CHAPTER FOUR
Tom Hooks a Fish Named Sweyn
SWEYN HAD RECEIVED a fly rod and reel with a dozen fly hooks for Christmas. And now that it was fishing season, boy, oh, boy, did he think he was something. He took an old hat and put his fly hooks on it to make him look like a real fisherman. He placed a wooden hoop from a barrel on our front lawn and practiced casting inside the hoop. He went fishing in the river and caught plenty of suckers, but he had to throw them back. Mamma wouldn’t cook them because she said they weren’t fit to eat. Once in a while Sweyn did catch a rainbow or German brown trout in the river. But the only really good fishing around Aden-viile was in the creeks and streams in the mountains.
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I couldn’t blame Sweyn for being proud of his fishing gear. He was the only boy in town who had a fly rod and reel. The rest of us kids had to use just a pole with a line and hook. But I did blame Sweyn for being too darn selfish with his fishing gear. He wouldn’t let Tom or me touch it, let alone practice casting.
Papa told us we would be leaving on our annual fishing and camping trip the week after the Fourth of July, Right away Sweyn began bragging that he would catch twice as many fish as Tom and me put together.
“You know, J. D.,” Tom said to me the day before we were to leave, as We sat on the back porch steps, “when a fellow gets so selfish he won’t let his own brothers touch his rod and reel, it is time to teach him a lesson.”
I knew right then that Tom was going to put his great
brain to work on a plan to stop Sweyn from being so selfish and a braggart.
That evening Tom was studying the pages advertising fishing gear in the Sears Roebuck catalog. Finally, he put it aside.
“Why do people pay so much money for fishing rods and reels?” he asked Papa.
Papa laid aside the. magazine he had been reading. “The answer is obvious,” he said. “To enable them to catch more fish. With a fly rod and reel, you can cast a line several times farther than you can with just a pole. This enables you to fish in waters you can’t reach with a pole-With a fly rod you can also fish in rapids, where it is rather difficult to fish with a pole. And your chances of losing a fish you’ve hooked are slight. With a rod and reel you can let out line and play the fish and keep him hooked.”
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“In other words,” Tom said, “S. D. should catch a lot more fish than I do on our trip.”
“Considerably more,” Papa answered.
“Will he catch a bigger fish?” Tom asked.
“It stands to reason that if he catches five or six times more fish than you do,” Papa said, “he will catch a bigger fish than you do.”
Tom shook his head. “I wouldn’t be surprised if I catch a bigger trout than he does,” he said.
Sweyn grinned. “Wouldn’t want to bet on it, would you?” he asked.
“I just might,” Tom said,
Then Papa said, “You would be very foolish if you did.”
Frankie and I had to go to bed at eight o’clock. I was asleep when Tom and Sweyn came into the room at nine. Tom woke me up.
“Need you as a witness, J. D.,” Tom said. Then he turned to Sweyn. “Now, big brother, put your money where your mouth is. Papa said the odds were five or six to one that you will catch a bigger fish on this trip than I will. Just give me odds of two to one and I’ll make you a bet.”
“You’ve got it,” Sweyn said. “How much do you want to bet?”
“That Bristol steel fly rod of yours cost three dollars and ninety cents in the Sears Roebuck catalog,” Tom said. “The Penell reel costs two dollars and fifty cents and a dozen hooks cost a dollar. That comes to seven dollars and forty cents-I’ll bet three dollars and seventy cents against them that I catch a bigger trout on this trip than you do.”
“That would make up for some of the cash you’ve won
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from me in the past,” Sweyn said. “But^how do I know you won’t borrow Dad’s rod and reel?”
“J. D. is a witness,” Tom said, “that I will use just a pole, line, and hook and worms for bait.”
“Are we betting how long the fish is or by the weight?” Sweyn asked.
“By the weight,” Tom answered. “We will take that old kitchen scale of Mamma’s that she used to use for measuring flour with us.”
“You’ve got yourself a bet,” Sweyn said confidently. “Shake on it,” Tom said. “J. D. is a witness.”
They shook hands to seal the bargain and then Sweyn went to his room.
“Boy, oh, boy,” I said, “this is one time your great brain is going to cost you plenty. Papa said you’d be a fool to bet you would catch a bigger fish.”
Tom grinned. “There is more than one way to hook a big fish,” he said mysteriously.
We left the next morning. Tom and I rode in the buggy with Papa. Sweyn rode his mustang. Dusty. Frankie bawled because he was too young to go with us, but he stopped after Papa promised to take him next year.
The summer before Papa had got us lost on our camping and fishing trip. Mamma had to send Uncle Mark to find us. This year Papa decided to play it safe. We went to Beaver Canyon, where we’d gone fishing several times in the past. Beaver Creek, which ran down the canyon, was just the right size for trout fishing. I( was larger than a stream but not big enough to be called a river. We didn’t stop at the main campground but kept on going two miles up the canyon to a smaller campground.
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After we’d made camp there was still time to get in some fishing before supper. Papa and Sweyn went fishing in the rapids of Beaver Creek. Sweyn caught four rainbow and two German brown trout. Papa, using his jointed bam-boo rod and reel and fly hooks, caught three good-sized rainbow trout-Tom and I, using our poles and fishing from the bank of the creek, didn’t even get a bite. And boy, oh, boy, did Sweyn pour salt in our wounds as we ate the trout for supper.
The next morning Sweyn and Papa again went flyfishing in the rapids. Tom went upstream. I started fishing in a hole just below the rapids. I finally caught a rainbow trout. But it was only five inches long so I threw it back. And just as I did I heard Papa yelling.
“Don’t let him get away, son!” Papa shouted.
I could see Sweyn had a huge trout on his line and it was giving him a heck of a fight.
“Don’t let him get away!” Papa shouted again as he ran into the rapids in his hip boots, holding out his net.
“Don’t help me!” Sweyn yelled.
I guess he didn’t want Tom saying that he didn’t land the big fish himself. But Papa couldn’t have helped anyway. He slipped on a rock and fell into the water.
I grabbed my fishing pole and ran up the creek bank until I was opposite the rapids. Sweyn was still playing that big fish. Papa was on his feet, shouting encouragement. Slowly but surely Sweyn reeled in his line. But he had to battle that trout every inch of the way until he finally landed it in his net. He waded through the rapids to the bank of the creek. Papa sat down on the ground to empty the water out of his hip boots. Then he took the net and the huge, German brown trout from Sweyn.
“This has to be the biggest trout ever caught in Beaver
Creek,” Papa said. as proud as if he had caught the fish himself.
I had to agree with Papa. For my money Tom could kiss his three dollars and seventy cents good-by. We walked to camp and weighed the big trout. A two-pound trout was considered a good-sized fish for a mountain creek or stream. The German brown trout weighed three pounds and two
ounces. Tom didn’t return to camp until Papa started pre-paring our lunch.
“Hail the great fisherman!” Sweyn shouted. “Didn’t even get a bite,” Tom said.
Sweyn showed him his German brown trout and made Tom check the weight.
“You haven’t won yet,” Tom said stubbornly. I went with Tom after lunch. It didn’t take me long to discover why he hadn’t even gotten a bite. He wasn’t fishing. He was exploring upstream. He picked up a long pole he’d cut from an aspen tree, and we walked upstream until we came to a fishing hole. Tom leaned over the bank and stuck his pole into the water.
“What in the heck are you trying to do?” I asked, as curious as all get out.
“I’m trying to find the deepest hole in the creek,” he answered. “The deeper the hole the bigger the fish on the bottom. But I can tell you one thing, J. D. I believe all the deep holes upstream are pretty well fished out because they are closer to the main campground. Tomorrow I’ll try downstream.”
We were greeted with more jeers from Sweyn when we returned to camp for supper without any fish. After eating,
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Tom said he was going to try some night fishing.
“Fish all day,” Sweyn said, “and fish all night. But you’ll never catch a fish as big as my German brown trout.”
Tom was gone two hours-The next morning I went downstream with him. We walked about a mile and found three deep holes. When the sun hit the water just right, we could see some big trout on the bottom of two of those holes. But they sure as heck weren’t biting. All we caught were a couple of little fellows we threw back.
Papa was a man who believed if you caught fish you had to eat them. We had trout again for lunch.
“I’m getting tired of eating trout,” Sweyn said. “I think I’ll go hunting this afternoon.”
“See if you can get some quail or rabbits,” Papa said.
After we had washed the tin plates, tin cups, and knives and forks in the creek, Sweyn went hunting. I went downstream with Tom. He entered an aspen grove and took out hisjackknife.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“Make about six fishing poles and set them over those two deep holes we found,” he said.
“Won’t that be cheating?” I asked.
“I bet Sweyn that I’d catch the biggest fish with a pole, line, and hook and worm bait,” Tom said, smiling. “I didn’t say that I would use just one particular pole.”
I helped him cut and trim six fishing poles and tie lines and hooks to them.
“What if Sweyn or Papa come downstream and see all these poles you’ve set?” I asked.
“I’m only going to set them at night,” he answered. “Right now we’ll hide them in the bushes.”
We hid the poles. Then Tom put his arm around my shoulders.
“It is up to us,” he said solemnly, “to save our brother from becoming a selfish person and a braggart.”
Sweyn had as much luck hunting as he had fishing. He returned with four quail.
Papa looked at the birds. “We will have roast quail for supper,” he said. “And I’m going to cook them the way trappers and mountain men cooked them-You boys cut
off the heads and feet and clean the birds but leave the feathers on.”
My brothers and I went down to the creek to do what Papa asked.
“Boy, oh, boy,” I said, “if Papa thinks I’m going to
eat quail with the feathers on them, he has got another think coming.”
Sweyn shook his head. “He always gets some crazy idea
from some book about trappers or mountain men he has read.”
When we returned to camp. Papa stuffed the birds with Indian meal, pounded crackers, and plenty of salt and pepper. He let our campfire burn down to red embers. Then he placed the quail on red-hot coals and used our shovel to cover them with more hot coals and ashes. I lost my appetite from the smell of the burning feathers.
“Now, boys,” Papa said proudly, “we will just let them cook for half an hour.”
When the half hour was up Papa uncovered the birds. He got a fork and put one of the quail on a tin plate. He held the bird with the fork and peeled the skin and burnt feathers off as if they were paper. He placed one quail on each of our plates. I got my appetite back in a hurry. That
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was the tastiest and tenderest and best quail I’d ever eaten in my life.
“You can do the same thing,” Papa told us, “with partridges, ducks, wild fowl, and fish. We must try it with some trout.”
After the supper dishes were washed, Tom said he was going to do some night fishing. I went with him. Papa and Sweyn began playing casino with a deck of cards we’d brought along. I helped Tom get the six poles-We baited the hooks with worms and set the poles over the two deep holes where we’d seen big fish on the bottom. We put good-sized rocks on the handle end of the poles, in case we caught anything during the night.
“I’ll get up early in the morning,” Tom said, “and see what I’ve caught. If I don’t get a bigger one than S. D. got, I’ll use a fish lantern tomorrow night.”
“What is that?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” he said. “Papa isn’t the only one who read that book about trappers and mountain men.”
When I woke up in the morning Tom was gone. Papa and Sweyn were just starting to get dressed-We came out of the tent just as Tom arrived. He had four good-sized trout but none of them anywhere near as big as the one Sweyn had caught.
“No wonder I couldn’t catch any fish before,” he said. “I’ve been fishing downstream and all the holes are fished out. But look at these beauties I caught this morning upstream.”
I knew Tom had caught the trout on the poles we had set. I also knew why he’d said that he caught the fish upstream. He didn’t want Sweyn going downstream. After
breakfast Tom got his homemade wooden tackle box and I got mine. We walked upstream with our poles and tackle boxes until we came to the first deep hole.
“Darn it,” Tom said, looking back. “Sweyn would de-cide not to fish the rapids today.”
Sure enough, Sweyn was following us. He caught up
with us and began casting over the deep hole.
“If you can catch four medium-sized trout with a pole and worms in this hole,” he said, “I’ll show you how to
catch some big ones flyfishing.”
I thought it strange that Tom didn’t open his tackle box but asked me for some bait, even though I knew he had a whole can of worms. We baited our hooks and dropped our lines into the deep pool. Sweyn gave up in about an hour, after only catching a little six-inch rainbow.
He went back to fishing in the rapids.
Tom opened his tackle box. “Keep a sharp lookout, J. D.,” he said. “Let me know if Sweyn or Papa head this
way.”
I was so curious about what Tom was doing that it was
hard for me to keep a sharp lookout. He removed a half-pint whiskey flask with the label washed off from his tackle box. It had some kind of liquid in it.
“What’s in the flask?” I asked.
“Sweet oil I got from Mamma’s kitchen,” he answered.
Then he got an empty, clean, pork-and-bean can from
his tackle box. He filled it half full of water from the stream. I watched wide-eyed as he took something wrapped in tin foil from the box. He unrolled the tin foil, revealing something white about the size of a marble. “What is that?” I asked.
“A piece of phosphorus,” he said as he dumped it into the can of water. “I had to tell Mr. Nicholson at the drug-store why I wanted it because it is poisonous.”
Then he took out his jackknife and opened a blade. “It has to be cut under water,” he said.
“Won’t it dissolve?” I asked.
“Not in water,” he answered. “But after I cut it into small .pieces it will dissolve in the sweet oil.”
He cut up the piece of phosphorus under water. Then he poured the water from the can. He used the tip of the knife blade to put the pieces of phosphorus into the whiskey flask. Then he put the cork in the bottle good and tight.
“And that, J. D.,” he said, “is how trappers and mountain men made fish lanterns.”
“I don’t see any light coming from it,” I said.
“It takes a few hours for the phosphorus to dissolve in the sweet oil,” he explained. “I’m going to circle the camp and go hide the fish lantern with the poles.”
It was lunchtime when Tom returned. During lunch Sweyn got in a few more digs at Tom. He had caught four good-sized trout that morning.
“I think you had better confine your fishing to before breakfast,” he said to Tom. “That seems to be the only time you can catch anything.”
“Maybe you are right,” Tom said. “I think I’ll go hunting this afternoon.”
Papa nodded his head. “Try to get some more quail,” he said. “They were delicious.”
I went hunting with Tom. We didn’t get any quail but we did kill three rabbits. We had fried rabbit, beans, and sourdough biscuits for supper. After eating Tom said he was going to go night fishing. I went with him. We
started upstream and then circled the camp to get to where the poles and fish lantern were hidden. Tom dug up the whiskey flask from under ground, where he had buried it. And I’ll be a four-legged duck if that flask wasn’t shining as if it had a light inside it.
“How did you do it?” I asked.
“The sweet oil dissolves the phosphorus,” he explained, “forming a thick fluid that throws out light.”
“Now that you’ve got it, what are you going to do with it?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” he said.
We walked downstream to the deep pool where we had seen the big trout on the bottom-Tom removed the hook from one of the poles. He tied the end of the line around the neck of the flask. Then he tied a rock to the fishing line so it would sink in water. He lowered the fish lantern into the deep hole. It gave me the willies, seeing that eerie light under water.
“What’s the idea?” I asked. “So the fish can see the bait at night?”
Tom laughed. “No, J. D..” he said. “According to the book, fish are attracted by any unusual brightness in a deep pool. When those big fellows on the bottom see the fish lantern they will come up to look at it. And when they do, they will see the bait. I am just hoping they will be hungry.”
Tom put big fat worms on the hooks of four of the poles. He set the poles so a baited hook was on each side of the fish lantern.
I was positive when I went to bed that night that the fellow who wrote the book was telling a tall fish story. Tom woke me up with his hand over my mouth while it
was still dark. We slipped out of the tent and dressed quietly. Taking our fishing poles and tackle boxes with us, we walked downstream to the deep hole. I could tell from the tightness on three lines there had to be fish on the other end. The sun was just coming up as Tom picked up the first pole.
“Got one,” he said, grinning.
But he wasn’t grinning for long after landing the fish. It was just a medium-sized rainbow trout. Tom removed the rock and picked up the second pole. I knew from the way he held it and the tightness of the line that he had a big one this time. He began to baA up to keep the line tight. And suddenly the biggest trout I’d ever seen was stirring up the water in the pool.
“Don’t lose him!” I shouted.
That fish gave Tom a longer and harder battle than the German brown had given Sweyn. But when Tom finally landed it, it was the biggest ‘rainbow trout I’d ever seen. It was a beauty and had to outweigh Sweyn’s by at least a pound. And I had to take my hat off to the fellow who wrote that book. Tom hauled in another rainbow trout bigger than Sweyn’s on the next pole. The fourth pole didn’t have a fish on the hook. But Tom had two big trout and either one ot them would outweigh the trout Sweyn had caught-
“You did it!” I shouted. “And if that doesn’t cure Sweyn of his selfishness and bragging, I don’t know what will.”
I removed all the hooks and lines from the poles while Tom took care of the fish lantern. We hid the poles and buried the fish lantern in the ground so it couldn’t be seen at night. We circled the camp to make it appear
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we were coming from upstream. Tom had the three trout hooked through the mouth and gills to a Y tree branch. We hid in the bushes until we saw Papa and Sweyn come out of the tent.
“Now, J. D.,” Tom said. “And don’t forget to yell what I told you.”
I ran from behind the bushes toward the campsite. “Papa!” I shouted. “Papa! Papa! Wait until you see what T. D. caught! Get the scale ready!”
Tom came from behind the bushes, holding up the three trout. Papa got so excited he ran to meet us. He took the fish from Tom.
“Get them in water,” Papa said proudly. “We will want to take them home with us, packed in wet mud and grass to show people. There is no doubt about it. These are the biggest trout ever caught in Beaver Creek.”
“Not until I weigh the biggest one,” Tom said.
Papa insisted on weighing the biggest one himself. It weighed four pounds and five ounces. Poor Sweyn stood staring at the scales. He looked like a cowboy who, after losing his month’s pay playing poker, comes out of a saloon and finds somebody has stolen his horse.
“I’ve still got all day,” he said.
“Take all day,” Tom said, grinning. “And take all night too. Just remember we are breaking camp and leaving for home in the morning right after breakfast.”
Tom and I sure got even with Sweyn for his selfishness and bragging that day. Tom’s (rick of pretending he’d caught the fish upstream worked. Sweyn began fishing the deep holes upstream. Tom and I sat on the bank of the creek getting in our digs.
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“You are wasting your time in this hole,” Tom said. “It is all fished out.”
“You are just trying to talk me out of fishing this hole,” Sweyn said.
“Just be careful with my rod and reel,” Tom said. “I don’t want either one broken when you hand them over to me.”
“I’ll bet, T. D.,” I said, “that you aren’t going to be selfish like some fellow we know when the rod and reel belong to you.”
“That is a bet you’d win,” Tom said. “You can practice casting any time you want. And when we go on our fishing trip next year, you can use my rod when I go hunting.”
I don’t know if it was to get away from Tom and me or because he hadn’t caught anything, but Sweyn finally decided to give up fishing the deep holes upstream. That afternoon he went back to fishing in the rapids. And for the first time he decided to try some night fishing after supper. Papa began to get a little edgy when Sweyn hadn’t returned by nine o’clock-
“We had better go look for him,” Papa said. “He might have slipped on a rock and fallen or something.”
We found Sweyn upstream, fishing in the dark at one of the deep holes.
“I know this is our last day,” Papa said, “but it is time we turned in.”
I couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for Sweyn when we got back to camp. He removed the reel and carefully placed it in its box. Then he unscrewed the rod and placed it in its canvas bag. But the saddest part of all was watching him remove the fly hooks from his fisherman’s
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hat and placing them in a box. Then he handed Tom the rod, the reel, and the fly hooks.
“You won the bet,” he said sadly. “They’re all yours now.”
Papa stared at Sweyn over the flames of the campfire. “Just what was that all about?” he asked.
“I bet T. D. that I would catch the biggest fish on this trip,” Sweyn answered.
Papa then turned his head and stared at Tom. “Knowing you as I do,” he said, “I’m positive you wouldn’t have made the bet unless you knew you would win. But for the life of me I can’t understand how you could possibly know that you would catch the biggest trout.”
“Fisherman’s luck,” Tom said, grinning. “And J. D. is my witness that I won fair and square. I caught both of those big trout using just a pole, line, hook, and worm bait.”
“That’s right. Papa,” I said. “And T. D. only made the bet to cure Sweyn of his selfishness and bragging.”
“What selfishness and bragging are you talking about?” Papa asked.
I told him how selfish Sweyn had been with his rod and reel and how he had boasted he would catch twice as many fish as Tom and me put together.
Papa was shaking his head when I finished as he looked at Sweyn. “Under the circumstances,” he said, “you deserve to lose your fishing gear. Perhaps it was provi-dence’s way of punishing you for being selfish and a boaster. Let’s go to bed now.”
And that is the story of how The Great Brain hooked a fish named Sweyn.