Forgotten Treasures # 16: FISHING IN ELK RIVER--PART3
 

FISHING IN ELK RIVER

PART 3
_________________________________________________

"You've cotched bass afore, Perfesser. You ez up to their ways ez a
mus'rat to a mussel, er a kingfisher to a minner," exclaimed Tim
admiringly, as he loosened the troll from a two-pound bass. "Hit's
p'intedly a pity you're out uv your head about picters."

"Oh, I have one! I have one!--a fish! What kind is it?" screamed Bess
Bangem, who was the Professor's companion, as her light trout-pole bent
from a sudden tug, and the reel whirred as the line ran off.

"Stop him, hold on to him, wind him in, and I will tell you," answered
the Professor, laughing.

Bess was a practised hand, and loved the sport, but, woman-like, she
always paused to wonder what she had caught before proceeding to find
out.

"It will be the subject of a lecture for you, whatever it is," replied
Bess, with a saucy shake of her head, as she wound in the line and
guided the playing fish with well-managed pole. Her fine face flushed
with the excitement of the run and leap of her prey, as it came nearer
and nearer, until Tim slipped the landing-net quietly under it and
landed the beauty in the boat.

"Poor fellow! I wonder if I hurt him?" said Bess.

"Not much, if any," remarked the Professor. "I never was a fish, and
consequently never was foolish enough to jump at a bunch of hooks; but,
as the cartilage of a fish's mouth is almost nerveless, there is but
little pain from a hook diet. Bass, salmon, pike, and other gamey fish
will often keep on biting after they have been badly hooked."

"So will men," said Bess, as she threw her troll into the water to do
fresh duty.

"You're p'intedly keerect," said Tim Price. "I got the sack four
times, an' hed right smart mittens, afore I cotched a stayin' holt on
my old woman."

Shout after shout waked the mountain-echoes, as fish were held up in
triumph, and as the boats glided over the smooth water of the eddy.
Ahead was a mass of foam and a long dash of water down a shoal

"Yere's where me and the colonel catches 'em lively when I pull him."
said Martha to the Doctor. "They bite yere ez lively ez a stray pig in
a tater-patch. Whoop! I've got him! He pulls like a mule at a
hitchin'-rope. Keep your boat head to the current, Alec, an' pull
hard, er we'll drift down on him an' I'll lose him. Whoop! May I
never! A five-pounder! I'll slit him down the back an' brile him fer
breakfast. Whoop! In you come!"

The boatmen pulled hard against the fierce current at the foot of the
shoal, crossed and recrossed, circled, and at it again, until a score
or more of noble bass were hooked from the swirl, and Colonel Bangem
led the way up the rapids. Then the oarsmen leaped into the water and
towed the boats through the wild current, until the eddy at the top of
it allowed them to take oars again.

"Preacher, kin you paddle?" asked Tim Price of the Professor, as he
drained the water from his legs before getting into the boat. "Ef you
air a hand at it, take an oar an' paddle a bit astern: there'll be
white peerch an' red-hoss lyin' yere at the head uv the shore."

The professor took an oar and paddled, while Tim Price poised himself
in the boat, spear in hand and the long rope from its slender shaft
coiled at his feet. He peered intently into the water as the boat
moved slowly along. Presently every muscle of him was set: he bent
backward for a cast, pointed his spear with steady hands to a spot in
the river, and quick as a flash it pierced the water until its ten-foot
shaft was seen no more. As quickly was it recovered by Tim's active
hands catching the flying line to haul it in; and on its prongs
squirmed a monstrous fish of the sucker tribe,--a red-horse,--pinned
through and through by his unerring aim.

Shoal and eddy, swirl and silent pool, yielded good sport and harvest,
as haunts of bass and salmon were entered and passed, until the
inviting mouth of Little Sandy Creek suggested rest for the boatmen and
a stroll for the fishers. A neat hotel, clean and well kept for so
wild a region, harbors lumbermen, rivermen, and those who love the rod
and gun. There are many such attractive centres along the banks of
Elk, with charming camping-grounds, where neighboring hospitality
abounds, and chickens, eggs, milk, corn, and bacon are abundant and
cheap, and the finest bass-and other fishing possible, from Queen's
Shoal--four miles away--to the old dam above Charleston. Above Queen's
Shoal the region increases in wildness and attractiveness for traveller
or sportsman. Trout in plenty find homes in the mounatin tributaries
of Upper Elk; deer abound, and all manner of smaller game. Where
nature does her best work, man is apt to do but little. Nature farms
the Elk country.

Bright moonlight, the early morning after the sun us up, and from a
couple of hours after mid-day until the mountain-shadows strike the
water in the evening, are the best times to troll for bass. If so
minded, they will rise to a fly at such times in the rapids; but no
allurement excepting the troll will bring them to the surface in still
water. When the river is rising, or the water is clouded with mud or
drift, bass scorn all surface-diet; but the live minnow or crawfish,
hellgramite or fish-worm, will capture them on trout-line or hook
attached to the soul-absorbing bob. A clothes-line wire cable,
furnished with well-assorted hooks baited with cotton, dough, and
cheese well mixed together, and stretched in eddy-water when the river
is muddy, will give fine reward in carp, white perch, catfish, turtles,
garfish, and sweet revenge on the bait-stealing guana.

After nooning, lunch, and a quiet loaf, the party sped homeward with
the current, handling rods and trolls as salmon and bass demanded
lively attention. Shooting a rapid, and out into a deep pool at its
foot, the Doctor's boat struck a snag, and he, having a resisting power
equal to that of a billiard-ball, put his heels where his head had
been, and disappeared under the water, to pop up again instantly,
sputtering and spitting, like a jug full of yeast with a corn-cob
stopper.

"Oh, Hickey! Whoop!" exclaimed Martha, as she went off in wild screams
of laughter. "Kin you swim?" she asked, with the coolness of the
mountain-maiden she was.

"No, no," sputtered the Doctor.

"I reckon you'll tow good. Jest gimme your han', an' keep your feet
down, an' me an' Alec 'ill tow you ashore to dreen. Hit's like you're
purty wet."

He was soon landed by the stalwart Martha and Alec, and, while he
attitudinized for draining, the Professor amused himself with taking an
instantaneous photograph.

"By gum! he mought hev drownded," said Tim Price to the Professor.
"The Doctor hain't a good shape fer towin", but he floats higher than
any craft of his length I ever seed on Elk River."

Just as the golden light of evening cast its sheen upon the river the
camp-tents came in sight, where a group of natives stood waiting the
arrival of the fishers to "hear what luck they'd hed."

Colonel Bangem and Bess carried off equal honors in greatest
count,--sixty-two bass and five salmon each. Martha, with her
five-pounder, was weight champion. Mrs. Bangem had the only blue pike.
The Professor claimed that, besides his twoscore fish, he had
illustrations enough for a comic annual; and the Doctor asserted that
he knew more about bass than any of them, for he had been down where
they lived, and was of the opinion that he had swallowed a couple.

Bess Bangem said to the Professor, as they went up the bank together,
"I had a great mind to count you in with my fish, to beat father; but I
caught you long ago, so it would not have been fair."

______________________________________________

End, FISHING IN ELK RIVER


This work is in the public domain. To the best of my knowledge, its
inclusion here does not violate any U. S. or other copyright laws.

Wolfgang