- i ae _ — 
430 | FOREST AND STREAM. | Fees 35, 4685, 
INDIANA THREE YEARS’ LAW. 
Hdiiar Forest and Stream: 
It is currently reported that an effort will be made to pro- 
cure the passage of a bill by the next Legislature to prohibit 
the killing of quail in Indiana for a period of three years. 
The movement originated with the Marion County Horti- 
cultural Society, and will be vigorously pushed by influential 
men. 
It behooves the sportsmen throughout the State to resist 
the proposed legislation, and a plan of action should be 
agreed upon without delay, Will those interested in the 
matter write me immediately, giving in full their views ax to 
the best course to be pursued, Rovau Ropryson, 
INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana. 
Wire tHe Conrs.—Mr. A. G. MeAusland, formerly with 
the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, takes the road 
early in January for the Colts Patent Firearms Company, 
of Hartford, Conn, Mr. McAusland will travel through the 
West and Northwest and on the Pacific coast, and will be 
absent three or four months. He has a wide acquaintance 
throughout the region into which he is going, and bis many 
old friends will be glad to see him again. He carries with 
him samples of the four styles of shotguns, the pistols and 
the new lightning repeater manufactured by this company. 
Long Island pond and I will show them that they don’t 
know anything about fishing, That may be putting it 
strong, but I mean it. Should one of these wonderful short 
casters like to take a lesson in accuracy, I will take pleasure 
in showing him what accuracy really is, for few of them 
understand it. 
Perhaps some of the short casters may consider this as 
brag, but itis an old adage that ‘the longest pole knocks the 
persimmons,” and there is no doubt but long casting ‘takes 
the cake’—that is, the fish. If this is doubted, let the 
doubters come and fish with me for fun or anything else, 
_ Sirver LAxn, Mass.—There has been some tip top shoot- Harry PRICHARD: 
ing this fall within thirty miles of Boston, at the gunning 
stand of H. MeLauthlin at Silver Lake, Plympton, Mass, 
The score so far is 120, mostly Canada honkers. He uses 
about forty tamed decoy and can handle them 80 as to 
draw most any flock, although there are four other stands at 
the Lake, The second flight has not amounted to much this 
fall, so far, but there is still a chance yet, as it is so near 
Boston it would be a good place for city sportsmen to take 
in.—Sovure Sor. 
No, 90 Fuuvon Street, New York, 
Hisheulture. 
SALMON AND TROUT OF MAINE, 
ees the report of the Comissioner of Fisheries and 
Game of the State of Maine for 1884 we take the follow- 
PHILADELPHIA NOTES. 
HE West Jersey Game and Protective Society are doing 
good work. For some time large quantities of game 
had been shipped from Bridgeton, Cumberland county, 
which the organization had reason to believe was illegally 
taken by snares and traps. 
Detectives Ore and Pratt were therefore sent to the region 
named on a scout, and also to the Milleville section on the 
same railroad, They succeeded in finding and destroying 
one thousand devices for capturing game, among which 
were horsehair and wire snoods, box traps, figure 4 traps, etc. 
Ai Bridgeton they engaged a pilot who was familiar with a 
tract known as ‘‘White Marsh Swamp,” near which one 
Murray dwelt, whom it was suspected was shipping many 
*‘pheasants” or ruffed grouse to Philadelphia, all of which 
were not killed according to law. 
Coming to the shanty occupied by the sable poacher Mur- 
ray, they found he had escaped them. They took up their 
abode in this cabin for the night, hoping Murray might re- 
turn, and as they were. armed with the proper documents, 
he would haye been taken prisoner on his return; but the 
atm g negro evidently smelled arat, for he would not show 
meself. 
ing: 
At the date of the? first appointment’of Fish Commissioners 
in Maine, the Kennebec still yielded quite a large number of 
salmon. The period of the building of the dam at Augusta 
was the final blow to the destruction of the far-famed ‘‘salmon 
of the Kennebec.” The fish were slaughtered at the dam; the 
fish were slaughtered in the canalor sluice-way or outlet of 
the factory by closing the gates and stranding them; no breed- 
ing fish could ascend the riyer to their spawning grounds, 
The Commissioners were forbidden to enforce the law by en- 
actments obtained from the Legislature, After eight years of 
hard fighting the Commissioners were enabled to defeat a 
renewed attempt to suspend their action through the Legis- 
lature, and were able to enforce an order to build the present 
fishway. The salmon were virtually exterminated, hardly a 
remnant left. The people, knowing nothing of the habits 
of fishes, had supposed that by opening the fishway myriads 
of salmon would rush in like birds seeking a new rest- 
ing place. The fish that are bred in a river will return there, 
but none others.. Salmon, after depositing their spawn, 
Wasarneron, D. C., Dec. 16.—Quail, rabbits and squirrel 
have been in great abundance thisseason. Last week Messrs. 
W. Wools, of Alexandria, and Thos. Taylor, of Four Mile 
Run, having Tom’s old Drift and youngster Don, made 4 
trip of about sixty miles down the riyer (Potomac), leaving 
Alexandria on Tuesday about 10 A.M., on board the Mat- 
tano and returning Friday about 3 P. M,, bagging on their 
trip 80 quail, 15 rabbits and 18 squirrels—quite a success. 
Let us hear from Maryland now.—Sror, 
BARNEGAT,—Perth Amboy, N. J., Dec. 20.—Jn a letter 
just received from Barnegat Bay, lower part, the writer 
says: ‘‘Ducks are yery plenty, but few killed, Decoys of 
no use; rather a hindrance, asthe fow] move in large bodies 
and have good feeding everywhere on the flals, There will 
not be good gunning until we have ice sufficient to drive 
them off the flats.”—K. 
Yn this cabin they found fifty or sixty muskrat skins hung 
up to dry, and tied in bundles a hundred or so of rabbit 
skins which, not being perforated with shot holes, showed 
snares had been used in their capture. All of last Thursday 
was taken up in search of Murray, vul without success. 
Sea and River Sishing. 
remain for a given period in the river and then return on the 
spring fioods to the ocean, to again revisit the place of their 
birth when the instinet of breeding recurs and points it out. 
This period is now supposed to be every two years. Jf in 
the meantime a dam be erected and theit pathway inter- 
rupted, they will not seek a new spawning place, but continue 
Detectives Ore and Pratt have not yet given the poacher up, 
and further search will be made until be is captured, as he 
is considered a dangerous enemy to the game of South New 
Jersey, and is doing much damage. It is hoped he will be 
taken and his depredations stopped. 
The West Jersey Game Protective Society is a pattern for 
the many societies who, under the name of game protec- 
tionists, haye occupied their time and funds shooting 
matches, when a movement or two of the nature of the above- 
mentioned would do more to end this illegal suaring and 
trapping of game than column upon column of newspaper 
articles, 
The cold snap of this week has frozen up the marsh feed- 
ing grounds of the ducks on our rivers, and the fowl are 
frequenting the open water entirely. Many varieties will- 
now go South. There are many brant at Tuckerton and 
Barnegat Bay, but few are being killed. They seem to have 
learned every ‘‘hide,” and keep clear of them, no matter how 
enticing the bunch of decoys may be. These fowl will in a 
short time make their way South, especially if we are to 
haye continued freezing weather, 
There remains now but about a weck of open season for 
quail and ruffed grouse in the North. Many more birds 
will be left over this year than last, as the dry season passed 
has done much to protect both species. It is to be hoped 
we will have the balance of the winter free from heayy and 
to make fruitless attempts to reach the river where they were 
hatched until they are exterminated, That river is then 
vacant to salmon until a new family of salmon fry are planted 
there. Fish rarely make any mistales; unlike birds, they 
will mot seek a new nesting river when that in which they 
were born is shut to them, There are too few salmon now in 
the Kennebec River to breed from. If the river is to be re- 
stocked, if the destruction caused bythe dam and the too 
amiable Legislature is to be remedied, the Commissioners 
must be allowed the means to plant not less than a million of 
salmon try in the Kennebec for the next five years. There is 
no other remedy. ‘lo stock a river requires many fish, Will 
100,000 grains of wheat prove sufficient to sow a prairie and 
send a day’s food to Augusta? Will 100,000 salmon fry restore 
the work of centuries destroyed on the Kennebec? 
Dennysville River. Here is a tield, a scene of senseless wan- 
ton waste andruin, This river is naturally one of the most 
productive salmon rivers in the State. It is not within the 
jurisdiction of the State Commissioners, always excepting 
their right to order fishways, The fishways are simply used 
as traps, and persons are allowed to stand upon them and dip 
out the unfortunate fish that attempt to pass up. At the 
mouth of the river there are five weirs constructed in such 
positions as to intercept and catch, as far as possible, all sal- 
mon passing up on the tide. A few fish do succeed in escap- 
ing up the stream, and rise readily to the anglev’s fly, and 
might afford some inducements to visiting sportsmen, were 
not all the waste and slabs and drift of the sawmills thrown 
into the river bed, where it fouls the line of the angler and 
ECHOES FROM THE TOURNAMENT. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I wish to say a few words about the value of long casting 
I have cast but three times in tournaments, but have been a 
fisher for trout and salmon for over half a century, therefore 
I may speak on this subject from the standpoint of personal 
experience. 
In fishing 1 haye found thatthe more water I could cover 
the greater would be the success, in other words the longer 
cast8 the more fish, and usually larger ones, for the latter do 
not approach the shore or boat. In trout fishing I have seen 
waters where a cast of less than eighty feet was useless, and 
T have caught hundreds with the fly at that distance, while 
in salmon fishing J have seen pools where a cast of less 
than one-hundred feet would not come within the sight of 
fish, What could be done on such waters by men who can 
only cast forty-five feet witha trout rod or eighty feet with 
a salmon rod? ’ 
I am satisfied that the tournaments have done more 
toward making anglers than is generally belieyd, and long 
casting is, in my opinion, of more importance than either 
delicacy or accuracy, for an angler who saw a trout rise 
eighty feet away would naturally wish to reach it, and 
would feel badly if he could only cast half that distance. 
As for delicacy, I believe it to be a delusion, to speak 
4 ; . E : 5 : i t from this beautiful village. 
continued snows, with crust. Homo. | plainly, a humbug, for my experience has been that in anor fhe lest tao eau fhe Colnueanens pels supplied Mr. 
Dec, 20. - throwing a fly, either for salmon ortrout, sharply and clearly Benjamin Lincoln with 40,000 salmon eggs, who has hatched 
in the water I could take five fish per one cast delicately. I 
have often thought that if some movement of the reel could 
be inyented which would make the fly dance on the water it 
would take ten for one. Some writers in ForREST AND 
SrreAM have doubted the practical use of casting eigthty 
feet for trout, claiming that there is not one trout caught in 
a thousand casts at a distance of seventy feet. The fact is 
that not one fly-fisherman in five hundred can cast seventy 
feet, therefore they never had the pleasure of reaching a 
trout at that distance. 
1 have fished beside hundreds of gentlemen who could 
cast but sixty feet, and have filled my creel with fish taken 
at eighty teet while they took ne’er a fish. There are many 
gentlemen now in New York city who will vouch for the 
value of long casting, having seen what I state above. In 
fishing for either salmon, trout, or even tomcods, the man 
who has his ereel full has the Jaugh, while those who catch 
nothing feel sorry that the other fellow has to carry such a 
heavy basket, 
While fishing out of a canoe on the Restigouche River, 
where some fifty-eight men who considered themselyes the 
greatest salmon fishers in the world were fishing, I found 
that they ridiculed the idea of a New Yorker, who had no 
salmon river near him, coming there to fish. They were 
Canadians, Hnglish, Irish and Scotch, and did not see how 
a man not brought up on a salmon river could hope to take 
a salmon, and I hadn’t anchored in the Restigouche over 
five minutes before I hooked the finest salmon I ever 
saw, while an English gentleman of sixty years’ experience 
in salmon fishing, who had been casting over the same 
water, had not been favored with a rise. Just before I 
struck the fish this gentleman offered me the gratuitous 
advice that the way I was casting would never take a fish, 
and before the words were fairly out of his mouth I had the 
salmon fast. He then said that this upset his whole sixty years’ 
experience, and I think that those old forty-five-foot trout 
casters are in the same boat with him. Should any person 
doubt. this statement they may write to Mr. Frazier, at Mate- 
pedia Station, Province of Quebec, who will give them in- 
formation on this pomt. In fishing with dozens of expert 
trout fishermen—and I took my first lessons from as good a 
salmon and trout fisher as ever lived—they have all agreed 
that, as I have said, delicacy was a humbug, to speak 
lainly. 
F Often in fishing from the shore or dam of a pond, the 
trout have risen further than I could cast, and if I could 
have cast as far when a boy, fishing the Wye River in Eng- 
land, as [now do, I could have taken ten trout to the one 
that was caught, and of larger size, too. Then I was only a 
60-foot caster. ; 
I would like to advise young anglers to throw their 
flies on the water as sharply as possible, and they will have 
better success than those who try to imitate the falling of a 
snowflake; that’s bosh. 1 would like to have some of these 
40-foot, snowflake casters come with me next spring on a 
them and turned the fry into Denny’s River. Could all fsh- 
ing on this stream, excepting with baited hook or fly, be pro- 
hibited, the throwing of drift into the river forbidden, an 
efficient warden be commissioned, Dennysville would become 
one of the most frequented and fashionable places of summer 
resort in the State, 
The St. Croix is another productive salmon river. Here 
also, the Commissioners haye no jurisdiction, excepting of 
fishways on the American side of the stream. The dividing 
line between Maine and New Brunswick is the middle of the 
vhannel. Some 500,000 salmon eggs have been contributed 
to this river by the Maine Commissioners; 380,000 of these 
were hatched and distributedin those waters at the expense 
of Mr. Frank Todd, the efficient Dominion officer at St. 
Stephen. A very fine large fishway has been built on the 
Dominion side of the river at the extensive new cotton mills, 
the plans and engineer work furnished by theState ot Maine. 
This river has great capabilities, is full ot salmon that rise 
readily to the fly, and may be made of much value to both 
New Brunswick and Maine. Under the present system, or 
rather no system, it had better be abandoned as at Dennysyille. 
If deemed worthy of preservation by the respective govern- 
ments that own it, it should be placed under a co-operative 
code of laws, viz: No salmon fishing in tide waters after Jul 
15; no nets used above tide waters at any time; fishing wit 
baited hook or artiticial flies until Ist of September; an equal 
number of wardens to be furnished on the respective sides of 
the river. _ j 
Saco River is deemed by the local inhabitants worthy of 
being restored to its original place among the productive 
salmon rivers vf Maine. Good fishways have jbeen built after 
plans furnished by Mr, Harry Buck of Orland. The stock 
of salmon fry is now only required. The Legislature will 
please remember that stocking a river 1s like seeding a section 
ofa State, Estimate its area, or its number of acres, and 
then decide if 100,000 grass seeds will prove sufficient. Gen- 
erous seeding for several years is requisite if a good crop is | 
expected. — 
n the Androscoggin, our poverty of resource has ever pre- 
yented our properly stocking those waters. We haye two 
yery important and valuable fishways at the mouth of the 
river ApBriviswides Obstructions multiply on the river more 
rapidly than our ability to cope with them, Manufacturing 
enterprise not only obstructs the river with its monstrous 
dams, but, by the criminal neglect of the Legislature in pro- 
viding no restrictive laws, the bed of the river is covered with 
waste matter that destroys both the spawning ground of the 
fish as well as the productive field of fish food. Poisonous 
matter from the Brunswick factories destroyed the spawning 
ground of the shad and drove them away, ; 
The Penobscot is the only River now left on the Atlantic 
coast of the United States where there is sufficieut number of 
salmon to supply the requisite fish for the works at Orland, 
where the eggs are taken for distribution, both for the 
United States and the several associated States that sub- 
seribe. - 4 P 
Maine’s subscription to the works at Orland in 1883, for 
salmon eggs to be hatched and distributed to her rivers in 
1884, was $1,000, Our return from this sum was ee ees, 
Professor Baird, the United States Commissioner of Fisheries 
at Washington, afterward gave us 20,000. By letter of Feb- 
ruary 15, he gave 340,000 more eggs, upon condition that the 
Monrteomery SHootine Cius.—The hunt of the Montgo- 
mery Shooting Club was from “daylight to dark” on Tues- 
day, and extended into nine different counties, and one party 
went to a neighboring State. Quite a number of hawks 
were killed, and as each counted tive points they materially 
increased the score, which wasas follows: 8. 'T. Westcott, 
captain, 82 points; FP. C. Randolph 29, H. H. Barnes 96, H. 
B. Metcalf 47, BH. D. Long 59, W. R. Taylor 81, T. E, Han- 
non 44, C. T, Pollard, Jr., 28, J. R. Adams 29, J. H. Leigh 
65, John Crommelin 41, Henry Crommelin 89, W, D. Brown 
20, W. W. Hill 55, L. B. Hallonquist 30, G. H. Todd 10, 
W. L. Brage 100, C. EH, Wallin 39, 8. T, Alexander 14, J. 
P, Armstrong 16, Dan Frazer 9, B. Holt 6, C. Gabbett 7, A. 
T. Cunningham 15, W. B. Armistead 21,H R. King 13— 
979. EK. D. Ledyard, captain, 538 points; G. M. Marks 39, 
W. K. Jones 10, C. P. Ball 18, W. 8. Reese 77, J. T. Holtz- 
claw 9, Chas. Spear 17, T. D. Wilkenson 14, F. A. Hall 15, 
H. ©. Davidson 34, J. lL. Cobbs 34, H. Gunter 14, R. HH, 
Molton 59, W. L. Hutchings 20, H. Graham 17, ©. L. 
Mathews 2, ©. L. Ruth 23, W.L. Chambers 20, T. 8. 
pee 6, M. O, Scott 10, John Metealf 5, J. T. May 6—507. 
Missournr Hepoens.—High Point, Dec. 18.—There has 
been six inches ef snow on the ground for the past three 
days, and an army of men, boys and dogs have been besieg- 
ing the hedges and calling on “bre’r rabbit” to surrender; 
and, judging by the number I have seen in the hands of the 
besiegers, poor bunny evidently succumbs without a struggle 
and goes to swell the score of the rabbit murderer; for to 
shoot rabbits while sitting in the hedge is certainly murder 
in the first degree. The yelping, howling and beating of 
hedges has nearly frightened the quail out of the county, 
aud scattered them so that it is hard to get up more than two 
or three in a bunch. The large amount of hedge fence in 
this vicinity makes bird hunting hard work, unless there are 
two in the party, one for each side of the hedge, and even 
then a number of the wounded birds are lost in the hedge, 
My dog hates hedge-hunting more than I do myself, but 
some days I can find hirds only in the hedges.—Osace, 
GoLtbpEN GATE Guy CiuB.—San Francisco, Dec. 11.—At 
a meeting of the Golden Gate Gun Club, held Dee, 9, the 
following officers were elected: Edgar L. Forster, President; 
Henry Mangles, Vice-President; Edwin L. Forster, Secre- 
tary; Rudolph Schleuter, Treasurer; John Foley, Sergeant- 
at-Arms. "The club was organized July 17, 1884. The 
members are composed of young men from 19 to 22 years of 
age. A series of glass balland clay-pigeon matches have been 
arranged for next season, and are looked forward to with 
great interest by the members. It is hoped that hefore long 
the Golden Gate Gun Club will be ranked among the lead- 
ing sporting clubs of the State.—H. L. F., Sec’y G. G. G. C, 
(626 Shotwell street, San Francisco, Cal.). 
