RANDOM CASTS IN THE LAND OF LAKES. 61 



them. In the name of Izaak, what is the use of catching so many fish as the 

 majority of anglers aspire to do? Does the record of great counts establish one's 

 title to superiority as an angler? Does it prove anything more than a super- 

 abundance of fish? I know that these boat-loads are captured by main strength 

 and not by delicate manipulation, because ten minutes is little enough time to land a 

 heavy fish on fine tackle. Six fish an hour for four hours' morning fishing and two 

 hours' evening fishing thirty-six fish is a splendid score, and all that ought ever 

 to come to a reasonable man's boat or basket. Just think of the labor and finesse 

 involved in the feat, especially in a tideway at an outlet, where the current is 

 strong ! 



Within the past five years the Brule River, near Bayfield, Wisconsin, has come 

 into prominent notice as a trout stream, and since the Northern Pacific and the 

 St. Paul and Omaha Railroads have extended their lines almost to the river's brink, 

 making the journey easy and short, anglers are flocking to it by scores. I think 

 the river is one hundred and fifteen miles long. It is a marvelous river, and 1 

 know of no water in the world which is so abundantly stocked with trout. It 

 fairly teems with them. Where it debouches into Lake Superior its mouth is broad, 

 and in June the big four-pound trout come cruising along the rocky shore from 

 far and wide and are caught without stint. Tens of thousands of very large trout 

 are taken from the Brule along the- entire stream every year, and I cannot imagine 

 how it is kept from depletion except by annual accessions from the great lake. It 

 is no uncommon thing for a couple of anglers to report one thousand trout as the 

 result of three or four days' fishing! Now what is the use? Couldn't they be 

 content with enough to eat and a quantum suff to bring away? What becomes of 

 the first day's catch? "Ask of the winds," etc. Only the take of the last day will 

 be fresh enough to fetch home. 



But I can tell you of something worse than this of men who seine the lakes 

 of fish and feed the product to their hogs! Why cannot men learn to be provi- 

 dent of good gifts and considerate of other people to come after them? 



During the month past nearly all the lakes have been "in bloom." When they 

 are in this condition the fishing is slack. The bloom is the suspended seed of 

 aquatic plants, which are disseminated everywhere, and finally become water soaked 

 and sink to take root and reproduce. There are different kinds of seed, and, like 

 the seeds of land plants, they do not all bloom at once, so that some lakes are 

 clear at the time when others are "working." My impression is that the fish eat 

 large quantities of them, and, becoming surfeited thereby, decline to bite the 

 anglers' baits. I doubt if the seed has any deleterious effect upon their gills. It 

 is in a sense a protection to them at a period when many kinds of fish are recupe- 

 rating after spawning. It is a protection also to the young fry. The water is 

 thick and partially hides them from their predatory enemies. There is nothing 

 noxious about the water when it is in bloom, though it has been stated that 

 cattle have been made ill by drinking it. A strong microscope will assist the 

 student in his investigation of this phenomenon. 



There is a fish quite common in the lakes of Minnesota and Wisconsin, called 

 the sheepshead (Haploidonotus grunniens'), which is not generally recognized and 

 not often caught. In some waters I have found it quite palatable, and in others 

 it is quite the reverse. They are not usually esteemed for food in waters east of 

 the Mississippi, but I find the Minnesota article make an excellent boiled dish or 

 chowder. The sheepshead are the only submarine musicians we have in the West, 



