308 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



I May 15, 1884. 



on it, and -we promised ourselves then and there that we 

 would pay our respects to it and take out a sufficient number 

 of its silvery treasures to give the remaining few a chance to 

 get an abundant supply of a purer flow of water without 

 changing. 



We were referred to this settler, a Mr. O. S. Merrill, for 

 further information and particulars, and I at once opened 

 np a correspondence with him. He corroborated all of 

 Brother Hughes's statements and put in a side winder occa- 

 sionally on his own hook, which so increased the fever in us 

 that by the time spring opened, a trip to Black Lake was a 

 foregone conclusion, and our preparations were made to that 

 end, 



The last "sockdologer" we got from this guileless moss- 

 back, in May. was in" the shape of a string inclosed in his 

 letter, which, he said, represented the length and girth of a 

 black bass taken in the lake a short time before. The string 

 was 31 inches long, the length of the fish, and 24 inches of 

 it, to a knot tied as a marker, was the girth around "the 

 minnow and frog compartment." Great Scott, what a bass! 

 N(»i an ounce under 14 pounds. 



Does any brother of the rod, with the spirit of a green frog 

 in him, wonder that the fever immediately seized on us with 

 a fiercer and more relentless grip? I inclosed the string to 

 Old Dan (along with a few remarks that I thought would 

 touch the spot), and Dan showed it to Ben R — w, a farmer 

 neighbor, who had for some time been balancing himself on 

 the edge of a strong desire to join the Kingfishers in a trip 

 to the North. Woods, but had not just made up his mind 

 which way to fall. That string laid him out, and he came 

 full length on the Michigan side. This "new member from 

 Macon county" filled our party to the limit of eight, viz. : 

 Old Knots, ye Editor, Uncle Dan Sloan, the Writer (the 

 scarred veterans of the old Kingfishers), John R., one of the 



Sarty the previous year, Ben R — w, Dick Mac and H. H. 

 Culler, Assistant Postmaster of our sooty city of Cincinnati 

 The three last had never "fit muskeeters and cussed black 

 Hies in the bresh of Northern Michigan," and we, who had 

 gathered up a good deal of experience in this branch of ang- 

 ling, looked forward to an opening night in the woods that 

 would reflect credit on the new members, and at the same 

 time be a source of comfort to the afore-mentioned insects. 

 The entertainment came off as expected, and Dick M. will 

 attest to the extreme end of his natural period that it was a 

 most — agonizing success. Dick, by the way, is a "jaynius" 

 in his way, but a mighty good fellow withal, and as Knots 

 usually tacks on a nickname to each new member to fit some 

 peculiarity in their make up, he was dubbed Mrs. Partington, 

 on account of his fondness for using big words with an utter 

 disregard of their fitness. Any word that came uppermost, 

 with plenty of sound and syllables in it, he would fire out 

 perfectly regardless, and with a refreshing serenity that 

 nothing would disturb. Johnny R. was called the Deacon, 

 by reason, perhaps, of the violent contrast between him and 

 any bona fide, well-regulated deacon in good standing, and 

 so 'on to the end of the string.* 



Our preparations were made to start about the middle of 

 July. We shipped our camp outfit and a box of provisions 

 ten days ahead to Cheboygan, in order that we might not 

 be delayed in our start for the woods when we got there by 

 the cheerful information "goods not arrived." 



The Scribe, Editor, Dick and John R, decided to start 

 four days ahead of the time set for the party to leave, which 

 would give them time to take a run over to Mackinac Island, 

 buy and have ready butter, eggs, flour, etc., that we would 

 need in camp, and have the wagons, engaged ahead through 

 the kindness of that prince of landlords, Mr. Wm. Spencer, 

 of the Spencer House, Cheboygan, loaded and ready to move 

 on the arrival of the rest of the party. Brother Mutter would 

 be unavoidably detained three or four days, and this left the 

 Writer to go it alone again as far as Ft. Wayne, Ind., where 

 Dan and Ben Avere to strike the G-. R. & I. road. 



Stepping out of the train at Fort Wayne, I looked all 

 around for Dan, but the old pelican was not to be found, 

 and 1 concluded he and Ben must have missed connection or 

 met with an accident, for I felt that when old Dan failed to 

 be on time on a fishing trip, something must be out of gear. 

 While rapidly deliberating on what to do in the case, a thin- 

 faced man with a fierce moustache, wiry-looking in every 

 fibre, bronzed and sun-tanned aud brown as a ripe hazel nut, 



"bresh" two years before, as he was out of town, but he 

 left his blessing to be bestowed on us by Charley, and a 

 promise to hunt up our camp in the next fortnight if he 

 could spare the time from his business. Blessed old Bill! 

 may his days be long in the land. 



At Mancelono, early next morning, our old cook of '81, 

 Frank Frantz, joined' us, having been engaged by letter for 

 the trip a week before. Here, too, we took on a menagerie 

 and circus combined in the shape of a box containing 375 

 live, speckled frogs, for bait. The box, made for this special 

 purpose, with wire netting sides finch mesh and a hinged 

 door a foot square in the top, was sent up some time ahead 

 to one of our old neighbors on Central Lake, a Mr. William 

 Derenzy, with instructions to have his boy Tommy catch 

 the frogs a few days before we were to be along and send 

 them up to Mancelona by the mail wagon. The reason for 

 this streak of forethought was we were going to a wild and 

 strange place, and we could not be certain of procuring 

 suitable bait in sufficient quantity to keep the boys in good 

 humor, and if anything is calculated to make ye honest 

 angler forget his early Sunday-school training it is to run 

 short of bait when the fish are just in a mood to ask for it. 



The result proved the wisdom of the venture, for we found 

 frogs were a scarce varmint around Black Lake, and we 

 found only one locality on the lake where we could catch 

 minnows large enough for good bait, and these had to be 

 taken with hook and line. Besides, speckled frogs have, 

 with our party at least, proved a better bait than minnows 

 in these Northern lakes, and they certainly are not one-tenth 

 the trouble to keep alive and transport from one camp to 

 another, if occasion requires. When in camp place your 

 box where the water of some little stream near by can run 

 through one corner of it without wetting the whole bottom, 

 and a handful or two of grass scattered inside will evoke 

 various toned croaks of satisfaction that will convince you 

 that even frogs are not devoid of gratituole. Under this 

 treatment they will five four or five weeks on wind, albeit 

 they will look a trifle gaunt in the region of the waistband, 

 but they will be almost as frisky as when first put in the box. 



I write all this about frogs, that in case any of the brethren 

 who may take a notion to make a camp on any of the lakes 

 of this region of Michigan, they may have the benefit of our 

 experience. Kingfisher, 



[to be contiktjed.] 



Sloan has told me so many 



shake, powerful glad to see you, but where is the old peli- 

 can Y" "Well, I'm sorry to tell ye that jest afore I left Deca- 

 tur, he was taken suddenly sick, and as I didn't want to dis- 

 appoint the party, 1 jest took the train and come on, and 

 here I am. " Our traps are all here, and now what do you 

 think we'd better do, go on and leave Dan, or wait till next 

 train? for I think he'll be able to travel to-night." Here was 

 what Capt. Truck would have called "a h— 1 of a category." 

 Going a-fishiu' without old Dan, my veteran comrade in 

 many a pleasant camp, who had fished wdth me in sun aud 

 raiu* and even snow, who had shared with ma the triumphs 

 of numberless battles with the black warriors of divers 

 (streams and lakes lor the last score of years, would be play- 

 ing Hamlet with that moonstruck melancholy appendage 

 lelt out. 



While trying to figure out the best course to pursue in the 

 matter, Ben scraped a match on the rear of a new pail of 

 jeans breeches, which 1 noticed were tucked carefully into 

 his boot tops, aud lifting a short briar root pipe, which he 

 had loaded while talking, said: "Tell ye av hat, if we stand 

 here much longer blowin' our horns, that train '11 hie out, 

 and we'll git"— biff, came a smart blow on my left ear, aud 

 turning quickly around to flatten out the offender, there 

 stood olJ Dan, looking as radiant as a young school inarm 

 after a creditable examination, aud then those two old loons 

 just humped themselves and laughed "vorifeiously"— as Dick 

 would have said— at the joke they had played on "Old 

 Hickory." How going a-tishing doth make boys of us all. 

 Alter seeing all their luggage put on, Ben and 1 hustled Dan 

 into the train, and we were soon discussing the prospects for 

 big sport at Black Lake. 



At Grand Rapids, in the evening, we were met at the depot 

 by our friend Charley Pike, of the First National Bank, 

 who steered us uptown aud entertained us very agreeably 

 during the hour or more that the train laid by. We missed 

 the beaming "phiz" of genial, fun-loving old Bill Hess, 

 whose acquaintance and Pike's we so happily made in the 



* Just here I will crave the indulgence of the craft for jotting down 

 all these little details and peculiarities, and offer as an excuse that 1 

 like to read sucu things when written by others, and will take it for 

 printed that every sportsman likes to do the same; that he takes 

 Interest in "the preparations made by a party before making a pro- 

 i trip: shares the iovsof tueiraijticipations: likes to know about 

 pof the party, and wants to know where 

 they are going and how they get there. 



FLY-FISHING FOR SHAD. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



There is a great awaking among the angling fraternity. The 

 number of letters on the shad fly and shad angling are such 

 it would be impossible for me to answer them individually, 

 and wishing to accommodate as many as possible of the 

 lovers of the gentle art, I will ask the use of your columns 

 for a few hints to those who would try for the sport in fresh 

 pastures. 



Shad fishing at Holyoke, for the last two years, has been 

 so poor that 1 have not put up a fly in that time, and as 

 there have been no brawny workers in Western Massachu- 

 setts the increase of shad in the Connecticut has been left to the 

 praying ones. If the prayers are heard and answered, I will 

 have to depend on an old cast containing three old favorites, 

 namely, a white miller, second drop; a yellow Sally or a 

 soldier moth, hand drop ; a red ibis for trail fly. The red ibis 

 and the white miller are favorites through the season. There 

 are times when the shad will take any fly, in fact I have seen 

 them taken with three or four feathers bunched, and tied 

 to a hook without other preparations of any kind. 



There are many other hooks to choose from, and almost 

 every angler has a choice of hooks which he considers the 

 very best. For my own use I dress to a No. 4 Limerick 

 hollow poiut, but would recommend a hook about the size of 

 a No. 6 Limerick H.P., for the reason I could rise ten fish 

 with the small hook, to two with the large hook, but gener- 

 ally secured more fish with the No. 4. The cast can be 

 stained, or natural color, as suits the taste of the angler. I 

 never could see any difference in the chances offered, nor 

 does it matter whether the reel is placed above or below, as 

 far as the fish are interested. I'll take sugar in mine if it 

 should kill me. 



As some of the inquirers are located on tide water, I would 

 say try it, if the current is strong enough to support your 

 flies at or near the surface, with from forty to fifty feet of 

 line out. Let the flies trail out and try it at shorter or longer 

 distances; if not current sufficient to keep the flies floating, 

 try casting a long line across stream, letting the water carry 

 the flies down stream, at the same time draw gently round 

 below the stern of the boat. I have taken some very good 

 fish in that way when crowded out of the regular fishing 

 grounds; also in rowing gently round and trailing the flies 

 has brought some good fish into the boat. 



For regular river fishing above tide water, where there are 

 no rapids, I \vould select the strongest running water. An- 

 chor your boat and let the water trail out the flies to several 

 distances; I would change places often, it makes no differ- 

 ence whether the flies are on the surface or a foot under ; I 

 would also try casting as above, as well as different kinds of 

 flies, for I am persuaded that shad can be taken in all fresh 

 water, and the goal, Avhen reached, will be a pleasant one. 

 From 4 to 10 o'clock A. M., and from 5 to 9 P. M. are the 

 best hours to taKe them ; if the day is cool aud cloudy they 

 will take the fly all day. Thomas Chalmebs. 



Holyoke, Mass., May 10, 



THE MAINE SEASON OPENED. 



MIGRATION to the Maine trout and land-locked salmon 

 waters has never set in with more enthusiasm. Al- 

 though the ice is hardly out of some ot the lakes yet, several 

 sportsmen have got tired of Avaiting and. have started. A 

 party of five or six Boston merchants started for Moosehead 

 Saturday, and on their return, in about a week, they will 

 go to Bangor and thence to Aroostook to try the waters. A 

 company of five merchants will leave Boston next Saturday 

 for Rangeley Lake and the upper Androseoggins. They 

 will be gone two weeks; the latter one a part of them will 

 spend at Lake Kennebago, that jewel of trout lakes nestling 

 iu the unbroken forest, eight miles from Rangeley. But 

 alas! the march of improvement wakes us up from the 

 pleasing dreams of trouting iu the wilderness, with only 

 pine boughs for our pillow and the stars for a covering. I 

 hear that a little steamer has been or is to be put into Keu- 

 nebago eA'en, and that a hotel is to take the place of the old 

 camps. Alas! Those steamers and hotels. They bring the 

 lazy tourist into our dearly loved nooks, and they drive 

 away the sensation of refct born only of solitude. Their 

 ceaseless bluster takes us right back to the active, bustling 

 world again. .. _ , . -,-,.•. 



A larger number than usual of merchants and professional 



men have planned fishing trips to the Maine waters this sea- 

 son. Nearly 100 from Boston and the neighboring cities and 

 towns will make the early spring trip, to be followed later 

 by the fly-fishermen in June, the teachers, clergymen and 

 schoolboys in July and August, and the late fh-fishermen 

 and sportsmen with dog and gun, in September. Senator 

 W. P. Frye, of Maine, will go into camp under his own 

 shingled roof on Lake Mooselucmaguntic, early in the season. 

 Weston Lewis, of Boston, vice-president of the Oquossoc 

 Angling Association, With other members— some of them 

 the near neighbors in New York of the Foktt.stasd Stream 

 — will start for their camp at Indian Rock, head of Moose- 

 lucmaguntic, before these lines are scanned by you, dear 

 reader. The lamented A. D. Lockwood, president of the 

 association, will not be with them this year. He has gone 

 to his rest. The last time he visited the happy troutiug 

 waters, where, he had been punctual nearly every season for 

 some twenty or thirty years, it was with crutch and cane in 

 one hand and rod and reel in the other. A true, noble lover 

 of nature. He could organize and carry on successfully 

 powerful manufacturing companies, but he never forgot the 

 twirl of the trout, even when white hairs had frosted his 

 brow, and years of active business had enfeebled his manly 

 step. 



At the lakes all is bustle, if ever those guides and back- 

 woodsmen can bustle. The boats are painted and out to 

 dry. The minnows are caught or mapped out where they 

 can be secured with a dip net at an hour's notice; the (don't 

 turn up your nose, kind readers) worms are dug. Next 

 week the lakes Avill be dotted here and there with boats, a 

 guide at the oars (sunbrowned and tanned as black as a red 

 man) and a sportsman in the stern with trolling line and live 

 minnow, sunburned and blistered as red as the flesh of an 

 indoor white man knoAvs how to be. Some big trout will be 

 caught, five, six and even up to eight or nine pouuds. Don't 

 imagine, dear uninitiated novice, that such big trout com- 

 monly rise to the fly. No, they are feeders upon larger bait. 

 A truthful record of the catching of about nine-tenths of all 

 the large trout taken in Maine waters would show that they 

 were lured upon the hook by some kind of bait. The fly is 

 more sportsmanlike, neater and requires more skill to handle, 

 but when trout will not rise then bait must be resorted to or 

 we go back to our desks and counting rooms to dream over 

 them another year with only a two-year-old recollection to 

 help us through to the next season. Special. 



Boston, Mass. 



AN ANGLER'S WIFE IN CAMP. 



A S the summers haA^e rolled around, with our boy Ave 

 xjl have enjoyed the life in camp, beside some stream, or 

 in the deep groves of maples, until I prefer "tenting on the 

 old camp ground" to any summer resort, hotel or hoarding- 

 house. The years have come and gone, until I am almost as 

 much interested in matters pertaining to angling as my hus- 

 band, possessing my own rod — a fine lancewood — my owu 

 reel, lines and hooks; flies I do not aspire to yet, hence 

 satisfy myself Avith fishing from a boat, Avith ray boy for my 

 boatnranf and to his credit be it said, he can handle a boat 

 well, so well that he has taught me to row. I have but once 

 before attempted to write my camping experience; my hus- 

 band's reputation is established, while I am but pluming my 

 feathers. For ten long years my husband has borne a nam 

 deplume whichlhavc come to recognize almost as closely is 

 his given name. I see his pen skimming page after page 

 oftimes when he should be resting; find the letters going to 

 well-known sportsman's journals, and but for the fact that 

 almost twenty' years of' married life has woven his name 

 into my daily life, I should prefer to call him by his no/n 

 deplume. As I take the journals and read the very interesting 

 letters from different anglers, sometimes reading them nearly 

 all through when i come to one that reads like "Not man," I 

 look at the end of the letter, and there is the old familiar 

 Aud here is my thirteen-year old boy stringing out 



find him corresponding with gentlemen whose names are 

 well known iu the angling world. So you will not think it 

 strange that I have caught the scribbling fever. But to my 

 story. 



We camped this past summer close to a small creek con- 

 taining some beautiful trout, Every time they were brought 

 to camp aud I cooked them. I longed to try for some my- 

 self . I love the dainty little fish, and take pleasure in serving 

 them on the table crisp and brown, but cooked to perfec- 

 tion. 



Just below the camp, about a quarter ot a mile, was an- 

 other creek, broader and deeper than the one we had fished; 

 so we determined to try this. Rigging up a rod and hue, we 

 took worms for our bait, and began fishing. AVe climbed 

 logs, clambered over fallen trees, creupim: through the thick 

 undergrowth, once in awhile finding a place to drop a line, 

 bat I presume the trout knew f was a novice, for they would 

 come out from their hiding places and glide swiftly back 

 under the old stumps and logs. Once, yes twice, my lady 

 friend had one right out of the wafer, but just when she was 

 about to take him off the hook he was gone, aud before she 

 could pick him up he Avas into the water again. 



And now we are iu the thick of the forest to get trout; we 

 must walk on logs, for they lay every way across the stream, 

 thickly covered with moss, the stream at times almost hidden 

 from sight with stumps aud undergrowth, but the ripple of 

 the clear, cool Avafer guides our way. Our friend and his wife 



as I think, on another log, to save my rod, but it proved to 

 be nothing but brush wood covered with moss, and in I 

 went. My greatest fear was that my rod would be broken; 

 it bent under the pressure almost into an half circle. Some- 

 how I managed to pull myself out again, and saved my rod; 

 fortunately the brush had kept my clothes from getting wet. 

 I was not going to leave off for this little dip, so kept on up 

 stream determined to try again. 



Well, we saw the trout and we will have them next time, 

 and although Ave had to content ourselves for this day with 

 a nice string of perch which we caught on the dock, yet the 

 beautiful woods and the cool creek, with the lovely moss- 

 crown logs, will be remembered for a long time. But I am 

 tfoing to tiy again another summer, and keep on trying until 

 1 can bring home trout, and place them beside my husband's 

 as he empties his creel. We cannot all be expert anglers, 

 and studv the nature and habits of this beautiful fish in his 

 wild-wood streams, deep in the forests. I can pardon my 

 husband's enthusiasm when discussing trout with a brother 

 angler, and his earnestness with his pen when defending 



