THE 



AMERICAN 



'V rfil 



SPORTSMAN'S 



JOURNAL. 



lEnterod According to Act Of Congress, in the year 1879, by the Forest and Stream Publishing Company, in the OiHce of the Librarian of Coagress, at Washington 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 1880. 



CONTENTS. 



ANSWEttK TO CORRESPONDENTS ..- 413 



AncrtERV :— 

 Private Practice Club; Oritani Archers: Another Score 

 Card; Notes 410 



* Notes 412 



r in Pyrotechnics ; Amer- 



al Fishery Exhibition; Striped Bass and 



Califoro 



Dog Law ; Notes. . 



o ting Matches 411 



■I- Pelaae or hit 

 3, Bat? and BodS 

 ; Tine tone talai 



;rs' Department 4al 



Sea antj 



Klv-K- 



Kare 



; Florida Black Bass Fishing ; A 



§ui[ J&iffe* |f%. 



dren are busy smoking and drying halibut, herring and 

 herrings' eggs, the men being away in their canoes pro- 

 viding. There are any number of banks, beginning 

 about fire miles from here, where halibut of moat ex- 

 cellent quality and enormous size are caught. I had 

 wondered how the Indians managed to handle, in their 

 rather crank canoes, great fish weighing sometimes 

 three hundred pounds, but have learned. They do not 

 fish from the canoes, but set lines which are attached to 

 floats — generally bladders — to which are fastened little 

 flags on staffs, Among a group of them the fisherman 

 watches, and when the hooked fish has exhausted itself 

 towing the float, he is secured. 



The herring are here in force. These are caught by 

 means of of poles and boards, armed with sharp nails at 

 an angle. These are thrust under the schools, which 

 swim about two feet deep, and the fish are gaffed out, 

 " hooked up," as the process, slightly altered in details, 

 by which pike and suckers are in our rivers caught in 

 spring, is called. The. herring spawn in salt water, and 

 their favorite places are the quiet bays along the shores, 

 and there every kind of kelp and seaweed is crusted 

 with the spawn, and as the tide goes down and one walks 

 along the beach, every step crushes myriads. The In- 

 dians do not collect the eggs deposited on the seaweed, 

 but plant at half-tide marks rows of branches of cedar 

 and balsam, which, in a tide or two, become covered with 

 spawn ; these are replaced by others, and hung up to dry. 

 The spawn is eaten dried, raw and cooked in various 

 ways, and is very palatable in either. 



Into the bays, where the spawning occurs, a number of 

 small fresh water streams empty — a number unusually 

 large just now, as many come from melting snow banks 

 — but I noticed no bushes or spawn in the immediate 

 vicinity of the streams, and although 1 examined care- 

 fully, saw no signs of herring running up the fresh water 

 streams. The pools and rifts of Indian River are as clear 

 as crystal, and not a fin of herring or trout was in 

 either. 



We are getting just now plenty of the fish called cod 

 here, and I am in the minority when 1 take issue; with the 

 nomenclature, and again when I pronounce the cedfish 

 which is now plentiful and good, and weighing, in sunn 

 cases, thirty to forty pounds, to be a " Norway haddock.' 



Clams, which during the winter added much to oui 

 happiness, are now seldom in the market, whether 



Sitka, April 23d. 



I TAKE advantage of a temporary cessation of bright, 

 warm, dry, glorious weather to write up a little, 

 for during the last eight; weeks I have not been willing 

 to stay in doors an unnecessary minute. During the 

 winter months we had our share of unpleasant weather, 

 but the spring, so far, has made full recompense. To- 

 day it is raining a little ; not enough to show in the rain 

 gttage, but the contrast with the days gone before makes 

 us willing to " sit by." 



During March we had but nine clays on which it 

 rained, and fourteen on which more or less snow fell; 

 and of the 744 hours, 469 are marked " b. c." (blue sky 

 and passing clouds), 143 with snow or hail, and 66 with 

 rain and 67 cloudy. No fogs. April, so far, has done 

 nearly as well, there having been eleven days with clean 

 twenty-four hours record " h. 0t" and but six in which 

 ram has fallen during fifty-six hours, and snow fell on 

 six boms of two days early in the month ; thus, in 1272 

 hours, we have had but 122 of rain, 14.8 of snow, and the 

 temperature has been of the healthiest, 



It's time we began to get a little good weather, for we 

 have just passed through the most severe winter recorded 

 during forty-five years. I quote from Dale : " The ther- 

 mometer showed below zero but on four, and the lowest 

 temperature recorded was four degrees." This winte 

 "below zero" has been a moderate temperature, if it 

 didn't get too far down. We have had seven degrees 

 several times. We are improving the sunshine by doing 

 a little shooting ; there are quantities of oldwives and 

 shufflers ; the grouse, are beginning to report for duty, 

 and are brought in quite plentifully by the Indians, 

 whose desire for bits exceeds that of most of us for 

 sport, to be earned by tramps through a country which, 

 ordinarily rugged enough, is now pitfallen with soft 

 snow. A few mallard also are brought in by the Indians. 

 The standard price for grouse and mallard is " two bits." 



Ptarmigan have vanished, and are probably safe from 

 oven the Siwashes' pursuit, way up in the mountains, 

 sunning themselves on the snowbanks. 



Very little venison is brought in, and it is worthless. 

 The Indians are all busy fishing, and all along the beaches 

 are spr inkl ed with shanties, where the squaws and chil- 



because of any let up in their value, or because most of 

 the old klootchmen (women) who in winter gather them 

 are now busy with the less permanent herring. I cannot 

 say. Alaska clams are different from any that I have 

 ever seen elsewhere. Among our officers there is one 

 born and bred on Cape Cod, whose earliest reminiscences 

 are of clams, which grew both in his back yard and 

 front garden, so 1 referred to him for information, and 

 asked him " whether the clams here were Calista con- 

 vexas or Mya-artnarias? " I will spare you the first part 



of his reply, but after a bit, during which h< 

 control of himself, he informed me that the 

 to be a cross between a soft-shell cla 



itaiued 

 leemed 

 r : that 



ght-c 



i : 



ishes 



l flavor as do the 

 indulge in boiled 



they had the head and 



and shell of the lattei 



licious, and with a flavor pecul 



just about as much of the gentti 



"little necks." Besides clams \ 



sels and scallops, and the Siw 



squids. 



We get no crabs in the immediate vicinity, but in 

 summer very flue ones are brought from a bay about 

 fifteen miles from here. Dp the country somewhere 

 there must be some very large ones. I have procured 

 from Indians crabs of great size, the largest is of dimen- 

 sions as follows : length 54- inches, breadth at iuterseo- 

 tionof nippers 3£ inches, nippers, or mandibles, or what- 

 ever may be the name of the biting apparatus, length 

 3 inches! armed with, in each side, two teeth, larger than 

 those of a man. These claw-togs are studded with rows 

 Of projections one-quarter of an inch high. 



I have procured also from the Indians several pieces of 

 two kinds of coral, which they say were found on the 

 adjacent shores. I have sent them to Prof. Baird for 

 identification. 



Neither salmon trout nor brook trout have as yet: put 

 in their appearance, that is, in any stream we know of. 

 An Indian woman last week had a small string of the 

 latter, but I couldn't find out where she got them, and 



you may be sure I tried hard enough. We h.v 



very few wild geese this spring ; last fall they flew over 

 in great numbers going to the South, but they seem to 

 have staid there, or gone back by some other route. 

 There are lots of robins here now. but I think that they 

 are merely transients : they don't nest in this vicinity ; 

 came in flocks last fall and now are returning probably 

 to the Yukon neighborhood, where Dale found eggs. 



The spring is very backward in one respect ; ordinarily 

 by this time the lower mountains are clear enough of 

 snow for prospecting, but this year the miners, of whom 

 we have quite a colony, are in the dumps. They have 

 come here to hybernate, and have about used up their 

 stakes, and the non-expensive amusements of ball playing 

 and sitting around on the rocks whittling arc about all 



they care to indulge in. I wish right here to speak a 

 good and true word for them. During the whole winter 

 the miners here have conducted themselves in the most 

 orderly and respectable manner ; they have not evinced 

 a particle of opposition to any step which has been made 

 necessary for the better government of a few, who are 

 miners only in the sense that fishers are fish, viz., in 

 living ou them ; and they have given their willing coope- 

 ration in carrying out such simple laws as we have found 

 it advisable to establish from time to time. 



I think that before long there will be a " rush " for the 

 Chillcat country, where it is reported that placer work 

 will pay. Here we have nothing but ledges of auriferous 

 quart/,, that require money and time to develop, Up to 

 last fall the Chillcat Indians have objected strongly to the 

 white men penetrating their country, and during the 

 winter they opposed the entry of Mr. Muir and a mission- 

 ary — and in so doing were about half right, but reports 

 have come in lately that they would welcome the whites; 

 and to-day " Sitka Jack " returned from a trip there on 

 which he started last fall, and tells me that the Indians 

 will be glad to have the white men come. .1 was confi- 

 dent when I let this party of semi-civilized Siwashes go 

 up there that they would plant a seed which would 

 eventually produce a good crop, and so it has proved ; but 

 I've been roundly abused by the missionary organs be- 

 cause the crop did not follow immediately the planting. 

 As a matter of course, Prof. Muir and party, following so 

 close on the trail of Sitka Jack, found it more or less 

 ornamented with intoxicated Siwashes. It was the native 

 way of welcoming Jack, and if that reverend and scien- 

 tific party had had a little savey and waited a bit they 

 would have found that Jack's liquor would have run out, 

 especially as according to their report Jack got all the 

 Indians between here and Chillcat drunk and kept them 

 so, and then had enough left to till up the two Chillcat 

 villages with liquor, which "flowed like water." Of 

 course, considering the source, the published story, from 

 which the above is quoted, can't be exaggerated, but if it 

 isn't, Jack's canoe must have had tremendous carrying 

 capacity. 



Now the truth is, that is assuming that Jack tells it, no 

 " whiskey " was carried at all— that would have been un- 

 lawful—but Jack owns that he did carry a barrel of 

 molasses, and that i3 strictly in accordance with law. And 

 that barrel of molasses may have been instrumental in 

 opening the Chillcat regionto our miners. Undoubtedly 

 Jack, ndien it gave out and he got sober, rnourned for 

 more, and wished himself back "among the white men 

 from whom all blessings of that sort flow, and those wdto 

 mourned with him its early demise believed in the talcs 

 he told them of the good that the Silica Indians were 

 receiving from the whites. Jack himself made over §31)0 

 last summer at the cannery, and the suit of clothes 

 which he carried with him, starting with it on him and 

 probably entering all villages so arrayed, did more to- 

 ward converting these primitives than would a bushel of 

 tracts and a cord of Bibles, a blue frock, brass buttons 

 and colonel's stripes, a navy cap, with gold band and 

 device, and, I believe, a sword. 



If the miners start for the Chillcat, and several tell me 



„ shall, and get well treated, and strike it rich, that 



barrel of molasses will become as famous as the " barrel 



of money " and " bar'l of apple sass " of political and 



theatrical renown. 



Seriously, I believe 1 did right, and that the visit of mv 

 trained Indian has had au excellent effect upon his 

 wild friends, and that during the summer a great deal 

 will.be done to ward dev eloping the northern region, where 

 it is reported there are good placer indications. A little 

 schooner is now outfitting to start. 



April 28th. 

 The first salmon of the season made his debut to-day, 

 that is, if he is a salmon, and not some species of salmon 

 trout. 



Five of these beauties, from thirty to forty inches long, 

 came alongside to-day in a canoe paddled by a wild look- 

 ing and awe-struck Si wash, who with his crouching 

 klootchman (wife) and papoose in the bow, gaze .1 upon 

 our guns and us with an expression that showed them to 

 be unfamiliar with the sight. He was a stranger, and was 

 taken in, for he took willingly the two bits each that were 

 offered them for the fish, and no Sitka Siwash but would 



have asked us treble the price. Through 

 interviewed him. He had spent the ki 

 means the Last seven months) On a shanty 

 Shore Of lOnzolV Island, from which Moi 

 rears its eternally snow-clad peak, and h 

 well up among the foot-hills of that r 

 there was a little lake, from which there 

 Pacific a small stream, and that from tin 

 this stream lie had hooked these Hi 

 gash of the gaff in its silver v 

 " ' story ; and that theEe fisl 



prefer I 

 iter (and that 



n the western 

 t Edgecombe 



told me that 

 u n tain range 

 ■wed into the 

 icad waters of 

 I each by the 

 ride confirmed that part of 

 ,ayed all winter in this 



lake, and ran down the stream in spring. 



Now, Mr. Editor, if that Indian told the truth, 

 and the interpreter ditto, cither this is not a 

 salmon, or it is a salmon with very peculiar 

 habits. Before cooking, the flesh of this fish was as 



