FOREST AND kSTREAM 





' ii »a long as wo ■ 



[i the pilot Went t< I ' . - flio way 



Ibc course whh changed from limn to lime, for our boat 

 ■-. unj avoum the tail end iu Hie s:iine 



of "crack Hie whip;" bat about two in Hie morning we 

 i une up i" i he Point of Pines dock, Eaily the next day we 

 towed to tue Sault, descended the rapids, and reported all 

 well to the anxious ones we had left there during our 

 absence, 



1 ought to say that, in all my experience on the Agawa, 

 flies and mosquitoes have nevei -troubled us much. I felt. 

 tin- e-oid lly Once there when I went up the river before sun- 

 rise on a muggy morning, but never before or since. 



par Forest and Stream and Rod and Gun. 

 DO PICKEREL DESTROY TROUT? 



IN fancy I can "see the derisive smile -which will overspread 

 the couutenauee of every angler who reads the above cap- 

 tion. Do pickerel destroy trout, forsooth ! Are they not the 

 scourge of our inland ponds ? the sharks of our streams and 

 rivers? And forty years ago did not trout abound in thou- 

 sands of brooks and ponds where they are now wholly exter- 

 minated by these voracious monsters ? 



Softly, my friends ! It has been a litlie'moro than forty 

 years since the -writer, then a " barefoot boy," drew bis first 

 trout (a thrcc-pnunderj from the sparkling waters of the 

 Seboift just where it joins the PiaCataqiliS. And what, 0, 

 disciples of split bamboo, braided ailk, invisible gut and sing- 

 ing reels, do you suppose was the tackle Used on that monien- 

 tuous occasion? A black alder pole, cut on the spot, 

 to "which was attached a discarded bind from the busy 

 spinning wheel, which was then found in almost every dwell- 

 ing in the Stale. Fastened to this, by a black linen "gauge" 

 was a small but coarse wired and blunt-pointed hook, with 

 aside bend which we called a "curbed'' hook, being 

 as near as we could get to " Kirby." 1 bad caught a small 

 chub with this primitive tackle, and with a boy's cruelty was 

 amusing myself by spinning him through the water, when 

 bite tempting bait caught, the hungry eye of a magnificent 

 trout, which had probably just turned in from the river to be- 

 gin the ascent of the stream. With a lightning-like rush he 

 gorged both fish aed hook, and then commenced the " tug of 

 war." Ye Gods I what a commotion was created in that quiet. 

 eddy by the desperate and futile struggles of the. noble fish 

 to escape from the cruel hook, and my equally vain and fran- 

 tic, efforts to lift him from his native element. Finding my 

 strength unequal to the task of lifting him with the awkward 

 and unwieldly pole, I adopted the tactics of un older brother 

 who was over-matched by a big eel ; and shouldering my 

 pole, marched inland, dragging my prize ingloriously up the 

 randy beaeh, the rotten line giving away just as I got him at 

 a sat e distance from the water's edge. Since that" far away 

 day, I have fished the waters of Maine from the Sflco to the 

 St. Croixj from the sea to Allegash Lake ;— have taken the 

 "prismatic beauties" from the streams of Canada and New 

 Brunswick ; the crystal brooks of the White Hills of New 

 Hampshire the (jreui Mountains of Vermont; from quiet 

 pools and lovely lakelets of the noble North Woods, and the 

 fuaining cascades of the " Golden West " ;— but the feeling of 

 exultation which filled my breast, as with beating heart I lifted 

 up my glowing prize, has never been excelled. Hurrying 

 home and proudly displaying my I rot by, I well remember my 

 father's remark, that twenty years before, such trout were 

 ,[iei. common; but the pickerel were destroying them, and in 

 a short lime there would be no trout in any of the streams 

 where the pickerel, could reach. Of course this statement 

 was gospel to me, and for years I implicitly believed that 

 pickerel were the destruction and bane of trout fishing. 



At that time the former fish absolutely swarmed in all 

 weters of the lower Pi=catsquis and its tributaries. I have 

 taken as many as forty in a single day from a " set net " sixty 

 feet in lenglb, belonging to my father, which I tended for 

 several seasons. When Ihe writer was 13 years of age his 

 parents removed from the above river, settling down within 

 easy reach of one of the most famous pickerel and trout 

 Streams in the State. For ten miles it. meanders through a 

 natural meadow, and being totally devoid of current, and filled 

 wi.h eel-grass and lily pads, this formed a Bort of pickerel's 

 paradise, and from ii 1 have taken eighty in one day's fishing 

 with a single hook and line. The upper portion was almost 

 equally as good for trout, although there wa3 nothing to pre- 

 vent the pickerel from going the entire length of the stream, 

 and they were touud, although in diminished numbers and of 

 Smaller size, wberevera piece of dead water occurred, through- 

 out tbfi whole stretch of the trout fishing grounds, from 

 which 1 have can ght sixty trout averaging a quarter of a 

 pound apiece as the result of a single day's fishing. For a 

 dozen years the trout fishing remained almost equally good, 

 the pickerel in the meantime diminishing to less than one- 

 quarter of their original number, owing to the easy accessi- 

 bility of that portion of the stream by reason of which it was 

 thoroughly fished, especially on wet days during the haying 

 season. During all these years I was not only an enthusiastic 

 trout fisher, but a careful observer of their habits, as well as 

 of those of the pickerel, and my views in regard to the de- 

 structiveness of the latter, so far as trout were concerned, had 

 beooi idifled notwithstanding the tenacity with 



which boyish opinions and prejudices cling to the mind in 

 afterlife, 



The total dissimilarity in their habits and in the character 

 of the wafers which they inhabited were among the reasons 

 which contributed to produce this change ; but far greater 

 than these was the fact that in all the hundreds, and I might 

 say thousands, of pickerel which I bad dressed, not one trout 

 h ul ever been found. The undigested fish found would be 

 about in proportion of three of their own young to two 

 "chubs" (so called, but really dacrf). This was a stag- 

 gerer; for two spring brooks ran directly into the meadow 

 nbove-mentioued, and at the mouths of these, at rait inter- 

 vals when all conditions were favorable, splendid catches of 

 trout could be made, ranging all ihe way from one-quarter 

 to three pounds, and some of the latter weight were even 8C- 

 allj caught among the lily-pads when trolling for pick- 

 erel, i reasoned that if the dace could remain in the very 

 haunts of the pickerel in undiminished numbers, when every 

 mess of the latter which were dressed proved beyond cavil 



that the former were being swallowed by thousands, why 

 should t.bey exterminate trout, whose agility not only suf- 

 passedbotfi so far as to bo beyond comparison, but whose 

 borne "Was in the coldest and swiftest pans of the streams, 

 places abhorred by their foes? Doubts as to the truth of the 

 assertion heard on every side that the diminution of trout was 

 due to the presence of pickerel having thus arisen in my 

 mind, I have striven by a course of patient observation, ex- 

 tending- over a period of more than twenty years, to solve 

 them. The result has been a settled conviction, that ffie de- 

 struction of trmit in their native i.trcams hy pickerel is a myth; 

 and if they are eaten at all it must be iu such insignificant 

 numbers as to be totally discarded from among the causes to 

 which we attribute the lessening numbers of trout in certain 

 localities each succeeding year. 



This conclusion has been reached, in spite of all my preju- 

 dices being in favor of the latter as against the former. Of 

 course, this does not apply to ponds and artificial breeding- 

 places, where the trout have uo room or place of escape -, for 

 I must not be understood as holding up the idea that a pick- 

 erel would not catch a trout if an opportunity presented it- 

 self for doing so. 1 also firmly believe that the ova of trout 

 are never disturbed by them, under any circumstauces ; and 

 this for two reasons. One is that the pickerel is not a bottom- 

 feeding fish, and, as far as my observations extend, never 

 noticing anything which has not the appearance of life ; and 

 although on very dark, cloudy days it can be caught near the 

 bottom, it is necessary, in order to be successful, to let the 

 bait sink, and then raise it suddenly, the fiah seizing it as it 

 ascendsT Neither does the pickerel move much at night, as 

 any one who has speared tbem can testify. The other and 

 stronger reason is the fact that trout always, if possible, se- 

 lect broad and shallow places for their spawning-beds, where 

 the water runs over sand or gravel ; and it is no unusual 

 thing to see them depositing their ova in water so shallow 

 that' their dorsal fins protrude above the surface. Nothing 

 could be more repugnant to the well known habits of the 

 pickerel than to remain on such places, and I do not believe 

 the person can be found who ever saw one there. Certainly 

 not the writer. 



Immediately after being hatched out, the young trout 

 leave the larger streams and retire up the innumerable runs 

 and rivulets, which always abound on all good trout streams, 

 in many instances passing many roils under ground, to re- 

 appear in some boiling spring or pool. There they are safe 

 from all cnemie3, except such as will be hereafter mentioned, 

 and here they remain till they are of a size, which varies 

 according to the character of the water they inhabit. In 

 some little brooks none will be found Over four inches in 

 length ; in others, which do not appear any larger, they will 

 remain till they are twice that length. Perhaps the greater 

 abundance of food is the cause ; at any rate, the facts are as 

 Btated. 



Having now stated a proposition so much at variance with 

 all preconceived ideas, I wish to fortify it with some facts, to 

 avoid being overwhelmed with the ridicule of unbelievers : 



The Little Sebois, to which aliusion was made at the begin- 

 ning of this article, is well known as one of the streams in 

 which the Fish Commissioners have (at two different times, I 

 believe) placed a large supply of young salmon. Twelve 

 miles from its mouth, and three above the place where the 

 salmon were deposited, the stream forks, and at the head of 

 each branch are large lakes. These, as well as the stream 

 throughout its entire length, have been filled with pickerel 

 for over fifty years. On the east branch, eight miles above 

 the forks, is a bog, nearly three miles long. Here the stream 

 is nearly fifty feet in width, and from ten to twenty feet in 

 depth in the driest seasons, when scarcely water enough flows 

 out of it to float an empty canoe. Being eight miles above 

 the nearest settlement (Whitney Badge), whose inhabitants 

 have plenty of Ashing nearer home, the pickerel breed among 

 their favorite lily-pads undisturbed, and there are more of 

 them in that piece of dead water l ban in any place I ever saw 

 in my life. From the foot of the bog to the forks it is all 

 rapid water, and in the lower portion of this I caught, two 

 years ago last June, with rod and reel, 104 trout, weighing 

 from I to l^lb. each I The reason of my great success was 

 Undoubtedly duo to the fact that a million feet of logs were 

 "hungup" in the stream above, owing to the dry season, 

 and their presence prevented the trout in a measure from 

 ascending; but it shows that the trout were there. They 

 were caught inside of three hours, and from all appear- 

 ances the catch might have been doubled had one chosen. 

 This stream flows untrammeled by shingle mill or factory. 

 It is too far away for city anglers, and for twenty years 

 the otter and mink have been trapped off it by two of the 

 most skillful trappers in the .~tate. Thus, on this stream, it 

 will be seen, none of the three causes exist, to which alone, 

 in my estimation, we are indebted for the destruction of our 

 trout. 



At the foot of the bog above mentioned a dam has been 

 built for driving purposes, the gates of which I found shut, 

 on my first arrival at the place, having been left in that con- 

 dition by the drivers to save water in case of a "June 

 frsshet." As this interfered with some lumbering operations 

 which I designed prosecuting in th it vicinity, I hoisted the 

 gate, and launching a canoe into the dead waters above, 

 tound that there was nearly two feet of water over the en- 

 tire bog, which in BOme places is half a mile in width, and 

 the pickerel had deserted the stream and spread out all over 

 the bog. 



Paddling up to where, at low water, a little spring brook 

 came in, I jointed up a trunk rod with which I was provided, 

 together with all the necessary adjuncts, and in les3 than half 

 an houi caught seven trout, whose weight aggregated ten and 

 one-half pounds. Having no landing-net or companion, I 

 was forced to lift (hem all in over the side of the cauoe by 

 the leader, some of them towing me several rods before they 

 gave up the fight. If any one has any doubts as to the diffi- 

 culty of this kind of fishing— standing alone in the centre of 

 an extremely light and "ticklish" birch— a single trial will 

 suffice to convince them of the contrary, Of course, I 

 thought that I had struck a bonanza, and in a very few days 

 revisited the spot for another mess of trout. The water had 

 fallen a foot below the banks, and at the first five casts I suc- 

 ceeded in losing three flies and landing two pickerel. This 

 was exasperating, and removing my leader I substituted a 

 McBarg bait, and without moving from the place where I 

 had fastened my canoe, I caught fifteen pickerel as fast as I 

 could remove the gang from their mouths and recast— some- 

 times three or four darting for the glittering bait at once. 

 This state of things lasted through the entire' season. Some- 

 times, just before sunrise, or after sunset, I could catch a 

 few noble trout; but the pickerel soon exhausted my stock of 

 flies, and we had to content ourselves with pickerel, gave 

 wheu I could spare time to visit the stream below the dam, 

 where one was always sure of a fair catch of trout. 



Here, then, is a stream which has been filled with pickerel 



for more limn fifty years, and yet flic trout Qgnlng in it will 

 favorably with any stream that, cm be named, where 

 pickerel were never known. 



Hut this is far from being the only instance 1 can name. 



Twenty-live years ago T cut a 'hole through the ice. on 

 Madeceuuk Lake flud caught through it seven trout and five 

 pickerel. The oldest inhabitant could not then remember 

 wlmn there were no pickerel in Madecennk Lake ; and yet at 

 that time, and for ten years subsequently, the trout fishing, 

 from the outlet to the river (about four miles), was simply 

 superb. Now the fishing is best represented by an innumer- 

 able row of ciphers. And Bangor anglers execrate the pick- 

 erel ! It is singular that their "taste for trout was not devel- 

 oped, after over half a century of quiet existence together, 

 until after the completion of ihe E. & N. K. K., which sent 

 swarms of fishermen from the city each season on to the 

 banks of the Btream, it being only about an hour's drive from 

 Mattawamkeag. Both branches of the Penobscot Kiver are 

 filled with pickerel for many miles, the east, as far S3 Grand 

 Falls, above which they are not found, and the west, up to 

 and including the lower lakes. Not only is good trout fish- 

 ing found in the streams flowing into both these branches be- 

 low the points named, but it is excellent at proper seasons in 

 the branches themselves. 



Now let us examine the condition of some famous trout 

 stream, where these scapegoats are not found. A single ex- 

 ample will suffice. This shall be the Big Wilson, flow i ug 

 into Sebcc Lake. This magnificent stream, which in any 

 other Stalo;w T ould be called a river, flowing from a noble 

 pond through a succession of wooded hills and mountaius, 

 fed by a multitude of sparkling brooks, clear as crystal, seems 

 designed by nature as the very home of the beautiful and 

 agile fish which formerly peopled its waters by thousands. 

 VV here are they now ? Echo answers— where ? It is doubt- 

 ful if there was a stream within the boundaries of the State, 

 thirty years ago, where better trout fishing could bo found 

 than in the Big WUaon, and certainly there is none of equal 

 size and capacity, and equally free from mills and settle- 

 ments, where to-day it is as poor. And why ? The answer 

 is easy. Big Wilson Pond is only three miles from the foot 

 of Moosehead Like, and connected with it by a wagon road. 

 This pond seemed to be the breeding-place of the trout for 

 the entire length of the stream, it being too rough and rocky, 

 apparently, to afford many spawning beds, and all the brooks 

 which flow into it have, owing unfortunately to the moun- 

 tainous character of the country, falls near their months from 

 thirty to eighty feet in height, aud above these no I rout an: 

 found in any of them. Nowhere in that portion of the State 

 were brook trout found so large as in Wilson Pond, and no- 

 where else were they so capricious in their tastes, so shy and 

 so difficult to catch. Hence a piece of fat pork on a coarse 

 hook bad no charms for them, ami even the persuasive, wrig- 

 gling of the angleworm failed to lure many of the wary beau- 

 ties from their liquid home. Even the skilled angler with all 

 his changes and combinations of artificial flies, would fre- 

 quently fail for days together to evoke a single rise. But 

 a live minnow attached to two hundred feet of line, towed 

 rapidly through the water by a boat or canoe, was always an 

 effective method to take them ; and I regret to say that tbia 

 unsportsmanlike and disgraceful mode of brook trout fishing 

 has been followed by gentlemen who ought to know belter, 

 till the trout in the lake are well nigh annihilated ; and ihi--, 

 with the fly and bait fishing for five or six miles below the 

 lake, has been sufficient to' destroy the trout fishing iu this 

 splendid stream, although there is a long stretch below this 

 very little fished. This result has been hastened by the ob- 

 struction in the brooks mentioned above, and it would be 

 well could some person be found public-spirited enough to 

 stock them above the falls, most of them being all that could 

 be desired for trout brooks for miles. 



But it is not iu our own State that the evil effects of over- 

 fishing and unlawful methods of tront taking have reached 

 their full effects, but in the Adirondacks. Take the main 

 road, where if crosses the Indian River, as a central point, 

 and within a circle of ten miles in diameter there are at least 

 ponds, all formerly filled with trout, wh?re now not a 

 ne of these beautiful fish csn be found. Some of 

 these have been denuded of their trout for years, and some 

 ODly recently, but all by the same means— persistent fishing, 

 supplemented by the gill-net of professional fishermen to 

 furnish the tables of fashionable hotels at Saratoga. In all 

 these ponds not one pickerel was ever known, but they are 

 now being slily stocked with these fish— not by the guides, 

 who destroyed the trout, but by lovers of legitimate trout 

 fishing, who are exasperated at the infamous mode of their 

 destruction, and who know the utter futility of attempting to 

 restock them with trout. Perhaps in after years, when 

 pickerel shall have become plenty iu these ponds, we shall 

 hear that the trout were exterminated by them I 



From what one bears of the threatened destruction of trout 

 by pickerel in ihe Racquette, one would naturally suppose 

 thai their introduction there was a very recent matter; but 

 the writer spent part of the autumn and winter of lstifj on that 

 river, and at that time it was filled with pickerel. The 

 amount of trout that were caught after the lakes froze over 

 was simply astounding ; they were literally hauled out by 

 horse loads. This was about, ihe lime Murray's articles were 

 being published in the A Uantic, I believe. These senlhundreds 

 upon hundreds of anglers and pleasure seekers into those 

 sylvan retreats, aud to them and not to the pickerel is due the 

 diminution iu the numbers of trout. But the pickerel of 

 Long Lake and the adjacent waters must not be confounded 

 with those of our own State. They are much more nearly re- 

 lated to the muskalonge of Lake Champlain, the St. Francis 

 Kiver, aud other St. Lawrence waters. 



A gentleman who owned a large farmland also a sawmill, 

 situated on a stream running into Indian River, had on one 

 portion of his land a small pond, about five acres in extent, 

 with a small outlet running into the stream just above the 

 mill. This pond had been totally denuded of trout for 

 some years, and one day, being on a fishing excursion to 

 North River, the thought occurred to him to carry home 

 some pickerel for the purpose of stocking his pond. He 

 therefore took a couple about a foot in length in a large pail 

 with which he happened to be provided, and turned them 

 loose in this pond. By singular good fortune they chanced 

 to be a male and female, and as the outlet, where it left the 

 pond was completely choked up by the debris which had fal- 

 len into il, they were unable to get out, and in a fewyears tho 

 pond was fully stocked, but owing to Some cause, probably 

 the confined space and want of outlet, they u'terly refused to 

 bite any and all kinds of bail. Ai lue end of four years, not 

 having caught a single fish, be furnished himself with a spear, 

 aud parrying a light boat into the pond after nightfall, placed 

 a torch in the bow, and succeeded in spearing about 

 twenty, one of which, much larger than any of the rest, and 

 undoubtedly one of the original two placed in the pond, lipped 

 the beam at 15 lbs, Tho following spring a tremendous 



