272 With Rod and Gun in New England 



CHAPTER XVI. 



pisH aj^d Game in Connecticut. 



By Hor\. HUBERT WILLIAMS. 



Some game may still be found in Connecticut, but the State is not a 

 sportsman's paradise, and the man who succeeds in getting a good creel of 

 fish or bag of birds after a day's careful and intelligent work is exception- 

 ally fortunate. This, I am sure will be admitted by all who are conversant 

 with fishing and shooting in Connecticut, and the fact is deplored by all 

 lovers of the rod and gun. Of fresh-water game-fish we have the trout and 

 black bass ; and of game-birds, some quail, woodcock, ruffed grouse or 

 partridge, rail, ducks and other migratory birds. Of game animals, we 

 have rabbits, the raccoon, the red fox and an occasional wild-cat. The 

 spotted or brook trout, which twenty-five years ago was numerous in 

 almost all the streams in the State fit for its occupancy, is now by no 

 means plentiful. The reasons for the decrease are, I think, the cutting 

 off of the trees, the use of the streams for milling and manufacturing pur- 

 poses, thereby causing the pollution of the waters ; and the increase in the 

 number of anglers. 



The cutting of the timber along the streams and on the hills has been 

 followed by both drouths and freshets. Several streams in which, to my 

 knowledge, trout were formerly abundant, are now frequently so low in 

 August and September that great loss of life among the fish has resulted. 

 When a stream becomes so low that it is but a succession of pools, with a 

 thread of water between them, the fish in those pools die from lack of food 

 and water, or are the easy prey of the predatory birds that haunt them, 

 together with the active mink, the sly " coon " and the bifurcated hog, who 

 with bran-sack, or scoop-net, like the old sexton, " gathers them in." 

 When spring comes, in consequence of the lack of foliage of trees along 

 the streams and hillsides, there is nothing to keep out the sun or withhold 

 the rush of water from the melted snow and falling rain, so the few baby 

 trout that have been hatched are overcome in the rush of water and are 

 often buried in the silt that is carried down with it or they are left outside 

 the stream when the waters recede. There are more acres of woodland in 

 Connecticut than there were fifty years ago. Indeed, the reports of the 

 U. S. Commissioner of Agriculture show an increase in the State of about 

 131,000 acres in the wild or waste lands during the last forty years. But 



