The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-05-10
A CHUROHLY FISHERMAN.
Rev. DIR. Miel's Capture of a Monster
Brook Trout in La Honda
Creek.

The Rev. DR.. Mel, the Episcopal pastor
| who officiates in the Sausalito church, is
an enthusiastic angler. He can cast a
cunning fly, and is indefatigable in work
! ing along a mountain stream and fishing
every square yard of its surface, deep pool
and shining ripple from the rising of the
sun to the going down thereof All the
arts and wiles OF the fisherman are as an
open book to DR.. Mel, and he bares bravely
up under the necessary depreciation of
using strong language when he misses a
| fish, which, though luxury to the layman,
would be deemed unbecoming in church
man.
This quiet and scholarly gentleman,
| however, has caught possibly the largest
| brook trout ever taken on the Pacific
Coast. If any other man but person of
his avocation had given the avoirdupois
and dimensions of that fish. the smile OF
incredulity might reasonably dwell for q
short time on the features of his audience
But the reverend gentleman is incapable
Of exaggeration, and the fish was weighed
in the balance and the necessary data duly
and properly recorded.
DR.. Mel was on a walking tour, and had
halted one night with his companions at
Sears hotel, on the banks of La Honda.
1t was early in the season, and the stream
was full, but Just beginning to clear SO the
promises of sport were excellent. At an
early hour of the morning, DR.. Mel put
his rod together and struck the trail along
the brookside. He came to a long dark
pool, and wading into shallow rapid at
its head, prepared for the first cast He
put on two millers and covered each hook
with an appetizing red worm. Letting out
plenty Of line, he cast some twenty feet
away, SO the hooks dropped in the deepest
part OF the pool.
Then there was a rush and lashing of
water, foamy swirl, and brace of monster
trout dashed out to take the doctors lure.
One grabbed and gorged the lower and one
the upper hook, and the trout that got the
lower charged down the pool, while the
fish upon the upper hook ran directly
between the anglers legs, and was actually
stranded in the shallow water. Without
any observance of the rules laid down to
meet the exigencies of such occasions, Dr.
Mel fell upon the struggling fish. His
rod was broken, the hook had parted from
the gills, the other fish was gone; but this
fellow, which had run toward him, he
grasped with energetic and desperate feroc-
ity. The brook washed into his pockets.
and filled his boots, but he lay upon that
trout determined to have him or drown in
the attempt.
The fish was awfully slippery, and the
doctor recognized that unless he subdued
LIE vitality pIoulptiy Indt trout WOulQ gam
the. pool and leave him nothing but a
| broken rod ana damp clothes to corrobor-
ate his story. So he reached for rock
and dealt the elusive captive a whack on
the head which took all the fight out of
him. Then he drew him ashore and lay
exhausted on the bank beside the biggest
| trout the La Honda has ever nurtured.
The fish weighed sixteen pounds, was
| brown-speckleda all over, was three feet three
inches in length and showed in all his
points that he was of the brook trout
| family, and not vagrant steelhead or
| land-locked salmon.
Rod and tackle were DESTROYED and USE
less for evermore; but DR.. Mel had scored
triumph of which few if any brook trout
| anglers on the coast can cite aparallel.
DAN OiCoNNErI