108 
- =? oe —  _—— 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Surr, 4, 1884 
road is excellent, the stage “driver consumes nive hours in 
accomplishing, And he added insult to injury by stopping 
half way for dinner at a tavern where the bread gave out in 
the first round, and when we came up to time in the second 
round with doughnuts we were gravely informed that we 
couldn't eat ‘‘them thar” until we had got through our din- 
ner. The driver uses two horses without a change for a load 
of six people with all their baggage, and coolly informed me 
that he did nof propose to arrive at our railway depot until 
4 P. M., although our train was dne at 8 o’clock. Toall my 
remonsirances his only answer would be, ‘‘Now, Cap, that 
“ere train ain’f never on no time, and I'll get there as soon as 
she do.” Howeyer, by dint of incessant “nagging” I got 
him to gailop his horses for the last four miles, and within 
about three-quarters of a mile from the station we saw the 
train rollin. ‘Then, by aid of frantic gesticulations, hat 
Wwayvings and coat shakings, we drew the attention of the 
conductor and he kindly waited for us to come sweating and 
toiling Into the depot. Moral; Don’t try the Cambridge 
rouie, 
The most comfortable method is to go by rail to Phillips, 
arTiving in twenty-four hours after you leave New York, 
where, at the Elmwood House, you are cared for as well as 
you would be atany hotelin New York, From there by 
stage for twenty miles brings you to the head of Rangeley 
Lake, trom whence, after dinner, you can go through the 
whole system in a day and a half, excepting the two northern 
Jakes, and if you love comfort can return the same way. 
From Haine’s Carry the steamboat will take you to its cap- 
tain’s camp, instead of Upper Dam to stay over night, unless 
you insist upon being carried through as per ticket, If he 
will not do this until next morning with an extra fare, then 
stop all night at Haine’s Carry, and get two hours more rest. 
They practice these sharp little games all through partially 
opened routes, and a knowledge of them saves time, money, 
and patience. Or you can try your luck by stage from Lake 
Umbagog to Andover, or from Errol Dam on the same lake 
to North Stratford, both these destinations being on rail- 
roads. Itisa pity that the stage route I have criticised is 
poorly managed, for the Lake Side House, where it starts 
trom, is well kept, the road is a pretty one, and the driver a 
well-meaning old fellow, but away behind the age. 
As for the scenic beauties of this region, were [ to attempt 
a description I should only indulge im superiatives. Their 
general feature is one of beautiful varied mountain forms, 
elad with an unbroken primeval wilderness of birch and 
pine trees from the mountain tops to the very shores. But 
few of them have been injured by the Jumberman, and the 
backed-mp waters at the different dams have left in a few 
only a slight fringe of dead timber, Each Jake, however, 
has its individual characteristic. Rangeley has cultivated 
lands, which in some places give the aspect of some parts of 
Lake George. Kennebago is a sapphire set in a gigantic 
emerald border, Parmacheenee is as fresh and virgin in its 
purity as when Eve tempted Adam. The other lakes border 
nearer civilization, aud of course are tainted with its presence 
in some degree. But here, above all other places near New 
York, the brain-tired man can get rest, nature, good fishing 
and hunting, and be not only ‘‘half a dozen miles from a 
lemon,” as Sydney Smith says, but truly thirty-five miles 
from a post-office or telegraph station. What more can be 
said? KNICKERBOCKER. 
RANGELEY, Me., Aug. 21, 1884. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Your correspondent signing himeclf “‘Knickerbocker,” 
from Bemis Camp, Aug. 9, in your paper of Aug, 21, refers 
to the taking of large trout inthe Rangeley waters, and states 
that he has taken pains to verify some stories about fish, and 
found them true, und says the weights are appalling. He 
refers to one trout (Salmo fonténalis) taken by a boy in 1872 
weighing twenty-four pounds, and of other trout weighing 
seventeen, fifteen, twelve and eleven pounds. Permit me to 
say as a regular frequenter of the Rangeley and Richardson 
waters for the past twenty-five years, and having a record of 
about six thousand trout caught in these waters, that I have 
never known nor heard of a well-authenticaiced instance of a 
trout (Saline yontenalis) caught here larger than the one of 
eleven pounds caught at the foot of the Moosclucmaguntic 
Lake Sept. 29, 1880. 
Your correspondent also states that caribou, deer, and 
moose are in season after Sept. 1. The law of this State 
does not allow the killing until Oct.1. J, P. Wurrnny. 
RidHARDsSoN LAks, Me., Aug, 27. 
THE SEVEN PONDS. 
HE Seven Ponds in Frankiin county, Maine, are some 
thirty miles north of Rangeley. The writer this spring, 
prompted by a wish to get fairly into the backwoods, with 
a friend and Eugene Soule of Rangeley as guide, spent the 
mouth of June at the latter’s camp on Big Island Pond. In 
previous years I have fished the Rangeley lakes and Kenne- 
bago, but never had any sport to compare with an average 
morning in this region, ‘The trout are very abundant; they 
rise readily, and are wonderfully gamy, though they do not 
run so large as in the Rangeley Jakes. The largest one 
taken by our party weighed two pounds. In June the Jenny | 
Lind was the favorite fly, with the coachman and hackles 
not far behind. 
For autumn shooting, judging from my own observations, 
‘I should say that this region could not fail to suit the most 
ardent sportsman. Scarcely a day passed while we were in 
acamp without at least one deer being seen by our party. 
Moose and caribou are to be found in the neighborhood, and 
partridges are abundant. 
Big island Pond is the largest of the sroup, its length 
being two and a half miles, greatest width possibly a mile. 
ii is more than 2,000 feet above the sea, The air is pure 
and bracing, and scented with the odors of the spruce forests 
which cover its shores. It is in the heart of the mountains, 
and there are charming views of hill and valley on every 
side. About three miles to the west is the rugged range 
which forms the boundary between the United States and 
Canada, 
Soule’s camp comprises two very comfortable log houses 
beautifully located at one end of thelake. At the other end 
Kennedy Smith has a number of log camps which he lets to 
parties desiring them. 
There are three different routes to the ponds—by Rangeley 
and Kennebago; by Strong, Kingfield, Hustis, and Smith’s 
buckboard road to Big Island Pond, or from Lake Megantic, 
Canada, which is reached by the Grand Trunk and Intereol- 
onial railroads. As regards time, there is nothing to choose, 
it takes three days to get to the ponds from Boston by any 
of the routes. Vhe writer has tried them all, and considers 
the sceond the easiest and most agreeable. He cannot re- 
commend the third. Canned goods and all necessary provis- 
ions can be obtained of Kennedy Smith at Big Island Pond 
at reasonable rates. Letters addressed to Eugene Soule, 
Rangeley, or Kennedy Smith, Hustis, will elicit any desired 
information. 
To the lover of nature and life in the woods, 1 can most 
cordially recommend this region, which I believe to be un- 
surpassed, D. I. M. 
Greav BARRINGTON, Mass. 
TROUTING IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
A sudden business call to the far South early in July, has 
prevented me trom sending you some notes of a fishing and 
exploring trip to the extreme northern ends of New 
Hampshire in the latter part of June. I haye previously 
written you about trips to the same region, but this one coy- 
evered rather more ground, and was undertaken partially 
for a business purpose, which was to ascertain, if possible, 
the result of the attempts to stock the upper waters of the 
Connecticut, with Jand-locked salmon, by the Fish Commis- 
sioners of New Hampshire in 1879 and ’81. 
The objective part of the excursion was therefore Uncle 
Tom Chester’s camp at Second Lake, where I found Uncle 
Tom and his trusty colleague Harding as fresh and bright.as 
ever, and with a camp full of anglers. Some of these anglers, 
however, were green to the woods and got more bites from 
black flies and mosquitoes than they did from trout. The 
business part of the trip was the first thing to be attended to, 
and I am sorry to say proved entirely unsuccessful, as many 
hours’ diligent casting of a large variety of flies from a well- 
stocked book failed to get a rise, although one or two beauti- 
ful specimens of Salmo fontinalis came in out of the wet, 
Uncle Tom tells me that in 1880, the first year after the 
plant, several of these fish- were taken in the river below 
Second Lake, and between that and First Lake, but that 
none have been heard of since. Now, here comes in the puz- 
zling question; Have these fish all gone down stream to 
spawn, as they did in Western New York, and been unable 
to get back by renson of the impassable dams and chutes of 
the Connecticut River Lumber Company, or have they been 
destroyed while young by the lake trout (Salmo namayeush) 
while hibernating in deep water? I ask the latter question 
particularly, because the plant of 1880 in the celebrated Dia- 
mond ponds, at Stewartsiown, N, H., has been entirely suc- 
cessful. Numbers have been accidentally taken from these 
ponds by trout fishermen, who, of course, knew nothing of 
what was biting until it was brougiit to net, one by the 
Chief-Justice of New Hampshire himsel!; while Mr, Wm. 8. 
Shurtleff, the well-known lawyer of Colebrook, whose pisea- 
torial skill excels, if possible, his legal acquirements, tells me 
that he has returned to the water twenty-five or thirty 
hooked lightly with the fly, while casting for trout, and the 
fish would average nearly a pound in weight each. 
There are no lake trout in these ponds, and consequently 
no very dangerous enemies for the salmon, the deep red- 
fleshed trout or char, which have made these ponds so 
famous, seldom reaching a pound in weight in the larger 
ponds, althongh in the smaller and upper ones they have 
been taken up to 23 pounds. Further, the original plant 
haye spawned in the Diamonds, and a large school of the 
young fry has been seen this year, showing that the spawn 
of 1879—1transplanted in 1880—reproduced their species in 
1888, or four years from their own deposit, which corres- 
ponds exactly with such facts as I have been able to gather 
in regard to the reproduction of the original Salmo salay. 
I send you these data as supplementary to the very inter- 
esting paper by Mr. Atkins, which you published some 
weeks since, and in which my friend Hodge gives some 
statuments of their enormous growth in the deep, cold waters 
of Squam Lake, which actually astonish me, although Iwas 
well posted in regard to their growth in Sunapee last year. 
“So much for Buckingham.” What can I tell you of the 
fun? How my companion Bob and I went up the main inlet 
to the Forks, one day, and waded down, reaching camp with 
two big baskeis full, 126 in number, and weighing 20 pounds, 
How three days after Bob and Ned Norton went up to Third 
Lake, and caught more trout than they knew what to do 
with, while I stopped at the Falls and filled my 12-pound 
creel before I got back to the Forks, and lugged my load the 
two miles to my canoe, without a chance to carry another 
trout, unless I had done as glorious old Christopher North 
says he did once, put them in my breeches pockets, for I 
was wading the river in knee breeches, canvas shoes and 
flannel shirt. 
What can I say of the adventures of the three men from 
Connecticut, who went up to Uncle Tom’s upper camp, where 
he spends the winter, trapping for sable and fishers, spent one 
night, and fished down the Hast Inlet the next day, coming 
out of the woods looking as if they had been parboiled and 
then skinned? 
Enough, however, for Second Lake. After ten daysthere 
I came back to Schoppe’s First Lake House and spent a Sun- 
day with Capt, Reed, of the steamer Hartford, at his camp 
at Breezy Point, tried Perry’s Stream on Monday with indif- 
ferent success, it being fished to death; gota friend to drive 
me down the river three miles on Tuesday, to a farmhouse 
opposite the mouth of Cedar Stream, which comes into the 
Connecticut River on the east side. Found a convenient 
rife, waded the river and then up the stream until noon; ate 
my luncheon on a convenient log, and then wheeled round 
and fished back, taking sixteen quarter-pound trout from the 
same hole almost at the start, and filling the big creel again 
long before i got half way back to the river. Z 
The uext day, July 2, back to Colebrook by stage, with 
good-tempered, genial Ned Merrill on the driver’s seat, and 
out to the Diamonds next day, When I got to Mart 
Noyes’s camp, Mrs. N. said her husband was over on the 
lower lake fishing with a clergyman from Northern Ver- 
mont, but that I could probably find him easily; gave me the 
key to a canoe at the lower pond, and I soon pulled across 
the upper one, crossed the carry and found Noyes and the 
Dominie just round the point us 1 swept out from the land- 
ing. They had basketed eighteen or twenty quarter-pound 
trout, and invited me to join them in their boat, which I 
agreed to do on condition that they should pull up anchor 
and go with me to the mouth of the inlet connecting the two 
lakes, ‘They agreed to the proposition and we were soon in 
place and at work. " ; 
_ I will not worry your readers with the details, but simply 
say that the fly was of no avail—too early in the season for 
flies to be on the water; but with a Jong line, one No. 2 shot 
at the upper end of the gut, and a free cast up into the mouth 
of the inlet, of a No. 2 Limerick with all the worm that could 
be stowed on it, the fun was not to be despised. When we 
left, long before dark, both baskets were ull, I had taken 
thirty-six, which just weighed twelve pounds, the Dominic’s 
basket was overflowing, and Noyes’s pockets were full, So 
with a heavy load but light hearts we paddled in to shore, 
climbed the steep carry, which Yankee ingenuity laid over a 
steep hill because it was the short way between the two 
ponds, and were in camp to an early supper at 6 o’élock, 
The next morning, July 4, Noyes and I threw the tly for 
three hours on the upper pond, but did not get a rise, so at 
7 o'clock we pulled in to breakfast, Meanwhile his two 
young men who help him about the camp had gone over the 
lower pond. Being thoroughly excited by our baskets of 
the night before, they had struck for the same ground, and 
when the Dominic and 1 got back there at 9 o’clock had got 
twenty-one more trout, about the average size—five to six 
ounces each 
T had only av hour or two to fish, for I wanted to drive 
back to Colebrook and get ready to return home early the 
next morning, but I spent an hour with my companion on a 
fayorite ground of mine, at the island on the opposite side of 
the lake, basketing 16 more trout of about the same size, and 
then he pulled me into shore, we shook hands and parted, 
and I swung myself over the carry, paddled across the upper 
pond, and after a trout dinner and a good-bye to Noyes and 
bis warm-hearted wife, was soou on my way to the Parsons 
House, Genial Frank Bailey, the well-known landlord, had 
fallen a victim to acute pneumonia a month before my visit, 
and I missed him sadly, but the woods and waters were the 
same, and I have never enjoyed two weeks in the woods 
more thoroughly and with the hope-of a repetition next 
summer. Von W. 
SPAWNING SEASON OF BLACK BASS. 
poe several years the impression has been gaining sround, 
from personal experience, thal the cloge season for black 
bass in the State of New York is altogether wrong, and at 
no distant.day will vesult in depleting our waters of this 
game fish, unless there isa change made in existing laws. 
From the examination of local waters, interviews with 
professional fishermen, and correspondence with anglers in 
different parts ot the State, this inypression has resolyed 
iiself into a fact as to the present, and the fulfilling of the 
prophecy must follow as 2 consequence. 
Anglers and writers, while lauding the black bass ag the 
game fish of the future, have di plored the untimely taking 
off of the brook trout by various means that are illegitimate 
and contrary to law. Others that have, under protest, 
accepted the black bass as a substitute for the much loved 
trout, or put off the eyil day “yet-a little longer,” have 
been equally ready to denounce the unnatural means that 
have been the primary cause of the disappearance from so 
many waters of the first favorite of most fresh-water anglers; 
but while mourning the troutthe black bass have not, | tear, 
had sufficient attention given to their welfare, In one sense 
they are not neglected, for five anglers seek them to-day 
where there was but one ten years ago. 
Black bass are considered a hardy fish, cast in a different 
mould from the patrician trout and quile well able to care 
for themselves and their families. So they are, in a great 
measure. If they are protected at spawning time they can 
protect themselves during the remainder of the year and 
their numbers will not be materially decreased; but at 
spawning time they really require more care than do the 
trout at their spawning season. The latter spawn in the 
autumn when the weather is cold and there is little 
inducement for the angler to cast his lures; the fishin 
season is practically over for the great majovily o 
the brotherhood, and if trout are taken at this 
time it is not by accident but design. The trout spawn and 
depart, leaving their eggs to fate. If the parent fish are 
captured immediately after spawning it dovs not in any way 
affect their progeny. The black bass spawn in the spring, 
when the warm sun has released the waters from its icy 
bands, and also roused a swarm of anglers from a winter’s 
confinement to retrospections and anticipation so far as 
fishing is concerned, and as each one is more or less anxious 
to have a try at something that has fins there is more danger 
of accident to fish not in season than is the case in the 
antumn, 
It is known that black bass deposit their spawn and watch 
over it until hatched, and afterward care for their fry for a 
number of days. During this time many bass are caught, 
really by accident, while the angler trols the shore for pike. 
The real angler will return all such to the water, but the gear 
used in trolling is such that, however much care may be 
exercised, many parent fish must be injured, The bass will 
not bite when spawning, but before their young are of proper 
age to shift for themselves they will accept a minnow or 
spoon trolled over them, When the guardian is gone the 
bass fry are at the mercy of a horde of enemies ready to 
devour them. 
T have put this matter in the best possible light and say 
nothing of those who with premeditation, and foul murder in 
their hearts, take the spawning bass from their beds, The 
parental duties of the black bass do not cease with the act of 
spawning, and it is for this reason that I consider that 
during the spawning season they require more care than the 
trout. The close season is intended to cover the breeding 
time of both species, bul in the case of the bass it fails 
lamentably. 
The close season in New York is from Jan, 1 to June 1, 
except in certain waters where the close season extends to 
July 1 and July 20 respectively. Last year 1 saw bass on 
their beds as late as August 7, and heard of them with 
young, from good authority, on the 23d ot August, These 
cases are probably exceptionul, but this year I went up the 
Hudson in the middle of June and could find but iwo bass 
that had prepared beds. Wour days later I went to 4 pond 
that is well stocked with these fish, and made the circuit of 
these shores and found not a single bed. It was not until the 
latter part of June that the bass came on their beds in the 
ponds and lakes in this vicinity; and*many instances have 
come under my personal knowledge where bass did not 
spawn until July. 
Data gathered from various sources, both as to running 
water and still water—/. ¢., ponds and lakes, for bass spawn 
earlier in streams than in ponds, and earlier in warm water 
than in cold water—and ali goes to confirm the opinion that 
black bass da not spawa until June, and in many instances 
not until early July. At one time 1 thought this might be 
the state of affairs only in Northern New York, but J find 
Southern New York gives the same report, Any angler 
who is at all observant can see for himself, and seeing, I 
hope he will urge an extension of the close season. One of 
the State Fish Commissioners, when I wrote him that I 
proposed to adyecate a change of law for Northern New 
York, (this was before I learned that Southern New York 
was also suffering) wrote me to make no division of the State, 
