May 28, 1885.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



349 



take. All through the winter and away late into the spring 

 they may be found in our local markets more plentiful than 

 any of tlie half-dozen species of wild geese shot about here 

 They are usually the latest in market, after the honkers, the 

 gray geese, the snow geese, etc., have all departed for the 

 icy north. 



As an advocate of small hores, I am pleased to note the 

 fact that the pig No. 10s are going out of fashion here as 

 elsewhere. When a man can offer no better argument in 

 favor of his arm-breaking cannon than that "he can kill 

 more game with it" than with a No. 12 or 14 gauge, then I 

 say he" has a poor cause. He can get a singlebarreled 8-gauge 

 that will not weigh more than 12 or 13 pounds (just a couple 

 of pounds more than his 10-gauge), and with that he would 

 be able to pile up his heap of game still higher. I say give 

 us smaller bass of birds, more skill in the use of the gun, and 

 a greater amount of pleasure with less toil. 



The late Legislature had bigger fish to fry and did not get 

 down to game legislation— at least, the Senate did not. But 

 if even the present laws were enforced in all cases, there 

 would be little cause for complaint; but, as before stated, 

 thev are whollv disregarded in some localities. 



We lately had the handsome, entertaining Tucker, of 

 Parker gun fame, with us, and now he's down among the 

 Texas cowboys (I wonder if there are any cowgirls down 

 that way). ''Tuck" is a jolly good fellow, a fine shot, aud 

 all that; but he's a better business man than either. He has 

 a good gun to work for, it is true; but he's the chief in his 

 line. Smat/l-Boke. 



Sacramento, Cat,, May 11. 



WISCONSIN GAME. 



Editor Fared and St/reOM:' 



From information that I get from the farmers of this and 

 adjoining counties, more game has lived through the past 

 winter than usual, and consequently our shooting prospects 

 for next fall are promising. I am very sorry the bill to cre- 

 ate game wardens in this State did not receive the Govern- 

 or's signature and become a law. I am satisfied that we can- 

 not preserved our game and good shooting without an officer 

 whose particular business it is to look after the parties who 

 are continually shooting out of season. It is difficult to un- 

 derstand how we can protect our game so as to get moder- 

 ately good shooting in the future as we have had in the past. 

 Almost half the population of this vicinity are armed against 

 attacks from game with Winchester rifles and breechloading 

 shotguns, mostly Winchester rifles, and it is well known that 

 when those parties want a prairie chicken to eat, especially 

 those who live in the country, that they shoot it. I believe 

 there is more game killed out of season than in season in this 

 part of the State, and the reason for it is plain; the great 

 Dumber of fine shotguns and repeating rifles that are con- 

 stantly being offered for sale and their perfection and cheap- 

 ness, especially of repeating rifles ; the popularity of wing- 

 shooting among the owners of guns, and the skill that is 

 developing in wing-shooting by gun clubs; the natural 

 desire of most gun owners to want to kill something, and add 

 to this that where game is known to have been killed out of 

 season, no one feels like making enemies for life by report- 

 ing the law-breakers. Altogether it looks as if game must 

 go unless something is done to stop illegal shooting,' and when 

 game becomes scarce the sun dealers will realize it. With- 

 out game birds to hunt it will be a difficult matter to keep up 

 the interest in trap-shooting; very few will care to purchase 

 fine guns without a prospect of using them in the field. 

 Trap-shooting (with the majority of shooters) is indulged in 

 chiefly as practice for field shooting. The whole gun busi- 

 ness depends for its existence on game, and when game goes 

 there will be a good many guns offered for sale cheap. 



Menominee, Wis. WING-SHOT. 



Kansas Large Game.— Cimarron. Kan., May 20.— 

 The antelope are- being driven back by settlers, who are 

 coming in and locating on bare prairie, where one has to 

 dig 150 feet to water, and where you can't raise enough to 

 keep a goose on 100 acres. There are just as many antelope, 

 but I have to go 100 miles for good hunting. I. bought a .40- 

 60 repeabT last wiuter, and had it resighted by A. P. Clarke, 

 of New York. It holds up well and shoots accurately. Had 

 it sighted for 125 yards, and don't have to change my sights 

 up to 200 or a little over. But the ball is too light for ante- 

 lope shooting on prairie. 1 am going to get a .45-85 and try 

 that. A great many cattle died from starvation and cold on the 

 range last winter, and 1 never saw coyotes so thick as they 

 are now. The spring flight of geese and ducks was very 

 light through here. They were reported to be plenty seventy 

 miles further east at Larned, and from there east. Cowboys 

 are quite plenty this spring. A large one was lulled near 

 Dodge City last week; but they are not hunted much at this 

 season of the year, nor in fact at any other. — W. J. D. 



Shore Birds and Woodcock — Philadelphia, May 23. 



The spring flight of shore birds still continues. Some of the 

 varieties have already passed north, but the robin breast and 

 blaek-breasied plover, which are usually later comers, have 

 only beguu to arrive. These latter named varieties will stay 

 on our shcres but a few days. The wildfowl, which re- 

 mained with us late this spring, have left for the north. A 

 few straggling snipe still linger, I am told that rail birds 

 have been heard in the marshes below Chester on the New 

 Jersey side; if this is true, ihey will breed here. More wood- 

 cock than for some years back are breeding on the borders 

 of the creeks running into the Delaware through New Jersey, 

 and I get it from good authoiity that as many as three 

 broods were discovered in one wet woods. It looks as if there 

 would be good woodcock shooting in July. How much 

 better would it be, though, to let them rest until autumn.— 

 Homo. 



California. — San Diego, May 11, — I have seen numerous 

 coveys of quail about one-third grown; and rabbits are very 

 numerous, two-thirds grown.— D. B. H. 



Game Law Changes.— Will correspondents favor us with 

 a memorandum of whatever changes may have been made in 

 their State and local game laws. 



31G.775. 



317.521. 

 318.190. 

 10,598. 



LIST OF PATENTS 



ig Date May 25, 1885 .Reported expressly for this paper by 

 Louis Bagger & Co., Mechanical Experts" and Solicitors 

 of Patents, Washington, D. C. 



Wire-Floating Li rebox- J. F. Hardman, Rensselaer, Ind. 

 Ball Ti-ap-F. O. Damm, Peoria,. 111. ' 



Fishing-Reel— John Kopf. Brooklyn, N Y 

 Fisning-Taekle Case (r*-i*sue) H.F. Price,' Brooklyn, N. Y, 



\m md Bivtt 



MUSKOKA. 



THE old proverb holds. There are not only as good fish 

 in the sea, but in the rivers and lakes, as ever were 

 caught. All that is necessary is that you shall go where 

 they are. When once there, it is only a question of season, 

 skill and the right kind of tackle. Teu years ago, when I 

 first began to fish and simultaneously to read the Forest 

 and Stream, 1 was both grieved and disappointed to find 

 that nearly all the interesting accounts of successful fishing 

 expeditions in choice waters were dated a generation earlier, 

 and that little remained to the younger fishermen but the 

 tantalizing reminiscences of the '"'good old days" as described 

 by our elders. I have since discovered that I was in error. 



Two of us last summer, while casting about for a new ter- 

 ritory, had our attention called by a friend to the Muskoka 

 country. The very name had an attractive sound to us from 

 the first. It was round and mellow, full of vowels, and 

 easily spoken. The tales that were told us about the lake 

 couutry which bears the name were even more alluring to 

 us than the souud of the name itself. This was by no means 

 conclusive, however, to a couple of cynical sportsmen, 

 who for years had wandered up and down the lakes and 

 streams which are so beautiful in the excursion pamplilets 

 and railway folders, and so utterly barren and unattractive 

 in reality. But we afterward found that not the least sin- 

 gular feature of the stories told us about the Muskoka coun- 

 try was that they were true. This, however, is anticipating. 



"it might be remarked, apropos of setting out, that the 

 lucky number in a fishing expedition is always two. That 

 number represents the happy mean between solitude and a 

 crowd. Two in a party are company, and as there never 

 can be more than two opinions as to any plan, the chances 

 of disagreement are reduced to a minimum. Two men never 

 quarrel on an expedition, because they have no third parties 

 to take sides, while for efficiency and mobility the party of 

 two cannot be equaled. Lastly, there are only two sides to 

 a penny, one f®r each man, and when in camp a "toss 

 up" will settle the most perplexing question to the entire 

 satisfaction of both. Of course no record is made in a cal 

 culation of this kind, of guides and camp men, who form the 

 "working corps" and who do not vote on questions of route, 

 etc., unless they are invited to do so. 



Every fisherman knows that if one should attempt to take 

 note of the preliminary talk and time expended in- preparing 

 for a fishing expedition he would never get to his story. 

 And so I may simply say that our point of rendezvous and 

 departure was Detroit, and our route over the Grand Trunk 

 to Toronto, thence over the Northern & Northwestern Road 

 to Gravenhurst (or more strictly, Muskoka wharf), and from 

 there we could go onward and upward in as many directions 

 as there are fingers on one hand by the lively little steamers 

 of the Muskoka and Nipissing Navigation Company. Any 

 one who will remember these points, "blazed" as above, can 

 never lose the trail to the Muskoka country, and having once 

 traveled it, he will need no summer guide book to tempt him 

 to repeat his visit. 



The man who goes into the Muskoka country on a pisca- 

 torial trip ought to be thoroughly equipped both for fly and 

 bait-fishing. The great variety, not only of the waters of 

 the Muskoka country, but also of the fish, renders this abso- 

 lutely essential; unless, perchance, one is willing to confine 

 himself to a particular locality and provide himself accord- 

 ingly. Our trip was made in the middle of August, and 

 while we went in one direction for bait and another direc- 

 tion for fly-fishing, we would not for any consideration have 

 willingly foregone the pleasures of either. 



Leaving Detroit in the evening, the next day found us at 

 1 o'clock in the afternoon on the docks at Muskoka wharf, 

 and that same evening, after a charming steamer ride over 

 lakes Muskoka and Rosseau, with an incidental diversion up 

 the Muskoka River to Bracebridge, we landed at Rosseau 

 happy and hungry. We were without any preconceived 

 plans as to the waters in which we should first wet our lines, 

 but a lucky accident directed us toward Crane and Black- 

 stone Jakes, and starting bright and early over the Parry 

 Sound road, we "rounded to" at 5 o'clock in the afternoon 

 on the banks of Blackstone, still somewhat incredulous, but 

 none the less ready and anxious to test the stories we' had 

 gathered at Rosseau, and which had been the moving cause 

 of our last day's journey. For there were maskallonge in 

 these waters, we had been assured at Rosseau, and we had 

 examined and cross-examined the guides and hotel people in 

 that quiet little village till we had accumulated testimony 

 concerning the habits and doings of these fresh-water tigers 

 that made our blood run hot and our fingers tingle. 



The shores of the Crane and Blackstone lakes are capital 

 specimens of the primitive wilderness, and long may they 

 so continue. The broken beer bottle and the disemboweled 

 tin can do not disfigure their borders, and the few who have 

 visited their teeming waters have mostly been genuine fisher- 

 men, who are happiest when furthest from the conventional 

 summer hotel, and wholly indifferent as to their accessories. 

 Each lake had only one family Jiving upon it, and one small 

 clearing on Blackstone was all that broke the majestic sweep 

 of the grand old forests. Within the sheltered bays the 

 loons laughed undisturbed, and the wild birds splashed in 

 the marshy edges or upon the sandy shores, with none to 

 molest or make them afraid. 



When an angler goes forth to catch the maskallonge, it is 

 necessary to be careful lest the maskallonge should catch him. 

 Here are the "precautions suggested by actual experience 

 against so untoward a result: A 10-ounee split bamboo rod, 

 9i feet long, a quadruplex reel with adjustable click and 

 drag,* and carrying 200 yards of No 5 (or smallest size) 

 braided linen line, at the end of which is attached by a 

 swivel 2 feet of medium sized copper wire, and lastly a No, 

 4 or 5 spoon aud double hooks. Finallv a good gaff. 



"Better leave them little rods," said our guide, philoso- 

 pher, etc., as we prepared to start over to Crane Lake the 

 first morning. "You can't use them rods; they are no 

 good " 



"We'll take them along," said I; "they are not hard to 

 carrv." 



[The proper method of taking the maskallonge, on the 

 primeval waters of Canada, is by a small clothes line, hauled 

 in by main strength w hen the fish bites.] 



The old man smiled, but when he tound later that the 

 assurance that we would break our rods did not change our 



* I want to express the opinion '• 'umbly" that the bobtail rod and 

 the superfine tackle that some of our fishermen talk of are a delusion 

 for anything but ftngerling trout. There are a good many reasons 

 for this opinion as applied to black bass fishing, but cannot stop to 

 give them now. * 



intention of fishing with them, he indulged in a little pros- 

 pective enjoyment of our discomfiture as we rowed toward 

 the lower end of the lake. 



For myself, I confess that underneath my placid outward 

 mien I felt a little nervous. I had been fast to a maskallonge 

 but once, years before, and the result of that experience was 

 a panic that overwhelmed the boatman, my partner and my- 

 self, and lost us a magnificent fish through a piece of 

 strategic and brilliant stupidity. [Perhaps 1 may write that 

 experience some day.] But I really meant to hook a maskal- 

 longe with my "little rod," and I didn't mean to back down 

 till compelled". 



Swinging around a little point, with some twenty yards of 

 line astern, before fishing a great while, I felt a sudden 

 movement at the spoon that was more like a "crounch"than 

 a bite. It took only a second to give the rod a turn that 

 fixed the hooks, and another second to discover that I bad 

 hung something, Scarcely had I tightened the line when the 

 fish started. I do not know that I wanted to stop him, but 

 I put my thumb on the reel, and felt the line slip rapidly 

 from beneath it, as though attached to a submarine torpedo. 

 The first run was a loug one, but the line was longer and the 

 fish stopped before the reel was bare. This was my oppor- 

 tunity, and I had the boatman swing his craft across the 

 course, and reeling in the slack line I turned his head toward 

 the deeper water. Forty-five minutes of as pretty a fight as 

 one could wish to see left my new acquaintance alongside 

 the boat, aud before he recovered his surprise the gaff was 

 in his gills and the boatman lifted hiai on board. He weighed 

 fourteen pounds on the steelyards, and was my heaviest fish. 



This little encounter and its termination was a revelation 

 to the boatman, and in the course of the day there were 

 others of a similar character, but none which developed quite 

 so protracted a contest. As for myself and my companion, 

 I think we should not have been afraid of the largest veteran 

 in the lake, and our nerves were as steady as clockwork. 

 Our time was limited (shorter than my story), and in a word 

 a day and a half on Crane Lake gave us ten maskallonge 

 whose weight aggregated 110 pounds (on the scales), an aver- 

 age weight of eleven pounds per fish. This was taking no 

 account of black bass and pickerel. It seems strange to talk 

 of shaking off black bass and making disrespectful remarks 

 about these gamy gentry when they insisted on taking the 

 hook, but they were so plenty as to be really troublesome. 

 "When I go a-cattin' I go a-cattin'," said our colored friend. 



If the editor doesn't put his finger down (and his foot too) 

 I hope to say something another time about the black bass 

 and the trout in the Muskoka waters. ' Jay Bebe. 



SKINNED STREAM. 



THE stream that I am attempting to describe, and along 

 whose banks I am about to give my experience, is in 

 Litchfield county, Conn. Possibly it may'have been stocked 

 since I waded its pure waters. It certainly ought to be, for 

 if ever I tried my skill in a "lovely" trout brook (to use a 

 lady's expression) it was in that brook and in one of its 

 branches. But no doubt many of the readers of Forest 

 and Stream will think of several just such brooks in all of 

 our Northern, Eastern and Middle States— streams that have 

 been fished in out of season, and netted to supply a boarding 

 house demand, and scooped when their waters were low 

 and whipped on all days of the week and hours of the day' 

 not even Sunday excepted. ' 



But the way I came to call the brook in question Skinned 

 Stream was this : The morning after our arrival at Maple 

 Grove House I was asking Sam, the proprietor's brother, if 

 there were not some trout streams in the neighborhood.-' I 

 remembered that amoner the attractions of the place this was 

 named. "O, yes," said Sam. "there are plenty of beautiful 

 streams here, but not many fish." This was a new idea to 

 me. I thought of many other just such places— first-rate 

 brooks to fish in, but very poor places to catch any. How- 

 ever, 1 learned all I could from Sam, and will give his ac- 

 count of the stream in question as well as I can remember it. 



"Yes sir," said he, pointing to the stream running through 

 the meadow in front of the house and winding down to the 

 left of it. "thatisagood trout brook. When I was a boy 

 we used to get lots of them there, and an old codger around 

 here even now picks up a good many. Two years a°-o I 

 caught a pounder off of that bridge you see there. But* the 

 fact of it is the streum is skinned now; and it is skinned 

 every year almost before the law is up. I have seen three 

 or four fellows every day for nearly six weeks in the spring 

 poking along there, and then they drop off to one and two a 

 day until June. Sometimes one of them will get a fish but 

 1 think there are more fishermen than trout, and they break 

 down our fences and tread down the grass." 



This is in substance all that I could learn from Sam, but 

 he told me that he knew of a good trout brook about six 

 miles from there, and that his brother had a fine team and 

 an easy -riding wagon. However, Sam had told me enough 

 and I thought at once of what I would do when I (?ot 

 stronger. I would try the Skinned Stream for myself. ° 



It was now July, and 1 knew that the farmers' sons livin^ 

 in the neighborhood in all probability had not fished the 

 stream for some weeks aud would not be able to again that 

 season unless they went out on a rainy day. I knew°also that 

 the boarders in the place were in the habit of going to the 

 lake for their fishing. It had been stocked with bass some 

 years before and now they were allowed to catch them. The 

 fishing, too, I had learned, was quite good in the lake. So I 

 gave myself no uneasiness about any one troubling the 

 Skinned Stream and said, now I will just wait until 1 am 

 well enough to travel and then I will explore its waters for 

 myself. I will try and be ready for the next rainy day. For 

 this 1 had to wait a week; may be it was just as well that I 

 had to wait so long. But I felt strong enough by the morn 

 ing of July 20. We had had a thunder storm the afternoon 

 before and it had not cleared off as usual, but promised to 

 be cloudy and overcast the next day. It was so. 



I left the Maple Grove House about half-past 8 and com- 

 menced to fish just below the hotel. As I was going out 

 the proprietor told me he hoped I would get some; that if I 

 did it would be a good thing for his house. 1 thought he 

 was very candid for a Yankee; but it seemed he had taken a 

 fancy to me, and was very careful to tell me what I would 

 come to on my way down and where I would find the road 

 to come home. Joe smiled as I went off, and said, "Good 

 luck, sir, but don't feel disappointed if you do not °-' e t any " 



But now I am by the stream. On my side the alder 

 bushes have recently been cut off close up to the water's 

 edge. They are lying on the ground preparatory to being 

 piled up and burned, and are continually catching on this 

 lame foot of mine. What a beautiful hole that seems to be! 

 There must be fish under that bank, close to that bush I 

 am trying a worm now, using it as I would a fly on the top 



