July fi, 1382.-1 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



449 



who wag always a bit queer — grabbed her, and chucking her 

 info the muzzle, rammed her home. We then rigged up a 

 slow match, and touehingfire to it, scarnperedfor the hillside 

 toward which the gun was pointed, We hadn't much more 

 than got there when we paw that old twenty-four hist more 

 than ten feet, and, as the smoke cleared a little! we saw old Tab 

 a-eoming, first sideways and then endways, with a yemo, 

 weowat every turn. Pretty soon she stoma on top of the 

 knoll, and Je-ru-sa-fo»j how she did run!" Shadow, 



FISH IN SEASON IN JULY. 



FttESD VATEB. 



Lake trout, Ortetivomer namay- i t'ike <N. T. pickerel), Egox Indus. 

 wsh. Pickerel, Esox rcticulatns. 



Sisciiwct, Criftimn,,:,- aixcou-ct. Pike ■pereli i Wall-eyed pikei Si>- 



Brook trout, So.hvli,iHnJhntin<ilix. znstethiu.m. 



GfijayUng, Tkymallm tricolor and Yellow percti, Perca fluvial His. 



T.'mcintanus. 

 Rainbow trout, Falmo iriden, 

 Clark's (rout, Salmn t'lurkU. 

 Dolly Vardeh trout, SaJweUniu 



malma. 

 Salmon, SalmoacOaf, 

 Land-looked salmon, vnr. sebago. 

 Quinnat salmon, OfiCOrhyncHw 



ohoicyeJia. 

 Black buss, .uvcc-p^ths, 2species. 

 Sliad, Alnsa sitriidissima. 

 Masldnonge, Esox nobilior. 



Striped bass (Kockflah), Moccu-s 



While bass, Rorctts < hrysnps. 

 Rock bass, Ambloplitas, two spe- 



War-moutb, OkamooryHu* gido- 



sue. 

 Crappie (Strawberry basSt etc.). 



Pomnxys n icromarulahix, 

 Baebelor, Pumoxyn annularis. 

 Chub, Sriiwlilus bullaris. 



Sea bass. Crnlrnpristn 



SALT WATEH. 



"Sea trout," Cynoscyon carolinen- 



nte perch. Moron 

 Soup or porgie, Stenotomus ar- 



gyrops. 

 Tautog or blaekfish, Tautogaoni- 



lis. 

 Bluelisb or taylor, Pomatomttx 



saltatrix. 

 Weakilsh or squetague, Gynos- 



cyon regalis. 



Klieepshead, Archosaryux proba- 



torephalns. 

 Kiugflsb or Barb, Mcvh'cirrnn nc- 



buXosus. 

 Spanish mackerel, Cybium macifr 



Drum, Pogonias r.hromis. 

 Lafayette, Liostom im oblittuus. 

 Red bass, etc., Scicehopaocellatus. 



TEN-OUNCE RODS vs. FIVE-OUNCE 

 RODS. 



Editor Forest awl Stream : 



I regrel greatly the harshness of some of the remarks of 

 Dr. J. A. Henshall, in his letter upon "Light Rods," pub- 

 lished in your issue of June 22, and my first impulse was to 

 leave his otherwise interesting and valuable letter unan- 

 swered, because of his rudeness; but, as my silence might be 

 misconstrued, and as I am inclined to think that the Doctor 

 does not appreciate nor care for the great weight of his 

 words any more than he does for that of his rods, I will 

 notwithstanding the improper parts of his letter, look again 

 a( bis main point. The Doctor's whole letter is an amusing 

 instance of his preference for heavy rods and coarse tackle, 

 lie slashes around in the most vigorous manner like a rustic 

 fisherman with a ponderous hickory pole, and I do believe 

 that he is entirely unconscious of it. lie "courts and in- 

 vites manly, fair-minded and straightforward criticism upon 

 anything he has written," but it is Gil Bias and the Bishop 

 over again, and woe betide the hold man, unknown to fame 

 and Dr. Henshall, who may dare to differ with the Doctor 

 in opinion or presume to say openly that, the Doctor had 

 expressed a preference to a certain weight of rod — that 

 man is not manly, nor fair-minded, nor .straightforward. 

 The Doctor is so undoubtedly perfectly correct in every- 

 thing laid down in his book, however, that no other reader 

 of FOKE8T aad Stream will ever hereafter be found to 

 criticise jl in any part. 



The Doctor in his letter goes on to say that I disproved 

 nothing he had written, and proved nothing of my 

 own knowledge and experience; and that he knows 

 nothing whatever about me. As it is a matter of 

 opinion whether rods should be light, I am willing to admit 

 that my saying so does not make it so, although I did think 

 I knew something about fly rods; but, of course, if Dr. Hen- 

 shall says he thinks they should be heavy, that proves it; 

 for we all know Dr. Henshall all our lives; the laud has re- 

 sounded with his name and fame for thirty -live years past — 

 the woods have been full of him, as il were. This eminently 

 fair-minded Doctor, who docs not garble, presented in his 

 letter "to the impartial reader, in justice to himself," 

 two extracts from his book, but be carefully left out the ex- 

 tract which I, in the most unmanly, unfair and crooked 

 manner, had quoted in full in my first letter, 1 began by 

 saying: "flow amusing are his supercilious remarks (atpage 

 229) upon the proper weight, or rather lightness of trout 

 fods, The Doctor has written an excellent work on black 

 bass, and he says: '1 would here enter my protest against 

 the lightest and withiest trout fly rods, weighing from six 

 to seven ounces, being used or recommended for black bass 

 fishing. ' So far so good. But then he goes on with this 

 absurdity: 'Such rods arc but toys at the best, and only 

 admissible for flngerlings or trout weighing from half a 

 pound downward. I know that some anglers make a boast 

 of using such rods, but it is on a par with some gunners 

 who rush to the extreme in light shotguns, and claim that a 

 sixteen or twenty bore is capable of as good general execu- 

 tion as the larger gauges. Now, these are both palpable 

 fallacies, as great, as that of "sending a boy to a mill" in the 

 "History of the Four Kings," as many have found to their 

 cost.' " " 



How came the manly, and fair-minded and straightfor- 

 ward Doctor to leave out this extract from his book from his 

 letter of June S3? Because I had already printed it? Then 

 wherein have I misstated him? 



1 must request the readers of Foxiest A$d Stream: to take 

 my letter of June 8, and read it in connection with Dr. 

 llenshall's letter in the paper of June £2. 



I never caught a black bass weighing twelve to fourteen 

 pounds, such as the Doctor speaks of, never saw one, never 

 heard of one before. But as 1 have this winter, over my 

 pipe, concluded that a large percentage, of the pleasure con- 

 sists in guessing at the weight of the fish you catch, and 

 of the fish you lose, I have resolved to throw away my 

 pocket-scales and weigh my fish, and especially those of un- 

 friends, with my eye hereafter, in the usual way. It pains 

 me to think what a. toil of pleasure Dr. Henshall must have 

 had, and how the flexors and extensors of his arms must 

 have su If ered when he took that thirty-pound redfish on an 

 eight-ounce rod in Florida; and when he played those three- 

 pound ttOUt in Lake Superior, on a fivc-ouuee cedar lead- 

 pencil. According to the Doctor's theory, as laid down by 

 himself (please read his letter, and see that I do not garble), 

 his pleasure woidd have been greatly enhanced with a. leu- 

 ounce rod, and he wouldn't "mind a little extra straining of 

 the brachial muscles." 



But let, nobody dare say that the Doctor prefers the latter 

 course; that would not 'be a manly nor fair-minded, nor 

 straightforward criticism. And do not understand I he Doc- 

 tor as saying that in his varied experience he has caught Mary- 

 land gudgeon weighing less than one ounce on a bait rod 

 weighing two pounds, or a forty-pound bass on a two-ounce 

 fly rod, because he did not say that, although il reads a little 

 that way: but he did delicately handle, and kill a thirty- 

 pound redfisti on an eight-ounce rod. And of course (as he 

 says so it must be so), "Any expert, fly-fisher cau occasion- 

 ally kill, in open water, a three-pound' trout on a five-ounce 

 rod— it is no great feat," Ohl Of course not! We all do 

 il! Certainly! Every gentleman who reads this thinks 

 nothing of 'doing it. A common, tame, ordinary three- 

 pound trout on alive-ounce rod! Pshaw! That's no great 

 feat! I did think, until the Doctor ordered it otherwise 

 in his letter of June 22, that such a feat was worth to me 

 fifty dollars cash down, for the pleasure of it, every time.) 

 I have thrown a fly for twenty-six years. A s to the weight 

 of my rod — Fred' Mather weighed, last year, the one with 

 which I have fished in the company of Various gentlemen 

 for four years past. That rod threw and recovered and 

 killed, with forty -six feet water-proof silk-line out . last season, 

 in presence of 'Mr. J. S. Tan Oleef, of Poughki 

 David W. Judd, of NewTork t and of other gentlemen. It 

 was all the line on my reel; I measured it The rod can do 

 more. Mr. Van Oleef threw his fly much further. If I am 

 not mistaken his rod weighs within half an ounce of mine. 

 We did not take the trouble to stand up to do it, neither; 

 Ave sat down in the boat, comfortably, and used only the 

 fore-arm. The Doctor's saying that a long line cannot be 

 lifted neatly, nor a smooth, straight cast of any consider- 

 able length be made, with such rods, only shows that he 

 docs not know how. But I must be careful. Such a remark 

 as that is not manly, nor fair, nor straightforward. And 

 then again it cannot be true. 



As I carefully excepted black bass from my criticism in 

 my first letter, I submit to the Doctors statement that an 

 eight-ounce rod is light enough for them ; but any one who 

 has used a five or six-ounce fly rod for trout knows what an 

 immense relief it is to the wrist and to the big muscle 

 from the thumb (the Doctor; would call it the (.r(<n- 

 sor sfc-i.pdi internodii pallia x\ and how greatly preferable to a 

 rod of eight ounces. Of course, if a man is going to use his 

 whole arm and all his strength at every cast he will need the 

 heavier rod preferred by the Doctor: but that is entirely un- 

 necessary in casting the fly for all ordinary practical trout 

 fishing; and to "still maintain that fly rods weighing from 

 four to seven ounces are toy rods, and not suitable for 

 * * * trout that, weigh upward of a pound" only shows 

 ignorance or want of skill, or vain obstinacy, on the part, of 

 the person maintaining it. If to practically and successfully 

 use a five-ounce fly rod with trout of all the sizes that come 

 in the State of New York, iu preference to uselessly tiring 

 my arm with an eight-ounce, rod. is to be one of "the cox- 

 combs and dilettanti of the fraternity," then 1 am one of 

 them. It is certainly not I, but it ' is the Doctor who 

 "prates 'of delicately handling aud killing' three-pound trout 

 on four and five-ounce rods, as every day occurrences." 



I have very very seldom seen a trout of that weight, but 

 I know my rod and what it has stood, and what it can do: 

 and two gentlemen, members of I he Willewemoe Club, within 

 twenty^ feet of me, saw- me hook at one cast and kill three 

 large trout on my five-ounce rod. The account appeared in 

 Forest .and Stream at the time. It is the Doelor who 

 makes (in his letter of June 22) the modest, assertion that "it 

 is no great feat" for "any expert fly-fisher to occasionally 

 kill, in open water, a three-pound trout on a five-ounce rod." 

 That is a proposition which I never made and to which I do 

 not subscribe, (which is probably unmanly, unfair, and not 

 straightforward in me). But I think that if is a great feat, 

 and that but comparatively few possess the skill, and fewer 

 have the chance; but that* the majority- of the Willewemoe 

 Club can do it: I am convinced, from having watched them 

 throw the fly and handle very heavy fish, and the only fish- 

 erman whom I ever heard complain of the fatigue, of fight- 

 ii.g a large fish with a fight rod is Dr. J. A. Henshall. 



If it be not an unmanly, unfair and crooked inference 

 from his own statements that he has more pleasure in getting 

 tired with, a heavy rod than with a heavy fish — then it, 

 seems to me that he is to be pitied for depriving himself of 

 great pleasure by his inconsistency. The Doctor in his letter 

 pleads ignorance of the. " Bowery style" in billiards. That is 

 just it. "There never was'a man yet whoplayedin that style, 

 or fished in that style, or wrote in thai style, but claimed 

 that he was ignorant of it. It consists in jamming and 

 driving the balls furiously, without delicacy- of touch, hop- 

 ing they'll count somewhere around the table. It consists 

 in starting out to crush any one who has been so insolent 

 and presumptuous as to differ with the views of the great, 

 man who has printed them in a book, by unfairly saying 

 that the, critic is unmanly, unfair, and not straightforward 

 — that he has " garbled" the extracts he has made [at the 

 same time suppressing the very extract, that the critic crit- 

 icised); it consists in preferring to tire flexor and extensor 

 muscles with an eight to ten ounce fly rod for trout, to 

 the "time consumed" and the "toil of pleasure" that conies 

 from using a well-made rod of four and a half or live ounces. 



And id! the time the person who practises Ihe "Bowery 



i ! thinks he's the finest player in the country, and is 

 unable to perceive the clumsiness and unpleasant impression 

 made by his manner of play. 



Bet those who choose "yank" out the big fish with a pole; 

 for me, I prefer to be one'of the dilettanti whom the Doctor 

 depises; and may I waste much time in my life trying to 

 land heavy trout on a. four-and a-half-ounce rod. 



The Doctor will be astonished should he come to learn how 

 many gentlemen have given up the heavy, fatiguing 

 eight-ounce rods, and who habitually use. the four to six 

 ounce. Does the Doctor know what, is the leverage on a rod 

 of only six ounces? I will tell him; on a My rod of eleven 

 feet in length, weighing 64 ounces, having on it a No. 4 reel 

 and line weighing 4f ounces (grip above the reel, of course), 

 the leverage is twenty-two ounces, that is. if the rod be held 

 level; upright of course there is no leverage; if the rod were 

 held most of the time at an angle of forty-live degrees, the 

 average power exerted would bo eleven ounces; but the rod 

 is held lower, nearer thirty degrees, aud it is safe to say that 

 on such a light rod, a power of one pound is CO 

 straining on the muscles. 



I will tabulate rods, the leverage of which has bee 

 tainecL 

 No. t. 



No. '3. 

 No. 8. 

 tfO. 1. 

 HO, 5, 



Length. 



la ft. 



Weight. 



i>l Line. 



IIUOZ. 



Leverage. 







5| (Z, 



B6oa 



lis. 



tiW.e- 



4S:joz. 





10ft, 



4!ooz. 





160s. 



8$et. 



408, 





KJos. 



The average leverage, holding the rods at an angle of 

 30deg from the horizontal, is fairly two-thirds of the fore- 

 going. Bod No. 1 is a standard black bass rod. Upon a 

 No. 2 was caught and killed, without gaff or net, a salmon 

 which weighed" thirty-three pounds. No. 3 is the "standard" 

 trout rod at present in this part of the country. A "stand- 

 ard" rod of 1847, (sent in for repair) has also been tested. 

 Length, Iflt'l,., weight, 17±oz., weight of reel and line, 7oz. : 

 leverage, 5 pounds; (as the reel is above the hand) tbisrod of 

 1847 is not so strong, nor will it stand work, nor can it cast 

 as far as the lift, standard of to-day. A lOoz. rod is now 

 almost as obsolete as that one of 1847. The Doctor, you 

 observe, prefers to have 46 ounces rather than 24 ounces to 

 strain him all day when he goes fishing. 



Now I know I hat sitting down, I can with the No. 5 throw 

 a fly forty-six feet; and that is very much farther than 

 is necessary or usual in. trout fishing. It is not necessary to 

 stand up to throw a good fly if you use the right kind of 

 light rod; the Doctor's' illustration of fly-casting in his book 

 may be the thing for black bass (though I think he is wrong 

 even there — it does not need so much arm and muscle), but 

 it is totally unnecessary for trout (unless you use one of the 

 Doctor's bean-pole ten-ounce rods). 



Why are split bamboo rods so much liked? Because they 

 are light. They are not "withe-like," that is, if I under- 

 stand what the Doctor means by "withe-like." But many 

 gentlemen prefer an ash butt with lancewood second joint 

 and lip to any split; bamboo rod. I do myself ; it is a little 

 stiffer in proportion to its weight, (for the w'ooden rod can be 

 and is made as light as the split bamboo). I will put in the 

 Doctor's hand, at some convenient place, a rod of ash and 

 lancewood of any light weight he may name, down to four 

 and a quarter ounces! and leave it to ' him — not as a matter 

 of captious dispute, but on his honor, to say whether or not 

 it is "withe-like." I would like the Doctor "to state just how 

 many different light rods he has ever handled — their weight 

 and make. I cannot but think from the Doctor's talk that ' 

 he never handled more than one, and that a poor one. 



The principles of a good fly rod have been reduced to 

 axioms by William Mitchell) of New York, who is the 

 father of* the American fly rod manufacture. His axioms 

 are: 



1. The less number of pieces in which a rod is made, the 

 more perfect will be its action, and the less its liability to 

 get out of order. 



2. The more homogeneous the materials of which the 

 rod is made, if it have sufficient elasticity and strength, the 

 longer will it stand the necessary strain without injury. 



3f The more impervious to the action of water, damp- 

 ness, or change of atmosphere, the longer will the rod retain 

 its elasticity and perfect action. 



4. All weight in wood or metal in a rod, above the grip, 

 which does nor strengthen the rod, weakens it, and, with all 

 weight added below the grip to balance the rod, is so much 

 useless weight. 



5. The rod possessing sufficient elasticity and strength 

 with lightness, and which is the least liable to get out of 

 order from any cause, and which, when broken, is the 

 easiest to repair (right on (lie stream), is the nearest to per- 

 fection that a rod can be made. 



These are self-evident propositions. And you may add to 

 them another, viz.: that, in any given rod, when, under the 

 necessary strain, any part 'Iocs not bend, that part does not 

 bear its proportion of the strain, and the latter is transferred 

 to the next adjacent .weaker part (which is the spot where 

 the rod will break, if at all); so that an absolutely perfect 

 rod should be springy from tip to heel-plate of butt, It has 

 been proved by the experience of many gentlemen whose 

 names I could give if I had their permission, that several 

 ounces of useless wood can be pared off, both above the grip 

 and below, without weakening the rod, while it adds enor- 

 mously to the pleasure and comfort of the fly-fisher. 



The' Doctor had bitter take up his billiard playing again; 

 it, will not only strengthen his flexors, etc., but will bring 

 back delicacy of touch and pleasure in it, since he uses a 

 fourteen-'ounce cue. 



The "animus" of my first letter was simply to refute the 

 Doctor's .absurd statement, on page 229 of'his book, that 

 "such rods (trout fly rods weighing from six to seven 

 ounces) are but toys at the best, and only admissible for 

 flngerlings, or trout weighing from half a pound downwards." - 

 Those are the words df his that sounded to me like the cavil 

 of ignorant vanity or of vain ignorance. 



What surprises me is i hat with all the Doctor's extensive 

 and varied and somewhat remarkable' experiences he should 

 prefer to tire himself out with a heavy rod instead of a heavy 

 fish. Still I do not think it unmanly, nor unfair, nor 

 crooked, nor dishonest in him to state his preference for the- 

 heavy pole, although his way of expressing it in his book 

 still seems to me supercilious. 



I subscribe myself, with pleasure, one of the dilettanti 

 in fly-fishing for trout, (I must say I have grave doubts 

 whether the Doctor know T s what d.ilethrnte means.) 



Geo. W. Vab Siclen. 



New Yohk, June 20, 1882. 



THE THOUSAND ISLANDS. 



I HAD the pleasure of spending last week at the Thousand 

 Islands, and thought you might wish to hear the result of 

 our trip. We left Juwv York the evening of June 18 on the 

 New York Central, arriving at Clayton '.Monday morning at 

 10:30. Friend Johnson, of the Walton House, had men and 

 boats in waiting, 80 we lost no lime in getting our fishing 

 rig out aud starting off. The wind was. high and cold, and 

 the fishing indifferent. In fact we had no pleasant weather 

 until Thursday, and then the fish began to take. We con- 

 fined ourselves to the black bass, and Thursday and Friday 

 did very well, our party on the latter day' taking some 

 one hundred and twenty-five small-mouthed" bass, but none 

 over 3£ lbs. 1 think that now it will be safe to count on 

 good fishing. The scarlet ibis and grizzly king were the 

 favorites, though the addition of a small minnow proved 

 exceedingly attractive to the bass. * 



The phantom minnow and pearlspoon were very taking 

 also. 



The trip was a most, enjoyable one. The superb air, total 



ii pests, and delightful dinners on the islands, 



go to make Clayton one of the most delightful of summer 

 resorts, i notice that the majority of anglers have discarded 

 all trolling and bait rods, finding a stiff split bamboo fly-rod 

 the most perfect tool for black bass fishing, no matter "what 

 bait is used. \\ . HOLPEBTOK. 



. ' rpuB i i 



Montreal, Canada, June 28.— Fish are being caught in 

 this' district averaging much heavier weights than for d 



-i, — R, \\. K, 



