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F I S H I N G IN THE OHIO.
IT is with mingled feelings of pleasure and regret that I recall to my
mind the many pleasant days I have spent on the shores of the Ohio.
The visions of former years crowd on my view, as I picture to myself
the fertile soil and genial atmosphere of our great western garden, Kentucky,
and view the placid waters of the fair stream that flows along its
western boundary. Methinks I am now on the banks of the noble river.
Twenty years of my life have returned to me ; my sinews are strong, and
the " bowstring of my spirit is not slack f bright visions of the future
float before me, as I sit on a grassy bank, gazing on the glittering waters.
Around me are dense forests of lofty trees and thickly tangled undergrowth,
amid which are heard the songs of feathered choristers, and
from whose boughs hang clusters of glowing fruits and beautiful flowers.
Reader, I am very happy. But now the dream has vanished, and here I
am in the British Athens, penning an episode for my Ornithological Biography,
and having before me sundry well-thumbed and weather-beaten
folios, from which I expect to be able to extract some interesting particulars
respecting the methods employed in those days in catching Cat-fish.
But, before entering on my subject, I will present you with a brief
description of the place of my residence on the banks of the Ohio. When
I first landed at Henderson in Kentucky, my family, like the village, was
quite small. The latter consisted of six or eight houses; the former of my
wife, myself, and a young child. Few as the houses were, we fortunately
found one empty. It was a log-cabin, not a log-house; but as better
could not be had, we were pleased. Well, then, we were located. The
country around was thinly peopled, and all purchasable provisions rather
scarce; but our neighbours were friendly, and we had brought with us
flour and bacon-hams. Our pleasures were those of young people not
long married, and full of life and merriment; a single smile from our infant
was, I assure you, more valued by us than all the treasures of a
modern Croesus would have been. The woods were amply stocked with
game, the river with fish ; and now and then the hoarded sweets of the
industrious bees were brought from some hollow tree to our little table.
Our child's cradle was our richest piece of furniture, our guns and fishing
lines our most serviceable implements, for although we began to cul-
F I S H I NG IN T H E OHIO. 123
tivate a garden, the rankness of the soil kept the seeds we planted far
beneath the tall weeds that sprung up the first year. I had then a partner,
a " man of business," and there was also with me a Kentucky youth,
Avho much preferred the sports of the forest and river to either day-book
or ledger. He was naturally, as I may say, a good woodsman, hunter,
and angler, and, like me, thought chiefly of procuring supplies of fish
and fowl. To the task accordingly we directed all our energies.
Quantity as well as quality was an object with us, and although we
well knew that three species of Cat-fish existed in the Ohio, and that all
were sufficiently good, we were not sure as to the best method of securing
them. We determined, however, to work on a large scale, and immediately
commenced making a famous " trot-line.'1 Now, reader, as you may
probably know nothing about this engine, I shall describe it to you.
A trot-line is one of considerable length and thickness, both qualities,
however, varying according to the extent of water, and the size of the
fish you expect to catch. As the Ohio, at Henderson, is rather more
than half a mile in breadth, and as Cat-fishes weigh from one to an hundred
pounds, we manufactured a line which measured about two hundred
yards in length, as thick as the little finger of some fair one yet in her
teens, and as white as the damsel's finger well could be, for it was wholly
of Kentucky cotton, just, let me tell you, because that substance stands
the water better than either hemp or flax. The main line finished, we
made a hundred smaller ones, about five feet in length, to each of which
we fastened a capital hook of KIRBY and Co.'s manufacture. Now for
the bait!
It was the month of May. Nature had brought abroad myriads of
living beings: they covered the earth, glided through the water, and
swarmed in the air. The Cat-fish is a voracious creature, not at all nice
in feeding, but one who, like the vulture, contents himself with carrion
when nothing better can be had. A few experiments proved to us that,
of the dainties with which we tried to allure them to our hooks, they gave
a decided preference, at that season, to live toads. These animals were
very abundant about Henderson. They ramble or feed, whether by instinct
or reason, during early or late twilight more than at any other time,
especially after a shower, and are unable to bear the heat of the sun's rays
for several hours before and after noon. We have a good number of
these crawling things in America, particularly in the western and southern
parts of the Union, and are very well supplied with frogs, snakes, lizards.