Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 June 1875 — My First Trout. [ARTICLE]

My First Trout.

Sow, there was not much trout-fishing in le neighborhood where my grandfather lived. In fact, no one knew where there was any trout except one old man, the landlord of the tavern. He would take his horse and wagon,i drive off before daylight, and come home with a fine string of fish. He never would tell anyone where he went. I went one day and said to him, confidentially : “Mr. Diekey, I want to catch some trout. Can you tell me where to go? ” “Why,” he said, “go up along Bull Brook, and you’ll find some.” I knew, by the way he said it, that he wasn’t telling me where he went. Still, I made up my mind that I would” go to Bull Brook and try there. Bull Brook was about three miles from the village, with not a single house for miles around. It was a lonely place, full of thickets, and was called Bull Brook because a great many cattle were pastured about there. Early in the morning I started off with my pole, which, being jointed, could be carried very conveniently. I trudged along the road, which kept winding and growing more and more lonely and dismal, on account of large beech trees and poplars and gloomy-looking pines which grew along the side of the road, and almost shut out the sunlight. I felt a little afraid of meeting a cross bull, but I whistled a lively tune and marched on bravely. At last I arrived at the brook and got over the stone wall at the side of the road. There was a thick growth of bushes along the edge of the stream, so that I had to walk some distance before I found an opening where I could get close to the water. Everything was so still that I felt rather nervous and almost expected to see a fierce bull rush out upon me from somewhere. Crickets were chirping, and different kinds of insects were buzzing and humming. No other sound. But hark! What was that? A splash in the brook. A bull-frog, thought I. I looked in to see if I could discover him. There he was in the bottom of the shallow brook. No, on closer inspection that was not a bull-frog. It couldn’t be a fish, for fish swim around, and this little dark thing, whatever it was, was lying quite still on the bottom.

Just then, while I was wondering what it was, a grasshopper, which had jumped by mistake into the middle of the brook, went kicking along on the top of the water. In an instant there was a gleam just where the grasshopper was swimming, and before you could say “Jack Robinson” the grasshopper was gone. I was no longer in doubt about the queer thing at the bottom of the brook. It had disappeared. I knew it must be a trout. “Ah!” said I to myself, “I’ll catch you, Mr. Trout! Then won’t the folks in town be surprised, and won’t they want to know where I caught him!” I actually believe I thought more at that moment of what the people would say than I did of catching the trout. I was quite excited. I trembled all over. I captured a grasshopper, and my hand shook while 1 was putting it on the little hook. I got behind a bush and very carefully lowered my line until the bait touched the surface of the water. I was teyribly excited, as much so as if the brook was a big cannon and the moment the bait touched it there would be a tremendous explosion. There was an explosion, but of a different sort. A plunge, a splash and I gave a jerk strong enough to tear the bottom of the brook right out. I went heels over head backward on the grass, and, on scrambling to my feet, looked eagerly at the end ot the line to see my trout. But no trout was there, and, what was more, the grasshopper was gone.

“ What a fool I was,” said J to myself “to tear the line out of the water in that "way, and scare all the fish. Now I won’t catch any. And the people .will laugh at me when I get home.” .. - I caught another grasshopper, and tried again and again, but it was ot. ho Use. The fish were evidently frightened. My feelings, from the highest pitch of hope and exultation, were reduced to those of despair and chagrin. I almost oried. I hated to give it up; so I tried a little further down the brook. This time the grasshopper lay undisturbed on the top of the water for several minutes, and I was just about to oull him up and try somewhere else, when there was a ripple in the waters' splash! The grasshopper disappeared and there was a jerk on my line! I, too, gave a jerk upward. Oh, how delightfully hard the line pulled up! And then, as I whisked my pole round toward the land, there came out of the water a silvery, sparkling fish! In a moment, he was lying on the grass—my first trout! How I walked around him and gazed at him, and admired his beautiful spots, resplendent in the sun! No more fishing that day. I had my fish. It only remained now to get home. It was the middle of the afternoon when I folded up my rod, and. with my trout strung upon a piece of fish-line started homeward. I went along the road pretty rapidly, I can tgll you. I had no fear of bulls now. I was too much interested in getting home-with my fish to think about that. I-yerilv believe if I had met a bull, and he had tossed me, I should have gone up into the air holding on to that trout like a martyr. Alexander the Great, when he entered in a triumphal car one of the cities he had conquered, could not have felt prouder than I did when I entered the village, dusty and tired, and exhibited my prize to the astonished townspeople. I have a great many, times in my life worked hard and overcome difficulties, but I do not remember ever feeling such satisfaction and such pride as when I caught my first trout.— Edward W. Cady, inßt. Nicholas.