Pisi)e# and Firmer in tl)e (ldirondact)S 



From tl)e Sportsman's Point of View. 



By A. Judd Northrup. 



IT might as well be confessed at the outset that the Forest, Fish and Game 

 Commission are not to be held responsible for any faulty views or erroneous 

 opinions expressed in this article. They have kindly left the writer free 

 to say what he will, and he alone is responsible. Some things he may say will 

 doubtless be "random casts," and often wide of the mark, but that is not an 

 uncommon experience of fishermen. 



Prior to forty years ago, or thereabouts, very few of the people of this State 

 had much knowledge or any due appreciation of the special nature and value 

 of the Adirondacks. In ''the good old times" before Murray wrote his facts and 

 fables of that enchanting region, the sportsmen and the dwellers along the fringes 

 of the forest had the monopoly of the fish and game, and the lovers of nature 

 among them the enjoyment of the marvelous forests, lakes, rivers and mountains. 

 Year after year, " accoutered as they were," in their old woolen clothing, with 

 pack baskets, "supplies," fishing tackle and guns, they rather shyly (for they were 

 frowned on in those days) slipped off to the "North Woods" for their glorious 

 sport with rod and gun and camp. In May, and again in July, they reached 

 the edge of the forest as best they could, with no railroads to make approach 

 easy, and then came the rough trails, the unmarked ways to the favorite resorts, 

 the streams down which the waters tumbled over rocks and precipices, with here 

 and there a welcome "still-water," until at last the chosen spot on stream or 

 lake, and possibly a rude camp of logs or bark built in other days of delight, 

 was reached. And then heaven smiled on them, and the leaf-clad earth gladdened 

 them, and the forest swayed its great tree tops in joyous welcome ! Fish ? 

 Worlds of them! Trout, speckled and "salmon," mostly. These had little fear 

 of man; they were not educated to fear. They took the deceitful fly, worms, fish 

 tails or fin, pork rind, the red rag — anything. 



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