Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-09-01
Fly.Fishing for Black Bass.

So, girls and boys, let us go a-fshing
tor black bass. Agood brook or rivulet
is close by almost any country house or
town. A short drive or walk takes us
to where we can hear the bubble and
murmur, and see the pure water rip
ping and cleaning among the shining
stones. The big p1ane-trees, sometimes
called sycamores, lean over the brooks
current, and there'sa woods fragrance
and freshness in the air. Birds sing
overhead and round about in the thick
cts.
We walk cautiously along the brook
side until we find place where the wa
ter is. dashing merrily among big stones
and whirling in shining circles, frothed
with clots Of snowy foam. This is a
promising place for a cast. Let us try.
Give way, boys and let one of the girls
have the first cast. Now! See her take
the fly in her left hand, lightly between
the thumb and forefinger, her beautiful
slender rod held almost vertically in
her right hand. She waves the rod back
wardove her left shoulder, at the same
time loosing the fly, then she whips the
rod forward with a slight whirl to the
right, and away spins the fly. Butitfalls
somewhat short. Quickly and deftly
she slips a few feet more of line from
the reel, gracefully whirls the rod back
ward again, and, as the line straightens
behind her, she casts as before. Again
and again she does this, frightening
the line a little at each cast, until, at
last, the gay fly falls lightly among the
shining ave close by a little whirl-
| pool. Splash! What a fine fish leaps
up! You see his scales CLEAN and his
fins flash as he clips" himself almost
bodily above the water and seizes the
fly. And what does my little lady
with the rodP She quickly .sstrikes"-
that is, she gives a short, sharp jerk
with her right hand, and then the fight
begins. The rod is bent like a whip;
whiz goes the click-reel as the strong
fish pulls off yard after yard of the line.
Hold Hold him back, quick! Now, as our
little girl changes the rod from her right
hand to her left, in order to manage the
reel, the fish makes a big lunge and
turns a somersault clear out of the
water. The hook is an extra
good one, or it would have been
broken under the strain. We all
look on with tremulous excitement as
the bass falls back again into the
swirling current and begins to dart this
way and that, making the line sing and
whirl. Now our determined little
angler begins to force the fight. She
turns the butt of the rod more forward,
thus raising the tip, and begins steadily
to turn the reel-crank with her right
hand. See the slender rod bend almost
double! Hurry, boys-some one OF
you..get the landingg.net and be.ready
to dip up the game! AS the line is
shortened, the bass is drawn nearer to
the grassy bank. There! his prickly
dorsal fin cuts the water! Now get the
landing-net under him. Good! he is
ours, and he weighs a full pound and a
quarter. That was a well-managed
campaign on the part of our young lady.
Which nj of the boys can beat it?
You may think that it would be avery
easy task to manage a fish weighing nc
more than a pound and a half; but
when a live and stubborn bass of that
size is at the end of ten or twelve
yards of line, and your rod is as Timber
as a whip, the thing isn't so easy after
all. 1 have seen grown men fail in the
Observation-Disclosures Thompson, II
st. Nicholas.