fish from a boat, with a second man to handle the oars, if convenient. Let the oarsman lay the boat ten feet inside the edge of the lily-pads and make your cast, say, with thirty feet of line; land the bait neatly to the right, at the edge of the lily-pads, let it sink a few inches, and then with the tip well lowered, bring the bait around on a slight curve by a quick succession of draws, with a momentary pause between each; the object being to imitate as nearly as possible a swimming frog. If this be neatly done and if the bait be made as it should be, at every short halt the legs will spread naturally and the imitation is perfect enough to deceive the most experienced ba.s.s or pickerel. When half a dozen casts to right and left have been made without success, it is best to move on, still keeping inside and casting outside the lily-pads.

A pickerel of three pounds or more will take in all three hooks at the first snap; and, as he closes his mouth tightly and starts for the bottom, strike quickly, but not too hard, and let the boatman put you out into deep water at once, where you are safe from the strong roots of the yellow lily.

It is logically certain your fish is well hooked. You cannot pull two strong, sharp hooks through that tightly closed mouth without fastening at least one of them where it will do most good. Oftener both will catch and it frequently happens that one hook will catch each lip, holding the mouth nearly closed and shortening the struggles of a large fish very materially. On taking off a fish and before casting again, see that the two lower hooks stand at right angles. If they have got turned in the struggle you can turn them at any angle you like; the twisted wire is stiff enough to hold them in place. Every angler knows the bold, determined manner in which the mascalonge strikes his prey.

He will take in bait and hooks at the first dash, and if the rod be held stiffly usually hooks himself. Barring large trout, he is the king of game fish. The big-mouthed ba.s.s is less savage in his attacks, but is a free biter. He is apt to come up behind and seize the bait about two-thirds of its length, turn and bore down for the bottom. He will mostly take in the lower hooks however, and is certain to get fastened.

His large mouth is excellent for retaining the hook. As for the small-mouthed (Micropterus dolomieu, if you want to be scientific), I have found him more capricious than any game fish on the list. One day he will take only dobsons, or crawfish; the next, he may prefer minnows, and again, he will rise to the fly or a bucktail spinner.

On the whole, I have found the pork frog the most successful lure in his case; but the hooks and bait must be arranged differently. Three strands of fine wire will make a snell strong enough and the hooks should be strong, sharp and rather small, the lower hooks placed only half an inch apart and a small lip hook two and a quarter inches above the middle one. As the fork of the bait will not reach the bend of the middle hook, it must be fastened to the snell by a few st.i.tches taken with stout thread and the lower end of the bait should not reach more than a quarter of an inch beyond the bottom of the hook, because the small-mouth has a villainous trick of giving his prey a stern chase, nipping constantly and viciously at the tail, and the above arrangement will be apt to hook him at the first snap. Owing to this trait, some artificial minnows with one or two hooks at the caudal end, are very killing--when he will take them.

Lake, or salmon trout, may be trolled for successfully with the above lure; but I do not much affect fishing for them. Excellent sport may be had with them, however, early in the season, when they are working near the sh.o.r.e, but they soon retire to water from fifty to seventy feet deep and can only be caught by deep trolling or buoy-fishing. I have no fancy for sitting in a slow-moving boat for hours, dragging three or four hundred feet of line in deep water, a four pound sinker tied by six feet of lighter line some twenty feet above the hooks. The sinker is supposed to go b.u.mping along the bottom, while the bait follows three or four feet above it. The drag of the line and the constant joggling of the sinker on rocks and snags, make it difficult to tell when one has a strike--and it is always too long between bites.

Sitting for hours at a baited buoy with a hand-line and without taking a fish, is still worse, as more than once I have been compelled to acknowledge in very weariness of soul. There are enthusiastic anglers, however, whose specialty is trolling for lake trout. A gentleman by the name of Thatcher, who has a fine residence on Raquette Lake--which he calls a camp makes this his leading sport and keeps a log of his fishing, putting nothing on record of less than ten pounds weight. His largest fish was booked at twenty-eight pounds, and he added that a well-conditioned salmon trout was superior to a brook trout on the table; in which I quite agree with him. But he seemed quite disgusted when I ventured to suggest that a well-conditioned cattie or bullhead, caught in the same waters was better than either.

"Do you call the cattie a game fish?" he asked.

Yes; I call any fish a "game fish" that is taken for sport with hook and line. I can no more explain the common prejudice against the catfish and eel than I can tell why an experienced angler should drag a gang of thirteen hooks through the water--ten of them being wane than superfluous. Frank Forester gives five hooks as the number for a trolling gang. We mostly use hooks too small and do not look after points and barbs closely enough. A pair of No. 1 O'Shaughnessy, or 1 1/2 Sproat, or five tapered blackfish hooks, will make a killing rig for small-mouthed ba.s.s using No. 4 Sproat for lip hook. Larger hooks are better for the big-mouthed, a four-pound specimen of which will easily take in one's fist. A pair of 5-0 O'Shaughnessy's, or Sproat's will be found none too large; and as for the mascalonge and pickerel, if I must err, let it be on the side of large hooks and strong lines.