FISHES AND FISHING IN THE ADIRONDACK^. 285 



grounds and fish food productive waters in the Adirondacks, where the largest 

 trout grow and afford the finest sport yet remaining in the whole State. For 

 a time it seemed as if fish pirates, lumbermen and increasing hordes of fishermen 

 could not affect the fish production, but the time has at length arrived when even 

 these grand waters are yielding to the inevitable effects of abuse and overfishing. 



The Beaver River dam flooded the long valley through which the river used 

 to wander and wind, with beauty and delight at almost every turn of its crookedness, 

 and where the good fishing holes were, and numerous deer tracks on sandy 

 points told of the nightly family gatherings by the grateful waters. The bushy, 

 line-entangling alders, and the overhanging trees and all the green and lush 

 vegetation, and bird songs, and camping places, and everything else at the memory 

 of which the old sportsman's heart leaps, are gone, all gone, and a desolation 

 indescribable has taken their place. Yet, the State is trying to redeem some 

 portions of this dear old resort and has already removed some of the ugliness, 

 and the lake that has been formed is becoming, and later on will become, a 

 beautiful resort. For a time the trout lost their reckoning, could not find their 

 old nesting beds, or discover new ones, and despairingly wandered about the flooded 

 lands. At length they have found new homes for domestic life, learned where 

 food abounds in the new conditions, and have become happy, large, fat and numerous. 

 The fishing there was never better than now — but, then, the waters are protected. 



The streams below the dams have also been benefited. The uneven flow in 

 summer — especially since wholesale tree cutting destroyed so much of the spongy 

 soil which used to be the regulator of the flow of the streams — has been 

 regulated and the normal flow measurably sustained. Utilitarianism and the 

 needs of the hungry mills below, in this case, have been the sportsman's friend. 



One does not want to, and cannot if he wants to, fish all the while. Some 

 days the trout seem to take a short vacation of a day or two (alas! sometimes 

 a week or two), and often during the day they indulge in a siesta. Then is the 

 time when that much-abused "camera fiend," who loves to take the beauties of 

 forest and stream home with him for his winter's solace, gets in his work. In 

 the days of dry plates — "films" not yet having been introduced — a camera 

 carrying a glass dry plate, 5 by 8 inches in size, was almost invariably a part of 

 the writer's luggage. It traveled over many a mile of trail and along many a stream, 

 in the pack basket of a guide, and was almost always our companion in the 

 canoe. When the fishing was dull, especially at the siesta hour of the trout, 

 or whenever a particularly interesting and picturesque scene presented itself, the 

 camera was elevated upon its three spindling legs, the loaded plate holder put in 

 position, and the vision of beauty captured for the friends at home and for the 



