m 



FOEEST AND STREAM, 



[Jni-T 28, 1891. 



when we are on the water. And now our correspondent 

 Bhows that we should have visited Greenwood Lake three 

 weeks ago. Wc did not, hence these tears. If any one 

 should ask why our correspondent claims that the lake needs 

 restocking when it contains so many bass and such fine ones 

 as he caught, we can only mournfully shake our brain case 

 and say that we don't know. 



We found the charges moderate, except for boats. We 

 paid two dollars a day for a light twelve-foot row-boat, but 

 we could not but admire the plan of counting out seventy- 

 five dobsons, and charging two cents each for them, and then 

 selling the remainder after the day's fishing to another party 

 on the morrow. We used twelve of them, which cost us 

 $1.50, or twelve and a halt cents each instead of two. How 

 many persons had paid for our dobsons before we bought 

 them wo probably will never know, but if we did not have a 

 comfortable income from our editorial labors w c would prob- 

 ably go into the dobson busiuess as the surest road_to fortune. 



There may be times when the bassing is belter at the lake 

 than on the occasion of our visit, but the facts are given of a 

 day and a half's fishing by three men whose catch was larger 

 than that of any party on the lake during that time. We 

 believe that brook trout would live in the cool springs of this 

 lake, and hope that it will be tried. 



A Handsome Tbopht. — We have received an artolype of 

 the gold medal of the St. Louis Gun Club, which is offered 

 by that club for annual competition by the members of the 

 Missouri State .Sportsmen's Association. The design is hand- 

 some and the execution all that could be desired. The medal 

 is valued at $500, and its winner will take it under the fol- 

 lowing conditions ; "This medal is to be. shot for under the 

 following conditions: The winner fs to put it up for compe- 

 tition at each annual tournament of the Missouri State Asso- 

 ciation, at $7.50 entrance, not including birds, to be shot for 

 at 10 sing'e birds, 2(5 yards rise, under St. Louis Gun Club 

 rules. The entrance money to go to the holder of the medal 

 each year. The owner will be required to give satisfactory 

 bond in the sum of $500 to the St. Louis Gun Club, for the 

 safe custody and production of it at the next following an- 

 nual tournament." 



Numerous Timely Communications have been deferred. 

 Our columns are rich in practical letters pointing out camp- 

 ing and sporting resorts. We trust that others of our readers 

 who may have knowledge of such localities will favor us 

 with brief and specific information respecting them. 



Bryant's Poem on the English Sparkow, was written at, 

 the time of the introduction of that bird into New York. 

 We shall publish it next week. 



CANOEING ON CANADIAN WATERS. 



MUSKALLONGE FISHING IN SPARROW LAKE. 



A GAME FIS H is a silly bird. The wily trout rushes clear 

 out of water in his intense eagerness to capture the so- 

 callcd "fly," a feathery cheat formed in the resemblance of 

 nothing under the sun and not even attempting to conceal 

 the hook to which it is wound. The fierce muskallonge sav- 

 agely snaps at the glittering "spoon," a revolving fraud, al- 

 luring the too curious fish, though not atempting to counter- 

 feit anything whatever, nor to cover gangs of hooks dangling 

 ominously behind. Those much despised fish, the bullhead 

 and the sucker, are at. least far more sensible. They require 

 for a bait something which shall have at least the appearance 

 of being good to eat. 



Thus ran my thoughts after the excitement of catching 

 my first large muskallongo had somewhat abated. Wc had 

 pitched our tent on a fiue promontory at Sparrow Lake late 

 Friday evening, had gathered the hemlock boughs which 

 serve us for " beds of Asphodel," had warmed ourselves by 

 the glowing camp-fire, aud enjoyed the delicious repose of 

 the campaigner when undisturbed by any of the winged, 

 creeping, crawling, wiggling, hnmmiug, buzzing, biting, 

 stinging things which sometimes give variety to life and ac- 

 tivity to sleep. . . 



A good part of Saturday we spent in escaping the fury ot 

 thunderstorms, and had only got fish enough for the actual 

 necessities of our sharpened appetites. Two fine 'lunges, 

 which had struck at my brother George's spoon, had suffered 

 themselves to be drawn only near enough to get a good look 

 at the cauoe, and then, with a' toss of the he-.d and a flap of 

 the tail, had taken their departure without the formality of 

 saying "Good-bye." Naturally we had been desirous of at 

 least one handsome fish, large enough to be stuffed and baked 

 for a Sunday dinner, and to Jurnish us also with food for 

 conversation as well as to make good the reputation of this 

 lake for the Size aud character of its fish. Yet, undeniably, 

 the weather was unpropitious: and as the sun was setting 

 we were still sadly trolling, fondly cherishing the last hopes 

 of a delightful week which we had been anxious to end in 

 triumph. For the last time we trolled across a little bay, 

 and as we were touching the edges of the weeds the signal 

 had been riven to commence winding in our lines. Sud- 

 denly 1 felt a fierce strike, and then a jerking and hauling at 

 the line as thouah the old Sea Serpent himself were at the 

 end. After havinc felt the hooks set in his mouth 1 handled 

 him as prudently as possible, that I might not lose this long- 

 looked for treasure. George had at once drawn in his line, 

 that there might be no possibility of the two becoming en- 

 tangled, and the guide held the canoe with bis paddle partly 

 endwise to the fish that the line might be more perfec ly free. 

 After the first light, and when the fish has torn d himself 

 really hooked, he will generally consent to be drawn up un- 

 til he sees the boat, arid then, realizing bis danger, he makes 

 new and bolder dashes for life and liberty. But this oue had 

 no notion of succumbing so tamely. He rushed to the top 

 of the water and threw himself out, and shook himself like a 



black bass, displaying to us his magnificent proportions, 

 hough at a distance of nearly a hundred feet. Then, finding 

 .liis effort fruitless, he became quieter and I gradually 

 worked him up within sight of the boat, and then he was off 

 like a shot, taking out half the line I had drawn in. Again I 

 brought him up toward the canoe, and again and again he 

 was off. The next time be rose and shook himself to shake 

 the hooks out of his mouth, but unsuccessfully. Fir ally he 

 adopted a new manoeuvre : suffering himself to be drawn in 

 till near the canoe he darted under it, and then, coming to 

 the surface on the other fide, he shook himself again, strik- 

 ing his tail with all his force against the side of the canoe, 

 and thf n dashing off again— a difficult, dangerous situation, 

 the line being under the centre of the canoe, and he having 

 thus every advantage which a hooked fish can obtain. For- 

 tunately the hooks still held. I led him about until his 

 strength was well nigh exhausted aud he came to the side of 

 the canoe passive. 



This is a critical juncture. More fish are lost in landing 

 than at any other time, their added weight as they come out 

 of the water, and sudden jerks and struggles, frequently set- 

 ting them free, especially if not judiciously handled. For so 

 large a fish a landing net is worse than useless. To haul him 

 in over the edge of the boat by the hooks alone would be in 

 the highest degree danger .us. Three methods remain : 



1st. To gaff him with a great hook set on a stout pole, 

 which makes a terrible gash in his side and seems like butch- 

 ery, besides not being always sure. 



2d. The one ordinarily in use by the Indians, to hit him a 

 quick, sharp stroke between the eyes with a short stick 

 brought for that purpose, and then lift him with the hands, 

 while thus stunned, into the boat. But the stroke with the 

 stick is liable to loosen the hooks unless well set in his 

 mouth, aud then the fish is gone. 



The third method is often the safer plan with a large fish. 

 As with one baud leveling the line you draw the fish close to 

 the side of the boat, pass the other along his back to see that 

 be will remain quiet, and so up to his head, until the thumb 

 and fare-finger are over his eyes, where the projecting bones 

 give you firm hold, if you grasp him tightly, and thus with 

 both hands you neatly and quickly draw him over the side 

 and into safe quarters beforehe has time ami consciousness 

 to struggle. For his struggles when in the boat you must be 

 prepared, though it is not advisable to do as one Doctor re- 

 cently did on lids lake with his first twelve pounder — got one 

 hand into his gills and the other into his mouth, to be cut and 

 sliced by the sharp teeth, and require two weeks' surgery. 



As the beautiful fish, finally exhausted, came alongside, 

 our guide, of course, wanted to knock him on the head, but 

 warning him off and nerving myself for any struggle he 

 might make on being subjected to the approved operation 

 of lifting into the canoe, in a twinkling I bad him safely 

 lauded. The Hopping aud floundering he did afterward it 

 was astonishing to behold. Length, lift. Gin.: weight, 19 lbs.; 

 scales, email ami closely set ; flesh, white, firm and delicate; 

 color, greenish, aud feeling not slimy like the pickerel, 

 which in some respects he so much resembles. His head, 

 sunned on the rocks and dried by our camp fire, shows 

 opened jaws through which I can easily pass my clenched 

 fist without touching one of his shark like teeth. 



Moreover, a great advantage of catching such a fish just 

 at evening is that yon have a chance to catch him over again 



DOWN THE SEVERN. 



When our days allotted for fishing were completed, wc 

 struck our tent again with a feeling which would have been 

 of sadnesB bad we not known that the trip down the Severn 

 would be pleasant and interesting. Between Sparrow Lake 

 and the mill at the mouth of the' river there is not a single 

 settler's cabin, and in the lumbermen's shanties it is still too 

 early to expect any signs of life, unless possibly a man or 

 two sent on as advance guard to patch up holes in the rough 

 roof and see that the rooms are in order. The distance, ex- 

 pressed in Indian language, is as follows : Start at seveu 

 o'clock, get there next day about noon. Light canoe, two 

 paddles, paddle hard. Heavy canoe take good deal longer. 



The river, contracted frequently at the rapids to not over 

 four rods in width, is generally from a quarter to balf-a-mile 

 in width, aud frequently expands into broader bays, aud 

 once into a large and handsome lake, several miles in length. 

 It must be a difficult and aggravating river for lumbering 

 purposes. The bruised and battered ends of the logs in the 

 booms give evideuce of the character of the falls aud rocks 

 over which they have to come, while the frequent floating 

 capstans at wide places in the river indicate the points where 

 the current cannot be depended upon to float the logs, and 

 where the lumbermen must, with infinite labor, raft and haul 

 them down to a stronger current. Across the mouths of the 

 deeper bays booms are stretched to restrain the logs in their 

 tendency, like wayward children, to wander from the pre- 

 scribed channel. 



Along the few shallow spots and low shores grows the wild 

 rice, the favorite feeding grounds of wild duck, but the pre- 

 vailing characteristic of the river scenery is rock— primitive 

 trap, with only occasionally a streak of quartz or a granite 

 boulder. The timber is generally heavy, except where the 

 pine has already been cut off. But though the timber is 

 rapidly decreasing, it. was a great s-ilisl'uction to us to learn 

 Iroui the Canadian Agricultural Commissioners that the rocks 

 are not growing. The travels of these gentlemen through 

 this section of country listening to the reports of the farmers 

 as to what they could do, has created the greatest interest 

 along their route, but to our inquiring minds not the least 

 valuable of their conclusions is this— that the rocks in the 

 Muskoka country are not growing. 



SBTTLKIi'S BREAD. 



There is one point to which I fear the attention of these 

 gentlemen was not directed— the quality Of the bread made 

 within their jurisdiction. At one point, which shall be 

 nameless here, we wanted some fresh bread, and found no 

 difficulty in getting, at settler's houses, three successive 

 loaves, each of which seemed sourer than the other. At the 

 second place they charged George five cents extra for the 

 loaf because, forsooth, it was fully that much heavier than the 

 bread he would get anywhere else. The loaf from the third 

 place caused us to gi ve U P la despair. It was made up with 

 saleratus and water, had not seen much time lost in kneading, 

 was sour and bitter at night, and in the morning we found 

 our Indian considering the propriety of chopping it with the 

 axe. I used to pity the settlers' wives, now I pity the 

 settlers themselves. 



Early the second day, at the marshy outlet of a small 

 stream, we saw 



A FAMILY OF BERK .FEEDING. 



The two fawns were staud'mg knee deep in the water at the 

 edge of the river, nibbling among the grass aud lily pods, and 

 playfully moving about and tossing their heads. They were 



grown to good size, but paid no sort of attention to us, though 

 they evidently saw us as we dropped down toward them. 

 The doe was standing back four or five rods, her head only 

 showing above the rushes, keeping watch and ward over her 

 young. We had quickly gotten out of her sight, beyond a 

 point of rock, and were able to keep behind it till about 

 twenty rods off them, and the wind which, of comse, had 

 always been against us, and was so still, for once seemed 

 disposed to do us a. good turn in enabling us to keep to lee- 

 ward of the vigilant mother. But the instant the rock could 

 no longer shelter us from her eye, she gave a number of 

 quick sniffs and snorts to alarm her children, but they only 

 looked up inquiiuigly and hardly ceased their play among 

 the lilies. Then she snorted again and again in wildest 

 anxiety, and with great energy danced about, making to- 

 ward the hills, and looking all the. lime at the fawns to excite 

 their fears and draw them away from the danger she too 

 plainly saw. This finally started them, though slowly, as 

 though dimly conscious of something wrong wilh their 

 mother, but which they could not fully comprehend, and 

 only at the third attempt did she succeed in getting her 

 family fairly together, and then we saw their three white 

 tails disappearing over the rocks. 



A JAM OF LOGS. 



A jam of logs is no laughing matter for travelers in a canoe, 

 and if it extends as far as you can see from the canoe, and 

 then on climbing up the rocks you can see them extending 

 nearly a mile to a bend in the river, there is prospect ot rough 

 work before you. At a regular portage there is a trail, but 

 at a jam there may be a rock, a swamp, or heavy timber, or 

 tangled underbrush, and there is quite a certainty df being 

 fallen logs and pitfalls innumerable. 



Just here our guide's knowledge of the river came into 

 play. Returning from his "I must go see," he paddled the 

 cauoe back nearly a epiarter of a mile, and saiel we must make 

 a portage there. It seems that the river here makes a bend 

 like the*" letter S, the upper part of which only could we sec 

 even from the highest attainable point, and the lower end of 

 which terminated in a lake; so by making two comparatively 

 short "canies" across the narrowest part of the bends, and 

 choosing a point to cross the river where there was fortunate!)- 

 a short break in the jam, we had, in less than an hour, entirely 

 passed what seemed at first sight an obstacle which it might 

 require a day to surmount. 



Two more jams we had to pass, though luckily they were 

 shorter. The first we slipped around by sliding through the 

 boom, and making our way through the limber in the* over- 

 flow cautiously and slowly, for there were snags aud covered 

 stumps aud logs, on auy of which it would be easy to wreck 

 the cauoe which had for more than three weeks safely car- 

 ried us. 



The second was too solid to work through, and the over- 

 flow was not navigable, except for part of ihe distance. So 

 we paddled along the edge of the boom as far as we could, 

 then unchained two of the logs and worked bride,, chaining 

 the boom carefully behind us, as any but a heathen would 

 do, and, wh n forced outside agaiu by the pressure of the 

 logs, some hard pushing and a little chopping out of fallen 

 trees enabled us to get into the overflow again, aud soon we 

 saw in the distance the high shores of Georgian Bay and the 

 point of one of its 211,000 islands. 



Not till this last afternoon did Father ^Eolus, whose di- 



us anything but na ungracious-face. Wow at parting he put 

 on his" most winning finile, bore us steadily with a favoring 

 breeze down lake and river to the Great Georgian Bay, 

 where his attentions, if continued, would arrest us. Here he 

 stays his hand till wc cross the bay to Waubaushene in a 

 dead calm ; then, as we enter that rocky harbor, he sends us 

 just enough of a breeze to warn us of the barely-covered 

 rocks by ftis ripples swashing over them ; and lastly, ■mimbile 

 dietu, as we pitch our tent for the last time, we see the 

 smoke from the camp-fire quietly but constantly bending 

 away from it, and as we sit down to supper in front of it 

 not once is a puff of smoke driven into our rejocing eyes. 



Then on the morrow, as though to show that in tins act of 

 kindness and consideration he had not compromised hia 

 power, he poured on to the beach such waves as our frail 

 birch would not have essayed to ride, and which, earlier 

 sent, might have kept us from the steamer bound fur that 

 metropolis where each claims, like St. Paul, to be "a citizen 

 of no mean city." J- U. Bisski.l. 



Chicago, July, 18S1. 



RUNNING THE RAPIDS AT MIDNIGHT. 



SUNSET 1 The last rays flirting with the tree-tops. A 

 point jutting out into the Raquette, covered with tall 

 spruces aud hemlocks. A smudge, keeping at bay the 

 thirsty midgets. Four figures reclining about the fire, their 

 faces lighted by a comfortable, satisfied expression which 

 tolls the* evening meal is over. 



" Just venison enough for breakfast. Must hunt to-night. 

 Pass the Lone Jack." 



The Lone Jack went round the circle to all but the Pro- 

 fessor. He smoke? Never! They do say that Mrs. Pro- 

 fessor married him because he was not a smoker. He has 

 been known to suffer in a swarm of flics without complain- 

 ing; when a few puffs of a pipe would have driven them 

 away, and now he begins his usual sarcastic remonstrances 

 with Ligourney. . , , . , , 



"Nothing like giving a boy a pipe and a pound of lo acco 

 to make a man of him." 



"For charity's sake give the Professor all the tobneco 

 we've got and see if it will have any effect on htm," replied 

 Ligourney. "Smoking, sir, has a nobler and higher mis- 

 sion than "that of driving away flies. When I puff my after- 

 dinner pipe and the fragrant odor of the weed fills the air 

 around me, then it is that care and sorrow fly, content per- 

 vades the body, I am physically and morally happy; then it 

 is that I make my good resolutions, live over my past life, 

 revive old memories and build in the gracefully curling 

 smoke my castles in the air. I have heard you say that the 

 man who is ignorant of the classics misses one of the most 

 refined pleasures of life. Well, sir, the man who never 

 smokes is ignorant of the summit of human repose." And 

 Lig. ended his eloquent appeal for tobacco with *' 'Twas off 

 the blue Canaries." . • 



The Professor was not convinced, but began his hunting 

 preparations in silence. Twenty minutes after an ■ bjert 

 sat in the bow of the cedar, to classify which would have 

 puzzled Darwin. Lig. proclaimed him a good specimen ol 

 " Wbat-is-it ?" A beaver hat, cut off and fitted with a low 

 cmwn ; a huge overcoat, buttoned tight up uuder the chin ; 

 kid gloves, with gauntlets which encased the arm far up ; 

 legs wrapped tightly in an old army blanket ; head enveloped 

 in a silk handkerchief, from which a face looked out-a face 



