<s 



170 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[March 80, 1SP2. 



an old hen with chicks most any day, Imt by the 1st of Sep- 

 tember could not find iliem, and they were not found (at 

 least by the sportsman). What, the foxes, hawks, and wood- 

 cock-shooters got while they were just old enough to fly upon 

 a raspberry bush will never be known, I am in favor of 

 making the close seasou on woodcock and ruffed grouse Sep- 

 tember 1, and think by doing this wc will have more birds. 

 Hawks, owls, foxes, red squirrels all may kill some, but these 

 are nothing compared to the army of pretended woodcock- 

 shooters that shoot erouse all through the month of August. 

 — H. 



Poaching is Cayuga Lake. — The Seneca county (N. Y.) 

 Courier says: It is currently reported that a large number of 

 fi&h are daily caught in an illegal manner from Cayuga Lake 

 and the outlet; and shipped, both from this station and at 

 Cayuga, to New York. The lake near the railroad bridge is 

 full of fykes, and the same is said to be the ease in the out- 

 let. It is about time a, stop was put to this. If the law is 

 defective, so that, our officers are powerless in this matter, it 

 should be amended ; lmt we believe that under the .present 

 laws much of this kind of fishing can be stopped. Parties 

 in this village would take measures to have the lake stacked 

 with fine game fish if the above practice was discontinued, 

 but until it is done our local Izaak Waltons, who fish in a 

 legitimate manner, will have to go to other waters in order to 

 be successful in any degree. It "does not speak very well for 

 our two local sportsmen clubs that they do not make any 

 more effort to prevent all illegal fishing in this section of the 

 State. 



WmcHENDON Explains, — Winohendou, Mass., March 20. 

 — Mlitor Forest and Stream: In your issue of March Hi inst., 

 your correspondent "K." takes" the Winehendon Gun Club 

 to task severely for shooting partridges out of season, viz., 

 on Feb. 27. That would be all correct if the Wincliendon 

 Gau Club were guilty, as alleged. But they are not; there-' 

 fore his virtuous indignation is all wasted. Whoever gave 

 that item to the Forest and Strbam of March 2 did 'not, 

 for some reason, give it correctly as to game or numbers. 

 The only game to be killed and counted were rabbits, squir- 

 rels and foxes, and no partridges were counted and none 

 brought in. The. count for my side should have read, 

 "twenty-three rabbits and two squirrels;" nor were there any 

 partridges killed by the other side. The club know what 

 the law is, and mean to help enforce it, not break it.— -JAMES 

 Sutherland. 



The Mississqroi Marshes. — Montreal, March 24 — A few 

 friends here have leased part of the Highgate marshes for six 

 years, with the option of buying at the end of that time. 

 The club has taken the name of (he Mississquoi Gun and 

 Fishing Club. They hope to control the greater portion of 

 the marshes later on. At present arrangements are being 

 made to have a small club house built, sow wild rice through 

 their portion of the marsh, and employ a watcher, through 

 the close season at any rate, and probably throughout the 

 whole season, and if arrangements can be made with the 

 other clubs, have barbed wire strung across the bays and 

 mouths of the rivers and sloughs. There is no reason why, 

 if properly protected for a few years, it should not become 

 one of the finest fishing and shooting grounds for miles 

 around — Mississquot. 



A Veteran Deer Hunter. — We have received from our 

 well-known correspondent, 'Antler," a dressed doe skin, 

 with a pleasant note accompanying it. 'Antler" says: It 

 is taken from' a doe, one of the last deer of my own killing, 

 and is also one of the last skins of my own dressing, and as 

 I am on the wrong side of 70, it is quite likely to remain the 

 last. The deer was shot with a Spencer rifle, and you will 

 readily see by the bullet holes that two shots were made. 

 The second shot was an act of snperogation, (as the lawyers 

 would say) but the deer was shot while running, (not chased 

 by dogs, how r ever) and I never have been quite smart enough 

 yet to" know just bow bard a. deer is shot while on the run, 

 until he falls. 



The Texas Convention.— McKinney, Tex., March 18, 

 1882. — Please say to the readers of your journal that the 

 annual meeting' of the Texas Sportsman's Association, will 

 be held at Austin, Texas, from May 29 to June 2 inclusive. 

 A liberal programme will be offered, and plenty of shooting 

 will be had at birds, balls and clay pigeons. Please invite 

 all sportsmen, either in or out of the State, to be present and 

 participate, and we would like for all that desire the protec- 

 tion of fish and game to be there and co-operate with us, as 

 we want to make this the paramount object of the associa- 

 tion.— G. A. Foote, President of Texas Sportsman's Asso- 

 ciation. 



West Medpord Shooting Chub.— The annual meeting 

 and election of officers of the West Medford Shooting Club, 

 West. Medford, Mass., took place on Monday, March 30, 

 The following were elected: C. M, Barrett, President; C. F. 

 Jordan, Vice-President; J. E. Ober, Treasurer; W. T. Morse, 

 Secretary; Executive Committee: E. G. Morse, W. F. Sym- 

 mes, J. A. Eockwood. The past year has been a successful 

 one, both in point of increase, in membershipand finance. 



%spobts of Field Excursions, stories of adventure and 

 misadventure in camp, notes on the haunts and habits of 

 game, hints and instructions drawn from practical experience, 

 narrations of the thousand and one new, strange or odd 

 things which the sportsman comes .across in his travels — all 

 these are to be found, indexed, in the Seventeenth Volume 

 of the Forest and Stream. 



Dunraven's Nova Scotia Troubles.— Halifax. N. S., 

 March 25.— Lord Dunraven has brought a suit for $5,000 

 damages against the magistrate, who issued the capias under 

 which the Earl was arrested while hunting in the woods of 

 Queens county without a license. His companion, Mr. Jen- 

 nings, has also sued for a like amount, 



Evening Shade, Arkansas.— There are some deer and 

 once in a while a bear. Lots of fish and turkeys here. The 

 quail are scarce. I have a. pointer bitch, lemon, which is a 

 daisy among the turkeys.— J, G. S. 



j|j»# mid §iver «0sMng> 



» 



It. is affecting to see a distant mountaintop, whereon you camped 

 for a night in your youth, still as btuo and ethereal to your ryes, as is 

 yourmemory of it. Ic. lies like an isle, in the far heavens, a part of 

 earth unprofaned, which does not bear a prie • in the market; is not 

 advertised by the real estate brokers.— Heurv I>. Thoreatj. 



THE DEAD FISH. 



PUBLISHER'S DEPARTMENT. 



Camp Chaos,— Mr, Thos. H. Chubb, Post Mills, Vt., is advertising a 



very serviceable and important article iu the shape of fold] I o 



chairs. They are ue-itle packed in crater, one dozen in each, at a l»w 

 prjoe untl are undoubtedly e >, ■■!■.' . . . ..j,.u m '. Mr, CttUDb 



1 '■ ■■:,.— I • .'.-:, ,t|o|>; we 



: • i-wlir, 



DURING the first half of the week ending March 25 

 several vessels arrived at New York and other northern 

 seaports, and reported having sailed through acres of dead 

 fish, which were floating on the surface. These accounts 

 came from over a wide stretch of ocean, and seemed to show 

 that a licit of dead fish extended from George's Bank, off the 

 coast of Massachusetts, as far south as Barnegat, on the JNcw 

 Jersey coast, some 300 miles, and from thirty to fifty miles 

 wide. 



The fish were called salmon, shad, red snappers, codfish, 

 and a half a dozen other species, but no skipper had been 

 enterprising enough to bring in specimens, and the know- 

 ledge of species possessed by the average sailor is not such as 

 to wan-ant a belief in his judgment on this question. Throw- 

 ing aside the question of species the fact remains that a great 

 mortality had taken place among one or more kinds of our 

 sea fishes, and it became a question of more importance to 

 know which fish, or fishes, had suffered, than to attempt to 

 ascertain the cause. Mr. Blackford left no stoue nnturned 

 to gather what information he could, and Professor Baird's 

 interest, is shown by the following letter : 



United States Commissioned of Fish and ) 



Fisiikiurs, Washington, March 24, 1882. J" 



My Dear Mr. Blackford: I wish very much you would 

 gather up all the information you can in regard to' the occur- 

 rence of the dead fish, and also any indications observed 

 which may lead to a definite conclusion as to what kind of 

 fish they were. So far as I can judge from Boston and New 

 York papers they, in part at least,"were tile fish. It is pos- 

 sible, their appearance being almost concurrent with, or but 

 slightly subsequent to, the great storm off George's Bank, 

 that the commotion of the waters may have killed the fish 

 by concussion and started them shoreward. It is a thousand 

 pities that fishermen and others have not sufficient intelli- 

 gence or curftsity on such occasions to bring specimens home 

 and have, them carefully examined. The fact that there was 

 no evidence of disease, but, on the contrary, the fish were 

 palatable and soimd, would suggest that the cause of death 

 was rather a mechanical one. * * * Yours very truly. 

 Spencer F. Baird. 



All kinds of theories concerning the cause of this whole- 

 sale destruction were advanced by fishermen, newspaper re- 

 porters, and others, from the changing of the gulf stream to 

 submarine volcanoes and the upsetting of fishing smacks, 

 but these were, of course, mere guesswork. Mr. Barnet Phil- 

 lips, the accomplished Secretary of the American Fishcultural 

 Association, in company with* Capt. John H. Mortimer, the 

 well-known sailor-naturalist, started out to interview a skip- 

 per who had just come in, and thus relates the result in the 

 New York Times: 



"Going on board of the bark Elizabeth Ostle, Captain O. 

 Lamb, just from Calcutta, moored in Brooklyn, near the 

 Wall street ferry, the commanding officer having reported the 

 presence, of such fish, a series of interrogatories were pre- 

 sented to him. Captain Lamb said that on the 21st of 

 March, when about sixty-five miles off shore from Barnegat, 

 he sailed for forty miles at least through waters filled with 

 these dead fish. Having been asked if he could describe the 

 number of fish in a given area, taking his ship's cabin as in- 

 dicating the space, Captain Lamb replied that 'there would 

 be fully fifty dead fish within that space. The sea was quiet 

 and we were going about from four to five knots an hour, 

 and we sailed for some seven to eight hours, say forty miles, 

 with these dead fish alongside of us. There were millions of 

 them. From my log I find that the exact locality was 39 

 deg. 7 min. north latitude, and the longitude 73 deg. 10 min. 

 west. We had been sailing all the moruing north by west, 

 and were well inside of the Gulf Stream. The temperature 

 was 4.5 deg. We found these fish when we could not get 

 soundings.' Captain Lamb had not eaten any of the fish, 

 but calling in the carpenter, who had partaken of the fish, 

 having caught two of them, the man was questioned. 'The 

 fish was a curious fish.' the carpenter said. " He had" never 

 seen the like before. There was in the crew a Nova Scotia 

 man, and he did not know what kind of a fish it was. I 

 took two, and they were fresh and sound. The gills were 

 red and they bled when opened. The head was curious — 

 different from what I had ever seen on a fish before. One 

 thing I took notice of was a certain lot of yellow spots on 

 the sides of the fish. They would weigh about from eight to 

 nine pounds.'" 



For several days Mr. Blackford's office in Fulton market, 

 which is the centre of interest when fishy questions are to be 

 solved, was thronged by reporters, fishermen, naturalists and 

 people who cannot be classified, all eager to learn the latest 

 developments. Captain Henry Lawrence, of the bark Plym- 

 outh, from Antwerp, and Captain George Coalflect, of the 

 bark Montreal, from Dunkirk, told of miles of dead codfish, 

 redsnappers, and fish resembling salmon, through which their 

 vessels sailed on the 3d inst. off the southern end of George's 

 Bank, Newfoundland. Captain Lawrence told Alfred D. 

 Snow that early in the morning of the 3d inst,, while his bark 

 was making four or five miles an hour, she struck a school of 

 dead fish floating on the water. Until 3 o'clock in the after- 

 noon the vessel continued to sail through miles of these fish. 

 Some of the crew gathered many of them on board and 

 cooked them. The" fish were hard and proved excellent 

 food. The Captain was puzzled to know how the fish died, 

 and was amazed at the enormous quantity, Counselor 

 George Smith, the defender of "Poor Jacks," as he terms ill- 

 treated sailors, suggested that some fishing vessel had been 

 wrecked. Captain Lawrence said that he had thought of 

 that, and had, in fact, seen portions of a wreck near this sea 

 of dead fish, but he wondered whether there ever had been a 

 vessel large enough to carry so many miles of fish. It was 

 the opinion of asmall boy that the 'fish had strayed out of 

 their latitude and died from the cold. Captain Coalflect told 

 a story similar to that of Captain Lawrence, saying that his 

 bark, the Montreal, had an experience like that which the 

 bark Plymouth went Ihrough. tie was likewise unable to 

 account for the great quantity of dead fish, 



The Cape Ann Adnrtker, a reliable paper printed at 

 Gloucester, Mass, in the interests pf the commercial 



Ion. 71, sailed for ten or twelve miles through large quantifies 

 of dead codfish floating upon the surface of the water, The 

 fish were of large size and were visible on both sides of the 

 bark as far as the eye could reach. The barkculine Henry 

 Warner, from BuenoS Ayres, also reports sailingfor six hours 

 through quantities of dead codfish in lat. 37, Ion. 71. Later 

 arrivals report witnessing the same phenomenon, with the 

 exception of the fact that the fish were not codfish at all. Mr. 

 Daniel O. Marshall informs us that a vessel at Philadelphia 

 brought in some of these, fish, and that, he saw one of about 

 ten pounds weight. The body was mottled and the' head re- 

 sembled a bluefish more than that of a codfish. A ship- 

 master at Boston also reports picking up several of the dead 

 fi«h, resembling codfish in size, but having a head like a dol- 

 phin, with large scales on their sides, and weighing frC-in 

 eight to twenty pounds. The crew of his vessel having 

 gathered a considerable quantity on deck, one was put into 

 the pot and boiled, and it was found to be very sweet and 

 palatable. When taken it; was nearly as hard as a" rock. The 

 crew continued to use them for food for some time. The 

 captain is of opinion that the lirsh were indigenous to the 

 warm waters south of the Gulf Stream, and -were probably 

 driven by a strong current into a colder climate, where they 

 were chilled to death by the cold waters. The fish were 

 found to be in a fresh condition, no decomposition appearing 

 among any that were handled," 



It will be seen from the above accounts that the fish WSfe 

 strangers to those who would jirohablv know salmon and 

 shad, and from this it was, together with their rude descrip 

 tions, that Professor Baird made the suggestion in his letter 

 to Mr. Blackford that they were the ij'lelish, 7_- e 

 eliamw'.e-ontkcps, a flat fish which is found in 100 to 150 fath- 

 oms, and, while very plentiful, was unknown to the fisher- 

 men, on account of its small mouth not admitting a. Ii<>.,k, 

 until dredged up by the United States Fish Commission. The 

 surmise of Professor Baird was proved correct by the follow- 

 ing telegram dated Washington, March 35": 



"The problem as to the mysterious fish which so many ves- 

 sels have recently reported as seen floating dead in the North 

 Atlantic over an area of so many hundreds of square miles 

 has been solved by the receipt "of specimens today at tire 

 Smithsonian, from'Knight & Co., of Philadelphia, anil which 

 Professor Baird pronounced to be tilefish, a new species found 

 by the United States Fish Commission to occur in incredible 

 quantities along the western edge of the Gulf Stream hi from 

 75 to 150 fathoms. The professor thinks that they have 1 ieen 

 killed by the terrific storm which has lately raged along the. 

 south coast of New Eugland, especially off' the "Georges ami 

 Nantucket shoals. All those who have tasted the fish taken 

 under the circumstances mentioned pronounce them excel- 

 len (. . " 



HOW IS YOUR FISHING TACKLE? 



THE other evening I was doing, what all lovers of the 

 rod and reel should do occasionally, that was, looking 

 over my stock of rods, reels, lines, flies, hooks, and all the. 

 useful and useless apparatus in that line. 



These things want overhauling when you have time to go 

 over them carefully and in detail. You take up a rod, for 

 instance; you remember that when last in use it was too stiff 

 in certain parts and did not spring right. Wei), if you are at 

 all handy at such things, you can reduce the stiff part of the 

 rod by the use of a little glass. Scrape it carefully and 

 evenly, and when about right, finish off with sandpaper, le 

 doing this your guides wilt want to be renewed or fitted on 

 anew, and 'then the rod will want, coloring and varnishing. 



Another rod might have been broken in some tussle with 

 one of your gamy friends, or by some stupid blunder on your 

 own part, at which time you felt mad enough to pitch' the 

 whole thing into the river, and then throw yourself after it; 

 wiser counsel, however, prevailed, and with the coi lini 

 remark that "there's just as good fish in the sea as were ever 

 caught, " you went to' work and patched it up, so that, you 

 managed to get some good work out of it afterward. Will, 

 that rod wants to be properly fixed; and do it now, for when 



you get ready to go a-fishing you will have uo time to fj 



repairing. I can excuse a man for using a roughly patched 

 or mended rod when it is broken "on the tramp," but, after 

 that rod has been home all winter, I should call him "a. 

 slouch" to start out with it. again in that shape. 



The lines that were your pride in the past, how are they 

 now? Look them over, run them through you l- hands; if 

 you strike any rough spot or kink, try if there is not some- 

 thing weak there; then go over the whole length of evry 

 line, foot by foot, aud test their strength. It is a great deal 

 better to find out now that they are rotten than to learn it to 

 your cost when you are reeling up a handsome fish aud 

 see your line snap off when "the tug of war" comes. 

 My best 300-ft, line, that I placed so much faith in, went 

 into the rag bag the other evening; it would not stand the 

 test, and I would not trust it. 



In putting away your lines, never allow them to remain 

 on the reel; always, when not in use, roll them evenly and 

 smoothly on a thin piece of wood. 



Opcn'your fly book and feel over the feathers— don't it. 

 make you feel like "broiled trout for two?" Hullo! what's 

 this? 'The moths have been at work and spoiled mo-t of 

 your stock. Bun them over carefully, and pick out all that 

 are worth saving, then make a, memorandum of what yon 

 need to fill out your assortment, and the first~time you are 

 near a good fishing-tackle store go in and buy them. ' Don't 

 wait till the fishing time comes, for then their stock may lie 

 run down, and somebody will be disappointed, are! 

 son may be yourself, as 1 was last year. 



After this'is done wrap up your fly book in several folds 

 or thicknesses of paper and have the ends snugly folded in; 

 but before doing this, be sure to put in some pieces of gum 

 camphor — moths don't hanker after that in close quarters, 



How arc your leaders? There is your last summer's pet, 

 that would throw out just right and never failed you in aie, 

 fight; remember, thev don't last forever. Go carefully over 

 every inch of them; if an)' part feels rough or "chewed up." 

 fry the strength of it; make sure that, it" is not "gone" (that 

 word tells the story). See that the ends of the gut are all 

 covered with thread winding, and touch up these parts with 

 thin shellac varnish, rub out all the kinks, and coil up evenly 

 and neatly. 



Then take your hooks— oh! what a tangled mess, and how 

 rust\- I hey are. Well, whose fault is thai? I guess you left 

 them so when last used. Get them out of the snarl, tesl 

 gut sue! i . I rci i: any thai are rotten, throw away those 

 one*, straighten out the suells of any thai are til for use, and 

 sort them out by sizes and coil them up nicely, male; "more 



aemon ' look.ai 



and it. ,- [, .. ,:, .... :■,.... I)} J 



