FISH AND FISHING. 



45 



much larger ones than we had but not so 

 many. About 2 o'clock we all 4 went out 

 again and fished a while. Soon we had as 

 many as we thought our friends and our- 

 selves could eat. All told, we had 900 as 

 nice trout as any person could wish. You 

 may not believe this. Many of our friends 

 did not, when we came home so soon ; 

 but when we opened the boxes and showed 

 the telltale hook mark in the mouth of 

 every fish they could not help believing. 

 James H. Blackbrough, Charles Beaudette, 

 Ernest Beaudette, Eugene Conrad. 



Mr. Editor: 



I don't know if you are going to publish 

 this or not but if you are in justice to me 

 Please fix up a little as i am a verrie poor 

 schollar and my friends may see it and the 

 way i have of telling it may not look verrie 

 well in print but is true in every respect, 

 as i could prove by dozens of people here 

 now i hope that this is filling the bill as 

 you wished it. Yours respectfully, 

 James H. Blackbrough, Anaconda, Mont. 



P. O. Box 336. 



P. S. — Annie Inquiries will be cheerfully 

 answered by me, cumming from annie per- 

 son intrested. Yours, 



J. H. B. 



Blackbrough's report is certainly unique. 

 He says he and Conrad took 355 trout in 

 one hour and 10 minutes, and that the 

 entire catch of the herd was 900 trout. 

 This record of 355 trout in one hour and 10 

 minutes sounds very fishy. It means about 

 one trout every 25 seconds for each man. 

 Does anybody believe that story? It 

 sounds as if these trout had been netted, 

 after all. Men who would make such ra- 

 venous hogs of themselves as this crowd 

 did, would net trout ; then sit around the 

 camp fire and mutilate the mouths of the 

 fish if necessary, to try to convince their 

 friends that they had taken the fish with 

 hook and line. However they may have 

 been taken, the performance is disgraceful 

 and disgusting in the extreme, and the 

 brutes who did the work should be tarred 

 and feathered and run out of town. 

 Their brands in the fish hog pen are as fol- 

 lows : Blackbrough, number 885 ; Charles 

 Beaudette, 886; Ernest Beaudette, 887; 

 Conrad, 888. — Editor. 



A SURPRISING ADMISSION. 

 For several years J. C. Bradley and M. 

 S. McCreary, with their families and mine, 

 all of Erie, Pa., have camped at the Elms, 

 Chautauqua lake. This is a delightful 

 place to camp. We have good fishing, pure 

 spring water, bathing and clean shores. 

 We catch principally black bass and musk- 

 alonge. Last season the water was so high 

 that fishing was not so good as usual, but if 

 we could not catch fish we could at least 



see them. One night 3 of us rowed out in 

 front of camp and held 2 bicycle lamps so 

 that, they reflected into the water, showing 

 us large numbers of bass and muskalonge. 

 One big fish jumped clear over the boat. 

 We thought it would be profitable to set 

 night lines, so the next day we baited about 

 100 hooks and as soon as it became dark 

 we took the lines, anchors and floats and 

 started out to set them. Just then 2 men 

 walked out from the road and stood 

 watching us. We knew it was against the 

 law to set night lines. Finally one of the 

 men said, "Well, they are out there for no 

 good anyway." We knew we were in for 

 a fine of $25 apiece, so we pulled for the 

 inlet, jumped ashore, ran about a mile to 

 the railway station and returned to camp 

 from another direction, taking off our 

 sweaters, so the supposed wardens would 

 not recognize us. The camp was all light- 

 ed up and the ladies were sitting around 

 outdoors. Wiping the perspiration from 

 our brows, we looked out on the lake and 

 beheld our supposed fish wardens spearing 

 by torch light. 



T. W. Kelley, Erie, Pa. 



ANSWER. 



I am surprised that you, or any one else 

 claiming to be a sportsman, should delib- 

 erately engage in a method of fishing that 

 you know to be illegal, and I trust that on 

 further reflection you may decide never 

 again to violate a game or fish law, no 

 matter whether in danger of discovery by 

 an officer or not. 



TRANSPORTATION COMPANIES PLEASE 

 READ. 



The following letter explains itself: 

 General Manager, 



Lake Keuka Navigation Co., 



Hammondsport, New York. 

 Dear Sir : 



A member of the League of American 

 Sportsmen, in Rochester, has sent me a 

 leaflet, which bears the signature of your 

 company, showing on one side a picture 

 of 2 men and a lot of trout laid out on 

 the ground. On the reverse side is a state- 

 ment that these 56 lake trout weighed 164 

 pounds, and that they were caught in a few 

 hours. 



My correspondent writes a severe criti 

 cism of your company for exploiting the 

 work of the 2 fish hogs shown in this 

 picture, and you may rest assured that this 

 circular will impress all clean, decent 

 sportsmen who see it in the same way that 

 it does him and me. For many years it has 

 been the custom of certain transportation 

 companies to send out such pictures in the 

 way of advertising their respective terri- 

 tories ; but of late, a number of companies 

 have quit this entirely because they have 

 found that instead of attracting good 



