Bluestocking

“ Upon the cattle being yarded, the most exciting operation is the capturing and securing of the young beasts requiring to be broken in to the yoke. An experienced and expert stockman enters the enclosure carrying in his hand a pine sapling, 12 or 15 feet in length, at the end of which is a running noose of raw hide or strong hemp rope, attached to a strong rope which is passed round a capstan outside the stockyard and near to a corner post. ”

“ Each stock-rider, or stockman, as we call him, has a particular part of the run assigned to him, and every morning he goes along the boundary of it, and if his own cattle have strayed across the line, he drives them back again; likewise, if he finds his neighbor’s cattle have strayed into his territory, he drives them out. He is expected to show himself to his cattle at least once a day, to accustom them to the sight of men, and also to train them to go where they are wanted whenever he cracks his whip and rides in among them. ”

“ Enemies of the brook trout, neither those of the two-legged nor those of the four-legged varieties have yet seriously raided our fish farm. Individuals of the original planting have now developed into the most desirable sizes for table use. And it is now possible for me, in the morning while Bige is lighting the camp fire, to take a fly rod, go twenty yards back of the cabin to one of the pools and by the time Bige has the coffee made and the bacon cooked, have my breakfast trout caught, dressed, and in the frying pan before they have finished flopping. ”

“ The blue-roan calf was determined he should not be branded. He watched the riders as they rode into the herd and buried himself deep in the middle of the mass, worming under the larger cattle and hiding behind them, until he began to believe he would escape after all.
All morning long the men worked away with the herd until the poor animals were half mad with fear and hunger. As the blue-roan dodged to avoid the whirling, snakelike rope that suddenly shot out from the hand of a man he had not noticed, he felt it draw up on his hind legs. ”

“ When thus gathered together, the animals required for any special purpose—fat bullocks for market, or cows and calves for branding—are ridden out of the mass by the stockmen on their well-trained horses, and collected in a separate herd.
There is no more interesting sight than this 'cutting out,' as it is called. The stockman rides into the mass of animals, which opens out uneasily as he enters. A touch of the stock-whip on the selected beast indicates him to the intelligent horse, whose rider practically leaves to him the rest of the work. ”

“ He is being ‘played’ with such a fishing-rod as the skill of a Wilson or a Stoddart never could invent; a living line, with elasticity beyond that of the most delicate fly-rod, which follows every lunge, shortening and lengthening, slipping and twining round every piece of gravel and stem of sea-weed, with a tiring drag such as no Highland wrist or step could ever bring to bear on salmon or trout. ”

“ The fish all run down the stream in the fall except the trout; it runs up or stays up and spawns in November, the male becoming as brilliantly tinted as the deepest-dyed maple leaf. I have often wondered why the trout spawns in the fall, instead of in the spring like other fish. Is it not because a full supply of clear spring water can be counted on at that season more than at any other? The brooks are not so liable to be suddenly muddied by heavy showers, and defiled with the washings of the roads and fields, as they are in spring and summer. ”

“ It rambles away towards the mill pond with its fringe of tall poplars; the cottons lie bleaching on grass thickly set with buttercups; the low long buildings with the clear rushing little stream running between them, and the wooden outside staircases leading to their upper story, have nothing about them to suggest the modern factory; even upon the great sunk dye-vats the sun flickers through leaves, and trout leap outside the windows of the long cheerful room where the carpet-looms are built. ”

“ We sometimes spend a half day or so fishing for bottom-fish like scup, black-fish, or even flounders, for they bite freely and bring a fair price in the market; but if you’re fishing for sport, there is just one fish in these waters which fills the bill completely, and that is the blue-fish. Sometimes you fish for hours without getting a strike, and then all at once you run into a school of them. ”

“ To the true sportsman, armed with pliant rod and feathered hook for the seduction of the merry trout, and trusty rifle loaded with heavy ball for the destruction of the lordly moose, nothing surpasses the intense enjoyment of wandering amid the forest wilds from river to river, threading the uninhabited groves, or following the unknown and unnamed stream, and leaving to whim or chance, or the influence of luck, to determine his final destination. ”

“ The Blue-fish is known in different localities as the "Horse-Mackerel," "Skipjack," "Green-fish." It is a widely distributed fish, but its favorite haunts in the summer are the waters of the middle Atlantic states. It feeds entirely upon other fish. Professor Baird says: "There is no parallel in point of destructiveness to the Blue-fish among the marine species on our coast, whatever may be the case among some of the carnivorous fish of the South American waters. ”

“ At Bishopstoke, where there is some splendid trout and grayling fishing, season and day tickets are now being issued by the proprietor of a large estate, who has hitherto preserved very highly, and would scarcely allow his own friends to fish; and several instances have come to my knowledge lately where landed proprietors, only able to obtain a reduced income from their farms, have been glad to supplement it by making a few pounds annually out of their fishing. So that, to the angler as well as the land owner, agricultural distress is not an unmitigated evil. ”

“ In April, no doubt, something may still be done, and in the silver twilights of June, when as you drift on the still surface you hear the constant sweet plash of the rising trout, a few, and these good, may be taken. But the water wants re-stocking, and the burns in winter need watching, in the interests of spawning fish. It is nobody’s interest, that I know of, to take trouble and incur expense; and free fishing, by the constitution of the universe, must end in bad fishing or in none at all. ”

“ The stock-whip, with a handle about half a yard long and a thong of three yards long, of plaited bullock-hide, is a terrible instrument in the hands of a practised stockman. Its sound is the note of terror to the cattle; it is like the report of a blunderbuss, and the stockman at full gallop will hit any given spot on the beast that he is within reach of, and cut the piece away through the thickest hide that bull or bison ever wore. ”

“ The cattle are spread over perhaps twenty or thirty thousand acres of unfenced country, and each man follows his portion of the herd, collecting and driving into a common centre. For a time all goes well, until some wary or ill-conditioned brute breaks away, followed possibly by a number of his comrades, who only need a lead to give the stockman trouble. Then commences a chase, and not infrequently it is a chase in vain, and the fagged stockman and his jaded steed are obliged to give them up for that day, and proceed to hold what he has got in hand. ”

“ I answered, "I understood that there was good fishing hereabout, and, at any rate, I should like to spend a few days among these hills and mountains."
"Well," said Peter, "there's trout in some of our streams, though not as many as there used to be, and there's hills a plenty, and mountains too, if you choose to walk fur enough. They're a good deal furder off than they look. What did you bring with you to fish with?" ”

“ I’m somewhat of an old fogy in those things; like the farmer with the jointed fishing rod and gold-mounted handle—he whips the stream all day and catches a trout two inches long while the kid on the bank with a switch from a tree, four yards of string, and a bent pin catches a dozen. ”

“ And so saying, he took the rod from her hand and stepped between her and the bait, which must have been now quite hot from lying so long in a bit of sunshine. He rearranged the bait and threw the line far out into the river. Then he gave her the rod again. He seated himself on the ground near-by.
"This is the second time I have been over the bridge to-day," he said, "and this morning, very early, I saw, for the first time, your father's ship, which was lying below the town. It is a fine vessel, so far as I can judge, being a landsman." ”

“ So far as strength and gameness go the rainbow is fully the equal of the brown trout, and, in my opinion, its superior, though, as its play is often aided by the very strong water it frequents, its strength may sometimes appear greater than it would in our smaller streams. For this reason fishing for rainbows in British Columbia has always seemed to me to resemble sea-trout fishing more than the fishing for brown trout; perhaps less skill is necessary, but there is a stronger fight. ”

“ They showed to the eye a hardy, good-coloured mob of store cattle, the big part of them six-year bullocks, more ready for a doze by a waterhole than for this journey in the sun with men hanging at their houghs. They counted two hundred maybe, and three white stockmen and a couple of blackfellows handled them, turning them on the flanks, and hunting them forward in the rear. ”

“ There they halt or walk peacefully round and round. But stop―now far and faint more whips resound, which from time to time one hears like a tapping-bird or the snapping of dried sticks. Only the half-Indian sense of the bush-reared stockmen could say with certainty that these sounds were the volleying detonations of the mighty stockwhip, that terrible weapon in the hands of an Australian bushman. The sounds are louder, nearer, less ambiguous; the muffled lowing of a great concourse of cattle comes down the wind, mingled with shouts, yells, and strange cries. At length the herd gradually come― ”

“ The stockman has to travel through pathless woods all the time, and has an area of twenty to thirty miles round our place in which to search for his cattle. He takes some fixed route to start with, making for some distant locality, where experience has taught him such and such a mob are likely to be feeding. On his way he takes note of any cattle he may come across, marks the gullies they are in, and thus, having knowledge of the ways of cattle, is able to guess within a mile or two where those mobs are likely to be found when wanted. ”

“ A Woods and Forests' man on board told me he had recently caught a similar fish on a small fly rod; it weighed five pounds and leapt like a sea-trout, but no one apparently knows much about the possibilities of fishing here with rod and modern tackle. We then got a hand-line and a cod-hook from the engineer, and baited with squeezed bread, the size of a pigeon's egg, and fished on the bottom, and almost at once had on a heavy fish. It pulled tremendously and got a lot of line out, and wandered up and down the middle of the river; on a salmon rod it would have played long and heavily. ”

“ In the glades and woodlands the garrulous blue-jay is a sad pilferer, to say nothing of its poaching propensities. In the spring it sucks innumerable eggs, and makes free right and warren of the peas and beans in the keeper's garden, and those sown in the glades for the pheasants; and so the old man's whole knowledge of woodcraft is directed against it. ”

“ But if whales are getting scarce round about Nantucket, the blue-fish is still plenty. This gamest and most delicious of salt-water fish is noted for its strength, voracity, and grit. He is a very pirate among fish, making prey of all alike. Cod, haddock, mackerel, or tautog, are glad to get out of his way; the smaller fry he chases among the surf-waves of the shore, much as the fishermen pursue the blackfish. Where the blue-fish abounds you need not try for other sort: he is lord high admiral of the finny tribes. ”

“ These two foremen alone could see the money in late winter and early spring from their cattle and horses to carry the Blue Lake venture over the rapids. Then there were the other resources of the diversified undertaking, the hogs, the prize stock, the olives, poultry, dairy products. And soon or late Western Lumber would pay the price for the timber tract, soon, if they saw that they had to pay it or lose the forests which they had so long counted upon. Lumber values were mounting every day. ”

“ And when the bass seizes your bait, and you have fixed the hook by one sharp blow, you must be gentle and moderate, only using severe measures where they are absolutely necessary. If the blue-fish comes, and he does not carry away your hook at the first snatch, reel him in as quickly as his indomitable pluck and vigor will permit. He is not game when you are bass-fishing. If the ungainly flounder, exhibiting unexpected activity, shall chase and grasp your bait, lug him out by main force, treating him, though excellent to eat, like the vulgar commoner he is. ”

“ His time is the time of the trout, too, namely, from April to September. He makes his subterranean nest in the bank of some favorite stream, and then goes on long excursions up and down and over woods and mountains to all the waters within reach, always fishing alone, the true angler that he is, his fellow keeping far ahead or behind, or taking the other branch. He loves the sound of a waterfall, and will sit a long time on a dry limb overhanging the pool below it, and, forgetting his occupation, brood upon his own memories and fancies. ”