292 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



|Mat 7, 1885- 



counted our catch. Over 400! I have vowed 1 will never do 

 it again, and I am ashamed of it now. Trout enough for 

 the table are enough, for me, As for Sim, he is in Colorado, 

 and I pity the trout stream that is within reaching distance, 

 unless he has become a reader of the Forest and Stream 

 aud learned better things. 



Such tishi og soon stripped Tuft's Pond. In 1882, I think, 

 Kingfield people asked the Maine Legislature to make a close 

 time on that pond and one or two above it for three years, 

 and it was done. The close time was up this spring, and tlie 

 special law made it legal to fish after March I. Bad work 

 has been done there. "Three, four and five hundred trout a 

 day have been taken through the ice. One year will strip 

 the pond as badly as ever. 



It is understood that but little fishing has been done 

 through the ice on the Androscoggin lakes this spring, and 

 now the hot weather of the past few days has so badly rotted 

 the ice that the fish are safe for this year I ill the sportsman 

 arrives. By the way, the real opening is likely to be earlier 

 than at first expected. The unusually hot weather has actu- 

 ally about started the ice in the Sebago waters— ice which 

 was one foot thick and solid a week ago. If the hot weather 

 is continued, the Sebago lakes will be opened next week and 

 the landlocked salmon season opened. Local fishermen and 

 Portland. 8aco and Bidde ford sportsmen are making great 

 preparations. The Maine Commissioners themselves will 

 probably be there, the same as last year. Eleven-pound 

 land-lockers were taken, and bigger one's are looked for this 

 year. 



Guides and sportsmen of long experience now expect the 

 Moosehead waters to clear of ice as early as May 13, and the 

 Androscoggin waters — erroneously called Raugeley Lakes — 

 to be clear by the. 15th. Special. 



"What Kills toe Gamy Bass? — It is an admitted fact by 

 those who fish the Hudson River, between this place and 

 the mountains on the west, that year by year the black bass 

 therein have decreased in numbers until now few are taken 

 during an entire season ; but the cause of this decrease is not 

 so weil established. When sawdust is suggested as a possible 

 faetor in their extinction, the reply is that the mills were 

 contributing sawdust before the bass were, introduced. The 

 charge is next laid at the exit from the paper mills, only to 

 meet with the answer that water fouled at Luzerne or 

 Palmer's Falls would become purified before reaching Big 

 Bay ; so we are left to conjecture among the general vicissi"- 

 tudes that bring destruction to fish life. Mr. Fred Mather, 

 one of the most experienced of our fishculturists. offers a 

 solution of the mystery in one of his reports to U. 8. Fish 

 Commissioner Spencer E. Baird. Mr. Mather, as super- 

 intendent of the Cold Spring Harbor hatchery on Long 

 Island, had occasion to hurriedly enlarge his works to 

 receive a consignment of Maine salmon ova, and some of 

 the troughs in which the fish are hatched were in the haste 

 imperfectly coated with tar. He soon discovered that the 

 in these troughs were unhealthy, and the first salmon 

 that hatched died, and then he removed the remainder and 

 began an investigation which resulted in finding that the 

 trouble came from" the improperly coated pine wood. The 

 following is taken from Mr. Mather's report as showing his 

 conclusions: "In this connection it has occurred to me 

 that the reason that trout do not flourish below sawmills is 

 on account of the water being impregnated with either pine 

 or oak. In 1875 I lost a lot of California salmon at Blacks- 

 burgb, Va., in an oaken trough, which one of the then fish 

 commissioners insisted upon my using. The impregnation 

 ot tannin was perceptible to the taste, and the fry died as 

 fast as hatched. The theory of the fishermen near sawmills 

 is that the sawdust gets into the gills of the trout and kills 

 them. This may be true to some extent, but 1 doubt it, for 

 the reason that sand or other material does not appear to 

 injure the gills, and I have taken adult trout below saw- 

 mills. 1 incline to think that the mills are destructive 

 merely to the young, by covering the spawning beds to 

 some extent with sawdust, but more by absorption of turpen- 

 tine from the pine or tannin from the oak, the evil effects of 

 which we know too well."— Glens Ehtts Republican. 



His Wild Dominion.— Kennedy Smith is fifty-one years 

 old. He is erect as an arrow. He has a woodsy look, from 

 the graceful circle of his wide-brimmed soft hat to the sole 

 of his thick boots. He is bearded like the paid. Threads of 

 silver are in his hair. He is a Kennebec boy, and was born 

 in Readfield and has brothers living in New Sharon and in 

 Mt. Vernon in this State. In 1858 he was in the California 

 gold mines, and after that in New Granada. His father was 

 a tailor, and would have made a tailor of the son if it hadn't 

 been for his love of the woods, the perfect horse and quiet 

 days by the trout brooks. Kennedy Smith was a roving 

 blade, born and bred, and one day he packed his valise and 

 sailed for the gold mines of California. He didn't make his 

 pile there, though he delved hard and deep into the earth. 

 He went into the army in the first of the war, aud for five 

 years was enrolled in service. Then he came home and saw 

 thefolks and determined to travel north into the quiet of the 

 Maine woods and build a home on the mountain side and 

 find, perchance, gold in the pine woods. Kennedy Smith 

 bought land cheap three miles from Eustis on the side of a 

 mountain where he can look old Mt. Bigelow in the face, 

 with Saddleback as a right bower, and all the grand 

 panorama of the Dead river valley spread out before him 

 with its noisy lakes and rivulets. Over beyond him, he 

 says, are hills piled on hills, while off to the cast stretches 

 the Kennebec valley, with the Kennebec winding through it 

 like a silver ribbon. He says that he likes it for a home and 

 bought it, and there he has moved his family. He has had 

 a rough time and a tough time, but every year finds an im- 

 provement. At first it was hard sledding. Smith's farm is 

 more beautiful than good. "War prices clung longer in the 

 woods, and farming was costly, but what a country it was! 

 The game, big and little, wason every hand. Grouse fra- 

 ternized with the chickens and caribou with the cows. It 

 was the land of the pine and the spruce. Kennedy Smith is 

 monarch of a big tract of land and water in northern Maine, 

 a paradise for hunters and fly-fishermen. He has leased Tim 

 Pond, famous in annals of big trout fishing, and has all that 

 he wants of Seven Ponds, On the map, if you will take 

 pains to spread it out, Tim Pond will be found as a moder 

 ately large dot in the Avest part of Franklin county. It is ii 

 the grand valley of the Dead River. Twelve miles above 

 Tim Pond is the first of the Seven Ponds. Tim Pond is 

 near Eustis, and almost under the shadow of Mt. Bigelow, 

 up which Maj. Bigelow ascended when Benedict. Arnold 

 was leading a forlorn hope through the gathering winter of 

 the Dead River valley. Maj. Bigelow climbed the mountain 

 that bears his name, hoping from its summit to see she spires 

 of Quebec. Tim Pond is 2000 feet above the sea level. On 

 its south shore is Tim Pond Mountain. Travelers who have 

 been there say that no lovelier sheet of water sparkles in 

 Maine than Tim Pond. — Lewiston (Me.) Journal. 



^fisljcnltttre. 



Remarkable Catches.— "Washington, D. C— In your 

 issue ot the 16th inst., I noticed an article from "R. P. L." 

 detailing how a black bass was captured by jumping into a 

 rowboat. In the summer of 1878 I was 'sent, by order of 

 Col. M. McDonald, Commissioner of Fisheries for Virginia, 

 to Saltville, Va., to procure breeding black bass from the 

 native stock in the north fork of the Holston River. I pro- 

 cured the services of a native, who was the owner of a flat 

 boat 50 feet long and 10 feet wide. The plan followed was 

 to quietly work the boat to one side of a still pool and then 

 rapidly pole her broadside across the pool. When nearing 

 the opposite bank the bass would commence to leap into the 

 boat Hke sheep over a fence, sometimes eight or ten, ranging 

 from fingerlings to six-pounders, being taken at a single 

 "haul." On one occasion a magnificent fellow cleared the 

 entue width of the boat. In a few days we procured all 

 that was wanted. They were then transferred and deposited 

 in one of the tributaries of New River at Martin's Stations. 

 At that time New River possessed only the catfish, some of 

 which would go over 75 pounds. Now the catfish are get- 

 ting scarce, but the black bass are plenty. The black bass 

 here spoken of are the small-mouth bass, Holston River is 

 a small mountain stream oftentimes less than 100 feet wide. 

 — W. F. Page. 



The Lake Superior Country. — Lake. Linden, L. S., 

 April 29. — Those who have arrangements made for a trout- 

 ing or bass trip to Lake Superior "this season should not get 

 here before the latter part of June. We are at least four- 

 weeks behind this spring. I took a run out to a favorite 

 stream last week to see how things looked, and they look 

 blue enough for anything earlier than Juue. The drives 

 will not be down any of Ike streams in this part till late in 

 May, and it takes two or three weeks for the water to settle 

 down to the quiet that is indispensable for good trouting. 

 I had to snowshoe fourteen miles out of eighteen, going and 

 coming, and should judge there is at least over two feet of 

 snow vet in the bush. The weather is very cold, and the 

 ice has not broken up yet in the lakes. Several dams washed 

 out.— W. S. S. 



The Fly-Fishers' Club, of London, recently elected two 

 Americans to be honorarv members of the club. They are 

 Mr. A. N. Cheney, of Glens Falls, N. Y., aud Mr. Fred 

 Mather, of Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y., both well known to 

 our readers. The club is purely a social one, has no prizes 

 nor competitions, and has for members some of the best' 

 known anglers and angling authors in the world. Its rooms 

 are at No. 10 Adelphi Terrace, Strand, 



THE NORTH CAROLINA OYSTER INDUSTRY. 



[Paper read before the Fishermen's Convention s Raleigh, October 

 16, during the progress of the State Exposition. Bv Lieut. Francis 

 Winslow. U. S. Navy, by kind permission of Hon. Mr. Chandler. Sec 

 retary Navy.] 



MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN: I think 1 have 

 reasi 



Home-made Minnoav Net.— Editor Forest and Stream: I 

 note in your issue of 30th ultimo an inquiry, ' How can I 

 capture minnows?" etc. At Harvey's Lake, Pa., the net is 

 made of the small mesh black netting, generally sold in dry 

 goods and millinery stores, and is fastened all "around to a 

 frame of quarter-inch round iron, 36 inches square. At each 

 corner is tied a heavy cord about a yard or more long, and 

 these are brought together at the end of a stout stick, to 

 be used for a handle and there fastened. The net should 

 "bag - ' about eighteen inches. The net is generally used 

 from a boat and by means of the handle. A stone is placed 

 in the center of net to aid in sinking it, and it is lowered 

 into the water as far as may be necessary and convenient. 

 Into the water over the net well-soaked corn meal (best) or 

 light bread is thrown to attract the fish, and if there are no 

 black bass or pickerel, which abound in this lake, near by, 

 the minnows come over the net by the hundreds, and a fail- 

 proportion are captured by slowly drawing up the net. 

 This last operation must be carried out quietly, at least until 

 the net is near the surface, or the small fry will take alarm 

 and quickly glide out of danger.— Fathom. 



Protection in Wisconsin.— Oshkosh, April 25.— The 

 Governor's veto of the Fish-Warden bill is not going to deter 

 a few enthusiastic devotees of the piscatorial art in this city 

 from having the existing State law enforced so far as it ap- 

 pertains to the lakes and rivers adjacent to this city. The 

 first move has been the organization of a fish protective as- 

 sociation comprising the cities of Oshkosh, Pond du Lac and 

 Neenah for a united action in prosecuting fishermen who are 

 operating with nets. The organization is not wholly com- 

 pleted, but will be at a meeting to be held in a few days. 

 The next step was the arrest of thirteen fishermen on com- 

 plaint of Geo. F. Stroud. These thirteen men were all 

 brought in at once, and while two were fined $50, the trials 

 of most of the others have been set for future dates, string- 

 ing along for the next two weeks. It is the determination 

 to repeat these prosecutions as often as necessary to break 

 up net-fishing entirely. The fishermen are much incensed at 

 Mr. Stroud, and threaten all sorts of dire vengeance. Rumor 

 has it that Stroud has increased his life insurance $10,000, 

 but that may be only a joke. — C. J. P. 



Philadelphia, May 3.— The backward run of shad has 

 begun, and as is always the case, weakfish or striped bass are 

 following. Several large ones were taken last week in 

 Brand ywine Creek, and many of our down-river piers are 

 thronged with anglers, tempting daily the fish with shad roe, 

 and what is much more disgusting to use, the undeveloped 

 eggs of the sturgeon. The water is yet too cold for success- 

 f lit fishing for striped bass, but in a week we shall hear of 

 good catches at many points. At Delano large catches of 

 white catfish with roe bait were made last week under the 

 railroad bridge. It is said by experts that they can distin- 

 guish the flavor of a shad caught in the Delaware River 

 within a mile of the mouth of the Schuylkill, as the fish 

 caught either in the latter river or very near it has an un- 

 mistakable taste of gas tar.— Homo. 



Bass in North Carolina.— Editor Forest aud Stream: 

 "Will some of your readers be kind enough to inform me, 

 through your columns, in regard to the fishing near Morgan- 

 ton, N. C. ? Is there good black bass fishing in the Upper 

 Catawba and Upper Yadkin? How far from Morganton, or 

 from Lenoir, N. C, does one have to go for trout (SalveU/eus 

 fontinulis)?—CYnTomx. 



New Hampshire Trout. — Lancaster, N. H., April 2?.— 

 The streams are all open here now, and from present indi- 

 cations the fishing will be good by the 10th or 15th of May. 

 We find the best fishing here before the water gets very low, 

 and some good catches are frequently made on the 1 st of 

 May.— S. J. G. 



■eason to congratulate myself that I am to address you 

 under auspices so favorable to the reception of novel ideas. 

 "YoU have brought together ah exibit of the resources of the 

 State which must be not only gratifying to each citizen, but 

 which also cannot fail to impress every one with the advan- 

 tages to be derived from intelligent and progressive policies. 

 To a stranger hke myself, the exhibit is not only interesting, 

 but significant. Superficial as my examination has necessarily 

 been, I am impressed forcibly with the fact that the State is 

 advancing on those roads that lead to ultimate wealth and 

 prosperity, and that the people of North Carolina are inclined 

 to put into practical operation any theory, however new it 

 may be to them, if it appears likely to be of benefit. There- 

 fore, I am to speak to you and at this time. For I come to 

 preach a new gospel and I want to preach it to open ears ; 1 

 am here to suggest a practical way of utilizing one of the 

 great gifts of nature, and the indications are that you readily 

 receive such suggestions. Certainly no man, under the in- 

 fluence of what we have about us, can fail to see how much 

 science, energy, labor and original genius have accomplished 

 during these last two decades. All the qualities I have 

 enumerated arc, I am sure, among you; and I wish now to 

 point out a new field in which they can be exercised ; a field, 

 too, which will repay cultivation a thousand-fold. 



Numbers of people coming here are conversant with agri- 

 culture and thoroughly understand and appreciate all its pos- 

 sibilities in the present and future. Numbers, also, who have 

 visited the exposition, are equally well informed as to the 

 raising of stock and or the perfection to which that process 

 has been brought. But I fancy both the agriculturist and the 

 stock-breeder, as well as a large proportion of all men, will be 

 astonished when I tell them that there is a field for exertion 

 closely resembling in its methods of operation the processes of 

 agriculture, of which the agriculturist has never dreamt; a 

 It is in I species of animal, a veritable food product, to be raised and 

 improved according to the same general laws that govern 

 stock breeding, but of which stock raisers are profoundly ig- 

 norant. And when I state that this agricultural field is the 

 bottom of the sea, and the stock to be raised is a shellfish so 

 familiar to all Americans as the oyster, I know full well that 

 agriculturist, stock breeder and the great mass of the public 

 will be incliued to think me a visionary person who sees imag- 

 inary rather than real relationships, yet, though 1 am ad- 

 dressing men who, likernyself, are of tfie sea: to whom the 

 ocean and its inhabitants are as familiar as the potato to the 

 farmer and the calf to the stock raiser, yet nev ertheless, it is 

 actually of operations which more closely resemble farming 

 and stock raising than the fisheries, that I have to speak to 

 you who represent the fishermen of North Carolina. 



I would therefore ask you to dismiss from your minds all 

 impressions due to your ordinary vocation and forget, if pos- 

 sible, that I am speaking of denizens of the salt water. 



I suppose that I may saf elv assume that you, in common 

 with all other citizens, are anxious to increase the prosperity 

 and material wealth of the State. To others belong the in- 

 vestigation and development of the uplands; but to you, the 

 population of the coast, belongs the development of the 

 water, You are responsible for the condition of the fishery 

 interests. Assuming you to be willing to undertake your 

 natural duties, I shall try to point out how one of those fish- 

 ing interests— the oyster industry— may be greatly developed. 

 To properly understand the problem it is necessary for us to 

 look at the actual state of affairs. I have not made very close 

 calculations, but I doubt if you have at present a grand total 

 of 8,000 acres of productive oyster ground, while you certainly 

 have two hundred times as much acres that can be made pro- 

 ductive. The last census shows thab North Carolina produced 

 but 170,000 bushels of oysters per annum, or about fifty bushels 

 for each acre now yielding a product. That amount, so far 

 as statistics can be relied upon, is about the maximum yield 

 of natural beds when in a normal state. In other words, you 

 are getting nearly all you can get from your oyster beds as 

 they now are, without endangering their productive life. As- 

 suming that to be the case, and supposing you want more 

 oysters than you now have, the question is, how are you to get 

 them? 



Possibly, just at present you think that you do not want any 

 more and therefore do not care how you are to get them. But, 

 as I have already said, I believe you to be a people ready to 

 take advantage of an opportunity when it offers, and I think 

 you will see before I am through that the possession of a large 

 number of oysters will be of considerable benefit a few years 

 from now. 



The great Chesapeake Bay produces, or did produce sotne 

 four years ago, eighty per cent, of the oysters used in the 

 country. We hear of "Blue Points," "Rockaways," "Shrews- 

 burys," and other local brands of the North, but they repre- 

 sent only '-fancy stock." The real bulk of the product is de- 

 rived from the Chesapeake. Of the 23,000,000 bushels con- 

 sumed, the Chesapeake and its tributaries yield over 17,000,000, 

 Of the 37,000 fishermen and laborers engaged in the industry, 

 Maryland and Virginia emplov 38,000, Of the §10,500.000 cap- 

 ital invested, over $8,000,000 is located in the two States bor- 

 dering on the Chesapeake Bay. 



Yet, notwithstanding the importance, of the interest in- 

 volved, the people of Maryland and Virginia are allowing their 

 great industry to perish. ' For years the oystermen have lived 

 upon the accumulated stores which nature supplied in the 

 past. But, like the bov in the fable, they have trilled the 

 goose that laid the golden eggs. Warnings enough had been 

 given, but no heed was paid them. Advice as to the remedy 

 to be adopted has been freely proffered to be met with only a 

 hke neglect; the outcome is, that the yield of the beds has 

 fallen off enormously, the price of oysters increased to more 

 than a proportionate degree, aud still no remedy at all likely 

 to be adequate has been adopted. All persons who have 

 studied the matter at all, agree in prophesying the ultimate 

 extinction of the beds. The beds once extinguished, from 

 whence will come the 17,000,000 bushels of oysters now pro- 

 duced bv the Chesapeake? Where will the 28.000 people find 

 employment? and to what locality will the §8,000 000 of capi- 

 tal transfer itself? Unquestionably the capital and labor will 

 seek the oysters. Unquestionably if the oysters are located m 

 North Carolina's waters some eight or ten million dollars will 

 eventually rest in the State and some twenty-five or thirty- 

 thousand people be employed by it, It is evident then that 

 there is great probability that you will need more oysters be- 

 fore manyvears. The next question is how to get them. 

 Here I would ask you to follow me through a brief summary 

 of the experience of other localities and then judge for your- 

 selves if my conclusions be correct. 



On the Schleswig-Holstein beds the oysters decreased 

 about ninety per cent, in sixty years; the beds were 

 managed and controlled by the government and cultiva- 

 tion by private persons was not attempted. In the vicinity 

 of Falmouth, England, the oysters decreased in ten years 

 from a catch of ten thousand a day to a catch of one 

 hundred a day. The beds were common property and con- 

 trolled by the government. Private cultivation was absent. 

 At Guesworth, England, the catch ran down in eighteen 

 years from twenty-four thousand a day to nothing. The 

 government controlled the fishery and it was common 

 property. The French beds in the districts of Maremua and 



