342 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[May 31 18N-S. 



i opportunities, nor are they frightened at the idea of 

 work nr Ok tnj ami tin- shakings. It is witliin reason to 

 suppose a similar class of eantesi enthusiasts will in' found 

 who seek advancement in all there is about them, and -who 

 in lime will as learnedly discuss "lap and lead," ,! cut-offs 

 and expansions," "high and low pressure," "crank and disc 

 notion" as WO now hear bold Corinthians taking Issue upon 

 "luffing oul orsquarlng away." "keels or board-." "cutter 

 rigs or sloops," and the knotty formulses of "timeailOw ance 



With steam all around us, steam whisking us up and 

 down town, from floor to attic, i'roui city to country town, 

 steam in the kitehen turning the spit, steam in the sewing 

 room whirring the sewing machine needle, and steam twirl- 

 ins the peanut roaster in the street, it would be strange in- 

 deed were gentlemen of leisure and means to pass by slight- 

 ingly the universal agency which has contributed so much 

 to life's ease and comfort, and perhaps been the means of 



their own profession, 1 - seoeas. We need but look to older 

 nations for an answer. There are in British waters vast 

 fleets of yachts, from the yawl and launch up to Stat 

 going vessels, driven by steam applied to screw or paddle. 

 such yachts the number who compre- 

 hend and control the working of the machinery is growing 

 ■ i and a largt class of amateur marine mechanics lias 

 sprung into existence. 



Steam yachting and all that the term includes is not what 

 many presume, a problem fully solved and in a Quies- 

 cent .*/"/» quo. There are the same issues in existence 

 which animal' oin I to the sail. Engines and boil- 

 ers and systems and tools of propulsion of a rival kind there 



are innumerable. The question of model itself is perfectly 



unsettled. Type is still in the first throes of embryot.ie 

 Stages. Shall she be high speed, cruiser oi auxiliary ! Shall 

 sin lie long, narrow and shoal? Shall she have a working 

 rig or be content with poles, twin screws or single? And as 

 for wheels and driving power, their theory and practice, 

 their adaptability to various waters, these things of them- 

 selves open up ivasl i as yet uuworked, mine for deep 



study and acquisition a, well a- for experiment and prac- 

 tice. 



From America will ultimately hail the largest fleet of 

 steam yacht= in tin. 1 world. The certainty of movement of 

 such vessels recommends them to men pressed for time 

 Our vast network of rivers in the interior, the great distance 

 tobetravi caed frotu point to point, all will insist upon the 

 rapid multiplication of the small nucleus of steam yachts 

 now afloat. For all this, there need be no fear that the sail 

 ing yacht will be driven to the wall. There is ample I 

 the world for both classes? Cheapness in first cost, economy 

 in running and love for a sailor's life will keep the fleet 



under eanva El sfanetdon for all time. The man of 



-tram wdl !»■ drawn from other ranks, and with his vessel 

 will add one more to the yachting navy without a -ingle sail 

 being withdrawn on that account. 



The recent formation in this city of a (dub, especially de- 

 .i, I,, i ":- ..ut what has been written above. 



It is the first srep toward securing that recognition which 

 has been denied by the self-engrossed community of amateur 

 gailors through groundless fear of rivalry, and a failure to 

 concede to steam yachts the importance they are entitled 

 to 



-7 PPQBT THE TEAM. 

 VTOW that the indignation, naturally fell at the re tion "f 

 -Lt the Rifle Association directors in the rejection from 

 the team of one of the best shots in America, has in some 

 measure subsided, the entire effort of all who w ish well to 

 American arms should be directed to strengthening the 

 squad of National Guardsmen who in a few weeks will set 

 sail for the English range. The honor of the country has to 



lained by the men now giving their time and effort 



daily at Creedm 'to gain that thorough control of hand 



and eye which shall enable them successfully to meet the 

 English experts. The men are doing good work; they 

 '•■ ely show scores far beyond what was recorded a year 

 ago at the same stage of preparation, and the prospect is 

 that without any more than merely holding their own tiny 

 Will be able to mahi a fcrong tight wit li the picked British 

 team. 



The National Guard of the entire country owe it to them- 

 selves to see to it that the team of 1883 goes abroad in a 

 manner befitting its representative character. The men on 

 the team are not men of wealth. They are young men who 

 love the innocent excitement of the rifle match, and having 

 shown their ability to excel in one branch of the soldier's 

 duty, it should he the proud and pleasant duty of every 

 other member of their body to lend aid and assistance in 

 Ming them the victory. This can be done through a 



..us subscription to the fund now raising for the ex- 

 penses of the team. These will necessarily be heavy, for a 

 jaunt over the ocean for so large a group of men is not 

 , i mIm. rtter. Though it will oe a short visit, it cannot 

 be a flying one. After the novel experience of a sea trip, 

 the men will need a few days for rest and quiet to Steady 

 their nerves and refresh their bodies. Then there will be 



days' drill at Wimbledon to get acquainted with the 

 ground over which the match is to be shot. During all the 

 time the men look for their support to the body of their 

 fellow citizens who will share in the honor which a victory 

 will bring. 



The boi eed their estimate of expenses at a 



moderate figure. It is thought that .$0,000 will carry the 

 team out and home again, and but. a small percentage of 

 Ibis sum has already been secured. Every cent of it should 

 be in the hands of the committee before the date of sailing. 

 It will add much to the confidence with which the men will 

 start if they know that their friends and well-wishers have 

 been thoughtful in this respect. The men deserve support 

 for the good work thus far, and as everybody feels like add- 

 ing a trifle to a successful cause, they may feel assured that, 

 in all likelihood they will be doing so by sending a subscrip- 

 tion to the American Team Fund. 



he is in good condition, and that when he exceeds these 

 weights his game qualities decline in proportion, and he is 

 tired out in less time, always allowing light tackle to be used 

 stead of hickory poles and main strength, which gives the 

 smaller fish no chance to display his science and his pluck. 

 Take the black bass all in all, they are the gamiest fish that 

 the angler finds in fr-esh waters, except, the brook trout, and 

 there arc anglers who do not except, even them. 



BLACK BASS. 



ON the first day of June the black bass setison opens 

 about New York. It is an open secret that, to many it. 

 practically opens at Greenwood Lake on Decoration Day, 

 I wo days before. This being a legal holiday, many persons 

 go to the lake, and the people about it wink at the trans- 

 gression, because the visitors leave substantial mementoes of 

 their visit, which is regarded as a full equivalent. This 

 practice is wrong and it should be stopped, or the law should 

 be changed, making the opening of the season on the holi- 

 day. There is no doubt about the early season being the 

 best. The Ash seem livelier and even gamier than later in 

 the greater heat of summer, with its greater excess of vege- 

 tation in the water. It is in the beginning of the season that 

 the bass take the fly with more certainty than at any other 

 time, and this alone is reason enough to many to make them 

 anxious to go early to the lakes. 



About New York there are not many good places for 

 black bass. A few are taken in the Crotou reservoir, but 

 not enough to make it. an object to fish for them, they are 

 usually captured by those who are fishing for perch. The 

 most accessible places for good fishing arc : Greenwood Lake', 

 lying partly in New York and partly in New Jersey, fifty 

 tniles distant from the city, and reached by the New York 

 & Greenwood Lake R. It., with ferries at West Twenty -third 

 and Chambers streets. This lake is one of the best black 

 boss lakes iu this part of the country, notwithstanding the 

 great yearly drain upon it and the number of anglers that 

 vi-it it. Several good hotels are on it, and the scenery is fine. 

 Lake llopateong is reached by the Morris and Essex R. K., 

 ferries at Barclay and Christopher streets, trains for the lake 



connecting at Drakesville, distance about sixty miles. This 

 lake furnishes some black bass and many pickerel. It is 

 quite a pretty lake ami has hotels. From Hopatcoug station 

 passengers go some three miles by canal before entering the 

 lake. Swarlswood Lake, near Newton, N. J., sixty seven 

 miles from the city, is reached by the Sussex branch of the 

 Del, Lac. A W, I!. I... ferries foot of Barclay and Christo- 

 pher Streets. This lake also abounds with pickerel and perch 

 ftnd I ii. fishing is oftetl good. The rivers readily accessible 

 from New York where the fishing is more or less good are: 

 The Delaware from Port Jervis lo within twenty -five miles 

 of Philadelphia, and there are also black bass in the Karitan 

 Kiver. 



Fly-fishing, where and wben the fish will take the fly, is 

 by far the highest of all fishing, but the black bass is a 

 notional fish, full of queer conceits about a diet, of flies, or 

 perhaps only regards them as dessert, to be taken in modera- 

 tion, or not at all, according as lus digestive organs may in- 

 cline him. Certain it is that the black bass cannot be 

 depended on to rise to the fly with anything like the cer- 

 tainty that we calculate on the rising of trout. Even trout 

 refuse to rise at certain, or uncertain, times, but the black 

 bass is always uncertain. For fly-fishing use trout tackle 

 With larger and more gaudy flies, and allow the latter to sink 

 and troll them after a cast, For casting or trolling the min- 

 now, a shorter rod, about eight feet, of some stiffness, and a 

 multiplying reel arc used. Still-fishing from an anchored 

 boat is done with rods of all kinds, but we prefer a trout rod 

 i i .. are forced to practice this method by reason of the re- 

 fusal of the bass to take the fly. Baits include frogs, 

 helgramit.es or dobsons, worms, minnows, crawfish, grubs, 

 grasshoppers, etc. Skittering a frog which, after being 

 humanely killed, is hooked through the jaws, is good sport, 

 and is done by standing in a boat while a manrows it slowly 

 near the likely spots, and casting the frog on one side and 

 jumping it along the surface two or three times and then 

 casting it to the other side. This often raises large fish, and 

 there is an amount of exercise attending it that lazy still 

 fishing does not firing. In doing this we prefer to stand in 

 the bow of the boat, although most men take the stern. We 

 prefer the bow because we then work water which has not 

 been disturbed by the oars. Trolling with spoons or min- 

 now gangs is a favorite with some. J I. requires no skill and 

 is a murderous practice as well as a lazy one. If bait is 

 used i't will save- much time, expense and disappointment to 

 carry it, for it is often scarce at the fishing grounds. 



Concerning the comparative gameness of the two species 

 of black bass, we agree with Dr. Henshall, and, in defiance 

 of popular opinion, claim as gamy qualities forthe big-mouth 

 as are possessed by his brother with the smaller opening in 

 his countenance. The big-mouth, when under two pound.' 

 weight, makes a splendid fight, although he has been cried 

 down, and it is fashionable to echo the cry. Welook forward 

 to the day when a fair judgment, irrespective Of prejudice, 

 will be rendered by intelligent anglers on this question of 

 comparative gameness, always making allowances forthe 

 weight of fish. We believe that the proper fighting weight 

 of a black bass j* from a pound and a half to two pounds, if 



English axo Amejucan Trout.— We would like a fair 

 discussion as to the comparative merits of the English trout 

 {Safmofaiio) and SaiveUnvs foniinalis. Those interested in 

 the subject may read Mi-. Chambers's remarks on American 

 trout in our review of "Fish and Fisheries." in our fish- 

 cultural columns. 



Jpu» tjlportstrfmi JJiw/fs/. 



THE WHISTLE OF THE ELK, 



BIE. I\ UFKORD. 



JUST who was responsible for the position in which we 

 found ourselves, was "one of them things no feller 

 could find out." Ignotus charged it upon John, John 

 shifted the burden to The Rhymer, while The Rhymer in 

 turn laid it upon the shoulders of Ignotus. Whether that 

 John was in hopes of discovering the mythical Dead Man's 

 Gulch, where solid nuggets of pure gold" as large as walnuts 

 or as pippins lay "thick as autumn lea res in Vallambrosa," 

 or that The Rhymer was fired with a wild desire to scale 

 heights reputed' to he hereto inaccessible to the white man's 

 foot, or that Ignotus was led by the hope of finding and 

 securing a specimen of that hunter's will o' the whis'p, the 

 mountaiu bison — certain it was, that the sun, descending be- 

 hind Dos Hermanns, seemed to wink derisively at our little, 

 party, as exhausted with the fatigues of mountain climbing, 

 w T e huddled together for the night on a rocky shelf on the 

 side of one of the steepest peaks of the steepest group of the 

 San Juan range, "the Needles." What there was in our 

 surroundings to induce auvone lo tempt the perils of the 

 break-neck climb hither would have been hard to tell. 

 Above and below, before and behind, on the right hand and 

 on the left, a monotonous uniformity of stone was varied 

 only by a uniform monotony of rock. Trachyte, syenite, 

 >r quartzite — black, brown or gray — cliff, talus', boulder or 

 ihde-rock — rent by the earthquake, pulverized by the thunder- 

 bolt, or polished by the sliding avalanche, rusty wjth stain 

 I iron, or ashen with the sickly gray of the lichen — i j very- 

 hereil was rock, rock, rock, that met our view, crouched 

 on the worn detritus at the base of one jagged cliff, and Eac- 

 aeross twenty yards of black chasm, another, no less 

 rent and torn — on the one side, the gorge above choked with 

 jagged boulders, heaped together in elemental confusion; 

 and on the other, the gorge below breaking off to the nether 

 world by a Devil's Staircase of shattered porphyritie steps — 

 our only bed the angular slide-rock, and our' sole lullaby 

 the shriek of the wind as it Swept through the pass; still 

 Gallio-like. we "cared for none of these things." 



w experience always pays for itself, even though its 

 price be tears, anil woe, and bloofll; and it was worth while 

 once in a lifetime to see nature iu her most savage mood. 



Stripped of all her virginal beaut-v at 

 vealed before us that night, cold, pilile 

 goddess whose breath was the hurrican 

 eves sharp thunderbolts, and in the tor 

 hand the chill of death. Little- recked w 

 laughed in her fai 



1 grace she stood rc- 

 ind cruel ; a demon 

 , the glance of her 

 •b of her bloodless 

 ', however; we had 

 •e not children of a 



younger world to grovel on our faces before her because she 

 chose for once in a way to show us the virago side of her 

 character. "Nature never did betray the heart that, loved 

 her," and we felt no fear of her, on whose lap we had so 

 often laid our tired heads and been lulled to sleep, like weary 

 children, by the crooning music of her voice. So we knocked 

 the ashes oiit of our pipes, smoothed out a place among the 

 rocks as best we Could, wrapped our blankets around us and 

 soon forgot our pains and aches in the gentle caresses of 

 eep. 



Next morning, after a breakfast of dry bread and jerked 

 beef, we swung to the left, flanking the cliff under which we 

 had slept, and after nearly four hours of painful climbing, 

 emerged upon a mesa, or upland meadow, thickly set with 

 clumps of spruce and alder and watered by a little stream, 

 which, taking its rise in the peaks to our left, poured its 

 waters into the gulch up which we had struggled the day 

 before. Deer signs were plenty, and while following one of 

 the freshest of the trails, intent on fresh meat for dinner, The 

 Rhymer suddenly stopped, as though petrified. 



"Hello!" he shouted to Ignotus, "who in thunder's got 

 cattle up here on this mess '. " 



"Cattle? What do you mean?" 



"Why. here are the tracks of a drove of steers — three- 

 year olds at. least." 



"Pshaw! you're crazy! No steer in the world could climb 

 up here." 



"Can't help that. Here arc the tracks; come and see for 

 yourself/' 



Over came Ignotus. 



"Bull elk, by gracious! and whop} :ts, too. Let's see; 

 one, two, three, four — eleven of 'em by Saint Patrick! The 

 biggest drove I ever saw." 

 "'You haven't seen them yet." 



"No, but 1 will to-morrow morning. If we don't have 

 elk steak for breakfast, it'll be funny." 



"Why not go for them now?" 



"Too late; they're gone up on the peaks. How's the 

 moon? Did you notice her this morning?" 



"Yes; she was about four hours high at sun-up." 



"Good; we'll catch 'em as they come down about day- 

 light. Not a cow or a calf among 'cm. Tell you wdiat, my 

 boy, it's going to take fine-haired work to get one of those 

 fellows; they're old soldiers, they are; but I think wc can 

 . them. Lucky you found the trail before wc 

 shot anything; they wont be scared. Mustn't lire a gun 

 to-day; bread and beef till to-morrow." 



"Why, if they're up in the peaks they couldn't hear a 

 gun from here; It must be at least three miles." 



"Don't care if it is; the wind's blowing that way, and 1 

 wouldn't guarantee an old bull elk from smelling powder 

 smoke twenty miles, if the wind was right. Queer, too; 

 the less they're hunted the more the smell scares them ; after 

 a while they seem to get used to it, and don't mind it. 



