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IN the spring of the year,
when the ice broke up, in the creek, the pike (or pickerel) came up in
great abundance from Detroit River, and they were easily caught. At such
times the water was high in the creek, often overflowing its banks.
Sometimes the Ecorse appeared like quite a river. We made a canoe of a
white-wood log and launched it on the Ecorse. Sometimes we went fishing
in the canoe. At such times it needed two, as the pickerel were fond of
lying in shallow water or where there was old grass. By looking very
carefully, on the surface of the water, I could see small ripples that
the fishes made with their fins while they were sporting in their native
element. By having a person in the back end of the canoe, pole it
carefully, toward the place where I saw the ripples, we would get up in
plain sight of them, and they could be either speared or shot.
I think the most
successful way was shooting them, at least I preferred it. If the fish
lay near the surface of the water, I held the gun nearly on it, and if
it was six inches deep I held the gun six inches under it, and fired. In
this way, for the distance of two or three rods, I was sure to kill them
or stun them so that they turned belly up and lay till they were easily
picked up with a spear. In this way I frequently caught a nice string. I
have caught some that would weigh eight pounds apiece. Sometimes I stood
on a log that lay across the creek and watched for them when they were
running up. I recollect one cloudy afternoon I fished with a spear and I
caught as many as I wanted to carry to the house. Sometimes they would
be in a group of three, four or more together. I have seen them, with a
big fish below, and four or five smaller ones above him, swimming along
together as nicely as though they had been strung on an invisible
string, and drawn along quietly through the water. I could see their
wake as they were coming slowly up the creek keeping along one side of
it. When I first saw them in the water they looked dark, I saw it was a
group of fishes. It looked as though the smaller ones were guarding the
larger one, at least they were accompanying it. They appeared to be very
good friends, and well acquainted, and none of them afraid of being
eaten up, but any of them would have eagerly caught the smaller ones of
another species and swallowed them alive and whole. I do not know that
they devour and eat their own kind, I think not often, for nature has
given the pickerel, when young and small, the ability to move with such
swiftness that it would be impossible for a larger fish to catch them.
They will be perfectly still in the water, and if scared by anything
they will start away in any direction like a streak. They go as if it
were no effort and move with the rapidity of a dart. I have cut some of
the large pickerel open and found whole fish in them, five or six inches
long. But I must
finish describing that group of fishes! As they were swimming up, the
smaller ones kept right over the large one. I stood until they got
almost to me and I killed four of them at once and got them all. It is
known that it is not necessary to hit a fish with a bullet in order to
get it. It is the force of the bullet, or charge, striking the water
that shocks or stuns him, and causes him to turn up.
These fish ran up two or three weeks every
spring. Then those which were not caught went back again into the
Detroit River. Father made him what he called a pike net which had two
wings. By the time the fish were running back, the water was settled
into the bed of the creek. Then father would set his net in the creek,
stretch the wings across and stake it fast. The mouth of the net opened
up stream. This he called a funnel; it was shaped like the top of a
funnel. It was fastened with four hoops. The first one was about as
large around as the hoop of a flour barrel, the next smaller, the third
smaller still, and the last one was large enough for the largest fish to
go through. When
the net was fastened around these hoops it formed a tunnel about four
feet long. Then we had a bag net eight or ten feet long. The mouth of
this was tied around the first or large hoop of the tunnel, so when the
fish came down and ran into that they could not find their way out.
Father said when the fish were running back to Detroit River, it was
right to catch them, but when they were going up everybody along the
creek ought to have a chance. I never knew him to put his net in, so
long as the fish were running up. When they got to going back, as they
most all run in the night, in the evening he would go and set his net,
and next morning he would have a beautiful lot of fish. In this way,
some springs, we caught more than we could use fresh, so salted some
down for summer use. They helped us very much, taking the place of other
meat. For years back there have hardly any fish made their appearance up
the Ecorse. Now it would be quite a curiosity to see one in the creek. I
suppose the reason they do not come up is that some persons put in gill
nets at the mouth of the Ecorse, on Detroit River, and catch them, or
stop them at least. It is known that fish will not run out of a big
water, and run up a small stream, at any time except in the night.
These denizens of the deep have their own
peculiar ways, and although man can contrive to catch them, yet he
cannot fathom the mysteries that belong alone to them. Where they travel
he cannot tell for they leave no track behind.
It is seen that I used a hunter's phrase in
my description of holding the gun while shooting fish. The hunter will
readily understand it as given. If he has seen a deer and it has escaped
him, and you ask him why he didn't shoot it; he almost invariably says,
"I couldn't get my gun on it before it jumped out of my sight." To such
as do not understand that phrase I will say, the expression is
allowable, as the bullet or charge of shot flies so swiftly (even in
advance of the sharp report of the gun). The distance of twenty rods or
more is virtually annihilated: Hence the expression, "I held the gun on
it," (though it was rods away). If he sighted his gun straight toward
the object he wished to hit whether it was in the air, under water, or
on the ground, he would claim that he held his gun on it.
I said that the bullet flew in advance of
the report of the gun. That is true, on the start, or until it struck an
object, if the object was at a reasonable distance; but if the distance
proved too far, it of course would fall behind the sound. The bullet is
the bold—fearless—and often cruel companion of the report of the gun,
and loses in its velocity the farther it flies, being impeded and
resisted by the air, and at last is left flattened and out of shape, a
dead weight, while the report of the gun passes on very swiftly, and
dies away in the distance to be heard no more. I have often heard the
reports of guns very plainly that were fired at ducks on Detroit River,
six or seven miles away. With what velocity their sounds approached me,
I leave Dr. Derham to determine. According to his calculation it must
have been at the rate of eleven hundred and forty-two feet per second.
It has also been ascertained with what velocity the ball leaves the gun
and pierces the air. The following is the practical result ascertained
by the experiments of Mr. Robins, Count Rumford, and Dr. Hutton: "A
musket ball, discharged with a common charge of powder, issues from the
muzzle of the piece with a velocity between sixteen and seventeen
hundred feet in a second." |
