The Fisherman.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 999, 24 April 1891, Page 12

The Fisherman.

TICKLING A TROUT. Most men are content to take trout with rod, reel and line, but now and then one becomes expert in catching them with his linked hands. A trout is queer in some ways. He loves to be tickled, and when a man comes along that can tickle him in a delicate and pleasing style he does not mind being caught. Dennis P. Rich, of Skelton, can tickle a trout engagingly, and is also one of the most skillful men with a rod in the state. As the shrewd Dennis strolls along a brook, rod in hand, now and then he discovers in _a long blaek reach of still, swampy water, or in the dusky pool under a highway bridge a sage old trout who has grown big and fat there, monarch of the whole watery domain about him. It is idle to toss a fly or ground bait to the wise old chap, for he has seen that done a hundred times, and he actually winks liis eye at green fishermen as lazily he edges away an inch or so every time a cast is made and lets the bait go by. But Mr Rich has a trick that is new to them. He just lies down on his stomach steathily on the bank, and then, as slowly as if he were a black log slipping down the bank, lie worms himself into the stream.. Then with infinite caution and noiselessly, his long naked arm glides almost imperceptibly into the sluggish current, slowly, steadily creeping toward the big fish’s tail. The great, trout does not know what the singular thing is, and his curiosity is titillated, while the movement is not violent enough to alarm him. At last the fingers of Dennis Rich’s hand touch the big fellow, and that first touch, of the electric human fingers settles the business for the fish ; it is all over with him. The fingers glide slowly around and then along the trout’s body till they encircle him at the gills ; then they close with lightning swiftness and steellike grip ; there is a sudden flirt on the part of tde fisherman, and the big fellow is tossed out on the bank, palpitating and wondering how in the world he got there. The sort of performance described is called tickling a trout, and even the men that do it believe that the trout succumbs to his overweening love for being tickled, and that alone. But it is hypnotism, likely as not.

FI3HING WITH THE ELECTRIC LIGHT. A reporter, whom chance took to the wharves (according to the San Francisco Chronicle), saw some twenty men, women, and boys sitting about a square mass of piling bordering an open surface of water, which was brilliantly lighted by a neighbouring electric light, fishing. They rapidly pulled up their nets—for hooks were not used—each filled with from six to a dozen fish. Fish could be seen leaping frequently from the water. During the daytime the place is deserted by fish. At night, when the adjacent electric light is lit, the brightness attracts the finny wanderers. They gather in such numbers that to catch them with baited hooks would be tedious. For this reason the crowds that gather there nightly fashion nets out of hoops and draw the strings close together. No bait is used, and the fish entangle themselves in the net by the dozen. One man caught 2001 b of fish, mostly rock cod and sardines of unusual sise.