Aug. 20, 1885. 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



69 



sto]), the same continued round of success follows, until the 

 suuli.iilit (Streams over tbe mountain tops and throws its daz- 

 zling glare upon the waters. The fish retire to their secluded 

 nooks and we prepare for our journey home. Our score was 

 ninety of the flue.st trout, aggregating 178 pounds. We had 

 fished by actual measurement of the time tliree hours and 

 forty-five minutes. 



We had not come prepared for such a load, and how were 

 we to get them home? Our ponies had got away during the 

 night and we were alone in the wilderness. By good luck 

 we fell upou a dilapidated old cart which Will declared had 

 been left out of the Ark and drifted to these shores, and as 

 the waters subsided had stranded here on the mountains. 

 With a pair of Indian ponies not much larger than jack 

 rabbits, and so poor that their rijjs sliowed so plainly that 

 they looked as if they had swallowed a pair of lioopskirts, 

 and a pair of harness borrowed of a noble red man of the 

 forest, we managed to rig up an outlit which carried us 

 safely home. After dividing witli all our friends there was 

 a wheelbarrowfid still left, which was donated to the Indian 

 boarding school, gladdening the hearts of the fair Indian 

 lads and lasses. We would not have any of your readers 

 take us for "trout fiends," for we only catch in such quanti- 

 ties as can be put to a legitimate use. 



Should any of the readers of the Forest and Strram 

 visit this coast and find time to take a trip to Klamalh 

 Agency, your correspondeut will be pleased to lead them to 

 trout waters where they can have all the fishing they wish. 

 Our mountains and forests are plentifully supplied with deer 

 and other wild game, and there is no lack of sport in the 

 hunting line. Flt Hook Bill. 



KLAntATH ASKKCY. Oregon. 



THE MENHADEN QUESTION. 



JSdiior Forest and /Stream: 



It is claimed that all Food fish are as plentiful now as they 

 were before trap aud purse t^einiiig were known. None but 

 interested parties would thiak of naakiug .such a statement, 

 certainly no hook fisherman w^ndd do sO; for example, I 

 will take the question of striped bass and give my experience 

 of the past fifty vears, confining myself as before, to the 

 famili.or ground of Westport Harbor aud vicinity, which in- 

 cludes five or six miles of coast east and west of the Harbor, 

 of the very best bass ground to be found. Fifty years ago 

 bass were as plenty aud as common as other food fish, and 

 no more «ought after. They could be seen all along the 

 chauuel of the river and along the oceau beach by hundreds. 

 It was common for one man to catch more bass in a day than 

 have been caught at the Harbor in the last two years. Then 

 we could get menhaden by sailing a mile or two, and to get 

 menhaden" bait assured us all the bass we wanted; now it is 

 almost impossible to get the bait, aud when we do, we find 

 there are not any fish. In 1883 I fished away four and one- 

 half pounds of menhaden, fishing the most of July and 

 August, and did not catch a bass. 



Mr. Church says the home of the bass is between Breuton's 

 Reef and Seacoanet Point, and that he has yet to learn that 

 bass leave the coast to go up the river. He could easily learn 

 if he chose, that bass are catight above the city of Taunton, 

 in the very river he referred to, thirty miles or more from 

 their home. So far from bass being confined to the coast, 

 there are not any large fish that explore every river, inlet 

 and creek as bass do. 



The first place they were caught in the spring at Westport 

 was near the head of the river, where the channel was thirty 

 feet wide and the water eight feet deep. I have often caught 

 twenty or thirty in an hour or two trolling an eel. They 

 made their appearance early in April and remained until the 

 middle of November ; there were but few days when none 

 could be caught ; large bass could often be seen on the flat 

 ground, where there was scarcely water to cover them, fol- 

 lowing their food. Two miles west of the Harbor there is 

 a large pond of fresh water drained by a creek, occasioually 

 opened to the ocean, through which fhe bass enter the pood. 

 In winter they have been taken from under the ice, frozen, 

 in large numisers. 



Bass are very timid; at the least alarm they are off like a 

 dart. If on the seining ground when work commenced they 

 would immediately leave. I think it would be a diflicult 

 matter to inclose one in a pur.se seine; I have never known 

 of one being taken in this way, although they have been 

 plentiful at the time of seining. I have known the fishing at 

 the Harbor to be suddenly broken up for several days at a 

 time by setting a shore seine aroimd them just once, those 

 not caught were frightened away. Formerly seines were 

 set only along a clear beach and hauled to the shore, now a 

 seine made of small linen twine is set anywhere among the 

 rocks, so that both arms rest on the shore, then by throwing 

 a few stones within the seine, every fish is frightened off 

 shore, strikes the net, becomes entangled, and is caught 

 without giUing. 



That bass do not, or that they cannot, feed on menhaden, 

 because they have not any teeth to masticate their food, is 

 simpljr uonsense. I think but few fish (except bottom fish 

 that feed on mussels) masticate their food whether they have 

 teeth or not. Any one who has had his finger in the mouth 

 of a bluefish will never doubt their being well supplied with 

 teeth, and they do not masticate then- food, for they are 

 always filled with whole fish of whatever kind they are 

 feeding when caught, whether large or small. Codfish will 

 take most anything in motion, without much regard to its 

 size, and they have not any teeth. I have known of three 

 coots being taken from the stomach of a codfish; two coots 

 are often found in one fish; the ducks feed on mussels at 

 the bottom, and when diviug are easily caught by the fish, 

 All fish appear to digest their' food rapidly. Last fall we 

 took from a bass a tautog weighing two pounds, from another 

 a head of a tautog as large as a man's fist, besides several 

 large crabs; the latter bass weighed but sixteen pounds, not 

 a large fish. There was a bass caught with a pitch fork up 

 the river, with a large menhaden wedged in its gills, and it 

 was supposed that the bass attempted to swallow the men- 

 Tiaden, not the menhaden the bass, A bass that will weigh 

 three pounds will take a mullet eight inches long as readilj^ 

 as a larger bass. 



I am glad to agree with your correspondent in one thing, 

 that bass do not depend on menhaden for food or man on 

 bass; if they did both would soon starve. In Mr. Black- 

 ford's office can be seen an iron bolt two inches long and one- 

 quarter of an inch thick, with the nut on it, that was taken 

 from a bass. I think a fish that would raid a hardware store 

 for food could get away with a menhaden. 



The largest haul of bass taken in a seine in the last twenty 

 years was made by first throwing several barrels of men- 

 haden along the surf, and in a few hours setting the seine 

 around them. The first man I ever saw fish with a rod and 



reel at Westport Harbor was a Mr. Lutze, from New York, 

 not unknown to the fishermen of that day. He had the 

 place all to himself for several years, and kept it very 

 private, and he pronounced it the best fishing be had found. 

 One fall after Mr. Lutze had returned to the city, a man 

 that he had employed informed ex-Mayor Giinther of the 

 place. He with some friends came to the Harbor, found 

 good fishing, told others, aud every season since there have 

 been more or less gentlemen from New York at the Harbor, 

 and all agree that fewer fish were caught last season than 

 ever befo're. I talked with gentlemen fi om No Man's Land, 

 Pasque, Cutlyhunk, West Island, Narragausett Pier and 

 Block Island, and every one catue to the same conclusion, 

 that it was the poorest bass season ever known. The dcchne 

 has been steady and gradual from year to year. I do not 

 think that purse seining has been the sole cause of destroying 

 the fishing. I am confident it has contributed largely to it 

 by driving off the bait. The best fishing in the fall was 

 when the young menhaden came down the river to go out to 

 sea, which they did every ftdl in great quantities, as long as 

 any large ones were suffered to reach the river in .spring. 

 Traps are set all along the coast and in the inland waters, 

 and seining in all riVers where bass go to spawn, until they 

 are nearly driven from the coast. It is a wonder that there 

 are any at all, and unless there is some protection provided 

 for food fish, hook-fishing will certainly be destroyed in a 

 very few year.s. A. S. 



Brooklyn, N. Y;_ 



THE MASTIGOUCHE LAKES. 



OBEDIENT to the welcome cry of the brakeman, "Ber- 

 thier Junction! All out for Berthier Junction !" we 

 stepped out on to the platform of the depot in this Canadian 

 village, the end of our railroad ride toward the Mastigouche 

 lakes. The evening before we had started from New York 

 in a Montreal sleeper. As tlie uiglit drew down its curtains 

 and shut off the view of the Highlands and the quiet, placid 

 waters of the Hudson, we turned into our berths and slept 

 soundly until we heard the call, "Mister, the sun is coming." 

 Through those restful hours we had been carried many 

 miles, and as we looked out of the car window off' in the 

 east loomed up against the brightening sky Mount Man.sfield, 

 the highest peak of the Green Mountains, 'while to the west 

 the blue sky, catching the ruddy reflection of the sun not yet 

 risen, threw around the tall peaks of the Adirondacks a royal 

 robe of purple, whose folds were only gathered up as they 

 reached down to the waters of the lake. Soon after we were 

 whirling through the Victoria Bridge. After breakfast at 

 the palatial Windsor Plotel, wc left'Monti-eal by the North 

 Shore road and a ride of fifty-six miles brought us to Ber- 

 thier, where we found buckboards waiting to take us into 

 the woods. Ten miles to the little hamlet of St. Norbert, 

 with its beautiful church ; then over the foothills another ten 

 miles to St. Gabriel de Brandon, reached just as the darkness 

 was settling down. Here our good host, Belmire, took us in. 



The next morning wc made an early start for the club 

 house at Lake Seymour. Skirting the southern shore of Lake 

 Maskinonge we soon crossed its outlet, a deep and rapid 

 stream hurrying down to the St. Lawrence. Turning north 

 we soon strike the Mastigouche aud follow up its course, 

 crossing high and steep sandhills which seem quite out of 

 place standing so clo.se beside the gray bald cliff's that jut out 

 from the higher hills that shut in the valley. Seven miles 

 brings us to the right branch of the river; here we leave the 

 last clearing and start into the unbroken forest. The road 

 had been opened only this season, and we found it macada- 

 mized with the huge boulders that severely tried even the 

 buckboard springs. Three miles and we cross the river- 

 rushing and foaming over its rocky bed — on a very pretty 

 bridge built by Mr. Oopeland. Crossing we began an ascent 

 of some 1,800 feet and reached the summit in about three 

 mdes. Even from this high point we can see nothing of the 

 valley that lies below us, so thick and high are the spruce 

 and birches that sliut us in. As we stop to rest, far off comes 

 the sound of the river as it rushes down through rapids and 

 over falls that carry its foaming waters down 1,500 feet in 

 less than five miles. We now start on the other slope and 

 soon catch glimpses through the trees of the sparkling waters 

 of Lake Seymour, a few minutes more and we are greeted 

 by om- friend Copeland, to whom we are to find ourselves 

 under great obligations for his repeated kindness to us. We 

 were surprised to find so good quarters far out here in the 

 woods, and to see all that had been done in the few months 

 since Mr. C. had broken grotiud. 



In the morning we started out for our first fishing. The 

 steady sis days' rain had raised the waters of the lakes, 

 so that we found it greatly interfered with our success 

 all the time we were there. The lake Of the Agent was 

 where wc first cast our lines. We took twenty-four beauti- 

 ful trout, many of them weighing a pound each. The fol- 

 lowing day in Lac au Cap, thu'ty-six came to our creel, aver- 

 aging about the same as the day before. The next day, tak- 

 ing our boat over a mile portage, we paddled out on the 

 beautiful Lac la Clere. TMs day brought us the most sport 

 of any dming our outing ; seventy fine trout, forty-five with 

 a tty in less than two hours; merry was the click of our reels 

 as some of these gamy fellows bent our five-ounce rods nearly 

 double. 



Sunday comes, a day that shoald be one of rest even to 

 fishermen. In the silence of those grand woods came to me 

 the words of Paul as he stood on Mars HUl and looked down 

 on the beautiful temples of Athens: "God that made the 

 world and all things therein seeing he is Lord of heaven and 

 earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;" so here 

 under the arches of the great trees that no hand had formed, 

 beside the walls of towering rocks that no hand had erected, 

 we felt to thank the great Giver for the blue sky, the pure 

 air, the bright clear waters, the restfulness of this beautiful 

 place. Toward evening we made a short portage to Lac au 

 Croix, another to Lac au Roche, then to Lake Monroe, where 

 we were to fish on Monday, our last day in the woods. After 

 a good rest on our beds of balsam boughs we were early in 

 our cedar canoes. We had great expectations of fine sport, 

 as very large trout are taken in this lake, which is reserved 

 for the exclusive fishing of the Mastigouche club. This, 

 next to Lake Seymour, is the largest of the score of lakes in 

 this immediate vicinity, and we found the water much 

 higher than in the smaller ones in which we had been fish- 

 ing. Only twenty-seven were taken, but their average weight 

 was greater than any of our former catches. 



After a short troll in the morning we unjointed our rods 

 and prepared to return to home and work with the feeling 

 that the remembrance of these pleasant hours would be a 

 pleasure to us . In these four days we had taken 157 fish, 

 all of them the red speckled trout, many of them weighing 

 over a pound each. Returning to the club house our carter 

 soon aiTived, and at 3 o'clock we started in a poiu-ing rain 



for St. Gabriel, During the night it cleared up and our ride 

 to Berthier was full of enjoyment. On the divide we looked 

 north; not far from the shore of the beautiful Lake Maske- 

 uonge we could see the spii-e of the church at St. Gabriel, to 

 the west the hamlet of St. Felix, while before us in the near 

 distance the pretty village of St. Nobert, while far away 

 across the plain that lay at our feet and beyond the St. 

 Lawrence rose the Beloiel Mountain. An hour's ride brought 

 us within sight of the telegra])h poles a,ud as Ave heard the 

 whistle of the locomotive we realized that wc were out of 

 the woods. Beiiiud us lay the great wilderness that runs 

 far up to the frozen North without a single break, while be- 

 fore us Avcre the btisy homes of men. Wc looked that way 

 with x^leasure, too, as we expected soon to reach our homes 

 and greet those who were waiting to welcome us back. 



Now a short description of this place, which may interest 

 your readers and I tru.st induce some of my brother sports- 

 men to visit it. Mr. Copeland has leased a large tract of crown 

 lands; within its limits are a large number of lakes, every 

 one of them plentifully stocked with trout, no other fish as 

 I am aware being found in them except the food fi.sh_of the 

 trout. This season a number have been taken weighing 

 three pounds, and our guide took one a few seasons ago that 

 weighed five. To make this an attractive resort Mr. C. has 

 erected a comfortable house, ftirnished it well and taken 

 great pains to make it homelike. A ice house filled with ice 

 IS on the premises; on the shore a number of cedar and birch 

 bark canoes are waiting, and tntsty guides are always ready 

 to pilot you wherever you may wish to go. On nearly all 

 the lakes have been placed excellent boats. W^e were very 

 fortunate in securing guides, and gladly recommend Captain 

 Heinault and his brother Baptiste," old hunters and trappers. 

 To the sportsman there are other attractions than the excel- 

 lent fishing. Bear and caribou are plenty. On several of 

 our portages we saw signs of them both. Only a few days 

 before our visit a caribou swam the lake within rifle shot of 

 the house. A short distance from our camp at Lake Monroe 

 is a beaver dam that has been built within a few years, and 

 we gathered chips that they had cut this season. A large 

 golden eagle looked down on us from his perch on the side 

 of the mountain, while the loons laughed as some of the big 

 trout broke from our flies. Go to the Mastigouche lakes. 



SPICiSWOOD. 



Obntbalia, Pa. 



HETERODOX SUGGESTIONS. 



THE readers of Forest and Stkeam do not need to be 

 told of the sparkling rivulets of Berkshire cascading 

 downward over the limestone beds, and of the myriads of 

 trout that inhabit them. The trout themselves are one of 

 the traditional and historical facts of a much-glorihed past, 

 as well as one of the live and interesting facts of the imme- 

 tliate present, the only drawback to them, as trout being that 

 they are so much sought after, that few of them attain any- 

 thing beyond what may be called the juvenile proportions 

 of that delicious fish; but they fry "crisp" all the ea.sier for 

 their smallness, and after all, what is it that the sportsman 

 seeks? Certainly not pounds avoirdupois, in that case he had 

 best go whaling, but he does seek, especially the city man 

 on his summer's outing, rest, recreation, and the excitement 

 of the sport. As a trout has all the wit he ever attains to 

 when he is no bigger than your finger, it takes just as much 

 cautious scheming in the wary approach, and just as much 

 patient waiting before you can fool him into believing your 

 fly real, and just as much skill aud knack to safely land him, 

 as if he weighed as much as the sea serpent, while meantime 

 you are drinking in the fresh air, the health that comes from 

 the sunlight, and experiencing the calm, but rapturous joy 

 that beautiful scenery can awaken in the soul; and at every 

 step you are growing stronger, as did Antajus, each time his 

 foot touched the earth. 



To enjoy all this requires no costly outfit, and no long and 

 weary journey to far-off regions, as recreation it cannot be 

 surpassed. The streams may be reached from Pittsfield. 

 One advantage of Berkshire, and especially Pittsfield, for 

 men who need rest, but whose business requires watching, is 

 the ease with which they can reach New York or Boston, as 

 there are as many as eight dift'erent opportunities of reaching 

 New York and five daily of reaching Boston. X. Y. Z. 



NIGHT FISHING FOR BASS. 



Editor Forest and Sir mm: 



Sandworms are the best bait for striped bass for night 

 fishing. That \% according to my experience. 1 fished for 

 about eight years exclusively at nights for big striped bass at 

 Robbin's Reef, and used in experimenting all sorts of baits, 

 including mackerel bellies and live squids. The latter are a 

 very good bait, but as hard to get as the little spearings, 

 which are also very taking. I hear, however, that squid are 

 now kept for sale in Washington Market. Finally I returned 

 to sandworms, four to five for a bait (bass like a big bunch), 

 and I think it is the best all-around bait for night fishing. 

 Clams and menhaden would give no satisfaction at all on. 

 that particular ground. 



I have made some very heavy catches at that place, some- 

 times more than two of us could carry or even lift, and of 

 course as often sailed home with but a few fish. But only 

 two or three times did I leave without having either bass or 

 weakfish to show, although I did not pretend to fish for the 

 latter. But the new comer may anchor there day for day 

 and have no success at all, in fact, may think that the fish 

 gave the lighthouse a wide berth. To be successful on that 

 place one has to study the actions of the tides very carefully 

 and shift his place accordingly. Big bass begin to run there 

 from April 15 to May 30, and Oct. 15 to Dec. 10, and seem 

 to bite only at night. I heard only of two authenticated in- 

 stances during my time when striped bass over fifteen pounds 

 were caught in the daytime over that reef. 



The best sport I usutilly had during very dark, still nights, 

 on second flood, high water, second ebb, and during the first 

 half hour of young flood. Six hundred feet of best Cutty- 

 hunk line, large sproat hook on double gut, multiplying reel 

 of trustworthy make, and stiflish 13-foot rod are a necessity, 

 as at any time a bass from twenty to sixty pounds may 

 strike. The fisherman who goes there to stay over night 

 must understand rowing aud sailing thoroughly, and have a 

 good seaboat under him, not au easily-swamped skiff" or 

 cranky narrow-waisted rowboat. It is a ticklish place to 

 be at the seasons I have mentioned. Being foolhardy enough 

 to hold on as long as the sea allowed, I have had some very 

 narrow escapes crossing over to Gowanus, and the short, 

 choppy sea which is kicked up at short notice in the bay 

 would sometimes be almost too much for my 16-fbot open 

 boat. But then she was an exceedingly easy rider, and 

 sailed well under trying circumstances. 



It is now four years since I made my last cast on that 



