May 14, 1885.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



309 



An Exekcise in Parsing.— Probably no one would sus- 

 pect the Committee on Agriculture of the Massachusetts 

 Legislature of a tendency to humor, but Senate Document 

 No; 209. reported by that committee, is as full of unpremed- 

 itated and unconscious humor as an egg is of meat. Here is 

 a specimen : "Sec. 10. It shall be unlawful to willfully take 

 or kill any pinnated grouse, commonly called prairie chicken 

 or heath hen, unless upon ground owned by him, and, un- 

 less placed thereon by the owner, shall be punished by fine 

 of twenty dollars for every such bird." Even Mr. Toodlcs, 

 at his drunkest, was never more wildly maundering or more 

 deliciously iucousequential. The imagination is fairly ap- 

 palled at the ability of the Committee on Agriculture to 

 muddle the syntax of the English language. Section 10 

 ought to be introduced into the schools and colleges as an 

 exercise in parsing, and the pupil who . could extricate the 

 English grammar from the horrible mess into which the 

 committee have plunged it should be entitled to graduate 

 Surnma cum laude. — 2VW Kncjland Farmer. 



Antiquity of Wildfowi, Netting..— Netting wildfowl 

 bas been a custom with many people all over the world for 

 hundreds of years, vet in these times the palm must be 

 awarded to the "pot-providers" of the Chesapeake and Long 

 Island waters. In the lower portion of the first named bay 

 thousands of "flock ducks" are netted every winter. At 

 times the supply greatly exceeds the demand, and in warm 

 changes of weather many of the drowned fowl spoil and 

 are fed to the hogs. As an instance of old-time netting, 

 Boich, in his boolsTof "Manners and Customs of the Ancient 

 Egyptians/' says: "Geese are still common on the banks of 

 tlie Nile. The ancients used to catch them in a wild state 

 in clap-nets. The fowl were brought to the poulterers who 

 salted and potted them in earthenware vessels. " This method 

 should commend itself to the Shinnecockers. 



Snipe Shooting at South Oyster Bat, L. I.— For the 

 last few days the yellowleg and other snipe have been com- 

 ing in the bay in great numbers, and the gunners and some 

 of the sportsmenof New York have had good shooting at 

 them. The snipe as well as the. ducks w T ere very late in get- 

 ting here this season, but they have arrived at last, and if 

 the weather continues warm, we expect plenty more to drop 

 in on us and give us good shooting for three or four weeks 

 longer. They then start for their breeding places, and pay 

 us another visit about the middle of July to stay with us un- 

 til November.— O. C. (South Oyster Bay, N. Y.). 



Sooth Duxbuuy, Mass., May 4— Quail wintered very 

 well. Have seen several coveys this spring, and if hawks 

 let them alone there will be some good shooting this fall. 

 A few ruffed grouse can be heard drumming, but are not 

 plenty. Word comes to me from Southern New Hampshire 

 that they_ are very plenty there this spring. We shall pay 

 them a visit in October if nothing prevents, and would be 

 pleased to take any Boston sportsman with us that can shoot 

 in brush and that has dogs that will work in the same. — 

 South Shore. 



Missouri and Arkansas. — Savanna, 111. — I have just 

 returned from a hunting and trapping trip South. I went 

 down the Mississippi 700 miles in a fifteen-foot clinker-built 

 skiff, and spent the wiuter in the swamps of Southern Mis- 

 souri and Northern Arkansas. Bear and turkeys are plenty. 

 The first week in January we killed two large bucks, one of 

 them apparently old. Both had dropped their horns. The 

 old one had tusks in the upper jaw about three-quarters of 

 an inch in length. Is this usual in old deer?— S. 



Kansas Game.— Columbus, April 29, — At this point I 

 have had the best English snipe and ducii shooting that ever 

 fell to my lot. There are splendid prospects for good quail 

 and chicken sbooting this fall, but the best sport is found 

 about thirty miles south of here in the "Nation," and as I 

 am looking for the cream it is more than likely that I will 

 get down in that country before locating permanently. I 

 will drop you a line from time to time with all points of 

 interest.— H. D. T. 



Philadelphia Notes.— May 9. — The flight of shore birds 

 has begun to arrive, word reaching Philadelphia to-day to 

 that effect. This news has started those who are fond of 

 the sport to load shells, and many sportsmen will start the 

 first of the coming week for the New Jersey bays. — Homo. 



Eldorado Gun Club,— At the annual meeting of the 

 Eldorado (Wis ) Gun Club the following officers were elected 

 for the current year; President, S. B. Dilley; Vice-Presi- 

 dent, F. Sharratt; Secretarv, Buell Anderson; Treasurer, M. 

 M. Anderson.— S. B. D. (Eldorado, Wis., May 2). 



Ripon Gun Club.— At the annual meeting of the Ripon 

 (Wis.) Gun Club the following officers were elected: Presi- 

 dent, W. G.Lambert; Secretary, J. E. Follett; Treasurer, 

 F. W. Kingsbury; Captain, S. B. Dilley.— S. B. D. (Ripon, 

 Wis., April 30). _ 



Colorado.— Yampa, April 26.— The deer and antelope 

 are now with us as thick as mosquitoes on a Jersey shore. 

 This is the finest game country in the world.— F. de G. 



\mwer$ to ^arrespandrnt^ 



tS°" No Notice Taken of Anonymous Correspondents. 



Lakeside.— The laws will be printed as soon as the session is over. 



Ashbxtrmham.— We cannot tell you what the eggs were, for you do 

 not describe them definitely enough. 



R. M.— The data for determining longevity of brook trout are very 

 meagre. Perhaps 15 years is the average limit. 



J S- C t7 The maIje of Sun is a good one, and for the price named 

 you ought to get a serviceable and perfectly safe arm, 



J. S. 8., Jr.— What flies would be most suitable for the Moosehead 

 Lakeresion about the first of June, both lake and stream fishing? 

 Ans. Montreal, grizzly king, queen of the water, silver doctor, brown 

 hackle and coachman. 



W. CM., Brooklyn, N. Y.-Can you suggest some place in the 

 mountains and as tar away from the usual summer resorts as possi- 

 ble where I can find good black bass fishing in July? Ans. You will 

 find good black bass fishing m the north fork of Ho'lston and iu New 

 rivers, Virginia. These are not much fished except by the as 

 Some bass can be taken in Adirondack waters, especially in Raciuette 

 Lake and adjoining lakes. * 



fox mid Bivw Mi 



BLACK BASS IN LAKE CHAMPLAIN. 



IT is perhaps a pardonable weakness in an angler that he 

 is slow to believe that any fishing water should, for the 

 game qualities of its finny inhabitants, be rated above some 

 well-known local stream 'or pond that has filled boyish hopes 

 to repletion. Born nine miles from Lake George, in New 

 York, and having fished its clear, pure waters almost from 

 the short-dress period of my existence, I have learned to love 

 its wooded shores, quiet bays, shadowing mountains and its 

 many islands whose shore-lapping waves are, summer after 

 summer, sounding to the prow of each passing fishing-boat 

 an invitation to rest. But however much these settings may 

 excite my admiration— and they are always attractive, 

 whether the season be spring, summer or autumn— it is the 

 gem itself, the crystal water, and the game fish therein that 

 have penetrated most deeply into my heart and esophagus. 

 Guide books and the advertisements of hotel proprietors 

 have, perhaps, helped me out iu forming a proper estimate 

 of the general plan of the "Como of America;" but of the 

 beauties of its interior arrangements 'I learned from days 

 and weeks spent in dragging its depths with a trolling line 

 for lake trout or whipping its surface for black bass. 1 can 

 produce evidence that. I have performed the dragging and 

 v/bipping thoroughly if not well— so thoroughly at least that 

 I have been on quite intimate terms with many of its fish. I 

 have frequently differed with them, it is true, but after a 

 misunderstanding that might almost be termed a fight, we 

 have generally gone together to the same table, and, speak- 

 ing for myself, I have always risen up from these love feasts 

 at peace with all the world. If the fish treasured resent- 

 ment they made no sign except on one occasion when they 

 caused the nightmare, or rather a squadron of nightmares 

 with a battery of artillery and other things, that discounted 

 the "Greatest Show on Earth," to charge over me while I 

 was sleeping after an exceedingly pleasant "first day of the 

 open season." 



From my long and close acquaintance with the black bass 

 in this lake I had come to regard them as a trifle better than 

 the "standard"— a sort of XXX brand — of bass from lake 

 or pond waters. Why not? Where were to be found supe- 

 rior conditions for producing fighting fish? Was not the 

 lake one vast spring of clear, cold water, filled with food in 

 plenty and variety; with acres of breeding shoals and miles 

 of shores of clean white sand, gravel and broken rocks, and 

 other acres of fine grass under twenty or thirty feet of water? 

 Was there not an absence of reeds, rushes and other rank 

 water vegetation that enervates even bass of good training 

 and lofty aspirations if they look upon it when it is red with 

 the larva or pupa of water insects, or tarry long therein at 

 other seasons? Yea, verily. 



■When fishing for black bass in other lake waters I have 

 always, if I caught fish, compared them with the Lake George 

 bass, and found them, if memory is to be trusted, lacking in 

 the performance of some of the more difficult acrobatic feats, 

 at which my favorite bass would, also in memory, give a 

 flirt to its caudal fin and turn up its disreputable looking, 

 blood-shot eye. as much as to say, "The handwriting on the 

 wall was not aimed at me." 



Now begins another period for the black bass of Cooper's 

 Lake Horicau — not Horicon, as some writers and steamboat- 

 men make it— for they got into the balances once too often 

 and were "downed" by some biiss that I will write more 

 about; but let me say: 



"No words suffice the secret soul to show, 

 For truth denfes all eloquence to woe." 



Which means that an angler must not set his favorite fish 

 upon a pinnacle to show that they are better than some other 

 fellow's fish, for under a republican form of government a 

 cyclone is liable to come meandering along and upset the 

 fish and the pinnacle too. My chagrin at the downfall of 

 my old friends is deeper because the bass that have, in mv 

 estimation, beaten them are from a lake that I have consid- 

 ered as a fit home only for catfish, ling and eels. Be it un- 

 derstood that in making a comparison between the black 

 bass of two different lakes, I group the entire catch or series 

 of catches from each, for it would be manifestly unfair to 

 select individual fish as representing all. I saw a black bass 

 after being hooked jump from the water seven times before 

 he was brought to net; but many bass that I caught from the 

 same water did not jump once, and it was not because they 

 were hooked in the gullet. As a general rule, I have found 

 that when a black bass, after being hooked, bores to the 

 bottom without breaking water, be has swallowed the hook 

 until it is fast in the inner recesses of his food ventricle. 

 This action is explained usually in this way; The fish, when 

 hooked in the gullet or stomach, suffers pain and makes 

 every effort to find refuge at the bottom, where he can repair 

 damages; but when booked in the cartilage of the mouth he 

 feels no pain, and devotes himself to freeing his mouth from 

 the hook by leaping. This is plausible, but if there is any 

 portion of a fish's anatomy that is sensitive to pain it would 

 seem to be the eye. 



One morning while fishing in Schroon Lake near the boat 

 of a friend, 1 saw his boatman catch a black bass by hook- 

 ing hitn foul in the eye-ball, and the fish acted as though the 

 water was not his native element, and he must get out of it 

 or perish. In the afternoon of that day I hooked a bass in 

 identically the same manner— there's a fish story for you— 

 that did not once break the surface of the water until he 

 was brought to net. A few days later at the same place I 

 hooked a bass through the skin just under the dorsal; this 

 one did not break water either, and I thought for a time he 

 would weigh about eleven pounds. Each of the three bass 

 weighed three and one-half pounds. When Mr. Levison 

 narrated his wonderful catch I thought of writing of these 

 burglarious catches somewhat in detail— the first mentioned 

 bass had parts of two baits (crayfish) inside of him that he 

 had taken from my hook only a moment before— and seudin-* 

 the account to Forest and Stream, but before I could do 

 so Mr. Mather went under the wire an easy winner with his 

 croppie story, and the distance flag shut me out.* 



The water in which L found the gamest black bass that it 

 has ever been my good fortune to catch is the Great Back 

 Bay of Lake Champlain. When first a friend wrote of the 

 fishing at this place, I admired his enthusiasm but deplored 

 bis knowledge of what constituted proper water for the 

 small-mouth black bass. When he wrote again and described 

 the clear, sparkling water of Back Bay, 1 was convinced 

 that either his mind was wandering or there was a part of 

 Lake Champlain that had been secreted from my eyes, for 

 the color of Lake Champlain water and the water of the 

 North River at New York were to me identical: but another 



youthful creation was in a decline, and I was soon to attend 

 its obsequies. I did not don the usual habiliments of woe. 

 but imitated the early Christians or Rome upon the death of 

 a friend, rejoiced in bright garments that abetter land had 

 been reached. 



Finally my friend Mr. Backus wrote me from Back Bay, 

 where he was spending the summer, and described the place 

 and the fishing as he had found it, and the Texas Club was 

 immediately fired with a desire to share bis good fortune; 

 but let me introduce the club. The president is Major Benj. 

 A. Botts, of Houston, Texas. The treasurer, William D, 

 Cleveland, of the same city. The secretary, the writer. We 

 have no more members because there arc no more offices. 

 Besides four would make a dead-lock, for we never agree. 

 If the president desires to go to Schroon Lake the treasurer 

 and secretary are sure to vote for the St.. Lawrence River. 

 If the treasurer wishes to go to Brant Lake, his associate 

 members feel that they are called to Long Pond, If one 

 really wishes to go to a particular fishing place he suggests 

 some other place, confident that the other two members will 

 combine and suggest still other places, and in fishing around 

 at random strike the desired spot. This club peculiarity 

 may, to the casual reader, appear embarrassing, but it is rot 

 at all so. It keeps the mind as active as in a diplomatic 

 training school; teaches one to get up early in the morning 

 so that be will not "get left;" tones down hasty tempers, or 

 tires them out— when two men sit down on one; forms the 

 habit of patience, in waiting for one's own turn to come to 

 lead the procession; furnishes entertainment as a continual 

 "circus" and altogether comes nearer to the miraculous 

 fountain of perpetual youth than anything discovered by 

 Ponce de Leon. 



The club has a prudant in the person of Louis or "Mr. 

 Seroggins, the Navigator." Louis is body servant to the 

 president, when he is not navigating or wrecked. He has a 

 system of rowing called the "creek system," wLich isso com- 

 plicated that but few can grapple with it; but, in one sense, 

 it is economical, for with boats hired by the day two days' 

 work is pulled or rowed into one. The "course between two 

 given points is like that of a magnified rail fence, so the 

 person who sits iuthe stem of the boat can, without moving 

 his head, watch for squalls from any point of the compass. 

 Had Samuel Lover ever fished with the Texas Club there 

 would have been no need for him to tax his fertile brain to 

 give birth to "Barny O'Reirdon, Navigator." 



The club began to start for Back Bay iu July, but owing 

 to the peculiarity previously mentioned, other waters were 

 fished for more than a month before the actual start in Sep- 

 tember, -lust here let me say that if any angler proposes to 

 go to Back Bay, I advise him to start from New York, Bos- 

 ton, Liverpool, Khartoum, or any other place on the globe 

 rather than Glens Falls. Another thing, don't go at the time 

 the Vermont State Fair is held unless you go on foot. It was 

 the treasurer who finally fixed the day for our departure on 

 the coming Wednesday, Sept. 10. At the last moment the 

 treasurer wavered, and if his rod had been at the depot, he 

 would have joined the majority when they took their seats 

 in the car on that Tuesday morning. 



We reached Rutland for dinner after making two changes 

 in cars, and after dining were ticketed to St. Albans by the 

 Vermont Central Railroad. We had been traveling along a 

 footpath and had struck one highway. The cars of the Ver- 

 mont Central — audit was a long train — were lull, and so 

 was one of the passengers. The State Fair was in operation 

 at Burlington, and such a variety of old-fashioned coaches 

 as had been gathered together to transport the people I never 

 saw on a railroad. It is a pleasant ride along the valley of 

 Otter Creek except for the dust and the long stops. These 

 were filled in by the hilarious passenger, who, I suppose, 

 was going through Vermont in bond to Canada, with inter- 

 esting personal reminiscences of agricultural horse trotting. 

 At Essex Junction w T e again changed cars, but this was an 

 agreeable change, for before the rods were deposited iu the 

 racks of a comfortable modern car, we were greeted by Mr. 

 Herbert Brainerd, an accomplished angler, and also one of 

 the Fish Commissioners of Vermont. 



We fought over several old struggles with fish that were 

 saved and fish that were lost; discussed rods, flies and tackle, 

 in the midst of which Mr. Brainerd, pointing from the car 

 window, showed us Back Bay, the water looking like molten 

 silver as, unruffled, it reflected the afternoon sun fast sink- 

 ing to its rest among the peaks of the Adirondack Mountains, 

 across the lake. I made a memorandum of the weights of 

 some small-mouthed bass that were reported to the Commis- 

 sioner as having been caught in an interior pond of Vermont, 

 but I cannot now find it._ My impression is that one of the 

 fish was said to weigh eight pounds, and others to weigh 

 over seven pounds each. If I am wrong about the weights I 

 am willing to be forgiven. Mr. Brainerd is thoroughly 

 familiar with all the fishing grounds of the great Back Bay, 

 and it was with pleasure that 1 accepted his invitation to fish 

 one day with him, provided he could release himself from 

 other engagements. Upon reaching St. Albans we found a 

 carriage from the hotel waiting to meet us, and we were 

 quickly seated behind a rattling pair of horses for a five-mile 

 drive over an excellent road. The sun had disappeared, 

 there was no dust, and as we sped along the driver told us 

 of the catches of bass that bad been made during the summer, 

 and this added to our enjoyment, for we believed that what 

 had been done could be done again. 



Three miles from St. Albans the road touches and then 

 skirts the head of St. Albans Bay, which is a small part of 

 the so-called Back Bay. Passing the model dairy farm of 

 ex-Governor Smith on the right, we cross over St. Albans 

 Point, and soon the smell of damp earth tells us we are Hear- 

 ing the low lands. The bay and its islands spread out 

 before us at a turn in the road, and our driver locates some 

 of the fishing grounds for us and points to incoming boats 

 as those of auests of Lake View returning from a day's fish- 

 ing. It was all very pleasant to look upon, but the glassy 

 surface of the water prompted us to ask our charioteer if the 

 bay was given to this repose, and he replied that it was not, 

 although it had been resting quietly for a week past, and 

 consequently the fishing had not been of a superior order. 

 There was an exclamation about some nation or other that 

 must have come from the front seats. 1 was not thinking 

 of governments or peoples, and I don't think the Major was, 

 for he asked if I could tell how many firm s we had been too 

 late or too early by a day or a week for the best fishing, and 

 1 could not, as I lost the count after it reached one hundred. 

 In the gloaming the horses drew up at the door of the hotel, 

 having done the five miles in 28 minutes. Of the anglers 



* I notice that anglers have become discouraged and that there 



have been but few entries in the "Remarkable Catch" column since 

 Mr. Mather took the cup, and I would suggest that in the future ttiere 

 be two classes for remarkable catches, one for amateurs and one 

 free-for-all. 



