April 27, 1882.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



249 



NETTING BLACK BASS IN FLORIDA- 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Perhaps I cm write something novel! The subject will 

 be that of taking black bass with the seine in Florida, lakes. 

 As the law in that State prohibits the taking of shad after 

 April 1. and the fishermen who come from the North for the 

 Winter fishing leave the St. Johns River before that date, it 

 almost cuts olf the supply of fish in the quainl little town of 

 Palatka to a great extent. But Mr. J. B. Thompson (who 

 keeps the only flah market in the place) is ''equal to the 

 emergency." anil gathering up his "traps," gave me a kind 

 and characteristic Southern invitation to accompany him to 

 Dunn's Lake, twenty miles distant up, and off the St. John's 

 River. As it is evening, and I have just returned from a 

 hard day's pull to Rice Creek and back, I reluctantly decline 

 to go thai night. But one day's idleness in P. brings news 

 from Mr. T that the trout (black bass) are striking in every 

 direction. Just ten minutes later the steamer Georgia leaves 

 for Crescent City on Dunn's Lake, and in that time 1 am on 

 board. 



Just before sunset, after winding through ten miles of 

 dense forests which line the crooked but beautiful outlet of 

 Dunn's Lake, called Dunn's ('reek, a sudden opening ahead 

 discloses one of the most beautiful scenes in this semi-tropical 

 laud of perpetual summer. Far to the south stretches the 

 placid lake almost to the horizon. Steaming out into the 

 lake and glancing into a deep, golden sunlight cove, we can 

 just make out the shape of a boat and three persons in the 

 rear the shore. Capt. George Beach kindly heads his 

 boat in thai direction and blows his whistle, wdiich brings 

 Bobbie Davis, Mr. T.'s best man, to us in the row boat. 



I was too late to see a haul made that evening, so all hands 

 return to camp. 



And such a primitive camp one seldom sees; nothing but 

 palmetto fans laid on the ground, with blankets spread out 

 under the dense foliage at the root of an enormous cypress. 

 Mr. Thompson cooks the fish and bakes an enormous "corn 

 dodger," flopping it in the air and turning it most artistically. 

 After a splendid supper of fried bream, and while stretching 

 out by a cheerful fire, Mr. T. suddenly pricks up his ears 

 and cautions us to hark! Ker chunk! Ker chunk! comes a 

 peculiar sound of something jumping high out of and falling 

 back into the now calm and moonlit lake. "Mullet," ex- 

 claims Bobbie. "I can't stand that," says Mr. T., and all 

 hands arc soon in the boat and carefully paddling off shore. 

 The net is quickly run out, and then began one of the most 

 novel methods of fishing, or rather driving the fish into the 

 outstretched net. The driving is done by sculling the boat 

 in a circle from one end of the net to the other, the sculler 

 constantly splashing the water in the rear and a second per- 

 son, seated in the middle of the. boat, an oar in each hand, 

 violently thumping up and down on the seats which, loudly 

 echoed from the silent shore, reminding one of some peculiar 

 Indian performance. When the net was drawn, about thirty 

 Dice mullets had gilled themselves. 



Next morning found us astir before sunrise, a light off- 

 shore breeze blowing and a fast rising mist on the water. 

 "I wouldn't wade out there now for a hundred dollars," is 

 Mr. Joe Thompson's first remark; "but as soon as the sun's 

 up, it's ail right." At sun-up, the net is laying silently on 

 the water ami all hands turn to and begin to haul, and as the 

 net passes over the smooth bottom where the fish are bedding, 

 there begins an occasional splashing, and as it gradually 

 comes faster and nearer the shore, the water is lashed into a 

 boiling pool. Now the fishermen haul heavy, and such a 

 sight greeted my eyes at this moment, that I found myself 

 dancing and shouting with delight, for those great, strong, 

 quick, gamy fish were flying in the air and going over the 

 net into the lake like a flock of sheep going over a stone wall. 

 It was a sight never to be forgotten, to see those quivering 

 fellows rear and plunge for liberty in the bright morning 

 sun. Only ten or fifteen bass were taken out of the hundreds 

 thai, the net encompassed. I verily believe that no manner 

 of fishing now known to man will"ever lessen the number of 

 black bass in Florida. Edwaed H. Bowers. 



POMPANO AND CAVALLI. 



IIiAVT: read the article from"S. C. C." on the African 

 pompano. the eavalli, etc., and it has opened a question 

 to me which 1 thought settled in "Hallock's Gazetteer. " as he 

 gives a like description of the fish. I find in Norris' "Ameri- 

 can Angler's Book" an illustration of the "pompano or cre- 

 valii." in which there arc seven spines in the. first dorsal fin, 

 ami lie' speaks of the pompano and crevalli as one. In the 

 U. S. Fish Commission Report for 1871-2, p. 825, it is given 

 by Gill as "Trotjiynftus iyivoUiuih (Linn. Gill), the common 

 pompano, or erovalli." Also TriK-iiijii'ituH ovatun (Linn, 

 Gunlh.), the round pompano." 



Mr. "3. C. C." has given us an interesting article on and 

 my attention was called to the pompano just as I saw a fish 

 in' Quincy Market, Boston, which. 1 judged to be one. 



W. A. S. 



[The misunderstanding is caused by the confusion of our 

 common names for fishes which axe badly mixed. The facts 

 are these: Norris copies his description of 7'nrr/ii/iiotu* r«r- 

 oli/ms of Linn., Gill, (the Bothrokntvs pcmpairna of Cuvicr) 

 from Ilolbrook's Fishes of South Carolina, Now. if you 

 will turn to your Fish Commission report you will see that 

 Gill gives as the, common names of this fish "pompano 

 (Southern coast): cavalle or crevalle (South Carolina)." He 

 also gives, on the same page, among the Cururtgidir, a differ- 

 ent genus, the " Cttrfiiigiisi/iippos (JAnii., Gill,) horse crevalle," 

 etc. Halloc.k follows this nomenclature. 



Now, it happens that our friend "S. C. C." lives in Georgia 

 where the iirst-uarned fish is known entirely as "pompano" 

 and is never called eavalli. while this latter name is given to 

 what is called elsewhere "horse eavalli." and further the 

 C<ir<a></vs hippos of Linn., Gill, is the same fish which "S. ( ' 

 <.'.," following De Kay's system, calls Caran.r dcfimor. The 

 Same of cavalle or crevalle being applied to two different 

 ashes in different portions of the coast. This is averycoxn- 

 , rreiiee and it often creates confusion. It will take 

 many gem-rations to correct this and give us one name for 

 one iisli ami one fish for one name.] 



Muskalonc;e ln OoSKEOTIOTIT. — Hartford, Conn., April 



1 v. — Last Saturday, in making haul for shad in TCceney's 



Cove, in Glastenbury. they secured a fine muskalonge, 



whirh wis sfint to vSKrinai: & Cook.; ;;f Hartford. Weight 



'.I. pounds. Dr. Hudson, the commissioner', pronounced it 



ibove, and considered it to be a very fine specimen. 



- no L* a vew strange place for such a fish: The night 



Before thev captured a very tine pickerel, with piece of line 



attached to his jaw. Trout are not plenty, but very 



iesh and flavor. — B. 



A LAST YEAR'S SALMON. 



Lowell, Mass.. April 24, 

 Editor Forest and Stiv,in<: 



The water was drawn out of the canals Which supply the 

 nulls here, yesterday (Sunday) to search for the body 'of a 

 man who was drowned on Friday night, and in addition to 

 the body of the man there was found a large salmon in prime 

 health apparently, but as slender as a Long Island pickerel. 

 1 had the opportunity to see the salmon, within two hours 

 after it was taken, and found it to be apparently a female. 

 from the shape of the head and jaw. It measured thirty- 

 nine inches from point, of nose to' tip of tail, and weighed 

 only eleven pounds. 



I' have no doubt that it was a spent fish, of last year's run. 

 on its way back to the ocean, as It, mm! have come into the 

 canal from the upper end, ami as the weight of a fresh rim 

 salmon of that length should have been from IS to SOpounds. 

 It could not have got into the canals on its way up-stream, as 

 there are no means of access except through the water wheels, 

 or up an impracticable waste weir, and it is yet too early by at 

 least a month or six weeks, for salmon to go up the Merri- 

 mac. This goes to corroborate the bienuial theory, that the 

 salmon of one year's run, spawning in November, spend one- 

 winter in the fresh water and return to the sea in the follow- 

 ing spring. It froze sharply here last night, and I do not 

 think the' "trout opening" in New Hampshire will come off 

 much before June. Samuel Webbeb. 



BLACK BASS AND ENGLISH ANGLERS. 



IT is a pity that any of us should be troubled because some 

 of our English cousins do not, give the black bass the seal 

 of their approval. It is a pity for the reason that the day is 

 happily gone by when Americans must wait for England's 

 judgment before forming a safe opinion, and for the reason 

 that all Americans ought by this time fo know that there 

 could not by any possibility be produced in the United Stales 

 so perfect a man, beast, bird or fish as would gain the un- 

 stinted praise of a certain class of Englishmen, for whom 

 there can be nothing more than half good outside their own 

 little island. The "most eminent sportsman of this or any 

 other age or clime" happened to be an Englishman, and his 

 opinion of what is now conceded to be the finest game bird of 

 the Northern and Eastern States was that it was not worth one's 

 while to go out of one's way in pursuit of him. But in spite 

 of this greatest sportsman's low esteem, the raffed grouse 

 lived and grew in the favor of American sportsmen, till now, 

 from one end of the land to the other, they are mourning 

 over his strange disappearance and bothering their heads to 

 account for it. So too, though "R. N" and "Koorb" may 

 be the most eminent anglers of this or any other age or clime, 

 the black bass is quite likely to outlive their poor opinion 

 and hold his place in the esteem of American anglers long 

 after these English worthies are dead and forgotten. Let us 

 continue to fish for him just as if nothing had happened. 

 R. E. R. 



In your paper of the 20th inst.. in my letter on above, you 

 have made a misprint. You make me say that flies of a. 

 "sandy" color are best. The word I used was "gaudy." 

 Please note the error. C. 0. D. 



The "Sounds" of Cod. — Codfish tongues and sounds are 

 common articles in our great fish markets, and the popular 

 idea that the latter arc the bladders of the fish is not a 

 correct one. Mr. Mattieu Williams thus describes them in 

 Knowledge, in reply to another correspondent who has 

 described "the swimming bladder, air bladder, or sound" 

 as synonymous. Mr. Williams says: "There is a small mis- 

 take here, a misunderstanding of fishermen's technology that 

 may mislead some readers. The same mistake occurs in 

 anatomical textbooks. Dr. Wilson will readily understand 

 the nature of the error by simply buying some "cod sounds" 

 from any fishmonger. They are regular articles of separate 

 commerce, salted by millions in Norway and exported in 

 small barrels. He will find that the sound is not the air 

 bladder, but the aorta, or chief blood vessel of tie' codfish, 

 laid open, and with some of the larger branching vessels 

 attached. This vessel, forming a stout membranous bag. is 

 attached by its edges to each side of the under part of the 

 spine of the fish, from Which the Norse and Newfoundland 

 fishermen tear or rip it when they split the fish for salting. 

 I have a, theory of my own concerning the' etymology of the 

 word, viz., that it is of Scandinavian origin, like the com- 

 mercial article, and is derived from Sondre, to sever or rip, 

 from which we also derive our word asunder." 



Trout in mi-: Yellowstone Pa:>a. — Mr. P. W. Nor- 

 ris, superintendent of the Yellowstone National Park, in his 

 aunuai report quotes the following fishstory from his journal 

 of June 3: "Wishing a .supply of trout f'oi our men in the 

 Gardiner canon. Rowland, Cutler and myself rode to Trout 

 Lake, and after pacing around and sketching it, with brush 

 and sods I slightly obstructed its inlet near the mouth. 

 Within eight minutes thereafter the bens had driven down 

 so many trout that we had upon the bank all that were de- 

 sired, and the obstruction was removed, allowing the water 

 to run off, and iu throe minutes thereafter we counted out 

 eighty -two of them, from ten to twenty-six inches in length. 

 Of these forty-two of the larger ones' aggregating ovcFlOO 

 pounds, were' retained for use. thirty of the smaller ones re- 

 turned to the lake unharmed, and the remaining ten were, 

 together with a tine supply of spawn, distributed in Long- 

 fellow's and oilier adjacent pond-, whieh. although as large. 

 and some of them apparently as favorable for fish as the 

 lake, were whollv destitute of them." Mr. Norris adds that 

 his men declared* it was not a good morning for trout, but 

 that the story is as big a one as he dares to publish. 



A Black Bass with a Ttx Tao — Mr. John Rich, of 

 Reading, Pa., caught a black bass bach was 



kept during the summer in an aquarium. The fish atl ned 

 the weight of several pounds, and wa ated early this 



•eason ir lb'. Schuylkill l-iv.r with t tin tag a-lached. giv- 



inj gut, date and place of its release. Anglers 



quested to keep a lookout for the w.i e captured 



to report the particulars. — Homo. 



Large Black Bass.— Capt. B. F. Cowdr 

 Vt., caught the boss black bass in Fairlec Pond a few days 

 ago. He was flatting for pickerel and to his surpri-. 

 u'ud pulled up through tite ice a 7-JIb. bass. Tie fish was a 

 very large one for a small mouth bass, but the moat extra- 

 ordinary part is the catching a lias- tl i .it a time 

 they are supposed to be dormant— H. | Plymouth. X. 11. }, 



Annex's Ftshtng Club. — Mr. James Annin, proprietor of 

 the ponds and part of the famous creek at Caledonia, N. T. . 

 has hit upon a plan of leasing the fishing on the streams 

 which might well be followed by others. It limits the num- 

 ber of rods and amount of fish taken, and so prevents over 

 fishing, while he agrees to keep the waters stocked. It seems 

 such an excellent plan that we give the entire plan of what 

 lie calls "Annin's Fishing Club." The following rales and 

 regulations will continue for three years or three fishing 

 seasons. The fishing season commences April 1 and ends 

 September 1. Tickets for a season's fishing $20; half tickets 

 $10. A ticket will permit the holder to "enjoy twenty-two 

 days fishing; half tickets eleven days fishing. Tickets trans- 

 ferrable only between members. No more than fifteen 

 tickets wilj be sold for a season. A day to be considered as 

 twelve hours fishing. No more than five pounds of trout 

 shall be taken from the stream by any member or ticket 

 holder in any one day. The proprietor agrees not to sell any 

 fish to market men or restaurants, and that he will deposit at 

 least twenty thousand brook trout fry in the stream each 

 and every year. 



Split Bamboo Rods — The credit of the invention of the 



split, bamboo fishing rod has been claimed by both England 

 and America. The dispute over it has been long, and is 

 not yet settled. The question is. however, a comparatively 

 unimportant one. It, is much more to the point to know 

 which country now manufactures the best; rods. That 

 there is a growing demand abroad for rods of American 

 manufacture would seem to indicate that this country is 

 taking the lead. And this conclusion is strengthened by 

 the fact that an American house has just been awarded the 

 first, prize for split bamboo salmon, pike and trout fly rods 

 at the Edinburgh International Fisheries Exhibition. 



Hauling ttie Big Seine. — The first haul of the big seine 

 at Gloucester Fisheries. N. J., resulted in the taking of 500 

 shad, and herring and other fish by the wagon-load. "The 

 Boss" says it augurs a good season. 'as this first catch has not 

 been beat in numbers at these shores for some years. Why 

 can not the black bass taken in the big nets at Gloucester 

 with the shad be put back into the river again? They are 

 not. It would repay some of your New Yorkers to go over 

 to Philadelphia, witness the hauling of the big seine at 

 Gloucester on the "high water slack," and try a planked 

 shad served on the river shore. — Homo. 



A Fishy Conundrum. In 1858, after my second return 

 from Brazil, I went to the coast of Maine, and passed a few 

 days very pleasantly at Castine, which, you know, is near 

 the mouth of the Penobscot. One morning, a splendid sal- 

 mon was brought from the river, I bought it, had it 

 packed in ice, and sent as a present to a gentleman in Phila- 

 delphia. He invited a party of friends to a salmon dinner, 

 at which the following conundrum was proposed: "Why 

 is this tish like one of the Waverly novels?" Of course 

 they gave it, up. The wag responded iu African English: 

 "Case its from de pen ob Scott." 



Making Sflit Bamboo Rods, — Being an amateur rod- 

 maker, and having made rods for my own use out of nearly 

 all woods known, 1 would like a few points from some of 

 your correspondents in regard to the preparing and making 

 of a split-bamboo rod, •/. e., the splitting and joining of it.— 

 Constant Readek. 



The Attention of Ftshci i.tukihts, and especially of trout 

 breeders, is directed to an advertisement in another column, 

 inviting proposals to furnish 5,000 or 10,000 yearling brook 

 trout to stock a private preserve. 



$0jwfimliwe. 



THE AMERICAN FISHCULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 



PROCEEDINGS OF ELEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 



THE HABITS, ENDURANCE AND GROWTH OF CARP. 



BY HUGH D. M'gOVBRN, 



Having mentioned something at our previous meeting on the 

 habits and growth of carp, which was looked on by some of 

 retieal lisheuhurist as a good fish story. I now wish to 

 give them some more tacts. Having lost so many carp last 

 year by experimenting in ponds that were covered with ice, 

 I tliis year confined myself to observation. 

 FTRST observation. 



I placed seven two-year-old carp in a small pond and was suc- 

 cessful in getting (ton voung carp, wdien I drew off my pond in 

 the month of November. 



1 was delighted at my success, and knowing that I had 

 thirty-four of the same" age and size in my large goldfish 

 pond, r came to the conclusion that I would "be able to "ruu 

 opposition" to the U. !s. Fish Commission in supplying the 

 wants i if the public. But alas! when after three anxious days 

 e end hard labor my pond was drawn off, I 



found but thirty-one large carp in fine condition, and twenty- 

 five young carp'; three of my original thirty-four had disap- 

 pear I in some mysterious manner. Thus ended my expected 

 bonanza. 



I can account for the poor results in but « me v.- ay , v ]■/.. : that. 

 the carp spawned after the goldfish and the goldfish eat tip 

 the spawn. I am well satisfied that those in the ! . i. 

 were as well mated as those, in the small pond. As it was, 



however, T would have it- \ i-essful had not mv pond 



been so newly constructed that there was a lack of vegetation, 



SECOND OBSERVATION. 



I placed six carp of the same age. and size in one of my trout 



ponds for the purpose of using them -, and, in- 



- did their work well, It is well known to all fish- 



ciiltnrists that ifthi fe i no1 ft strong current of water passing 



pond in which yon teed, some food will escape. 



■ .; : the food beef rues fungus and 

 iouLs the water. There it will r< ,- .'. l I i roul would scorn 

 bo go- to the bottom tor food. .M bed to the 



fact that just as soon as Teommei ■ two companies 



of tish could tie seen, the trout on the. top with their backs out 

 of water, and the carp on the bottom With their heads down, 

 rooting nice hogs, for the firagments that might escape the 



In this way I discovered that carp will eat chopped tish wit h 

 sr Lay trout are never fed on anything but the youug 

 il&fish" — discolored Ones— commonly known 

 ■ irp have no other food, and it. Is settled in my mind 

 that they liked it, and that, it agreed with them. 



I never saw fish so fat, and there are- gc nth-men in Ihoe.kl v a 



who had the pleasure of dining on some Of thena. who will 



verify my testimonv in this particular. None of the six carp 



showed at any time the slightest sign of spawning. 



During the first week of November, I took them to- in the 



