208 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[April 12, 1883. 



least a dozen coveys of quail within 100 rods of negro 

 cabins. 



The freed inn ii here is a hunter, tint not a quail hunter. 

 He delights in shooting squirrels, 'coOns anrl some kinds of 

 birds, but they nvusl sit slill. Tie has of late years become 

 an inveterate 'fox hunter. He keeps his own hounds rind 

 follows them well, and not infrequently does he bring sly 

 reynard to .grief. He doe.? it fairly, loo" for the dogs must 

 catch the fox, as Sambo eauiint hit him on the run. I limed 

 n hunt one moonlight night some weeks ago from my front 

 stoop, sn.l in just uinety minutes their hounds picked up the 

 first fox. Returning the hounds struck another trail, and in 

 a little more than three hours they had the second fox by the 

 brash— two full grown foxes in Jour and a half hours' run- 

 ning. 

 _ The freedman lure as ,-i class work, but there are excep- 

 tions to the rale; spme prefer to loaf, but are too lazy and 

 worthless to hunt for n living. We have lols of negroes and 

 plenty of quail, showing lhat the supply of quail is not cut 

 off in this section by the 1'recdman. lf'aoy of our Virginia 

 friends doubt this. statement let him or them visit me after 

 the first of November next, and I will give him some as line 

 shooting as this country affords, Although my dogs are 

 not, "prize winners," my gun is not a #300 hammerless, and 

 I do not belong to a "gun club," 1 "won't take a back seat" 

 unless some of your "gentlemen sportsmen" |Jrdve that their 

 dogs can find more birds, stand siauneher and retrieve bet- 

 ter than mine, and thai they can bag more birds right and 

 left than I can, 1 believe in' "Nessrnuk's" "screed." 



a. r. -r, 



Belviderb. W. C April i, 1S83. 



Philadelphia WotjIs.— April ?.— The last few pleasant 

 days have brought snipe into market. Nearly all of the 

 birds came from within a radius of fifty miles of Philadel- 

 phia, but few, however, have been killed on the near Phila- 

 delphia grounds. Yesterday four or live were bagged on 

 the Darby Creek meadows near Killian's, and I have heard 

 of Two having been shot on the Broad street grounds. It is 

 reported that the meadows on the New Jersey-shore oppo- 

 -i ■' aester, on both sidesof Raccoon Greek, are in good 

 condition for birds, and that the Chester (Pa.) and Bridge- 

 port gunners killed some last week. If the grounds on Rac- 

 coon Creek between Bridgeport and Bwedesboro, six miles 

 distant, and especially above Swedesboro, were bunted over 

 on a favorable day next week. 1 am sure a number of snipe 

 cuiild be found, A skill' could be. used and both sides 

 worked, starting from Bridgeport in the morning and the 

 nighl spenl at Swedeebbroi bill take a license along.— Homo. 



This "Black Hearts' " Migration.— Detroit, April 7. 

 —Editor Forest and Stream: Years ago, when quite a young 

 man, living in Ontario on the shore of the lake of same name, 

 we were \ [sited regularly every year by docks of a species 

 of small plover, called by our local sportsmeu "black hearts," 

 The peculiarity of their coming was in the facT that they 

 came only on a certain day, the 24th of May, and remained 

 no longer. The following day an occasional one might be 

 seen, but the "flocks" had disappeared as mysteriously as 

 they had appeared on the previous day. -Before the 'day 

 mentioned I have frequently hunted over the same ground, 

 or rather, marsh, and in no instance did 1 ever see a Hock of 

 A.s we have had some discussion about the 

 matter, would ask attention to the above from sportsmen in 

 the neighborhood of Port Hope and Cobourg as to what 

 they know of the strangeness of their appearance, — Hero 

 Sight. 



Hawks ns Yermoxt.— Hartford, Conn., April 6.— In a 

 brief tour to Vermont a few days since, in talking gun aud 

 dog. I understand that (here is ii Tine for .shooting over a dog 

 in that State. In shooting there last season I found in my 

 .-core more hawks than game, averaging two or three hawks 

 every day. If every shooter would pay his respects to 

 hawks the grouse supply would be on an increase. The 

 hawks are 80 thick the farmers pul bottles and red rags on 

 long poles lo keep them away from poultry. There should 

 be a bounty of such a sum as to induce the "boys" to get 

 out the old' queen's arm and pepper the hawks. One pair of 

 good working hawks are more destructive than any ten 

 shooters in I he country, And where hawks are plenty I do 

 not wish to try any shooting on game birds, — Flick Flick. 



Weight pF Game Bums.— Scranton Pa.— A correspond- 

 ent ii> one of your December issues asks if six and a half 



i. is a heavy weight for quail. 1 had a nice bunch, 



killed over my pointer, and thinking them veiy fine weighed 

 them. They weighed the same as your correspondent's, 

 vi/., six and a half ounces; one weighed seven ounces. I 

 also had a nice young hen grouse hanging up at Ihe time: it 

 weighed one pound five ounces. One pound and a half is 

 a good average with us; have killed one and three-quarter 

 pound birds. A friend who has bagged many a one during 

 the past twenty-five years says two pounds was his heaviest, 

 although he saw one said lo weigh three pounds. The 

 Western quail for sale in our markets last fall would not 

 weigh over live ounces, 1 think.— B. 



MrNXESOTA Notes. — Mantorvillc, Minn., April 3. — Quail 

 have fared badly, more having frozen to death this winter 

 than at flrst supposed. As the snow melts off, their bodies 

 appear in sight frozen in the crust. A woodchopper says 

 that he saw at the very least fifty quail and a few partridges, 

 within a week, frozen in the snow-drifts; they seemed to 

 have been snowed under, and were unable to get out. Deer 

 are very scarce in this pail of Ihe State, and hunting them 

 out of season ought to be punished. Wild geese, ducks and 

 songbirds have appeared in limited numbeis this spring. 

 The geese and ducks seem to have, business further north, 

 and do not stop here. — Dell Wells. 



Watsontowk, Pa., April i).— Quite a number of snipe 

 have made their appearance in this section. We have a 

 number of quail wintered over, and our prospect for this 

 coming winter's quail shooting is better than it has been for 

 a number of years. The hawks have proven the great 

 destroyer of quail in this section of country. Our game 

 laws have been amended by offering a bounty lor hawks, 

 minks, foxes and skunks, the enemies of our game birds.— 

 J. R. H. 



DeBE JJt At.auama.— Hale County, Ala.— Deer are on Ihe 

 increase here; good many hunters, but little meal bagged. 

 We find lhat hounding the deer does not run them off. We 

 could not still -hunl tbem, as they stay in the swamps. No 

 pot-hunters here, — Makk Ivel, 



Ontario Noh-Esfort Law.— London, Ont., April 7.— 



Ekiitor Forest and Stream: The deputation appointed ai i..,. 

 meotingof sportsmen in Ottawa, on the 20th insl., have 

 been successful in obtaining their request. The Honorable 

 the Minister of Finance, in his budget speech, on the 30th 

 ult., in the House of Commons at Ottawa, recommended 

 the absolute prohibition of the export of quail, deer and 

 turkeys from the Dominion, so that for the future we shall 

 be free from the annual invasion of market shooters.— 

 W. C. D. Gill. 



Alabama.— Burkville, April 4.— We have had perfectly 

 magnificent sport among the quail Ihe past season, and 

 although the killing was unusually large, I am surprised to 

 see more birds left over than I have ever known before. 

 The annual snipe visit to this section was a disappointment 

 to the expectant gunner. Birds few and wild. Plover 

 plentiful now, but quite poor, hardly fit lo eat. — 0. 



Charleston, III., April 5.— This has been the poorest 

 spring for waterfowl shooting in ten or fifteen years. One 

 day lasl week Benjamin Turney, Jr., of Lafayette township, 

 in this (Coles) county, shot an albino crane that was six feet 

 and seven inches in height, and measured seven feet and 

 eight inches from tip to tip of its wings. He is going to 

 have this large bird mounted.— Fox Squirrel. 



Wildcat Herbivorous.— New Hampton, N. Y., April 

 3.— In the stomach of a very large wildcat, recently mounted 

 by my brother, was found the partly decomposed "body of a 

 gray squirrel and a quantity of '"'browse," showing that 

 either from necessity or choice they sometime subsist on buds 

 and twigs,— C. B. 



Gamp Guest. — Can any of our readers furnish us with 

 specifications (and a drawing) of a camp mess-chest suitable 

 for an army officer to take into the field with him? 



live mid Bust 



Tn insure prompt attention, communications should be ad- 

 dressed to the Forest and Stream Publishing Co., and not to 

 individuals, in whose absence from the office matters of im- 

 portance are. tial/le to delay. 



AfJOZtNO fi.ESORTS.-m .shall be glad to have for publi- 

 cation notes of good fishing localities. Will not our corre- 

 spondents favor us with notes of desirable points for angling 



PIKE-PERCH. 



THE pike-perch, one of our native fishes, is called salmon, 

 and while it ranks rather low as a fighter, is deservedly 

 popular with epicures, nor does the angler disdain the sport 

 of its capture. Native residents assure me that it attains a 

 weight of twenty and twenty-five pounds, but I have never 

 killed one larger than eleven — but that one one which got 

 away, etc.. There is certainly no handsomer fish in our 

 rivers, and the assertion that a salmon well served is un- 

 equalled by any rival taken from the same stream rarely 

 provokes controversy. The deliciousness of croppies and 

 rock-bass as pan-fish is unchallenged, and the suckers have 

 among the guild whispering advocates of their superior 

 flavor, but the pike-perch is a universal favorite, and needs 

 protection, as do all other fishes, for in open violation of 

 law the employes engaged upon the improvements of Big 

 South Fork of Cumberland River, the most noted pike-perch 

 stream in the State, now have traps erected near their camp, 

 and are taking the fish in large quantities, when the stage of 

 water is propitious — which lias been its condition nearly all 

 through March, the best month for their capture in Ken- 

 tucky. It is a natural inference that the engineer in charge 

 is cognizant of the law and its flagrant infraction, for he is a 

 Kentuckian, and it behooves the legal functionaries to thor- 

 oughly investigate the violations and mercilessly punish 

 violators. Raftsmen who lately passed the scene of present 

 operations told me that two traps have been put in, andthat 

 a large catch was made the night before their passage. 

 Traps at other points mark the improvements (?) of our 

 favorite stream up to now. Shame! Shame! I 



Kkntuckian, 

 Southern Kv„ April 2, 1S83. 



The pike-perch or glass-eyed pike is called in Ohio 

 "salmon," and in Canada "pickerel" or "dore." 



This species was abundant in Lake Mich igan and the 

 Northwest, forty years ago, and was highly esteemed as the 

 best fish in those waters except the whitefish. In the spring, 

 when the pike-perch were running into the rivers to spawn, 

 large numbers were taken in seines and brought to the 

 Chicago market. I have seen specimens there, weighing 

 from fifteen to twenty pounds, the average being perhaps 

 four. 



In those days I have taken this pike with rod and reel 

 from the Chicago pier; at the mouth of the Calumet River, 

 and at the junction of the Fox and Illinois rivers, always in 

 deep water with live bait. I have never seen it taken with 

 fly or spoon. I have found it a strong and hard fighting 

 fish, not so active as the black bass, which was our principal 

 object of pursuit, and which was more abundant, more gen- 

 erally distributed, and more willing to take a bait. I think 

 it more gamy than the Northern pike, and superior to it or 

 the bass as a food fish, being fine, flaky, of excellent flavor, 

 and with few small bones. 



I have also taken this species at Alexandria Bay, River 

 St. Lawrence, while fishing in deep water for bass, with 

 live bait. My average weight with the rod has been about 

 two pounds. 



The pike-perch would, I believe, be a valuable fish for 

 introduction into the deep lakes and rivers of the Northern 

 Atlantic States, being, as I think, superior in quality to any 

 of the fresh water species, except some of the Salmouidte. 

 In the large and deep lakes of Sweden and Norway, the 

 pike-perch is said to reach a weight of thirty pounds. 



' S. C. C. 



Since writing the last letter, I have read the articles of 

 several correspondents in the : Forest and Stream, and it 

 is plain to be seen that many of them have confounded the 

 grass pike or pickerel with the pike-perch or wall-eved pike. 

 The wall-eye is much shorter and thicker set than 'the pick 

 erel, and a tish of six or seven pounds is an exception. They 

 average about three pounds. At least that is my experience 

 with them in the West. It is very easily distinguished from 



other fish by the peculiarity of the eye, which is not clear 

 and bright as in other fish. The pickerel resembles the mus- 

 callonge, while the wall-eye is very much like the trout of the 

 great lakes I do not think the wall-eye is very "gamy" 

 in any locality. Occassional^, however, you find them so, 

 as 1 have lound them here, but it is not the rule by any means. 

 The pickerel, or as they are sometime termed, the "long 

 snouts," are very different. There is, perhaps no gamier 

 fish, for they will fight as long as breath lasts, and I have 

 seen them snap at stray fingers after being landed in the 

 O ' 1 , 1 ; H. P. II. 



[If our correspondents will bear in mind that the "wall- 

 eye ' is a true perch and has spinous ravs in its dorsal and 

 anal lins. while Ihe puce, or picker. 1" of the St ites /;,.;> 

 is a soft-rayed fish, rhey will not get them mixed 

 They should also bear in mind that what is vari 

 the pike-perch, wall-eyed pike, and even salmon 

 parts of the United States, is termed "pickerel" and "dore " 

 in Canada, where the fish called "pickerel" in the States 

 bears the old English name of pike. The pike-perch is not 

 a true pike, but was so-called because it appeared to be a 

 perch with the savage habit of the pike.] 



nesl 



died 



In your issue of December 28, 1882, I noticed an editorial 

 on "Wall-eyed Pike," asking why some one has not written 

 up this beautiful fish. In a later issue I noticed an article on 

 the same fish, claiming they could hardly be classed with 

 the game fish, etc. I had intended answering your editorial, 

 and this last stirred me up. If your correspondent had been 

 with me last Juno and had seen one break the second joint 

 of my rod, he would have thought them game enough. 1 

 admit that the breaking was due partially to my striking too 

 hard, but I had just missed a beauty aud was bound to have 

 this one, and did, after a "nip and tuck" tussle, though 

 with a broken rod. The scene of this day's fishing was on 

 Minnehaha Creek, about .200 feet from its entrance into the 

 Mississippi River. 



They are about the first fish to bite in the spring in this 

 section, and, to my thinking, the handsomest fish we have 

 here. You rightly call him the "king of the perches." I 

 use a nine-foot bass rod, and the most killing bait I have 

 found for them is the "phautom minnow," rigged wijh a 

 wire snell and swivel. I put about three "BB" shot on 

 sne.ll near the head of the minnow to sink it well, and allow 

 it to sink near bottom before starting it. I never recast un- 

 til it is close to the boat or edge of the bank, as I have frc- 

 ?uently had a fish to strike just before it is leaving the water. 

 sometime use a couple or bright-colored salmon flies, 

 shotted with two "BB" shot, close to the head to make them 

 sink, as it has been my experience that the "wall-eve" lie- 

 near the bottom. The' "phantom" is my favorite, however, 

 and I have frequently taken fish when others near me were 

 using live bait, trolling spoons, etc., and getting no fish. 1 

 have caught these fish in the Mississippi, near here, and all 

 the lakes and tributaries connected with this river that I 

 have fished in. except Lake Minnetonka, and the only way 1 

 can explain this is because the Minnehaha Falls are too high 

 an obstacle for these fish to overcome. L. J. S. 



I, MinD., April 3, 1883. 



ON MAX1NCUCKEE. 



MAXINOTTCKEE is a lovely little lake in Northern In- 

 diana, of crystal clearness, margined with rolling 

 shores and beautiful woods, pebbly beaches, picturesque 

 outlines of grass and trees, and vistas of delightful perspec- 

 tive. It is the eye of nature, gleaming bright at limes, and 

 again suffused with tears; now closed in the icy slumber of 

 winter, now twinkling with the mirth of spring, and again 

 winking and blinking with April showers, or flashing with 

 fierce energy in response to the loud overtures of aggressive 

 storm. 



Beautiful in repose, it is capable of grand displays, when 

 aroused by the blasts of Boreas. Clear as a mirror, a glass 

 for Narcissus iu gentle mood, it gets awfully dark and 

 sullen on occasions, and carries us threats into "dire execu- 

 tion. But it is always beautiful, even in its turmoil, when 

 crested wave ride swiftly to shore, and seems to disappear 

 like wraiths into the woods and fields. In spring and sum- 

 mer, when the odors of the flowers, and the songs of birds, 

 furnish the essentials of paradise, then Maxincuckee sur- 

 passes the "vale of Cashmere," and is an alluring Mecca for 

 those who do homage at the shrine of nature. 



Ouce, when coming from a three-hours' excursion, with 

 at least twenty pounds of black bass and wall-eyed pike in 

 the bottom of the boat, which my attendant was rowing at 

 a lively rate abreast of a rapidly-gathering storm, one of "my 

 lines attached to rod and reel, and which I was trolling, 

 suddenly tightened and came near jerking the rod into the 

 lake. 



"Jewhillikins, Charles! put the boat about. Got a ten- 

 pound bass on. Julius Caesar, how he pulls!" 



It was no easy task to stop and corno round against the 

 wind and malic headway backward, so to speak, or hold 

 the boat so that the game could be properly handled. At 

 least a hundred feet of line ran out before' the maneuver 

 could be executed. In the meantime the line was pulled 

 hither and yon, the monster tugged and jerked, the boat 

 was hard to manage, the wind increased every moment, and 

 the now angry waves rose aud showed their white teeth 

 until it seemed that the elements and all the accidents and 

 incidents possible were conspiring to prevent the capture of 

 the "boss" fish of Maxincuckee. 



But he was on, well hooked, in fact, as was quickly 

 shown, and unless we were capsized, or 1 was pulled over- 

 board and towed around the lake, it wouldn't do to give up. 

 Charles rowed with all his strength, now on the right oar, 

 now on the left, according to orders, while f , braced in the 

 boat, took advantage of every turn to keep the line taut, 

 and hold the quarry to bis work. 



Soon the rain came and the wind grew furious, and the 

 waves leaped inlo our skiff like pirates. Still the contest 

 was kept up for twenty minutes, wheu we got the customer 

 under control, and Charles, dropping his oars, seized the 

 landing-net and deftly thrust it— on to a slender, tenacious 

 branch of a sunken tree! That was all. 



I jerked the hook off with an impatient slam bang, ex- 

 claimed Sic transit gloria mundi ! and added feebly, "we'll 

 go in to supper." Jerome Burnett. 



Sea Bass and Blackfish. — A good place for sea bass and 

 blackfish is at Pelliam Bridge, on the N. H. R. R., at the 

 station called Bartow-on-the-Sound. The best place I know 

 of for blackfish is Bridgeport, Coun., out to Black Rock by 

 stage from the station.— M. L. 



