404 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[June f&, 1882. 



Whereupon, after counting her family and considering 

 their appetites, she will order: "Geben sie rnir zwanzig 

 Stuck," and so mankind will be benefitted by having a new 

 source of food supply, and Dr. Hermes will be remembered 

 in history as a benefactor with him who made two blades 

 of grass to grow where but one grew before. 



The Veteran Fox-Hunter. — We may be mistaken, but 

 we venture to assert that the veteran fox-hunter of the coun- 

 try is Col. Thos. Goode Tucker, of Gaston, N. C. Col. 

 Tucker is in his seventy-sixth year, and he tells us that he 

 is to-day as capable of undergoing the fatigues of a hard 

 red-fox run as ho was fifty years ago. His fondness for the 

 chase has not at all abated, though increasing- deafness in- 

 terferes with the enjoyment of following the music of the 

 hounds. He is, as yet, free from the usual infirmities of age, 

 and can hold his own with younger huntsmen. As we have 

 said, we may be mistaken, but until very positive proof is 

 offered to the contrary, wo shall maintain Col. Tucker's 

 claim to the honor of being the veteran fox-hunter of the 

 land. 



Woodcock.— From the trout fishermen of Massachusetts 

 come reports of waters in good condition and excellent sport 

 with the fish. Many a good catch has been made, and the 

 captives are said to be unusually heavy, the increase in 

 weight being veiy general. From the same source we hear 

 that in fishing the streams many more woodcock than usual 

 are started, and this presages a large number of home-raised 

 birds, and a heavy "first flight," so called. It is a comfort 

 to know that in most of the States the birds may now rear 

 their broods in comparative quiet, only disturbed by the 

 poacher. We hope that the day is not distant when the 

 poor things may have rest from December 31 to October 1 in 

 every State in the Union. 



The Michigan Year Book. — We are in receipt of the 

 "Fifth Annual Book" of the Michigan Sportsmen's Associa- 

 tion, containing all the papers and discussions of the meet- 

 ing at East Saginaw, last January. The book makes a 

 pleasant and valuable addition to the sportsman's library, and 

 no one can estimate how much good its publication and dis- 

 tribution may accomplish in moulding a healthy public 

 opinion in relation to game and fish interests. The book is 

 a credit to the Michigan Association, and that association is 

 a credit to American sportsmanship of the best type. 



The July "Century."— Those who read the entertaining 

 letters on Alaska, contributed by "Piseco," to the Forest 

 and Stream, two years ago. will be interested in the pictures 

 of Alaskan life in the Ju]y Century. There are also illus- 

 trated papers on "The Horse [and dog] in Motion," the 

 yacht, the California bee pastures, and a paper on Thoreau 

 by John Burroughs. The illustrations are exquisite. With 

 each new number the Century engravings excite our admira- 

 tion anrl wonder. 



M any Shad arc now being taken with the fly at the foot of 

 Holyoke Dam, and occasionally one strikes a salmon weigh- 

 ing from twelve to twenty pounds. This gives variety to 

 the fishing, and smashes much tackle. Shad fishers should 

 remember, however, that it, is illegal to kill salniou here, 

 and so, even if their tackle holds and they get the fish within 

 reach of the gaiT, they will do well to cut the leader. The 

 shad fishing is good sport enough for anyone, however. 

 E.cperto rrede. , 



The Untied States Will Be Represented at the Eng- 

 lish Fishery Exhibition next May, Congress having passed, 

 last Monday, an appropriation of $50,000 for that purpose. 

 The results of the American exhibit at Berlin, in opening 

 foreign markets for our fi ;hery products, prove that the money 

 spent in this way is we' i invested. There is reason to believe 

 that we will be even more creditably represented at London 

 than we were at Berlin. 



The Doc- Catchers Are Abroad.— Several hundred 

 dogs have already been captured, the great majority of them 

 worthless curs, of which the city is well rid. Owners of val- 

 uable animals should be on their guard. It is decidedly 

 easier to keep a dog out of the clutches of the catchers than 

 to recover it again from the pound. The catchers are on 

 strike for fifty cents instead of thirty cents per dog. 



Camp Cookkrt. — "Nessmuk" has told us how he bakes a 

 bird in clay, and Mr. H. H. Thompson writes appreciatively 

 of barked shad. Now that the camping season approaches, 

 such culinary hints are in order; and it is a proper time to 

 reveal some of the secrets of woods cookery. 



Those Fly-casting Scores certainly belie the merit of 

 some of the contestants, for we know that, the distance- 

 there recorded do not show what can be done by the men to 

 whom they are credited. Some of the awards were a sur- 

 prise to many. 



! Trap Shooting Columns will be found a full re- 

 port of the annual meeting of the New York State Associa- 

 tion for the Protection of Fish and Game, with the exception 

 of the details of the lust two matches. 



The Coming Game Season.— We should be pleased to re- 

 ceive from our readers reports as to the prospects for game 

 \he coming season. 



FOREST AND STREAM FABLES. 



VI.— THE FOX AND HIS GUESTS. 



A FOX, finding it becoming a,n irksome labor to get a living 

 by his usual honest methods, since it was a long way 

 from, his home to the nearest poultry yard or goose pastu re, 

 bethought him of a plan to fill his larder, and at once made 

 trial of it. He caused it to be noised about that nowhere in 

 the whole region could Turkeys find such quantities of beech 

 nuts as in his wood, nor such swarms of grasshoppers as in 

 the pastures along the woodside, where the grass grew so 

 thick and tender, with a wide, pond near at hand for bathing 

 and swimming, that it would delight the heart of any goose. 

 It was added that any fowls wishing to get the benefit of all 

 these good things were quite welcome to come and do so. 



Some wise old Turkeys and Geese, had no faith in these fine 

 stories, saying that " they had heard of the Fox before, and 

 doubted whether much tender grass and many grasshoppers 

 held long together." But many less wise were taken by 

 host Reynard's glowing representations, and flocked thither 

 in great numbers. But they found the beech nuts scarce, 

 the grasshoppers few in the poor pastures, and the boasted 

 pond proved to be a mere puddle. Meanwhile, however, the 

 Fox had good picking, and throve and waxed fat throughout 

 the season, for the few returning fowl said nothing of their 

 ill-fare, and more kept going; and before the summer had 

 passed feathers and bones were plentier along the woodside 

 than blades of grass had ever been. 

 moral. 



Before thou believest a big story of Fish and Game it may 

 be well for thee to leam somewhat of its source. Peradven- 

 ture it may be a Tavern. . 



r {ht Spartmtim ^aurigt. 



CAMPS OF THE KINGFISHERS. 



TN SEVERAL PARTS— FART IDT. 



ROUNDING a shady point in the river a pair of mallards, 

 i male and female, flapped noisily up from the water, 

 and "quacked" off -up stream, only to be disturbed again the 

 next hundred yards or so. Perhaps they were a wedded cou- 

 ple that preferred a summer residence here in this quiet nook, 

 where food was abundant in the marsh below, and where 

 housekeeping with their little ones would be easy, to the long, 

 weary spring journey to the breeding grounds of the far 

 nortli. It may 'be that they were a pair of eloping lovers, hid- 

 ing from the stern eye of the ' 'paternal parient ;" waiting to be 

 taken back to the relenting wings, with the usual ceremo- 

 nies. Who knows? 



Soon after leaving the head of St. Clair's we went around 

 to the right with the stream, and, winding along through the 

 river we saw myriads of suiifish sporting in the shallow pools, 

 a few bright barred perch flirted past the boat, and every few 

 rods ;i bass would break water as we scared him out from 

 under the shade of a bush or log along the banks. 



Near the head of the river we passed under another bridge, 

 and a short distance on we struck the dead water at the foot 

 of Six Mile, with the writer hot and dry and a trifle fagged. 

 For half a mile or more the lower end of the lake is narrow 

 and shallow, the water varying in depth from two and three 

 to fifteen feet. All along here we found very little water 

 open enough to fish with any satisfaction, the rushes, lilies 

 and grass growing up from the bottom in patches and streaks 

 that in many places reach from one shore to the other, to the 

 "serious pesterment of ye honest angler." We struck and 

 lost at least a dozen fish 'in the grass and weeds, and after ex- 

 hausting our stock of plain ancf figured invectives, we pulled 

 in to the. mouth of a small stream, that came with laughing- 

 song into the lake from the east, to get a drink and look into 

 our lunch basket. 



Jim (our editor) swears a big, four-sectioned oath that the 

 writer can smell a spring or hear the tinkle of a little stream 

 a mile, away, and can drink more water in a day than a drove 

 of camels. ' But then Jim don't take kindly enough to any 

 well defined species of exercise to get. up a good healthy 

 thirst. Bowing a boat up a swift, crooked stream, or down, 

 either, for that matter, is not just his way of occupying his 

 time; and as his blood is never heated up to much above the 

 freezing point, a little water goes a good way with him. 

 When Jim and the scribe — or any other man — fish together 

 in the same boat, Jim usually manages to let the scribe, or 

 the other man, appropriate his share of the rowing, and most 

 of the water. And Jim never murmurs at missing his trick 

 at the oars; oh, no; not Jim! Jim's got d about that, and for 

 this reason we all like to row for Jim. He started in last 

 yea - to take rowing lessons to harden his muscles; took the 

 last lesson first, and quit; muscles became too hard for his 

 comfort. And yet, after all, Jim is fond of rowing a boat- 

 by substitute. 



We pushed out, and did nothing to speak of but to get 

 fast, in the grass every few yards for the next half mdo, when 

 ihc bike widened a little, and got deeper, and was compara- 

 tively free from grass. Off a low, marshy point we took two 

 fine bass, and Dan struck a pickerel, or maskalonge, that 

 kept him as busy as a dog in a "yaller jackets' " nest, for a 

 while; but the fish broke away just as I had figured out the 

 exact spot where I would jerk the gaff into him. 



Above this the water still deepened, and we found no 

 grass to bother, only a thin strip along the shore. We fished 

 leisurely along the windings of the east side, till stopped by 

 another spring brook flowing into a quiet little- bay, where 

 we took water and a pair of very game big-mouths. 



A little further along we ran iiw boat up on a narrow strip 

 of sandy beach at a bold point reaching Out into the lake, 

 and got out to rest and discuss the propriety of going on up 

 to the head that day, as the sun warned us that if we wished 

 to get back to camp before dark and do any fishing going 

 back we had better be moving. 



At this point the lake is less than a quarter of a mile wide, 

 but turning and looking east and south, we got a glorious 

 view of a magnificent sheet of water, spread out before us 

 like a beautiful picture. 



' Sweeping around to tha, left, the shore receded till the 

 lake looked to us to be fully two miles wide. Following up 

 the shore lines with the eye, they became more and more in- 

 distinct, until lost in a blue, smoky haze that grew so dense 

 toward the head of the lake that the shores were entirely 

 hidden from view, Struggling through the blue vapors and 

 smoke, the fervid rays of the July 6un flashed and danced 



on the gently ruffled bosom of the lake, making the little 

 ripples look as if sprinkled over with dust of old gold, It 

 was a charming; dreamy picture from which we were loth 

 to turn, but a dozen rapid revolutions of Dan's reel broke 

 the spell, and clambering back into the bout, he started I he 

 fun with a sharp fight with a three pound big-mouth. In 

 half an hour we took five more, all of which were dropped 

 back into the lake to finish then growth. As they struck 

 the water they would shake themselves in a dazed sort of 

 way for a moment to see if everythingwas in working order, 

 but once on an even keel, a stroke of the tail sent them into 

 the grass or out into deep water in a flash. 



Filling and lighting his pipe, Dan said: "I'll bet a fish- 

 hook that last one thinks lightning struck hi m somewhere! 

 Did you notice how wild he looked when I was leading him 

 up to the boat? When we get Sway from here, they'll col- 

 lect under the shade of yonder patch of lilies and compare 

 notes, call each other 'lot o' suckers,' and pass a fishy reso- 

 lution to steer clear in future of anything having a sent 

 blance of a speckled frog. And then next day they'll forget 

 all about it. With all his smartness, a bass has no memory 

 to speak of. I lost a big one a few years ago in the Tippe- 

 canoe River, in the morning, and in the afternoon I took the 

 same fellow, with a couple of feet of my line dangling from 

 his mouth and my hook buried in his bowels. Fact!" 



Crossing to the west side we fished back until the grass 

 began to annoy us, adding three bass to the score, and when 

 opposite the stream where we had eaten our lunch, crossed 

 back and left our fines out while we slaked our thirst and 

 straightened our legs. Dan here lost a very obstinate fish in 

 the grass, but whether bass or longface we could not tell. 

 and reeling up in disgust we headed for the outlet, and 

 under along swinging stroke were soon following the sinu- 

 osities of the little thread of water leading to St. Clair's. 



The camp at St, Clair's is a good one, but the spring is a. 

 trifle uuhaudy, and firewood rather scarce in the immediate 

 vicinity. 



Follow the road up the point leading straight back into 

 the woods eighty rods, the regulation distance, turn down a 

 path to your left, and a few yards will bring you to the spring. 

 This, for the information of any vagrant wandering brother of 

 the rod and reel who may be passing through this water way 

 and is athirst. We did not stop, but held our course along 

 the south side of the lake, not getting a strike, however, un- 

 til we pulled across and left our lines trail out at a "water 

 station" a short distance from the outlet, Wc tosk one bass 

 here and might have taken more, but not caring to waste 

 time we moved on, and making the circuit of the basin at 

 the lower end stopped the boat near the outlet and took three 

 more fine ones, which we put on a stringer to take to camp. 

 As we neared the bend in the stream where Dan struck the 

 large bass going up, and remembering the promise given, 

 we approached cautiously to within eight or ten yards of 

 the little pool, and pulling the boat silently up on the bank in a 

 position that would allow us both to cast without fouling 

 our lines, we stood up to get a look into its clear depths. 



Shade of gentle Thad. JSlorris! There, lying near the bot- 

 tom and under the shadows of some drooping bushes, fan- 

 ning the pebbles with an occasional flirt of a fin, we saw 

 Ave or six great lazy looking bass, the sight of which brought 

 an uuwonted sparkle into old Dan's eyes as he quietly took 

 up his rod, hooked up and swung the hook to me for a frog. 



"A small one, Hickory! they will swallow it the more 

 readily, and there is not room enough in that hole to allow 

 them much time on the bait." 



As I hooked on one of the smallest frogs in the bucket, 1 

 confess my nerves were a trifle shackly, and the blood 

 quickened 'its flow, for the sight at the bottom of the poo) 

 roused up all the "old Izaak" there was in me. The instant 

 Dan's frog touched the water the pool seemed alive with 

 fish, and the spray flew in all directions as the frog dis- 

 appeared and the hue ran out toward the bushes. Hooking 

 on a frog as quickly as possible, I dropped it two or three 

 yards further down, and instantly the water was in a tur- 

 moil. I struck my fish after giving him barely a yard of 

 line, and then began a tierce tussle to see who would wm, 

 the fish striving to get over a little bar at the foot of the 

 pool and under a projecting sunken limb where tin atex 

 tiad scooped out. a. hole three or four feet deep, and 1 to hold 

 him away from it. Muscle and tackle prevailed and I led 

 him flopping and floundering across the stream to a small 

 sand bar just below, where I felt the danger was over, and a 

 minute later be was making signs for water in the bottom of 

 the boat, with a good sized fight still left in him. 



Meanwhile Dan had struck his fish and was 1 tigging with 

 might and main to get him out from under the bustles, where 

 he seemed bent on staying. Suddenly the fish shot into the 

 air, easing the strain on the rod so quickly that Dan came 

 near losing his balance and going overboard, but recovering 

 as the lintTagain tightened, the fight took a turn in his favor 

 and the bass, assisted by a friendly lift from the writer, was 

 presently gasping in the boat with his mate. They were a 

 handsome pair and would weigh at least three pounds a piece, 



Another cast, and the sport grew fast and furious, most 

 of the time both of us handling a fish at once, until we had 

 eight flopping in the boat, when all at once they quit rising; 

 and a dozen casts all over the pool failed to stir another tiu. 



We did not stop to siring them but (.hopping the hoata few 

 yards down stream, we took two more out from under the 

 sunken limb, and then rested after our victory. A complete 

 victory, for a careful look over the water convinced us we 

 had taken the last fish in the pool and school. 



Never, perhaps, were ten finer bass taken from so 

 limited a space in a shorter time and under more difficulties. 

 There was no room to play them and wear them out on the 

 rod, the tackle had to stand the strain of holding them away 

 from the roots and bushes, or break, and it took quick, sharp 

 work from the very start. Never were two "honest anglers' 1 

 happier or better satisfied with themselves and the world at 

 large than -were "old Dan and Hickory" over these, few min- 

 utes of rare and exciting sport, the memory of which will 

 haunt, our day dreams until we 816 called to float our boat 

 on the placid lakes and meandering .streams, and build out- 

 camp lire on the green shores of the "happy fishing grounds." 



I strung the fish and chopped them over the side of the 

 boat, where they soon revived in the fresh running water. 



Dan rammed a fresh charge in his pipe, touched it off, and 

 trimming the boat with a hitch to port, balanced himself on 

 the seat, a picture of perfect content as we swung into the 

 current and took our way down stream and out into Bower's 

 Lake. Skirting leisurely along the rushes and lilies for per- 

 haps half a mile without taking a fish, we began to think 

 our luck had deserted us, when just its we were passing the 

 mouth of a small spring brook, a vigorous strike put an end 

 to one of Dan's "reminiscences of Tippecanoe," and I stopped 

 the boat to see that in the coming fray the old fish hawk had 

 fair treatment, 



