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Dec, 4, 1884.) 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
369 
Mznomontm, Wis., Noy. 26.—There are yet good oppor: 
tunities for deer shooting about here, and occasionally a bear 
is caught napping. Too many shooters, both hunters and 
trap shots; rely on the size of their gun rather than upon its 
balance and their ability to handle it with ease—B, A. EH, 
“ a 
Nesraska.—Arago, Richardson County, Nov, 25.—Not 
many ducks and geese here this season. Quail are more 
plentiful than for the past few years. Rabbits are too thick; 
so are the wolves.—J. T. L. 
Sea and River Sishing. 
LANDLOCKED SALMON IN MAINE. 
W ITH the month of October, the attention of many per- 
sons was again directed to the landlocked salmon in 
the tributaries 6f Long and Sebago Jakes, in Cumberland 
county, Maine. Before the fall season, it is safe to say, that 
the large fish of this species rarely leave the deep waters of 
the lakes. When they do take to the streams, with the ex- 
ception of the feeding grounds in the spring and early sum- 
mer, it seems to be wholly for the sake of depositing their 
spawn in shoal and running water. The salmon seem to 
take to the large streams first, sometimes as early as the last 
days of September, but in the smaller streams they have not 
appeared in any numbers, of late years, before Nov. 1. The 
water is then icy cold, and the fish, exhausted by the process 
of reproduction, have no possible means of protecting them- 
selves, as the following incidents will show: 
About a week ago two gentlemen, in company with the 
writer, went to Rodger’s Brook to look for salmon. This 
brook, it will be remembered, is the same stream in which 
the monster landlocked salmon was found dead a few years 
ago, Jt is asmall brook at all seasons, flowing into Long 
Lake, one of the Sebago chain. At this time of the year all 
the water in it would be carried by a pipe fiye inches in 
diameter, Reaching the brook at least a mile from the 
lake, it was followed for some distance with no sign of fish 
other than a few minnows and an occasional brook trout. 
At length a waving of the water was noticed in a small pool 
which was closely scanned. No fish were seen, however, 
and the party were about turning away when the writer took 
hold of some alder branches that dipped in the pool, and to 
the ends of which a small patch of ice was adhering. At 
the movement of these branches a salmon weighing at least 
five pounds came from under the ice and swam slowly to the 
other end of the pool, There, lying under the edge of the 
bank, and within reach of the observers, it allowed itself to 
be touched and moved about with the hand, making no 
effort to swim away. Upon moving the ice patch again, an- 
other salmon, only a little smaller than the first, left the ice, 
but immediately returned, The ice was pushed away and 
showed the fish lying on a small bed of sand, in water not 
over eight inches deep. A few rods further down the stream 
another fish was seen in water so shallow that its back was 
not covered, This fish was taken out of the water and 
weighed with a pocket balance, and then returned. The 
weight was three and three-fourth pounds, it being the 
smallest specimen that was seen. As soon as this fish was 
taken off the balance and puf into the water, it returned to 
the place from which it was first taken, hardiy seeming to 
notice the somewhat rough handling to which it had been 
subjected. Five other fish were found within a distance of 
forty rods, the largest probably weighing something over six 
pounds, Of these eight fish, there was not one that a man 
could not have taken out of the water in his hands without 
even getting his feet wet. All of them were females, as the 
entire absence of the hook, which is on the under jaw of the 
males, would indicate. : 
A day or two after the writer again visited the same stream 
and found nearly all the fish before seen, or apparently the 
same ones, in about the same positions. Thirteen fish in all 
were counted in about the same space as the eight that were 
seen before. One of these was a male and the only male 
fish seen in the whole number. It weighed about eight 
ounds, and was the largest specimen with one exception. 
This one was afish but little short of the remarkable. It 
was lying on the sandy bottom of a little pool, not wide 
enough for the fish to turn in without doubling, and hardly 
deep enough to float it, The writer first measured the length 
of the fish and found it to be nearly twenty-nine inches. 
Then turning the fish upon one side the depth was measured, 
and found to be seven and one-third inches. There was no 
means of weighing it as the pocket balance could do noth- 
ing with such a weight; but by cubing the measurements 
and comparing with those of other fish of known weight, 
the weight of this one must have been about sixteen pounds. 
These proportions might not appear wonderful if whales 
were under consideration, but when it is a fish of such royal 
dignity and natural gaminess as the landlocked salmon, 
found in water not six inches deep and suffering itself to he 
handled without a struggle, ihe story seems but little short 
of the marvellous, The true sportsman who has had a strug- 
gle in the open season with one of these fish at the end of 
his line while in its full vigor, can hardly believe the trans- 
formation when he sees one of the same species placed of its 
own accord in such shallow water, allowing itself to be 
touched at pleasure. 
But there is a despicable feature about the advent of the 
landlocked salmon in these streams. Their coming is watched 
for by a set of unprincipled gluttons, and only a small part 
of the fish that enter these streams ever find their way back 
to the lakes again, Again the writer has visited the same 
pools where the thirteen salmon were. But seven fish could 
be found, and both the large ones mentioned above were 
among the missing. Six salmon, the combined weight of 
which could not have been less than fifty pounds, had been 
taken by sneaks in a single night, Tracks in the sand, a sus- 
picious moving about in the night, and a dog collar found 
upon the bank, with the owner’s name upon it, were some 
of the evidences as to who the thieves were, As to whether 
anything will be done about it is another question. it may 
be remembered that the stealing done at Rodger’s Brook is 
repeated on nearly every tributary of these Jakes, and on 
some of them the poaching is carried on to a much greater 
extent, because the fish are more numerous in the larger 
streams, Could the matter of protection be made a reality 
instead of a pretense here, while these fish are on the spawn- 
ing grounds, there is little doubt but that their numbers 
would again be increased to the abundance of former years, 
and a sourve of profit as wellas pleasure would be opened to 
this section of the country. As it is, the slaughter in breed- 
ing time must be stopped, or the time is not far distant 
When not a landlocked salmon will be found in these waters, 
Shortly after the communication relating to the 25-pound 
salmon found dead in Rodger’s Brook appeared in the Boston 
Herald a year ago. a correspondent of a New York journal, 
signing himself “H. H. T.,” indulged in some comments of 
his own in the Jatter publication. In these he styled the 
writer of the previous article ‘“‘The Ananias of the Boston 
Herald,” disputed the weight of the fish as given in the Her- 
ald, and especially tried to ridicule the statements made in 
regard to the hook upon the underjaw of that specimen, by 
which, being hung upon a stale, it was carried, For the 
benefit of “‘H. H. T.” it may be said that the published 
statements in regard to that fish were strictly true, and that 
if he will come out from bebind his initials, he can have the 
proof by the word of several gentlemen, to no one of whom 
he would care to give the epithet of ‘“Ananias.” One thing 
he has accomplished, however, he has shown himself to be 
as ignorant of the fish in question as he is of the attitude ofa 
gentleman. He did not believe in the existence of the hooked 
jaw of the Samo family at breeding time. j 
Yesterday two gentlemen, interested in preserving the 
salmon which have ascended Rodger’s Brook to spawn, called 
upon Fish Warden Mead, of Bridgton, and got him to 
go with them and dip out all the land-locks they could find 
and carry them back to the lake from which they had come 
to deposit their young in sate waters, There were but two 
left, and these are probably all which will reach the lake this 
fall after spawning. The rest—all the noble fish mentioned 
aboye—have_ been gobbled by the fish thieves, who are sat- 
isfied witha landlocked salmon or trout worn out by the 
labors of reproduction and too weak to return to the lake. 
The water has been very low this fall, a condition unfaver- 
able to the fish, but favorable to lawbreakers who dip them 
out of the shallow brook. 
Again, to show how lovely the admirable fish laws of our 
State are being enforced, it may be noted that in Peabody 
Pond, in this town, there are some very large red-spot trout, 
similar in size and coloration to those of the Androscoggin 
lakes. Last Saturday the bar at the inlet of the pond was 
covered with trout struggling up stream to spawn. The 
bottom, under very shoal water, was so covered with fish, 
averaging two or three pounds weight, that there was hardly 
room for them to turn. In one night these fish were nearly 
all taken out. Tracks in the sand and the appearance of 
torches and firebrands told thestory. The trout thieves had 
been at work. 
Excellent work was done three years ago in bringing the 
robbers, who strip the spawning beds of trout in this vicinity, 
to justice, but we need more of it. We also need public 
sentiment to enforce our game and fish laws. Men and boys 
who will pitch such noble game fish out of the water with 
sticks, when they are completely exhausted from the process 
of spawning, should be made to look upon such a deed as a 
crime against the State, as well as an act of indecent cruelty. 
Then the people who are willing to eat the fish when in such 
a condition—vwell they are not epicures to say the least. 
BRIDGTON, 
BripeTon, Me, 
A JUNE TROUT. 
Ee many hours of wakefulness and fatigue during a busy 
professional life, I haye found much consolation in in- 
specting the ereels of older and better fishermen, so entic- 
ingly displayed in the pages of the Forest AnD StREAM. I 
bring no creel from swift mountain streams, but a twenty- 
seven-inch basket of fresh, cool moss from the lake shore, 
out of which I hope to lay before you my catch of early June 
at the head of Lake Mollychunkamunk. 
Did you ever spin with a minnow for Rangeley brook 
trout? Never? Well, come with me, my good friend, and 
I'll give you a new sensation. And please leave all your 
coarse tackle at home. A seven-ounce, seven-foot split 
bamboo, No. 3 Carlisle bend, two hundred feet of very 
small enamelled line, single salmon gut, six-foot leader with 
four small swivels in it, and a first-class multiplier with a 
drag, and we'llfurnish the rest. Flies? No. Minnows? 
No. Nothing more, nothing less than a shiner two inches 
in length should be your Jure. Put your hook twice through 
his jaws to keep your snell from slipping. Once diagonally 
through his shoulders and then down along his spine, bring- 
ing the point out with the bend well displayed just in front 
of his tail. Draw enough on the snell to curve his quivering 
body just a little, and let him into the water; he’ll live and 
spin just below the surface, six inches is enough; sealed is 
his fate and that finny troutnear by; both are yours. 
“Come, Rob, we might as well be on the water as on 
shore, and as I never caught anything from the porch, let’s 
put out again.” 
Rob shook his head. It was nearly noon, the wind, blow- 
ing a half gale up the lake, with a sweep of five miles, had 
raised a lumpy, trying water to row in, but Rob never 
turned a deaf ear when fish were in fine prospect. So he 
rolled up his sleeves, launched the boat, and soon, clear 
from the float, I had _ sixty feet of-line astern, and we pulled 
across the point within stone’s throw of Birch Lodge. 
Quickly there came a jar of the rod as if bottcm had been 
made fast to, and a whizzing reel and a rod well nigh 
doubled, denied the inanimate and made positive the fish. 
“See him go!” Highty feet—a hundred feet—and with his 
eye on the fast-running reel, Rob twitched the boat about 
and pulled furiously in the direction marked by the slender 
line. Only after more than one hundred and twenty feet 
hadrun out did the boat gain headway enough for me to 
take up the needful slack, Then came the tug, first across 
in along circle, the line, whistling and cutting the waves 
with a swish, then toward us, now shaking his wicked head 
high in air, and again plunging deep into the lake, too well 
“struck” to gain freedom, this noontide, unexpected Salmo 
Jontinalis fought his fight for liberty. 
Ten, twenty, thirty minutes went by. Rob, master of 
boatcraft in the rapids or in a sea-way, never spoke, but held 
the nose of his Indian-rock right in the teeth of the gale. I 
shook, the boat shook, again and again the fish shook sav- 
agely; Rob only was steady. iLike cords his veins stood 
out, and his hard, obedient hands played the boat like a toy 
to every surge and run of the fish. ‘‘He’s a big one, Doctor; 
don’t press him too hard; may tear out;’ and Rob pushed 
the boat backward down the wind as the fish made another 
run, as if for the river three miles away. 
Were we never to get at him? Yes, the rod quickly re- 
sponded to his failing powers, the reel clicked a joyful re- 
sponse. My tremor increased as Rob gently gathered in his 
oars and took a paddle, and cast a grateful, near-by look on 
the landing net. Quickly the boat drifting on the strong 
wind set us toward the fish. With a quick turn of the pad- 
dle Rob laid her broadside on, and the fish could he fairly 
seen near the surface twenty feet-away, . Rob- was on his. 
feet in a twinkling, the net playing over the side of ihe boat, 
when with all the strain I dared give my rigging I gave the 
fish the butt, and inch by inch drew him on. When within 
landing distance he slowly turned on his side, his deep red 
belly, his silver-edged fins, his grand outline all in sight. 
Rob twitched nervously, and, catching a full view of our 
game, stood aghast, helpless for the moment to net him, ery- 
ing out, “‘He’s a hundred years old!” 
Imissed him. Off he went like a frightened flash. Whiz 
went the reel; and then another struggle, until at last, well 
on his side, he took the net and was safely landed; and I 
slumped in the boat chair; the only part of my equipment 
not used up was the boat, and that was almost ashore, drift- 
ing for a place, to rest on the rocks, We put our prize in 
the fishcar, and six days afterward, when taken out and 
killed, he weighed 94 pounds on a Fairbanks scale. He was 
worth the fight. He was the only fish in many long days of 
that most successful sport with Rob as guide, that ever pro- 
voked him to open his mouth. 
Enough of this, my good friend, 
To summarize my catch, (ah, but I'd like to tell you of one 
54-pound trout taken just in front of the lodge on a six-ounce 
rod, after a tussle of nearly an hour one sunny morning) the 
weights were; One of 94 pounds, one of 64 pounds, two of 
6+ pounds, one of 6 pounds, one of 54 pounds, two of 5 
pounds, one of 34 pounds, one of 8 pounds. ‘Total ten, 
weight 564 pounds, 
I make no mention of smaller fish other than to give their 
name, it was legion. A 27-inch basket would not more than 
pack the longest. The largest fish was an inch shorter than 
one of the 6-pound fish. These fish were mostly caught at 
dusk during three days, after the wind had set strong and 
hard up the lake the earlier part of the day. 
Tam already in anticipation enjoying the pleasure I shall 
haye in steering you, with Rob Hewey, my Andover guide 
(and a better and truer man cannot be found there), at the 
oars, Slowly across the head of the lake, when the south 
wind blows and the roughened waters mask your line. 
Will you come? The tender green of the new leaves on 
birch and poplar will rest your eyes, and some old ‘‘moss- 
back” a hundred years old will fill your piscatorial soul to 
repletion. N, E. W. 
Boston, Nov. 28, 1884. 
TROUTING ON THE BIGOSH. 
THE START. 
UST why the Colonel wished me to leave New York on 
that evening boat, meet his son Jack and take him along 
in the morning, has never been clearly explained. As the 
Doctor would not join us on the stream for a week after- 
ward, and the Colonel would be behind Jack and Isome two 
days, there seemed no other reason than a desire to get Jack 
off in the country during his June vacation. This was the 
only reasonable solution arrived at after several days of hard 
guessing on the riddle, ‘The canned goods and other pro- 
visions had been shipped, and witb afew toilet necessities 
wedged into the creel among the tackle, creel on shoulder 
and rod in hand, I started across town through by streets, 
making a short cut for the steamer. Just what trains of 
thought were running, or whether I was in that beatific con- 
dition of Irying’s old Dutch skipper who, hand on helm, was 
thinking of nothing in the past, the present, or the future, is 
now impossible to say, 
It was still broad daylight and while the roar of traffic 
on the great avenueshad abated, there was arush of pedestrians 
on all thoroughfares. It was not late enough for yice and 
crime to stalk abroad; and if a friend asks why they, more 
than others, should ‘‘stalk,” he will be bidden ‘‘go.to, thou 
art finical.” ‘‘Stalking abroad” is practical; it hath both the 
flavor of majesty and savors of the sneak; it is so far-above 
the slang of ‘‘pungling down town” that no apology is ne- 
cessary for its use, therefore it may be repeated that the 
aforesaid combination had not stalked. Right on a corner 
flaming signs informed the wayfarer that the very largest 
schooners of beer could be obtained for the insignificant sum 
of five cents, and the placards gave a realistic sketch of a 
son of Tantalus, the Phrygian king, who was condemned to 
perpetual thirst, climbing a ladder to get at the top of this 
famous “‘schooner,” a thin small voice pleaded: ‘‘Mister, 
please give me a penny to fill me mother’s growler.* I had 
six cents and I lost one o’ them down a grating, and she'll 
beat me if I go home without the beer,” 
A glance at the little girl who said this showed a form that 
might have been on earth during eight long years, sur- 
mounted by a face that scant food and abuse had made 
appear older by half. The small sum of one cent would 
make the child happy, and going down in the change pocket 
a five-cent nickle was fished up and given with the advice, 
“Fill the growler for your mother and buy something for 
yourself,” The small eyes brightened, as much as the eyes 
of a street Arab could, and with a muttered thank the form 
dodged around the corner. A burly policeman then relieved 
his mind: ‘‘Young feller, that’s a dead skin; she ain’t fot no 
mother and don’t want to fill no growler.” ‘All right,” 
said I, ‘‘she can use the pennies;’ when a little variety 
actress, whose occupation was recognized by the spangled 
garments which peeped through a bundle under her arm, 
said, ‘‘Don’t mind that cop, he’s one of the biggest heats in 
this ward; the kid has got a mother and she beats the life out 
of her, but the cop hates to see any beer go on one side of 
his mouth,” “Thanks,” said I, “it is of no consequence; the 
poor childdoes not get too much of this world’s comforts, 
and if her mother gets the beer and she a bite of something 
extra, it is satisfactory,” and pondering on the future of that 
child, with her inheritance of poverty and degradation, a 
few more blocks were passed. 
A woman, old beyond her years, with a face on which dis- 
sipation had traced lines with a heavy hand, appealed for 
something to buy bread with, and another nickle brought a 
protusion of blessings which were waved off by a stroke of 
the hand. A philanthropic-looking individual just behind, 
stepped up and protested that a donation of that kind en- 
couraged poverty instead of alleviating it, and was sure that 
the money would go for gin instead of bread. I answered 
him that it was now hers, and if she obtained more comfort 
from gin than bread she was entirely welcome to it, and as 
she evidentiy needed something to make her happier, I was 
indiiterent to the medium, and hurried on, Here was food 
for more thought. Why need the policeman and the melan- 
choly man trouble themselves about a trifling charity which 
did not concern them and cost them nothing? A man on a 
little vacation, full of the prospect of enjoyment, chose to 
*Originally “growler’’ was applied by city tramps to-the empty 
fruit cams into which they emptied stale béer from the kegs on the 
sidewalk. This ach was termed *tworking the growler,” but tha 
word now covers, in low life, any receptacle for beer. 
