|
Information on the Wild Fishers. How to fishing in the wild.
Wild Fishers One of the most satisfying and amusing parts of all angling is sharing a stream or lake with some of the wild fishers. These are a source of unending delight, once you become acquainted provok ing at times, and startling; at other times they are a downright thieving set. Fishing a wilderness river one early June day, I found the trout taking easy too easy for interesting fishing. A hatch of may flies were over the water great golden-bodied insects breaking their wing cases on the surface, and cutthroat trout taking them avidly. I eventually found it more interesting to test different approaches to this hatch. I changed to a nymph pattern, and imitated die under water activity of the sub-imago hatch. I changed to streamers and imitated the smaller fish life attracted to the hatch. Each change produced good, sizable trout, practically all of which I carefully released. But in late evening, while fooling around with this hatch, and being on a solitary fishing trip, I selected and killed two trout for my evening campfire two twelve-inch beauties which I visualized rolled in pancake flour, and browned to a turn while I brought a pot of coffee to perfection. But the wild fishers had other plans. When the last rays of the sun were slanting down through the firs, and a cold thermal drag of wind ruffled the stream surface and slowed the hatch, I turned away from the river. I planned to clean my fish before moving up to my overnight camp situated beside a deep pool which always held a complement of stars at night. I had tossed those two trout well back on the gravel during my late eve ning fishing, not wanting to soil my fish bag. But now, when I came to get them, they were gone. I searched the gravel bar carefully in the gathering twilight. Nothing. It was as if those two trout had returned to the river, or disappeared in thin air. My search eventually took me near a large boulder, and behind this, big as life and three times as beautiful, I met my wild fishers. A mink and three small kits had my catch. The mother mink, as befitted her maternal status, was eating well up toward the head of one trout, with the three little mink sedately dining on the rest, all in a row. My other trout was placed to one side, no doubt with the idea that it would make a splendid snack later on, or perhaps breakfast. I watched these brown, sleek visitors eating my trout for a mo ment, then I had an inspiration. Gently easing my fly rod tip over the escarpment, I reached down with my fly and, more by good fortune than skill, managed to hook it in the gills of the unoccupied trout. Up the granite escarpment I moved it, an inch at a time, fear ing that my hook would pull out, or that the mother mink would become aware of my knavery which is just what she did. She turned, looked at the place where the trout had lain, even moved over to put a questioning nose on the empty ground where it had lain. Then glancing up with her dark, beady eyes, she saw my trout, perhaps a foot off the gravel, and she bounded up to retrieve it, shaking the hook free in the process. She wasn't letting that trout get away, not with a hungry family to feed. She brought it back to the exact spot from which I had taken it, clucking and scolding, perhaps commenting on the perversity of trout which take off up the side of a granite escarpment the minute one's back is turned. I left her and her family without disturbing them further and hastened back to the river to take advantage of the tail end of the rapidly diminishing hatch. I managed to finagle two more trout within a short while, one a ten-incher, the other a fourteen-inch scraper. This time I kept them well under my eye until I was ready to dress them for my campfire. Mink, like most wild fishers, are usually nocturnal in habit. The first intimations an angler has that he is sharing his stream with them are tracks along the sandbars, in and out of holes, under logs. For they are very curious animals and explore every possibility for food along a stream or lake. The track is five-toed, with the footpad naked, the soles covered with hair. It is well-rounded, with the claws showing in wet sand. Once you know what to look for, it is easily identified. Mink are excellent swimmers, and are just as much at home in water as on land. They move with all the grace of a trout itself in the water, but appear awkward on land. Indeed, they can take trout directly from a stream, especially at night when big trout move into the shallows to grup for nymphs and caddis fly larvae. The fur of the mink is usually dark brown in color, though some, especially in their summer pelage, are a pale brown. Sometimes and it is a fortunate day you will see mink kits play ing on a sun-washed gravel bar. They play rough, often getting squeals of pain from their litter opponents biting, rolling over and over, as serious and as comical as young kittens. The otter is another wild fisher, but not as common as mink. On canoe trips through the back country, however, you will often see their slides on steep banks. Sometimes, too, if the Red God smiles on you, you may be witness to a whole family of otters taking their turns on one of these slides: arrowing down a slick bank to hit the water and disappear with only a slight riffle to mark their entrances. A moment later a sleek brown head will pop above the surface to watch the next one come zipping down to the water. Otters like to romp in family groups; or taking to land, to work the countryside cooperatively for whatever they may turn up in the way of food. Like their smaller cousin, the mink, they feed on cray fish, fresh water clams, small water snails, frogs, and duck eggs. And again like mink, they are capable of catching fish directly from a stream, and often do. I once saw two otter take a chinook salmon from a West Coast river, finagling this spawning salmon with a co operative bit of fishing which worked perfectly. One sent the salmon driving frantically over a shallow riffle, where the other otter picked it up and dragged it ashore to share it with his fishing partner. The routine of finagling this salmon worked so efficiently that I have no doubt that it is a very common and rewarding practice where there is a heavy run. One episode having to do with otter is well worth the telling. This occurred just as I came on a stream, planning to spend an after noon there. I stood for a moment watching the surface of the river to see if there was any activity which might suggest a fly or method of angling. I think I stood thus for perhaps ten minutes, watching two pools before me representative pools which should indicate much of the normal activity or lack of activity on the entire river. Suddenly I saw the disturbance of a terrific rise under some overhanging wil lows. I immediately eased down to this pool, worked out a bit of line, and presented a Brown Bi-Visible dry fly. I selected this fly because it could match so large a segment of normal aquatic activity on this stream from may fly to salmon fly, to a brown caddis fre quently over the water though there was no detachable activity now. When I dropped that fly I thought of nothing short of a twenty inch rainbow making such a disturbance. But actually I was present ing it to an otter no more and no less. While my fly rested on the quiet water, well up against the trailing willows, I saw him on the shadowed bank under the trees, eating away on a huge eel about two feet long. Of course I was deflated after the pulse-thumping build-up: visualizing a big trout just waiting to come to my fly, rolling up to punch it solidly. But that otter made up for my dis appointment. I wondered why a solitary otter was abroad during midday? But this stream, a short coastal one, had a run of lamprey eels in late April. That was the attraction. The why of the midday fishing was something else again; those lampreys would be just as vulnerable with the coming of night. But here he was fishing, more or less against the rules. I watched it for the better part of an hour. I saw it go down in the clean sweep of water to emerge with another eel. The she, for by this time I had decided this was a female, ate this one also, neatly, leaving only the elongated lamprey skeleton as a testimony to her efforts. After polishing off this second eel, she again took up her fishing, bringing another to her landing under the willows. But this one she took in her mouth, with its tail and head dragging, and moved up stream along the bank to where a huge fir log lay partly on the steep bank, but with one end in the water. Under this she darted, to dis appear in a hole in the bank. I waded across the river to examine the place. It showed un mistakable evidence of a den. Listening close I could hear a clucking murmur of the kits and the old one's scolding concern as she delivered her burden. I did take three nice trout on that Brown BiVisible; but the best part of that day was the otter. It is like that, however, with most wild fishers, once you become acquainted with them; you can read their sign, as woodsmen say. One of the most amusing of wild fishers is the raccoon, and one of the most common, east or west. The raccoon is very nocturnal in habit. But there are enough exceptions to this rule to make most anglers aware of him during the day. I have seen raccoon prospect ing along streams time after time. He is a beautiful grey-coated animal, with a dark-ringed tail, and a black mask across his eyes which gives him the appearance of a bandit. He is about the size of a cocker spaniel. In intelligence he has few equals in the animal world, and no superiors. The first evidence of his stream activity an angler is likely to see is his distinctive tracks. These are often compared to the imprint of a baby's hand pressed in the mud. You will see these tracks along the edge of ponds, lakes, and rivers. And the author of those prints is always busy. He explores every stream and lakeside possibility for food. His favorites are crayfish, freshwater clams, fish, and frogs. Evidence of his activities is often given by clam shells, and the remains of crayfish he leaves at some favorite dining spot. His nimble black fingers can shuck out a crayfish or clam with surprising efficiency. He eats, sitting on his haunches, holding his food in his hands, his grey whiskers moving with the delightful effort. One very odd and amusing raccoon ritual is the washing of his food before eating. Once, fishing a bass lake (or perhaps pond is the better word, it being a small willow lined body of water), I caught sight of a raccoon working the weedy margin of the water, looking for frogs. I remained motionless beside a clump of willow, amused as always at the antics of this gay, masked bandit, at his assurance. He moved along the bank until he flushed a frog, and it plopped into the water from its sun-warmed sanctuary on the weedy shore. Then, casually, with a sureness which spelled long familiarity with the process, Mr. Raccoon would move up to the bank, peer down into the water to locate his prey, and then with a quick grab he would secure the frog. But despite the fact that this frog was but recently from the water, he carefully washed it before eating. I witnessed another peculiarity of raccoon table manners that day. After washing the frog, he rolled it between his front paws until it appeared much elongated, and then he snipped off its head with one neat bite. After this he sat there, reflectively eating his victim, while holding it very much as a small boy holds an ice cream cone. Fishing and camping along wilderness streams, where there are large numbers of raccoon, an angler must look to the security of his camp supplies, lest he find raccoon have done some pantry raiding during the night. They are especially fond of trout, and will snag one right out of your creel if you leave it lying on the ground at night. I have had them take cooked fish left on a camp table after an evening meal. Really to become acquainted with raccoon, however, save all your camp scraps and bait a sandbar. You can place your offering on a clean bit of river beach, where tracks will tell you next morning about the number of visitors. Do this for a few nights running, and raccoon will have you marked down as an easy touch. They will come nightly for their scraps and fish heads and progressively earlier, too. Eventually you will see them just at dusk, if your baiting is sufficiently far away for your campfire not to disturb them unduly. Once, fishing a river, my angling partner and I were entertained by the squalling and wrangling of four or five raccoon who came to dinner nightly. They seemed to have a prodigious capacity for a good gang fight, when the incentive of food was before them. Night after night we put our flashlight on a real brawl. On the beach fronting our camp, these raccoon would start a fight which stirred the dry silt and sand to life as they rolled and tumbled, snapping viciously at each other. But when the whirlwind of the battle brought them into the water, as it often did, they disengaged, shook the water from their sleek grey coats, and sedately walked back toward our offering of scraps. This cooling out in the clear waters of our trout stream, however, had no permanent salutary effect on their collective tempers. Within minutes after returning from the river another stormy session would develop down to the last morsel of food. The beaver, while not strictly a wild fisher in that he is a vege tarian, is often encountered along trout streams, either in person or by evidence of his engineering projects. He builds beautiful dams. His lodge, too, is an engineering contrivance which has direct sur vival value. After flooding a section of low-lying ground by damming a creek, he constructs lodges well out from the bank, the water excellent protection from the bay lynx, cougar, coyote, and other predators who often try for a young, luscious beaver for a wilderness meal. Evidence of beaver activity is so well known to the average angler that there is little point in touching upon it here. But some facets of beaver behavior is much less well known. They are almost as playful as otter rolling, wrestling, and frolicking in the water and on their dams. Watching them by the hour, however, I have yet to see one moment when some two or three beaver weren't on guard, ready to slap the water with a resounding smack of their broad tails at the first intimation of danger. The best time to watch beaver going about the business of their colony is in late evening. Move into some vantage point, then remain perfectly still. They usually start their activity before dark, and you will have a ringside seat. But you must be quietly cautious. Watching a beaver dam late one June evening, after a day's fishing on their stream, I became interested in a flight of caddis flies over the backed-up water behind the impoundment. These aquatics were teasing the entire surface, and the dimpled water showed the re sponse of several beautiful rainbows. Next morning, I returned and took four trout, the largest this particular stream ever produced for me. I have had repeats on this so often that I never pass up any impounded waters around a beaver colony. All such waters merit your careful attention, even if you disregard the fascinating engineer who makes such fishing possible. Living in the same stream and lakes, often sharing the same water backed up by a beaver dam, you find the muskrat. Like his larger cousin, the beaver, he is almost strictly vegetarian. But he is part and parcel of the streams and lakes we fish, even though he might not be classified as strictly a wild fisher. He has the same propensity for lodge building as a beaver. But he is no builder of dams, preferring to make his lodge in some suitable shallow. Where this isn't feasible, he makes a burrow in a bank, with an underwater entrance for his comings and goings. A muskrat is a natural food supply of mink, otter, and such. He has in addition a beautiful soft, dark, sometimes almost black, fur which is highly prized by trappers. He is no great shakes as a fighter when compared with his natural predators, and he is easily caught by thousands of farm boy trappers. But he is a family man, this muskrat, bringing two and sometimes three litters of young into the world each season. A litter may consist of anywhere from five to as many as nine young. A muskrat seemingly operates on the theory that if you can't join them, outfight them, or avoid their traps, then outbreed them. It is his only hold on survival and a rather unique, pleasant way of solving this pressing problem. The web-footed track of muskrats, though much smaller, have many characteristics of the beaver. The best identifying mark, how ever, when examining his tracks, is the crease mark of his tail. It drags in the mud, as perhaps befits anyone with such large family responsibilities. Once, when fishing a lake, I came on a small muskrat kit crying and alone on the bank. I took him home with me, spent weeks care fully feeding him milk with a medicine dropper. He prospered, growing rapidly all during the summer. Then, when the first sough ing southwest storm keened through the marshes fronting my home, and teal and mallard pitched into the sheltering water in the lea of the willows, that ingrate tunneled out of his pen and was gone to join his wild kind in the swamp. It was just as well though. I wasn't entirely happy with his con finement. I planned on eventually taking him back to the lake. A wild thing, confined, is not good either for the confined, nor for him who does the confining. Since that time, I have had innumerable opportunities of bringing home the young of mink, otter, raccoon, and such. But I have always had a happier thought and left them to their own devices in the wilderness. Their place is on the lakes and streams we fish. It took only a dark, stormy night to touch my tame muskrat with a compulsion which couldn't be denied. I think I understand that. Such a night to him must have been like opening day of trout season to an angler. Fish wilderness rivers and eventually youll meet a bear. I have on several occasions. Best remembered was an old bear with two very curious cubs. I fished with a partner that day, on a mountain stream reportedly loaded with rainbows. The fishing was good. But this bear and her cubs is the much more vivid memory, and the more cherished, too. We rounded a bend in the trail where it touched Camas Creek, a nice place to start fishing. But ahead of us, and busily turning over rocks in the shallows, was the old mother bear. Her two cubs gathered frogs, crayfish, and any luckless water lizards she uncovered. All this I deduced later from turning over a few of these rocks myself, and examining the sheltered underwater life. When Hank and I came around this turn, we were within forty feet of the old mother bear and her cubs. With her back to us and busily engaged, she had no premonition of our presence until one of the cubs squealed. She turned in a flash and stood looking at us, her ruff raised, clicking her teeth, the very picture of outraged virtue. With a few well directed cuffs, she sent her cubs ashore and up a small bushy hemlock tree, where they looked down in round-eyed innocence while their mother roared back and forth, inviting us to do something. We did. Hank and I eased back up the trail, step at a time, putting cautious space between us and this family group. Odd thing, but we began walking backward without either of us saying a word or agreeing on a plan. It seemed the most logical thing to do, even though I had my .38 Special revolver out and in hand by this time. If you ever meet an old mother bear with cubs along some wilder ness stream, I am sure you will understand our attitude much better. A bear with cubs is the most hair-triggered of any wild thing you can meet, from mountain lion to bull elk. Several precautions are essential when you do meet with this particular wild fisher. Never, as you value your life, get between her and her cubs. That's basic woodcraft, as any backwoodsman will tell you. If you find one of those small cuddly cubs alone in the woods, hands off! Touch that cub and he will give a low, whining cry which will bring its mother on the run and she is fury incarnate. When you meet a bear, stand still; or if you are close, move slowly back and away from there. This last advice, when an old mother bear is frothing at the mouth, is a very easy bit of advice to follow. But with the natural propensity of a female bear to take on all comers when her cubs are seemingly threatened, all bears have a wilderness charm and fascination about them. They are so much a part of the wilderness, and so deeply imbedded in the folklore of America. Bear tracks along a trout stream, even now, are a sure proof of the fact that you have shaken the dust of civilization from your feet and are in the great unspoiled country east, west, north, or south. These tracks are very distinctive. The hind foot tracks appear somewhat like the imprint of a bare-footed man. The front track is broader and shorter. You can make a very good representation by folding your finger under and pressing your hand in the mud. I nominate the bear as being one of our most fascinating wild fishers. I have watched him fish on some of the salmon streams of the Pacific Coast, and I have met him casually on trout streams; always there is a pulse-tingling thrill to the encounter. This last, however, can be said of all the wild fishers. Time spent in actually becoming acquainted with them pays off richly in angling dividends. It gives fishing an entirely new dimension. There is no such thing as a barren river, not even from the standpoint of taking fish. But when you have the lively company of the wild fishers, either in person or through a thorough knowledge of their comings and goings by reading signs, then there are no dull rivers or lakes, either.
|
