270 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Nov, -i, 



mu employ, and hi the lust moment, iindei n pious pretense, 

 had refused outright to spell with us in rowing against a 



- iml. di:it till our sympathy tot the reel race* bad 

 melted into Quia air. But the talk was not altogether of the 

 Indians, French} rambled on at a great rate, and, among 

 other things, told mo no^ in- had round in b ■ .■■■■ i a 

 poeketbook which a pass, h?it bad dropped, and that it con- 

 tained $100 in momvj nnd a {50 check. "I had a telegram 



ioonasl found it," said be, "fknd the answer was 



1 o take out Ave dollar** and send the book on by the 



next train '■ u. > • ul ot something better to say, "for I 

 was uol much interested in tin- poeketbook storj . ) saidi 

 •And you sent it to him, did you 



m-m a hundred dollar do no good, i always -end 



little sum. Bill if it lie live thousand dollar, or three thous- 

 and— \e>,. if it be two thousand, l put it in inypockoj end 

 Say nothing, And when the mm eome and ask iue. I say 

 •No, no; i just haul people, I don' look!' " And he laughed 

 a loud laugh at what he evident Iv considered his own 

 ama/ina e, Hours-, while 1 fell for uiy'poekthonk. v. hieli had 



railroad tickets in il sufficient to carrj me home and about 



ten dollars iu mouev, ami I knew that' it was safe. 



In due time we boarded the train, and a run of six miles 

 brought us to "Perry',- Ciiiup No. 1," where we Stopped otf 



mid Rel no Din ' , ,,, the edge of (I potato Held. Mr. Bri.s- 



■■ til a. ;i»,Mi in Munisiug Station, wrote 



me a letter of introduetion to the gsntlemau who had the 



In .." and as he handed it to me, he said t fir. t 



he had "writ ten il in French and given the translation ill 



English, for he did not know which the gentlemon could 



read." NoSOOflOrdidl sec "the gentleman" than 1 knew 



Mr. Brissat had mistaken his man, for old Mike CTov 



was Irish from the crown of his bead to the sole of his foot. 



CgOl i I », and as he treated usrighl roy- 

 ally all the time we were with hiru, I give the agent all the 



credit 



Perry's Camp No. 1 is built em level land bearing a heavy 

 growth of timber, much of Which is, Or has been, white pine 

 of immense si/r. 1 measured a great many stumps that 

 Hettwi so.-: in diameter. 



After we had cleared away the brush ami pitched our 



lent, 1 asked alike ( who was so busy entertaining a trio of 

 women who bad stopped off the train that morning to in- 

 spect the coudition of the camps prior to their ocriupaucy 

 by a gang of lumbermen in a few days, that he could nol 



visit us) Whether there were any trout in the neighbor 



t 1. 



of Hum. if you can gel them to b-o-M-e."said be; 



and then he gave minute directions how to find a creek 



three-quarters of a mile distant, and left, die to rind my way 

 as r beat could 



1 went the same afternoon to the stream, which t found 



i' i i Uggiah and running through a natural 



meadow; ami rigging up a cast. 1 essayed in vain for a rise. 

 int d, J. returned to camp, where I met Mike, wdio 

 expressed great sui prise at .my failure. He said he "knew 

 they were hard lo get to b-o-f-t-e by one who didn't uuder- 

 iii. but he had never known one to fail altogether 

 befc LBdthei ' examined my rod, which he con 



demned, and ni s1 la- gave a contemptuous look at my flies. 

 which In- - .id were "useless," and tin n he overhauled my 

 assortment of Limerick and Sproal hooks and found fault 

 with them, "This," said he, 'is all the tackle I have," 

 and he exhibited the broken-off end of a. mountain-ash pole, 

 around which he had wound a. . shod., heavy Cotton line, to 

 which was tied a side be.ai n , :, '.; ,i. No, till, and above 

 that, a large flattened bullet had been rolled around the 



lillr:. 



The next two days were cloudy, drizzly and cold, and as 



Hie .Indians had said the deer were "suirtini I 



watched the crossing places along Hie rail .a. I o. - - 

 shot. None of the white hunters agreed with the rod that 

 the deei were then traveling, bin all Said thai ivhen such 

 was the case ttie railroad was a flrst-class hunting ground 



I ' s the den- never failed to play and feed Up and 



flown, the track for sometime before Grossing. T failed to 



gel a shot, bui I learned from their tracks that one never 

 failed lo walk up or down the side of the road from one 

 hundred yards to a quarter of a mile before crossing, and 

 From (be further fact that by far the greater number of 

 tracks came in from the north and crossed to the south, I 

 was induced to believe that the Indians were right and the 

 white men wrong as to the time when the deer began their 

 southern march. 



Between the D. M. and M. road and Lake Superior is a 

 vast and densely timbered region, which I was told sup- 

 ported countless numbers ot deer, and which will tor a long 

 time to come, afford a good range for (he deer hunter, 



Old Mike had made a "saltlick" nol far from where we 

 were encamped, and had constructed a verj ingenious com- 

 fortable blind within thirty yards of it., and l he second morn- 

 ing, by his permission, I went to it at an early hom with 

 my shotgun to watch for deer. By an oven ighl ! was with- 

 out suitable buckshot on the trip, but the (marges of B shot 

 which I had with me i thought heavy enough to kill at a 

 ' of thirty yards, Daylight came tliu* morning with- 

 : in Lo] '< i having been beard, but no sooner 



was it broad light than I saw a "big buck" approaching 

 furtively in the distance. He came within sixty yards, or 

 perhaps leas, and lifting Ids horns high in the air looked 

 steadily toward tin salted spot for some lime, when he look 

 a few steps and again elevating his nose stood broadside ; " 

 me, while 1 sat as still as a post, wishing he would come 

 closer and anathematizing myself for not having brought: 

 my Ballard alopg ' one qome along just then and 



.lie out of the blind 1 would have gone to my tent 

 without a word of complaint. As it was 1 sneaked in and 

 did not mention what 1 bad seen lor hours. 



1 think that buck had sonitlhiug to do with my return lo 

 the rod, for that afternoon 1 Went with old Mike to the 

 creek. .1 have seen some odd fishermen in my time, and 1 think 

 Crazy Jake, who fished for bullheads at the outlet of St, 

 Hi i in the Southern Michigan Peninenla, was the 



oddest of them all. lie could jerk a nibbling cat with more 



i e il . e wear rs irer oaths the meanwhile, than any 



one I ever did see. Next to Crazy Jake comes old Mike. 

 Mike fished 'villi a short stout line'tied to a stiff newly cut 



pole, and when he got a "b-oi-t-e' III joj'kei U3 1 pected 



out a panther. Occasionally hi,., unlucky trout woald 

 let go of the hook after leaving the water, and in such cases 

 it flew through the air like a stone from a boy's sling. Once 

 or l wicc he whacked hi-., fish with such violence against a 

 sapling us to disembowel il. But lie was more judicious in 



■ ■■ I .lake. It was the trout that were 



too emart to get hooked that he leveled bis tnaledi I 



and not the ones he. caught. The stream we were fishing in 



and which was a tributary of the Mauistique, was a small 



one, and at our Balling ground it ran through an old beaver 



IS IS I, I Mill 1-, I I niMjei! ;,| •, . ■ , , | ■ V , | j | | ' " [,luCk OldCtt.' 



In noplace was the water over four feet in depth, and sel- 

 d was il Over two. In the holes u these depths, trout 



could be seen literally by the hundreds (and I write this ud- 

 Saedly) ranging from fingerling- ,,, ten inches in length; 



riddled w ith the prints made by the young trout in hiding 

 themselves therein. 



The lb , I thing old Mike did after he had rigged up his 



|h ile was to prance around in the water above the 



boll I "Mv the stream. Then he east in and the trout 



bit greedily. A Iter catching n few he cut off the vent Pal fin 

 of a six-mob trout and fished with that , not forgetting to 

 e ..I waters muddy the meanwhile. My cast was a 

 single Hy, lad I soon saw that a fly was worse than useless, 

 sure enough, in that kind of fishing, and so I put on a split, 

 shot and a fin bail and "waded in. 1 * I think we fished an 

 hour, possibly an hour and a half, when we ceased muddying 

 tin- waters and went home, old Mike with thirty-six trout 

 and 1 with thirty-three. And that was the last time old 

 Mike and | fished together. 



Very soon after we had set up our tent at Perry's Camp, 

 ilie SwitzarWho had sailed with us the day WC left the 

 Pictured Rocks and had camped and broken bread with us at 

 Munising, passed down the road and stopped at Jerome- 

 ville, the first station, which was a mile below. Charley was 

 a find soul, and no doubt gave us a good name, f or the 

 evening of the same day he went down, Ed. Stevens, with 

 whom lie tint up in Jeronieville for a day or two, came to 

 our camp and advised us lo go dowu to his place and stop, 

 which we did, and much to the bettering of our condition. 

 There we found a good camp ground and good water, and 

 we were within a stone's throw of the stream in which old 

 -Mike and I bad fished. 



The mouth ot the Mauistique River, which discharges 

 inlo Lake Michigan, lies south. of our camp about thirty 

 miles, and the general course of the main branch of that 

 river upward is lo lie imrlheitsl. Its numerous tributaries 

 rise in the belt of high land that bounds the southern shore 

 of bake Superior from Grand Island lo the great sand hills, 

 forty miles to the eastward, and these tributaries, after 

 gathering the waters thai well up from the springs m that 



high laud, flow southeasterly and at right angles to the main 

 stream, down a gentle slope mainly parallel to, and at vary- 

 ing distances from each other. At Munisiug Station the 

 railroad track going east enters the region drained by the 

 Mauistique. mid making a long curve to the southeast, which 

 carries ii |S i\ mik-s further east and to Perry's Camp No. 1, 

 it then runs on a section line apparently as straight as it 

 ' .a, Id h urn by engineers and be built by skilled workmen. 



hi i ei of thirty-six miles, which carries il beyond the 

 Mauistique and its tributaries and into a region drained by 

 the Taquamenou. "Within the limits of that thirty-six miles 

 the railroad crosses twelve streams, little and big, "belonging 

 to the Manislique system, and of these f know that three con- 

 tain brook trout, and I have the authority of old Mike, who 

 was a laborer on the road, and savs he speaks from personal 

 knowledge, that three others also of thenumbei [iiewi 6 

 contain these beautiful fish. 



Jcromeville contained one house— the station-house, which 

 in the north side of the track and within six feet of 

 it, and was occupied by Edward Stevens and family, con- 

 sisting of his wife and two little girls, wilhwboin boarded 

 Joe and Jim, his comrades of the section gang. Out of the 

 greenwoods on the south side of the road we hacked a place 

 in which we set up our tent, and materially added to the 

 population oi' the place as long as we remained. 



One trout stream, as already slated, was at our tent door. 

 This was a small stream which after a mu of about twelve 

 miles was swallowed up by a larger one. This larger one 

 was crossed by the railroad a little over two miles east of 



our camp, ami less than a half mile east of that another was 

 crossed, and these two. after a run of about twenty miles lo 

 the southeast at varying distances from a hall' to two miles 



in I. other, united and formed what is termed, on the 



elaborate Mapoi the Northern Peninsula, published by the 

 Detroit, Mackinaw and Marquette Railroad Company, the 

 "N. Branch." I. fished in these streams near the rai'lroad 

 crossing and found plenty of trout, and of good size, Both 

 streams are too deep to wade, and both are badly obstructed 

 by brush and down trees, and the trout are consequently 

 hind to get at ; but when 1 did get one 1 nearly always got a 

 good one. I took no fingerlings, but found them running 

 from a quarter of a pound up to fourteen ounces by actual 

 weight. Every day that I visited these .streams 1 found il 

 necessary to coax a good deal, but after I left for home 

 Oscar and Ed, caught fifteen "big ones," out of one hole in- 

 side of thirty minutes one afternoon, which was ccitainly 

 good enough. Now, these two streams run for twenty 

 hi hward before they unite, and I know- of no reason 

 Why they .should not abound in trout all the way down to 

 their junction, and for that matter, down to" the mam 

 stream, which is twelve or fifteen miles further. 



t )n Saturday afternoon of the 19th of August. I thought 

 to bike my last fish, and lo (hat end set out to that part of 

 the stream on which we were camped, Where old Mike and 

 1 had caught sixty-nine in less than two hours a few days 

 before. I began 'fishing below the point to which he said 

 the fishing grounds extended, and by the time 1 reached that 

 point I had fifteen handsome fish, " Looking up stream, I 

 saw at a distance of about forty rods, a deer~feeding in the 

 meadow, and dropping my fishing tackle, 1 took up my rifle, 

 Which 1 had brought along, and availing myself of a clump 

 Of brush and a favorable wind, advanced lo within eighty 

 yards, when f got a fair lint quick shot, and my deer, after 

 a run of fifty yards, fell dead in the edge of the brush, shot 

 ih rough the heart. 



'the circumstance brought great joy and much self-gratu 

 lui ion to the -hooter, and put an end to further fishing on 

 that day, and also delayed his start for home until the fol- 

 lowing Tuesday, for llie venison had to bo jerked, which 

 took some lime. Sunday, Mr. Gtinton, wdio was connected 

 with (he lumbering interest at Perry's Camp (tor the eninp 

 hands had come), called at our tent; and in a conversation 

 With him. he said that a tramp two and a half miles south- 

 ward ' ei ul." i s to the northwest branch of the Mauis- 

 tique, the best stream of alitor trout. 



Monday morning, notwithstanding the drizzling eon 

 dition of the weather, Oscar and I set out for that best 

 stream, and a smoothly cut logging road carried us a mile 

 onthewoy. A quarter of a mile through a hear-, ■■■■■. ; 



of timber brought us to a tamarac . swamp. Ilw 



qui: iters through this, but, fortunately, ilie waler was no- 

 where over .-hoe (op deep, and there was no bad bottom. 



I . ; i; -amp a quarter of a mile in width, 



through which we floundered, after which we struck a nar- 



row ridge, bearing pine timber Of first-rate quality, and pass- 

 that, we entered a beaver meadow, through which 



,rlh, 



ich. 



YVc saw a great many (hick patches of what is termed in 

 that northern region "black alders.'' but certainly nowhere 

 did the black alders grow so thickly or tall as along the 

 northwest branch. No one can imagine how difficult; il is 

 lo crawl through these alders with 'rod and line who has 

 never tried it. Thev grow to the Very margin of the si ream. 

 and frequently overhang it so as to effectually prevent the 

 casting of a fly. But, notwithstanding the black alders, we 

 found the fishing superb. We took thirty-one, twenty-one 

 to my hook and ten to Oscar's, inside of eighty roils of 

 stream, and I do not think there was one that'would have 

 weighed less than six ounces, and at least ten of the entire 

 number would have weighed thirteen and fourteen. (In the. 

 stomach of one of the largest we found, when dressing it, 

 afull grown mole undigested.) One place, byway of ex- 

 periment. 1 managed to work a fly through the bushes and 

 into the water, audi counted eight rises to that fly in suc- 

 cession, but by reason of the brash f was unable to hook the 

 rascals, and they took care not to hook themselves. Mr. 

 Gunton told me that I would find a better disposition on the 

 part of the fish on that stream to take the. fly than in any of 

 the others, and so I did. The dav was cloudy and drizzly, 

 conditions favorable lo the trout 'biting, and" it may have 

 been that had we gone to the streams on the railroad that 

 day we would have met with the same degree of luck. Ed. 

 anil Oscar, as stated above, did take fifteen in half an hour 

 in one of those creeks, bul it was with bail. Be this as it 

 may. trout can be had in the tributaries of the Mauistique 

 by "any one who has the patience to crawl through the brush 

 for them, and in numbers that ought to satisfy any reason 

 able fisherman. 



But while 1 say this, I beg leave loadd that the half-pound 

 fellow that struck my hook the day Grandpap Barrington 

 and 1 went fishing away up in the While Mountains, had 

 more vim and spirit than any trout I caught in Thunder 

 River, Miner's Crock, or any of the Mauistique tributaries. 

 And I wish to further say that I did not find any fishing 

 that afforded anything like the sport that fishing for gray- 

 lings did in the An Sable or Big Creek, in the years Wl en 

 grayling fishing was in its prime. But these streams were 

 clear of brush, and the fly fisherman had an open field, 

 which makes all the difference in the world. 



And yet 1 never regretted the fulfilment of my lime more 

 than 1 did on this trip. My explorations in the Manislique 

 region had been confined to the near vicinity ot the railroad, 

 and as 1 glanced at the map, 1 was impressed with the 

 belief that to the southeast, at an accessible distance, was a 

 region abounding in princely fish. II would be difficult to 

 get into that region, no doubt, but then a determined couple 

 couki get into if, and all the more enjoyable would lie the 

 sport when once iu there. Either of the two streams iu 

 which I fished lying east of our camp and the northwest 

 branch lying tO the south, were large enough to carry a 

 boat, but the drifts and other obstructions Would make boat- 

 ing a labor altogether loo great. Other means of convey- 

 ance would have to be resorted to, but such means could be 

 had and these promising waters reached. 



Then again down the railroad toward the straits, a distance 

 of about forty miles, the Tcquamcnou takes its rise and, 

 ii, w i" ei twardand then northeastward, finally discharges 

 into the Tequamciion Bay. Bollock, in his "Gazetteer." 

 give that as a trout stream, but says it is difficult lo ascend. 

 And in a comparatively late number of FoKEST AltfJ Stream 

 I think f saw the statement repeated of the Tequamenon 

 being a trout stream. But Mr. MoKeown, the general man- 

 ager of the new railroad, told me that he had sailed the 

 upper half of that river and there were no trout to be found 

 in iis waters; but mascalonge or large size abounded— mas- 

 calonge weighing twenty-five pounds. His report was 

 afterwards confirmed by a surveyor, whom I met on the 

 train as 1 was on my way here, as to both troul and masca- 

 longe, and he show'ed me an awkward hand that had at 

 some former time got into the mouth of one of these last- 

 named and savage li-h and had been scratched and grooved 

 to such an exo-nt asto leave marks that would last a life- 

 time. 



The time had now come when, the dog days being over, it 

 was to be expected that clients would be gelling restless, if 

 ever, and so I had to go home. Our camp life, taken as a 

 whole, had been very pleasant. Excepting two or three 

 nights on Thunder River, insects had given as no trouble 

 whatever. In the long run the weather had been favorable. 

 The gale on Lake Superior had brought us no discomfort, 

 except that of delay, and a terrific thunderstorm one night, 

 while we were camped at Perry's, kept us awake the matter 

 of a couple of hours and no more. 



For the last time we noted the long twilight (hat charac- 

 terizes that high latitude, and which never ceased to be a 

 wonder to us . and for I he last time we sat around the camp 

 fire, and watched the flames as they waved and curled above 

 the burning wood. And as we talked over the events of 

 the five weeks since we had left home, a feeling of regret 

 came over us, that the time for our separation had come. 

 The boys had made the journey for the sake of health, and 

 so beneficial had the rough life been to them that they had 

 resolved upon a longer stay in the woods. Somehow, i was 

 loth to leave them, but alter I had given them a great, deal 

 of good advice, and bidden them good-bye the next morn- 

 ing, 1 reflected that after all their education in the mysteries 

 of camp life was by this time fairly good; that they had been 

 taught lo set a tent, to bake a slap-jack, to broil a fish, lo tic a 

 hook, to mend a rod and to catch a trout. And so I set my 

 face steadfastly homeward, and was glad when 1 got there. 

 And now. having written in brief over the scenes of that 

 journey. I go in memory back to the tributaries of the 

 Mauistique, and in imagination I look dowm the long and 

 winding "branches'' about which so little seems to be 

 known" and I resolve that another year, life being spared, 

 will find me not only invading the" solitude of the mighty 

 w T oods, through which' they run, and fairly rioting iu the 

 capture of some of the li'out with which 1 believe their 

 waters to be filled, but, also, sailing dowu the tranquil 

 Tequamenon in pursuit of the savage mascalonge that 

 swim beneath its floods. I>. D. BAKM 



FriANEi.rN, Ind., Oct. 24, 18S2. 



Black Bass Eisnrsa re Vhigixia. — Leeslmrg, Va., Oct. 

 23.— Last Saturday Judge Murray. Major Murray and my- 

 self caught, on Goose Creek, twenty five bass weighing 331 



pounds; two largest 31 and 2\ pounds, Cue with artificial 

 minnow; rest with live minnow. Could have caught more 

 but bait gave out. Several catches of twenty or more have 

 been made on the same creek. — "W. 



