172 
FOREST AND STREAM 
—Mr. Thayer’s schooner, the “Triton,” will appear this 
season with increased sail area, having received at Mr. 
Mnnn’s yard new spars of the following dimensions: Main¬ 
mast, 65 feet; fore mast, 62 feet; main top mast, 29 feet; 
fore I op mast, 28 feet, and main boom 46 feet. 
—Mr. Charles H. Mallory will bring out this season the 
large sloop built for him last fall at Mystic, Conn. Her 
dimensions are: Length over all, 72 feet; length in the load 
waterline, 65 feet; beam, 23 feet 9 inches: depth of hold, 
6 feet 6 inches. She is a centre board sloop, named the 
“Fannie,” and is on the list of the New York Yacht Club. 
—Mr. W. H. Langley, the former owner of the “Addie,” 
is having a centre board schooner built at Fire Island, from 
model of Philip Ellsworth’s. She has been designed 
solely with reference to speed. Her length over all will be 
81 feet. She will have a main mast *70 feet in length, a 
fore mast 67 feet, main top mast 34 feet, fore top mast 32 
feet. Inside she will be handsomely finished, and the space 
is so divided that she will have four state rooms in addition to 
the four berths m the main saloon. She will be called the 
“Comet,” and the christening will take place upon the 
occasion of her launch, which is expected to be about the 
15tli of May. 
—Mr. Whitman, of South Brooklyn, is now building a 
nice looking centre board sloop of the following dimen¬ 
sions: Length over all, 42 feet; beam, 15 feet, and depth 
of hold 5 feet. She will have six feet of head room under 
her trunk cabin. She is divided below into state room, 
pantry, and cabin, with four berths. 
—The crews of the Harlem Rowing Club and Nassau’s 
are working steadily and practicing every Saturday for the 
six-oared barge race, which will take place about the mid¬ 
dle of May. This is expected to be an interesting and close 
race. 
—The Nassau Boat Club, of Harlem, are importing from 
England a single scull, a pair oar, and a four oar. These 
boats have been built by Jewett, of Newcastle, expressly 
for this club, from specifications and drawings furnished by 
some of the leading members. They are expected to arrive 
in this city by the next Cunard steamer. 
—The schooner yacht “Haze, Centre Board,” fifty-nine 
feet on water line, has been sold by her late owner, Ed¬ 
ward D. Peters, Esq.-, of Boston, to H. A. Motte, of New 
York city. She is two years old, handsomely furnished, 
and carries with her a good record, having already won 
several prizes. She is now at Beverly, Mass., but will soon 
be taken to her new home. 
Championship of the Thames. —Joseph H. Sadler, of 
London, and Robert Bagnall, of Newcastle, rowed a single 
scull race on the river Thames on April 16th for the 
championship and £200. The course was the same as the 
Oxford and Cambridge boat race, from Putney to Mort- 
lake. This was the first championship contest rowed on 
the Thames within six years. Sadler was the favorite, and 
won by three lengths. 
--—— 
J |m and H&iver ^ishitjg. 
K FISH IN SEASON IN APRIL. 
Salmon, Salmo Salar. Salmon trout, Salmo conflnis. 
Trout, Salmofontinalis. Shad, Alosa. 
Land-locked Salmon, Salmo gloveri. 
L Under the head of “Game, and Fisn in, Season ” ive can only specify in 
gzneral terms the several varieties, because the laws of States vary so much 
t lat were we*to attempt to particularize we could do no less than imblish 
those entire sections that relate to the kinds of game in question. This 
would require a great amount of our space. In designating game we are 
guided by the laws of nature, upon which all legislation is founded, and 
our readers would do well to provide themselves with the laws of their re¬ 
spective States for constant reference. Otherwise, our attemvts to assist them 
will only create confusion .] 
—From every indication, a larger number of persons will 
go to the woods this summer than ever before. Whatever 
the cause, whether it be “the inculcation in men and wo¬ 
men, by Forest and Stream, of a healthy interest in out¬ 
door recreation,” or whether there be a natural growth all 
over the country of a disposition to seek the wild wood 
haunts in lieu of the more fashionable and ariificial sum¬ 
mer resorts, certain it is that advertisements for country 
board begin to appear in the papers; anglers are already 
selecting their fishing grounds, and inquiries pour in upon 
us as to the desirability of this or that locality, the kind of 
fish to be caught here or there, and the sort of tackle to be 
used. All the fishing-tackle stores are pressed with orders, 
and whatever the general disposition to economize, there 
seems no hesitation to invest liberally in outfits for the 
lakes and streams. As we have observed, fly-fishing for 
shad has surely captivated the angling fraternity, and we 
doubt not that hundreds will essay their first experiment at 
the falls and rapids of the several rivers where these splen¬ 
did fish are found. Only last week one of our best rod- 
makers and heaviest dealers in tackle, Mr. McHarg, of 
Rome, N. Y., called upon us for patterns for sliad-flies, 
stating it to be his purpose to confer with all who know 
anything about angling for shad, in order to obtain ap¬ 
proved patterns from which to manufacture large lots with 
which to fill present and anticipated orders. Herewith we 
print another article on shad fishing containing most valu¬ 
able information from an old expert whose name is full 
guaranty for its reliability. 
Siiad fly Fishing—The Wny and Wherefore. —The 
fact that shad naturally do and will rise to the fly having 
been established beyond all cavil in the minds of ang¬ 
lers who read the Forest and Stream, I propose, 
Mr. Editor, as a summing up of„ the subject, to make some 
slight allusion to those who preceeded Mr. Chalmers and 
Mr. Prime in casting the fly for^this, which has added^ one 
more to the list of our game fishes, and to offer some re¬ 
marks why shad are enticed by this artificial lure, and sug¬ 
gest in what parts of the rivers which they frequent, the 
angler may hope for success. 
Years ago and before Herbert wrote on fish and fishing 
over the soubriquet of “Frank Forester,” shad were said 
to have been taken with the fly. The writer alluded to 
mentions them as having been captured in this way—if I 
remember correctly, for I have not his book at hand—at the 
falls of the Passaic. We have heard verbally some years 
back that they had also been taken on the Connecticut, and 
that the Savannah River had also contributed its mite to this 
hitherto unheard of sport; and lastly some brother of the 
angle who did not give his name enclosed to me three or four 
years ago a slip of a column or so—whether new or old I am 
unable to say—from the Spirit of the Times , describing at 
length, the success of a shad fly fisher on the Connecticut, 
saying that there was nothing unnatural in these fish rising 
to the fly, or difficult in taking them. But to all this hear 
say and this small amount of printed authority anglers were 
indifferent or incredulous. 
Before our city gas works had entirely expelled the shad 
from the Schuylkill it was no uncommon thing for bottom 
fishers to take them occasionally at the ends of the rapids 
below Fairmount dam, on the ebb tide, with that most unc- 
tious of all baits, shad roe, when fishing for perch and 
cat fish. A friend of the writer, a complete novice in 
angling, about twenty years ago, went to Fairmount dam, 
and with the bait first mentioned, captured three before 
breakfast, and I have no doubt he still thinks that shad roe 
is the proper, and perhaps only bait for them, as well as for 
other fish. The water just mentioned up tc about twelve 
years ago had been a convenient and favorite resort of my 
own for white perch, from the middle of April to the first 
of June; my bait was invariably small silver minnows, as 
long as the two lower joints of my little finger, or the eel- 
fry not larger than a darning needle, that every spring 
collect at the western corner of the dam, endeavoring to 
surmount the falls. With both of these baits I have killed 
in all, some eight or ten shad when fishing for perch. And 
yet I considered it a chance catch—that it was some mo¬ 
mentary freak of the fish that induced it to take hold. I 
ought to have known better, and to have investigated the 
matter, as probably Mr. Chalmers did, for I had not un- 
frequently seen boys standing on the rocks at low tide, 
where the current swept swiftly past, catch herring with a 
bit of red flannel on the ends of their hooks. 
Sir Humphry Davy in his Salmonia has expressed his 
belief, although nothing is ever found in the stomachs of 
salmon taken in fresh water, that they rise to the artificial 
from some recollection of the natural flies they fed on in 
their state of parrhood. That it is from some remnant of 
an old instinct that returns to them on revisiting then- 
native rapids in mature salmonhood, I have no doubt. We 
find the shad and herring also without food in their pouches 
in fresh water. And it is only in fresh water, and even 
then only in the fluvial portions of rivers that this instinct 
or recollection of the food of their infancy, if you may so 
call it, seems to return to them. 
- Now it is well known that salmon will not rise to a fly in 
salt water, or m fresh water tide-ways, or even in the placid 
still pools above. The shad, also an anadromous fish and 
only visiting its native stream to reproduce its species, is in 
all of these particulars analogous to the salmon. The 
angler therefore who casts his flies from the wharves at 
Hartford on the Connecticut, or Philadelphia or Burling¬ 
ton, on the Delaware, Alexandria or the Long bridge on 
the Potomac, will fish in vain. When casting over some 
of the pools on salmon rivers, one has parr—the young of 
the salmon—continually jumping at his fly and even at the 
knots on his casting line; frequently taking, and of course, 
releasing them. Young shad also feed on flies that hover 
close to or alight on the surface of the water. I have seen 
them at evening above Trenton jumping in thousands, 
their bright sides flitting in the rays of the declining sun. 
Colin Lyman of the Massachusetts F ish Commission has 
even detected and named the species of flies he has found 
in the stomachs of shad-fry, and it is only in such parts of 
the river where young salmon and shad thus feed, that the 
old instinct is awakened and the mature salmon and shad 
rise at the artificial lure of the angler. 
Mr. Chalmers, who is without doubt a sagacious as well 
as an observing and patient angler, tells us that it is at tbe 
end of a rapid where it subsides into stiller water, but still 
with a smart current, that we are to ply our flies; that with 
the point of the rod we direct and display our' whip back 
and forth across the current, that the flies are taken on the 
surface or beneath. This is analogous to casting diagonally 
across a salmon pool, allowing your flies to swing by the 
force of the current over the lay of the fish, and to the side 
you are standing on; and this also, as every fly fisher knows 
is an effectual way'of fishing a good wide trout, cast. I 
hope my brothers of the angle will not be too sanguine as 
to killing shad on all the rivers this fish frequent. Our 
streams are so depleted that such hope would be unreason¬ 
able, and moreover some of _ our southern rivers, even at 
low water, are so dark that it is likely shad may not rise 
to the fly for a very good reason, which is that they can¬ 
not see it; and on all rivers where there is some obstacle to 
bar their further ascent, or to detain them, the angler may 
be most hopeful. If I were to fish the Connecticut I 
would, of course, go to Holyoke. If the Delaware, to 
Scudder’s Falls, eight miles above Trenton, or Wells’ Falls 
a mile or so below Lambertville, or the rapids at Heitz- 
mans’ Spring two miles above Easton; if the Potomac, of 
course, the Little Falls and rapids below. 
And now a word or two as to flies. (I have now a page 
or so of manuscript entitled “This fly or that fly,” which I 
will write out one of these days for Forest and Stream). 
And I maintain that this or that particular fly for salmon, 
shad, trout, or grayling, is all particular nonsense. Mr’ 
Prime used flies entirely unlike those tried and recommend¬ 
ed by Mr. Chalmers, and with such flies, after having tried 
many others, was successful. If one fishes at the proper 
time of day, or all of some such days as Mr. Prime had, of 
course light tints will be most killing, and darker colors in 
bright weather, particularly for the morning. I have now 
in hand six dozen shad flies for parties in Washington, and 
while adopting the colors of those of Mr. Chalmers, (you 
would’nt advise me imitate the general “get up” of them, 
would you, Mr. Hyde? rather unkempt, aint they?) I have 
also tried some as used by Mr. Prime, that is a lemon color, 
or winged yellow sally with a sprig of wood duck for tail; 
and the iron blue dun, both tied on No. 8 (O. Shaughnessy) 
hooks for stretchers, and on No. 9 for droppers. 
In conclusion Mr. Editor, I think that 1 express the senti¬ 
ment of all the anglers of the country Jn saying that we are 
under vast obligations to Mr. Chalmers for having demon 
strated so plainly that the shad, after all is a game fish and 
for his amiable readiness to impart whatever he ha 
learned. Thaddeus Norris ' S 
—There is a great deal of inquiry for black bass, too, and 
the methods of taking them, more especially with the fly 
Trout, for the first time, seem to hold a second place in the 
popular estimation. If the glory of the ‘ ‘speckled beauties” 
is not absolutely waning, anglers certainly are in quest of 
a new sensation. Some, we hear, will go to Michigan for 
grayling, and from the description of the game qualities ot 
this fish, the incentive to test his mettle is assuredly great 
As to salmon, this noblest of all the fish nobility, many pro¬ 
fessionals of high art are already booked for Canada, New 
Brunswick, and Cape Breton. A large number of the St 
Lawrence tributaries have been leased this year bv Ameri 
cans. In our advertising columns will be found a long fist 
of rivers which are yet open for bids, including some of 
the most desirable. The scores which we have published 
in previous numbers of this journal indicate the quality 
of the sport they afford. There are salmon enough in them 
to satisfy the desires of the most ambitious. When the 
season opens, we shall advertise the routes and means of 
reaching them. 
Next summer several anglers will go to the Margaree 
River, in Cape Breton, a full description of which has been 
printed in these columns. One New York gentleman, we 
learn has already sent his camp equipage with a man two 
months in advance of the season, to pre-empt the best fish¬ 
ing stand on this river and hold possession in advance of 
all comers,—for this river is still free. And if any ventuv- 
some angler should desire to try the untried streams of far- 
distant Newfoundland, where fly has never yet trailed, we 
can promise him the best of sport and direct him where 
and how to go. 
—To those of our readers who are pressing us for instruc¬ 
tions in fly-fishing for black bass, we assure them that we 
will give this subject attention in due season. Meanwhile 
we refer them to the voluminous correspondence already 
printed in these columns. Bass fishing does not strictly 
commence until 1st June, the laws of different States vary¬ 
ing a fortnight or so from that date in defining the close 
season; although bass-fishing is habitually practised in the 
Potomac in April, and from April to June, at which time 
the fish ruu up the river to spawn. We are not sure but 
that the 1st of May is about the very best time for bass-fish¬ 
ing in the Potomac, and we shall add the bass to our list of 
game fish in season in May. 
—And now, a word’as to fishing tackle in general;—We 
have already designated what a perfect rod should be. As 
to reels, there are many varieties, made of nickel, brass, or 
rubber, some of entirely new designs, and aiming by their 
construction to obviate serious faults that pertain to the 
original patterns, now passing into disuse. Strictly speak¬ 
ing, there are but three distinct classes of reels, the salmon 
reel, holding 200 yards of line, the trout reel, holding twen¬ 
ty-five yards, both of large diameter in proportion to their 
width, and the trolling reel, that should hold at least fifty 
yards. The width of the latter is nearly equal to its diam¬ 
eter, say three inches. The salmon reel is about four 
inches in diameter, and the trout reel two inches. In reels, 
as in rods, the requisites are strength combined with light¬ 
ness, and a construction that prevents the line from fouling 
around the crank when in play. In angling, the reel per¬ 
forms a most important part, and its use and action should 
be in perfect accord or correspondence with the play of the 
rod and line. To render or retrieve, rapidly or slowly, ac¬ 
cording to the exigencies of the case, giving or taking inch 
by inch of line when the fish has the but, delivering freely 
when he runs, or gathering in promptly when he makes 
his rushes toward you, these are the objects of the intelli¬ 
gent angler, and the reel should perform its duty promptly, 
or else the captive will either shake off the hook or tear it 
out. To meet these requirements, clicks and multipliers 
are employed. The click checks the line from rendering 
too freely, and the multiplier of course gathers in the slack 
with multiplied speed at each revolution of the crank. 
Some recent inventions have the click contrived so as to 
graduate the strain upon the line, checking it almost en¬ 
tirely, or permitting it to run without any check at all; and 
there are what is known as balance reels; but both are open 
to objections which need not be explained here. The most 
serviceable for trout and salmon are the simple click reels. 
Balance reels are more frequently used 1‘or trolling. The 
reel should be invariably shipped behind where the hand 
grasps the rod. We prefer the nickel reel, as brass is apt 
to tarnish; though for salmon the lightness of the rub¬ 
ber reel is a very important desideratum. 
The angler, being now prepared with rod, line, and reel, 
we will presume is ready to rig for fishing. Take your rod 
from its case, remove the plugs, and put them in your 
pockets, so as not to lose them. Joint the tip and middle 
parts first, and then the but. Leave the extra tip in the 
handle of the gaff or landing net. Slip on your reel, draw 
the line through the rings and out of the eye at the tip 
until you have sufficient length to reach the end conve¬ 
niently with your hand when the rod is in a perpendicular 
position, bend on your casting line, with its tail fly and 
bobbers, or drops, already adjusted, reel back until you 
have taken in the added length of the casting line, hook 
the tail fly into one of the bars of the reel, and you are 
ready for an advance to the river side. The casting line 
should be not less than seven feet in length, nor more than 
nine, of best selected gut. The tail fly should have simply 
a loop, and the bobbers gut lengths; that of the top one, 
or hand fly, somewhat longer than that of the middle fly t 
