Backcountry Notes

The early Backcountry settlers may have enjoyed fishing, but they fished for food, not for recreation. Their gear was mostly or entirely home-made, typically consisting of a long pole, a basket or creel, lengths of braided horsehair line, and hooks made from pins or sewing needles. The fish were unsophisticated and had not yet become wary of such things as flies tied from chicken feathers, so it was not unheard of for an angler to catch 100 fish in a day.

The poles were sometimes made by glueing and binding shaped and planed lengths of wood, and at other times by cutting and drying native cane, the latter method being preferred by those without the tools for shaping and planing strips of wood. In her book "Favorite Flies and Their Histories," published in 1892, Mary Orvis Marbury included a letter from Russell Robinson of Wingina, Virginia, who described the folk and fishing of the isolated Alleghany foothills, writing, "An hundred trout a day is not unusual with them, with their native cedar rods and grasshoppers, or the long round worm found under the bark of the pine."

The length of the rod and of the line depended on where you were fishing. If you were after bass and bream in still waters, a rod of 10 or 12 feet, and a line of the same length, would be best; fishing for trout, bass, or bream in rivers and larger creeks, you would want a rod of 16 to 20 feet, often with a line half that length for better control of fly or bait placement.  In smaller, brushy creeks fishermen would use short rods of about 8 feet and a short length of line, about 18 to 24 inches; this outfit being used for "dapping" a fly or grub in the flowing water.

Old-time angler with long rodsOne of the more exciting methods of rustic fishing is the "jigger pole."  This method, also known as "doodlesocking," employs a long rod - - usually, a stout, one-piece cane pole - - and a very short length of strong line, no more than a two feet and often only one foot.  The jigger pole was used to maneuver or skitter a large bait or lure in and around likely cover, usually seeking largemouth bass, and was often used at night.  When a fish too large to hoist struck, the angler would quickly "walk" his hands up the pole, pushing it behind him, and grab the line to beach or boat the fish.  I have jigger-poled for bass at night, using the all-time-best lure for the purpose, a black Arbogast Jitterbug, and will attest that nothing gets the adrenaline pumping like the booming topwater strike of a largemouth in darkness.

Braided tail-hair from the horse makes a surprisingly strong line, and it holds knots well and retains its strength when wet. I've tried it myself and I figure that a single horsehair will have a "test" of one or two pounds. A three-hair braid is more than strong enough for a five-pound bass, so it naturally makes short work of half-pound bream or brookies. 

Professionally-made hooks were rare in the Backcountry, but it is not difficult to fashion a workable fish-hook from a sewing needle or pin, either iron or brass. Anglers simply heated the needle or pin until it softened, put a bend in the business end, then re-heated and quenched it in order to harden the metal. Rustic flies could be fashioned from the chicken feathers available on any homestead, along with some thread, if the angler didn't want to gather bait.

Backcountry settlers fished with crickets, grubs, grasshoppers, caterpillars, minnows, or aquatic nymphs - - caddis-fly nymphs, called "stickbait," are still used in the mountains where I live - - but not with common earthworms, now the most available of fish baits. They didn't fish with earthworms because there weren't any. Hard to believe, but all of our common earthworms are European, having come over in the root-balls of plants imported into New England and then spreading outward, slowly but surely.  The settlers often went astream without bait, scavenging as they went - - an especially effective method when grasshoppers were active, since the fish would be on the lookout for hoppers.

A lidded basket or creel was taken along to keep the catch fresh. The creel was filled with wet moss and the fish were laid in the moss, and covered with more, to keep them cool.

Other methods of catching fish were employed, including nets - - but netting was expensive to buy, tedious to make, and difficult to maintain, and therefore not very popular. More often, the settlers used fish-baskets, woven from reeds; these had large openings and a curved body, so that fish swam in, but couldn't find their way out. Fish-baskets and weirs were used in the Clinch River, just a short distance from my house, until recently.

Some unusual methods of fishing were used, including gigging, snaring, and striking with an iron rod called a "striking iron."  "Noosing" suckers is still legal in Highland County, Virginia, and on the Clinch River in Scott County, Virginia, suckers and may be shot with rifles, although the regulations make it unlawful to shoot fish on Sunday. "Noosing" utilized a length of braided horse-hair with a slip-knotted loop on one end, with or without a pole. See Encyclopedia Americana (1919 ed.), Suckers.

Back The Brookie

Trout Unlimited is leading an initiative called "Back The Brookie," which focuses on restoring and preserving coldwater habitat for brook trout. Please visit my links page to find a chapter in your state - - it's a worthy cause.

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Recommended reading: The Colonial Angler's Manual of Flyfishing and Flytying, by Ken Reinard