Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $i a Tear. 10 Cts. a Copt. 

 Six Monthb, $2. 



NEW YORK, JUNE 8, 1882. 



f VOL. XVm.-No. 19. 



1 Nos. 89 & 40 Park Row, New York. 



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



The Flv or the Worm? 



"This Difficult Mistery." 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



A Bunch of Wild Celery. 



Camps of the Kingfishers. 

 Natural History. 



Birds and Electric Lights. 



The Dividing Rod. 



Nesting of Owls. 

 Oame Bag and Gun. 



The Compleat Marksman. 



Major Joseph Verity. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



Viviparous Fishes. 



Salmon Fishing. 



The Troute of California,. 



Minnow Pail. 



The Weight of Rods. 



The Fly-casting at Niagara Falls. 



Another Fishy Coincidence. 

 Fish culture. 



American Fishcultural Associa- 

 tion. 



FlSHCULTURE. 



Fishculture in Texas. 

 The Kennel. 



English Shows and Clubs. 



Petrel II. 



The Cleveland Bench Show. 



Kennel Notes. 

 Rifle j,kd Trap Shooting. 



Alabama Tournament. 



New York Tournament. 



Nebraska State Tournament. 



The Chicago Tournament. 



The Trap at Baltimore. 

 Yachting and Canoeing. 



Too Hasty. 



Small Yachts. 



Cost of Yachting. 



Yacht Stoves. 



Cutters on the Delaware. 



The America Cup. 



Dorchester Yacht Club. 



Decoration Day. 



Larchmont Yacht Club. 



The "Graphic" on Traps. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



FLY OR WORM? 



A NGLERS are seriously divided on the question of taking 

 ■£*- a trout with bait or with the fly. Ever since the 

 lamented Dr. Bethune wrote his famous footnote to his 

 edition of Izaak Walton, at a line where Walton gives di- 

 rections how to put on a worm, and requested the reader to 

 look elsewhere for directions, saying, "our hands have long 

 been washed of the nasty things," there have been differ- 

 ences in the camp as to the true methods of a "true" angler. 

 It is a fact that we have two rival sects who are inimical, 

 and who theorize in widely different manners, and a class 

 who do not theorize at all. 



"The devoted worm fisher affects to sneer at the ritual of 

 his brother of the fly, and is often heard to declare that he 

 can take more trout on a worm, and have more fun in doing 

 so, than half a dozen fly fishers can obt iin of either in the 

 same time. Those who belong to this school hold up Walton 

 as an example, and maintain that as he was the great father 

 of angling, it is the duty of all the brethren to follow his 

 precepts and hold to the faith as delivered by him and the 

 Dame Juiiana Berners. 



The ultra fly-fishers, who may be called the Ritualists, in- 

 sist that Bethune was right, and that there was no scientific 

 angling in the time of Walton, whom they revere as a good 

 enough saint for his day, and declare that the object of ang- 

 ling is not the taking of the most trout, although they will 

 not allow that the Wormists can take more; but they claim 

 that the fly is the only legitimate mode of capturing the fish. 

 They profess the deepest reverence for Cotton and Bethune, 

 and declare that whosoever fisheth for a trout with a worm 

 is grossly perverting the ends of angling, lowering the dig- 

 nity of the profession and pandering to the baser instincts of 

 the fish. The eaints of the Ritualists' calendar are those 

 who have fasted in camp when trout were plenty but were 

 in no mood to rise, and who would have stayed there and died 

 of starvation sooner than descend to the use of bait to entice 

 a trout to their frying-pan. The worm, the minnow and 

 the gang of hooks are all equally abhorreu of the Ritualist, 

 and he looks upon those who make use of them as heretics. 

 The Ritualist regards Cotton as the founder of scientific 

 angling, and he rejects with his whole soul the theory that 

 the Worm-fisher is in any sense a scientific angler. He be- 

 lieves that he can take more trout with the fly than the 

 Wormist can take with his gross bait, because he can fish 

 more wave; in the same time. In regard to flies tied on 



double hooka or gangs he is also consistent, for he denies 

 that the truths of fly fishing are subject to development, or 

 that such practices are a whit above the ethics of the poacher. 

 He Is willing to accept the reel on top or on the lower side 

 of the rod, the ash. lancewood, hornbeam, bethabara or the 

 split-bamboo rod ; the reel in all its varieties, with or with- 

 out the click or drag, but all things claimed to be new in the 

 matter of double hooks are regarded as false doctrine. He 

 strenuously claims that a delicate leader with not more than 

 three flies, dressed upon single hooks, is essential to every 

 true believer, but that a float, sinker, or a bait should not be 

 tolerated. H he appears to be a trifle bigoted, to the non- 

 comformists, or to be mistaken on some points, they cannot 

 question his devotion. 



Then there is the Broad school of anglers— a class whom 

 the Ritualist avers to be mere rationalists. The Broad angler 

 totally rejects the doctrine that science is the sole end of 

 angling, and stoutly maintains that so long as a man uses a 

 rod and reel it does not matter what he lures the trout with. 

 He prefers the fly to the worm, but charges the Ritualist with 

 idolizing the fly and bowing down to worship it. He denies 

 the infallibility of Cotton and of Bethune, and openly says 

 that these teachers are to be followed as long as the trout 

 prefer the fly to the worm, and no longer. He shamelessly 

 puts on a worm when the trout cease rising, and confesses 

 that he regards it as a concession to the baser appetite of 

 the fish, and openly mocks at the Ritualist who would leave 

 the stream when the trout are not in the humor for the fly. 

 The Broad angler, in turn, pities the fisher who never uses 

 the fly as one who knows nothing of the true principles of 

 the art, and he refuses to fraternize with him. 



Widely as these schools differ, the followers of each claim 

 to be the only "true" anglers, but agree in classing the purely 

 Worm-fishers as heretics for whom there is little hope unless 

 they become converted. Sinfulness such as theirs requires a 

 long probation before they can be received into the ranks of 

 either sect, for some of these bold, bad men scorn the fly, and 

 with a cord on the end of a sapling, which has no place for a 

 reel and is devoid of rings, are in the habit of "yanking" 

 a trout from under a root and swinging him high in air in the 

 presence of one of the sectarians. 



It is a matter for rejoicing to know that the fishery statis- 

 tics will show that the heretics are decreasing in numbers, 

 and the Ritualists are increasing, while the Broad men are 

 standing still. The Superintendent bf the Census accounts 

 for it in this way: The influence of Forest and Stream is 

 constantly causing the number of the Broad men to be dimin- 

 ished, and is adding them to the Ritualists; while the gaps in 

 the rahks of the former are filled as fast as they occur from 

 the lower grade, or heretics, who arc taking a step higher 

 when they accept the fly as an occasional lure, instead of 

 confining the trout to the Diet of Worms. 



"THIS DIFFICULT MISTERY." 



THE captious critic may afflrni that the rhymes 

 of "the Honorable and Ingenious Robert Coote, 

 Esq.," are not poetry, but doggerel. All such unfavorable 

 comment, however just it may be, should be checked 

 by our author's modest deprecation that "the utmost of 

 my ambition in publishing this little poem was only 

 to oblige and instruct my fellow sportsmen ; and to com- 

 municate to them the knowledge I have acquired and treas- 

 ured up in this difficult mistery." That surely was no mean 

 nor unworthy intent; and some of the commendatory letters 

 written to the rhymster, and printed by him, aa an apology 

 for the publication of his verses, would seem to indicate that 

 in return for his "wrestling with the muse" he had received 

 "the thank9 and admiration of all those gentlemen who are 

 fond of that entertaining diversion." 



"The Compleat Marksman" is a very old book — just how 

 old we have not been able to determine. The publisher neg- 

 lected to put a date on the title page, and the author was 

 equally careless in writing his preface. But the antiquated 

 type and style of the work, with the obsolete terms and the 

 references to the antiquated sporting implements, all afford 

 ample evidence of the great age of the book. The copy from 

 which we have made the transcript on another page has 

 been through many vicissitudes. Its carefully repaired 

 pages give evidence that it has been an object of the book 

 collector's loving care ; and other marks not less positively 

 indicate that it has descended in the scale of fortune even to 

 the sidewalk old-book stand. For the loan of the book we 

 are indebted to Mr. W. P. Stephens, of West New Brighton, 

 Staten Island. 



Although written probably a century ago, "The Compleat 

 Marksman" is wonderfully freak and timely even now. It i* 



only another illustration of the old saw that there is nothing 

 new under the sun. Sporting appliances have changed, new 

 and more perfect field equipments have been provided, but 

 human nature doss not change, and the sportsman of to-day 

 is the sportsman of a hundred years ago. Take, for ex- 

 ample, the long-waged and never-ending war of words 

 about wing shooting and treeing grouse. It is rather curious 

 to learn that the sentiments of the anti-treers were so long ago 

 expressed in the rhymes of this old book. And there is the 

 man who, with fatal blockheadedness, persists in dragging 

 his gun after him muzzle foremost; he lived and died in 

 Coote's time, too; and so did the unfortunate fellow who 

 blows down the muzzle to learn if it's loaded — and finds out 

 that it is. The persistency of these types is suggestive, and 

 it is somewhat comforting to know, as this old book tells us, 

 that the prevalence of the didn't-know-it-was-loaded idiocy 

 to-day need not be taken as an indication that the race is 

 degenerating, for there were just such hapless victims of 

 folly in "the good old times." 



BLUEFIS3ING. 



ONE of the principal amusements of the salt water 

 angler is the pursuit and capture of the blucfish, or 

 taylor, as it is called on the Southern coast, and when the 

 fish is taken on proper tackle it is sport of a high order. 

 The avage character of these fish renders them perfectly 

 fearless, and if they are at all plenty they seldom hesitate 

 to bite freely. The coming of the bluefish is watched for 

 by fishermen and anglers of all kinds and degrees. Their 

 plentiful numbers and ready sale makes them an object 

 of interest to the market fisherman, and the ease of their 

 capture causes them to be awaited by every small boy 

 who can sail a bjat. 



They are mainly taken by trolling a line astern of a cat- 

 rigged boat sailing from four to six knots an hour, with a 

 leaden or ivory "squid," so called from its fancied resem- 

 blance, when rushing through the water, to the small 

 decapod which bears that popular name. This squid is from 

 three to six inches long, and is flat or round, according to 

 taste or the material of which it is made. The bluefish in 

 rushing for it takes the hook which is soldered to its lower 

 end. The "squid" is also thrown from the beach and 

 hauled rapidly through the surf. These modes require no 

 skill, and the chief sport is in the sailing which is necessary, 

 the fishing being mainly an excuse to get out on a yacht, for 

 the fish once hooked it becomes merely a question of strength 

 to bring it to the boat. 



"Chumming" is much more sport, the fish then being 

 captured with rod and reel, from a boat at anchor in a 

 tideway or channel. The hook is baited with a large piece 

 of menhaden, and particles of the same are chopped up by 

 the boatman and thrown over to entice the school to the 

 place. This finely chopped fish is technically called "chum." 



The charm of this style of fishing is in the fierce fight 

 of one of the most savage of fishes, compared to which the 

 pike is a delicate feeder. The bluefish rushes, leaps, and 

 makes frantic struggles to smash the tackle and escape. The 

 insatiable appetite of the bluefish, which will bite a piece 

 from a living fish in apparent wantonness when perfectly 

 gorged, is a sure guarantee of sport if a school is near. They 

 will take a bit of rag, a fly, or anything that appears to have 

 life, but their saw-like teeth will cut any line which they 

 come in contact with, and a fly is only good for one fish. A 

 foot of steel wire is usually attached to the line above the 

 hook, and their teeth will even mar this. 



The fish have come in good numbers this week, and many 

 of large size have been taken at Fire Island. Mr. Henry 

 Havemeyer has captured several of eight pounds weight 

 already, near his summer house at Fire Island. The Baby- 

 lon (L. I.) papers have accounts of many good catches, and 

 the season has opened earlier than many expected it would, 

 judging from the weather we have had. The fish take the 

 hook more freely when they first arrive, if there is any dif- 

 ference in the seasons, which Borne deny, and are usually 

 large. The smaller ones come later, and the big fish often 

 disappear until August or September. In July the schools 

 in the bays are mainly fish of two or three pounds, and even 

 outside there are often no large ones to be found. 



Taking the bluefish all in all, they probably furnish as 

 much sport as any one of our fishes. At least a greater num- 

 ber enjoy it, from the trailer for ten-pounders to the fishers 

 for the little "snappers " in Long Island Sound. We intend 

 to have some of it ourselves very shortly, even if it is neces- 

 sary to troll for them from a cat-boat. Our main object in 

 writing this is merely to let lemnodon know that we are 

 aware that he is registered at Firs Island, and that we intend 

 to call on him early. 



