Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 144, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 June 1913 — Fishing on the Dwind [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Fishing on the Dwind

THERE were six of us, four men and two women, all bare legged, the men with their trousers rolled up well above the knees, the women in short underpetticoats. We sat in a large boat with two sails and moved merrily over the little waves. On board there were fifty yards of netting, a basket of black bread and pickled cod, a kettle and a pot, two bark boxes to contain the fish, and one or two heavy deerskin jackets to put on if the night should be very cold. The men were idle, the women rowed. I ladled out water now and then, for we leaked badly, and thqre is nothing more unpleasant than to have one’s food or clothes splashed with bilge, a writer in the London Evening Standard says: There was a little conversation. “Why is it so much fish comes up the Dwina this season of the year?” “A bug drives them.” “If they didn’t come up it would be bad for us.” *God sends the bug to chase them, so that the poor moujik shall not starve.” “That is true. Glory be to Thee, 0! Lord!” The women discussed whether the tide was coming in or going out. They agreed that if the tide were still coming in we should catch nothing but "spittles,” meaning thereby very little fish or nothing at all. We all hoped that the tide had turned. Casting Nets on the Dwina. By 8 o'clock we reached the shore of a Dwina island, drew in on the sand and prepared to tackle for our first cast into the depths. The nets, fifty yards long and ten feet wide, were much entangled, and the stone weights attached all along the bottom did not make unraveling the easier. We spent an hour extricating the stones and the corks and repairing the big rents through which, in their imagination, the women already saw our finest fish leaping. Attached to the four extreme corners of the netting were long ropes —these were the pulling ropes. Ikra’s son and Laika took a pair of these and Ikra and the two women took the loose ready netting on board and rowed out upon the water, throwing out the tackle as fast as we traveled, so that there was a long tall of corks and rope stretching behind us to the shore, where the other two held their ends. The women rowed, I helped to throw out the nets.

When we had reached a convenient point we turned the boat and rowed back to the shore, making the floating line of corks and rope into a half circle. Once on the shore we took out our ends of the rope and pulled. Young Ikra and Laika also pulled; one of the women went over to help them. The nets were very heavy and yielded very slowly to our tugging, so heavy that one might have thought that they inclosed all the fish of the sea. As a matter of fact, It was the river that resisted us and not the draft We wound the ropes round our middles and lay back and dragged like captains of a tug of war.

Gradually, very gradually, we gained the victory, and approached the other party pulling toward us. We drew in the first strands of netting and then the second and third, our excitement and expectation increasing as the half circle narrowed in and decreased, and we saw little fishes darting to and fro in the shadowy water.

We watched; but, alas! what disappointment! We did not catch a«flsh larger than our middle fingers. They were all “spittles,” and we all agreed that the tide had not turned yet It was our lot to repeat this laborious and fruitless performance three times before success attended our efforts. It was at the fourth cast that our fortune suddenly changed. As usual we drew in the nets slowly and heavily and approached one another, and then stood hopeful,- but ready to be' disappointed, watching th» finale. On this occasion we saw big fish swimming about, trying to

escape the toils, and one of the men could not contain himself, but: rushed into the water and tried to secure one in advance; the consequence was a sudden splash and a jump and a lively pike had leaped out of the trap back into the river. “Oh,, oh, three-pound, a four-pound fleh, comeback, come back!” we cried out, and brought young Ikra back. With a one, two, three, we landed the heavy sack of the net with its complement of mud and weeds and sheila and splashing, slithering fish. A glorious sight presented itself—three large white gwineads all together and half a dozen fair-sizea fish enmeshed, half escaped, but caught,, then a bushel of perch and dace and flounders. We all emiled and felt pleased. , Stared At by Wl|d Horses. By 11 o’clock, when the sky waa steeped in the first red of sunset, we had already cast the net six times and were content with the result Two of the party went off to look at the. bushes to see whether the wild black currants were ripening, arid the rest

iof us eat round on the sand and ate bread and fish. While sitting so, about twenty wild horses came trampling over the sand and stared at us curiously; then, when I tried to stalk them, galloped off pellmell. The river was perfectly tranquil, the yellow peach burned to crimson from the low rays of the sun. The Dwina villages slept, there was scarcely a craft to be seen on the river, and we seemed utterly alone in the world. ’ We began to feel cold and proposed to go in search of the others, when suddenly they appeared, declaring there were no berries this year, nothing at all. We had better keep to fish; we should do nothing gathering fruit ’ That meant that we set to work, again. When we had filled our baskets we would light a bonfire, and make tea and warm ourselves. Fortune remained with us—God allowed the fish to be caught, as one moujik put it —and we did well. We brought in much jack, maijy muddy flat fish, then a fat salmony looking fish of which I know not the name, and at least a score of gwineads over a foot long. Ever and anon a big fish would jump and escape. We arranged the baskets, putting the large fish in one and the little ones in the other. There was a cunning jack that was squirming its tail and snapping its juvs like an alligator. I offered him a little fish and he bit it in two. At 1 in the morning the deep band of sunset still glowed in the north and west. ' The waters pf the river drowned crimson with purple, and the sands were becoming brown again as the dusk settled down. Soon it would be dawn.

At 8 it was cold, and we finished our fishing and built a brushwood bonfire on the beach. It cackled, smoked and flamed, scorched our bare legs, but warmed not our bodies. Yet the tea was good. - The sky was full of the prediction of morning, and while we sat warming ourselves at the fire the great heat bringer himself was rising to our service. The last red of sunset seemed to have vanislfed, and the two twilights were mingled. We went down to put our tackle aboard. Then came a wonderful period—the lighting up of the dawn, when the sun rose over the black forest, changing all the pine tops to fire embroidery. The vision was splendid, and we stopped winding up the net at the water edgh on the crisp wet sand and looked to the east and to thp light beams. Between the tree horizon and the zenith was a bed of roses. On the Ylver a tug was racing south with a message from Archangel. Morning had begun. And the night’s fishing had ended. Very, very cold, we finished our work with a rush, got Into the boat, and with all hands to, rowed

RUSSIAN COAST SCENE.