Forgotten Treasures #14: Speckled Trout--PART 3

SPECKLED TROUT PART 3
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After deliberating for some time over a pocket compass which I carried, we
decided upon our course, and held on to the west. The descent was very
gradual. Traces of bear and deer were noted at different points, but not a
live animal was seen.

About four o'clock we reached the bank of a stream flowing west. Hail to
the Beaverkill! and we pushed on along its banks. The trout were plenty,
and rose quickly to the hook, but we held on our way, designing to go into
camp about six o'clock. Many inviting places, first on one bank, then on
the other, made us linger, till finally we reached a smooth, dry place
overshadowed by balsam and hemlock, where the creek bent around a little
flat, which was so entirely to our fancy that we unslung our knapsacks at
once. While my companions were cutting wood and making other preparations
for the night, it fell to my lot, as the most successful angler, to provide
the trout for supper and breakfast. How shall I describe that wild,
beautiful stream, with features so like those of all other mountain streams?
And yet, as I saw it in the deep twilight of those woods on that June
afternoon, with its steady, even flow, and its tranquil, many-voiced murmur,
it made an impression upon my mind distinct and peculiar, fraught in an
eminent degree with the charm of seclusion and remoteness. The solitude was
perfect, and I felt that strangeness and insignificance which the civilized
man must always feel when opposing himself to such a vast scene of silence
and wildness. The trout were quite black, like all wood trout, and took the
bait eagerly. I followed the stream till the deepening shadows warned me to
turn back. As I neared camp, the fire shoe far through the trees,
dispelling the gathering gloom, but blinding my eyes to all obstacles at my
feet. I was seriously disturbed on arriving to find that one of my
companions had cut and ugly gash in his shin with the axe while felling a
tree. As we did not carry a fifth wheel, it was not just the time or place
to have any of our members crippled, and I had bodings of evil. But, thanks
to the healing virtues of the balsam which must have adhered to the blade of
the axe, and double thanks to the court-plaster with which Orville had
supplied himself before leaving home, the wounded leg, by being favored that
night and the next day, gave us little trouble.

That night we had our first fair and square camping out,--that is, sleeping
on the ground with no shelter over us but the trees,--and it was in many
respects the pleasantest night we spent in the woods. The weather was
perfect and the place was perfect, and for the first time we were exempt
from the midges and smoke; and then we appreciated the clean new page we had
to work on. Nothing is so acceptable to the camper-out as a pure article in
the way of woods and waters. Any admixture of human relics mars the spirit
of the scene. Yet I am willing to confess that, before we were through
those weeds, the marks of an axe in a tree were a welcome sight. On
resuming our march next day we followed the right bank of the Beaverkill, in
order to strike a stream which flowed in from the north, and which was the
outlet of Balsam Lake, the objective point of that day's march. The
distance to the lake from our camp could not have been over six or seven
miles; yet, traveling as we did, without path or guide, climbing up banks,
plunging into ravines, making detours around swampy places, and forcing our
way through woods choked up with much fallen and decayed timber, it seemed
at least twice that distance, and the mid-afternoon sun was shining when we
emerged into what is called the "Quaker Clearing," ground that I had been
over nine years before, and that lies about two miles south of the lake.
From this point we had a well-worn path that led us up a sharp rise of
ground, then through level woods till we saw the bright gleam of the water
through the trees.

I am always stuck, on approaching these little mountain lakes, with the
extensive preparation that is made for them in conformation of the ground.
I am thinking of a depression, or natural basin, in the side of the mountain
or on its top, the brink of which I shall reach after a little steep
climbing; but instead of that, after I have accomplished the ascent, I find
a broad sweep of level or gently undulating woodland that brings me after a
half hour of so to the lake, which lies in this vast lap like a drop of
water in the palm of a man's hand.

Balsam Lake was oval-shaped, scarcely more than half a mile long and a
quarter of a mile wide, but presented a charming picture, with a group of
dark gray hemlocks filling the valley about its head, and the mountains
rising above and beyond. We found a bough house in good repair, also a
dug-out and paddle and several floats of logs. In the dug-out I was soon
creeping along the shady side of the lake, where the trout were incessantly
jumping for a species of black fly, that, sheltered from the slight breeze,
were dancing in swarms just above the surface of the water. The gnats were
there in swarms also, and did their best toward balancing the accounts by
preying upon me while I preyed upon the trout which preyed upon the flies.
But by dint of keeping my hands, face, and neck constantly wet, I am
convinced that the balance of blood was on my side. The trout jumped most
within a foot or two of shore, where the water was only a few inches deep.
The shallowness of the water, perhaps, accounted for the inability of the
fish to do more than lift their heads above the surface. They came up
mouths wide open, and dropped back again in the most impotent manner. Where
there is any depth of water, a trout will jump several feet into the air;
and where there is a solid, unbroken sheet or column, they will scale falls
and dams fifteen feet high.

We had the very cream and flower of our trout-fishing at this lake. For the
first time we could use the fly to advantage; and then the contrast between
laborious tramping along shore, on the one hand, and sitting in one end of a
dug-out and casting your line right and left with no fear of entanglement in
brush or branch, while you were gently propelled along, on the other, was
of the most pleasing character.

There were two varieties of trout in the lake,--what it seems proper to call
silver trout and golden trout; the former were the slimmer, and seemed to
keep apart from the latter. Starting from the outlet and working round on
the eastern side toward the head, we invariably caught these first. They
glanced in the sun like bars of silver. Their sides and bellies were indeed
as white as new silver. As we neared the head, and especially as we came
near a space occupied by some kind watergrass that grew in the deeper part
of the lake, the other variety would begin to take the hook, their bellies a
bright gold color, which became a deep orange on their fins; and as we
returned to the place of departure with the bottom of the boat strewn with
these bright forms intermingled, it was a sight not soon to be forgotten.
It pleased my eye so, that I would fain linger over them, arranging them in
rows and studying the various hues and tints. They were of nearly a uniform
size, rarely over ten or under eight inches in length, and it seemed as if
the hues of all the precious metals and stones were reflected from their
sides. The flesh was deep salmon-color; that of brook trout is generally
much lighter. Some hunters and fishers from the valley of the Mill Brook,
whom we met here, told us the trout were much larger in the lake, though far
less numerous than they used to be. Brook trout do not grow large till they
become scarce. It is only in streams that have been long and much fished
that I have caught them as much as sixteen inches in length.

The "porcupigs" were numerous about the lake, and not at all shy. One night
the heat became so intolerable in our oven-shaped bough house that I was
obliged to withdraw from under its cover and lie down a little to one side.
Just at daybreak, as I lay rolled in my blanket, something awoke me.
Lifting up my head, there was a porcupine with his forepaws on my hips. He
was apparently as much surprised as I was; and to my inquiry as to what he a
that moment might be looking for, he did not pause to reply, but hitting me
a slap with his tail which left three or four quills in my blanket, he
scampered off down the hill into the brush.

Being an observer of the birds, of course every curious incident connected
with them fell under my notice. Hence, as we stood about our camp-fire one
afternoon looking out over the lake, I was the only one to see a little
commotion in the water, half hidden by the near branches, as of some tiny
swimmer struggling to reach the shore. Rushing to its rescue in the canoe,
I found a yellow-rumped warbler, quite exhausted, clinging to a twig that
hung down into the water. I brought the drenched and helpless thing to
camp, and, putting it into a basket, hung it up to dry. An hour or two
afterward I heard it fluttering in its prison, and cautiously lifted the lid
to get a better glimpse of the lucky captive, when it darted out and was
gone in a twinkling. How came it in the water? That was my wonder, and I
can only guess that it was a young bird that had never before flown over a
pond of water, and, seeing the clouds and blue sky so perfect down there,
thought it was a vast opening or gateway into another summer land, perhaps a
short cut to the tropics, and so got itself into trouble. How my eye was
delighted also with the redbird that alighted for a moment on a dry branch
above the lake, just where a ray of light from the setting sun fell full
upon it! A mere crimson point, and yet how it offset that dark, sombre
background!

I have thus run over some of the features of an ordinary trouting excursion
to the wood. People inexperienced in such matters, sitting in their rooms
and thinking of these things, of all the poets have sung and romancer
written, are apt to get sadly taken in when they attempt to realize their
dreams. They expect to enter a sylvan paradise of trout, cool retreats,
laughing brooks, picturesque views, and balsamic couches, instead of which
they find hunger, rain, smoke, toil, gnats, mosquitoes, dirt broken rest,
vulgar guides, and salt pork; and they are very apt not to see where the fun
comes in. But he who goes in a right spirit will not be disappointed, and
will find the taste of this kind of life better, though bitterer, than the
writers have described.
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END SPECKLED TROUT

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.

Note: Many of the authors presented in this series so far (as well as
others yet to come) were well known in their own times. Some of them are
still familiar to bookish sorts. Burroughs, all but forgotten today, was an
extremely popular nature writer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Burroughs (John of the birds) was a contemporary of and often compared with
John Muir (John of the mountains), who remains better known today due his
great influence in the environmental movement. Both were familiars of
another famous writer and conservationist, Teddy Roosevelt.

More about Burroughs he http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Burroughs
MUCH more he http://www.johnburroughs.org/