8 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Jtji-y 30, 1885. 



spring, in company with two others, he started for a famons 

 marsh in Northern Illinois for a few days' sport. As is usu- 

 ally tlie case, the spring rains had fDled it full and much of 

 the cover used in the fall was under water, Not being able 

 to find boats for all, my friend accepted the use of a large 

 barrel which a gentleman had sunk the fall before for his 

 stand. My friend was filled with joy as he thought of the 

 advantage he would have over his chums for ene day at 

 least, and before going to bed Saturday night had counted 

 his bag for the next day. Early in the morning he started 

 for the barrel, being rowed out to it by a friend, who then 

 left, saying he would stop for him in the evening. He had 

 scarcely begun his slaughter of the unsuspecting ducks be- 

 fore the wind, blowing from the south, freshened into a gale, 

 and he found the water was hacking up. Soon the waves 

 rose high enough to wash in the barrel, and instead of knock- 

 ing down the ducks he must bail out the water. The more 

 he bailed the higher rose the waves. Finally he was com- 

 pelled to roost on top of the barrel. It was Ht this time his 

 melodious voice might have been heard over the roar of the 

 waves, but all in vain, the friend "had left for pastures 

 new." After deliberating a while, he coucluded that dis- 

 cretion was the belter part of valor. Removing his cart- 

 ridge belt and holding it and his gun high in the air, he took 

 "a header" and slid off his roost into the marsh, bound for 

 the shanty a mile away. As he arose, blowing the water out 

 of his mouth, he vowed never to shoot from a barrel again. 



NiMROD. 



Address all communicationit to ihe Forest and Stream Piiblisli- 

 ing Co. 



LARGE-MOUTH AND SMALL-MOUTH. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



It was with great pleasure that 1 read a defense of the 

 large-moutk black bass by the "philosopher of the Bigosh," 

 in a recent number of tlie Forest and Stream, in 'which 

 the palm is awarded to the large-mouth, on account of its 

 rising so much more freely to the fly than the small-mouth. 

 This is exactly my experience, and the mere fact of one fish 

 taking the fly better than another settles at once, without an 

 instant's doubt, which is the best fish in the mind of a fly- 

 fishermao. 



For many years it has been the fashion among many anglers 

 to decry and run down the large-mouth and extol the small- 

 mouth. I have noticed that many of these writers fish in 

 New Tork and Ohio, in Lakes Champlain and Erie. The 

 cat is let out of the bag when one comes to examine their 

 way of angling. They either troll or still-fish or perhaps 

 cast the minnow, and more often than not they fish from a 

 boat. Now if there is one axiom in angling it is the superi- 

 ority of fly-fishing (casting the fly, not trolling with flies) 

 over any "kind of bait-fishing. Brothers of the bait and 

 trolling rods, there is do use of your proiesting, any one who 

 is unprejudiced ond CuU use the fly-rod never will take up 

 bait-ti.shiug or Lioliiog with the spoon when he can avoid 

 it.. There is no comparison between the two kinds of fish- 

 ing. Again, any way of fishing that requires the help of a 

 man (be he boatman, guide or any one else) besides the 

 angler himself is not such high sport as where the angler has 

 to depend on himself alone, on his own skill, and on his 

 knowledge of the game he is after. Therefore trolling out 

 of a boat with a man to row, as is practiced on Lake Erie 

 and other places for small-mouth black bass, is inferior to 

 casting the fly from the bank for large-mouths. 



Often you will read attacks on fly-fishermen, hints that 

 so and so 'will make a great pretense of fly-fishing, but when 

 out of sight will use the fin of a trout or a worm on his fly- 

 hook. Any man who will condescend to such practices 

 should be drummed out of the ranks of fly-fishermen. I 

 have been an angler for many years, and I can truthfully say 

 that I have never stooped so low as to use anything but the 

 fly, pure and simple, when fly-fishing. I would consider it 

 dishonorable and a disgrace to my rod to put a worm on 

 when trout fishing. I heard a good sportsman say the other 

 day that the difference between fly-fishing and bait-fishing 

 was the same as shooting a partridge flying and potting a 

 covey on the ground. This may be far-fetched, but there is 

 a good deal of truth in it. But enough of this long digres- 

 sion. 



.My experience has been the same as the author of the 

 Bigosh papers with the small-mouth and large-mouth. I 

 have caught the large-mouth black bass from the southern 

 part of Louisiana, through most of the Gulf States, and 

 northward, and I have always found that thej^ not only rise 

 splendidly to the fly, but that I have caught as big ones as 

 by bait-fishing. On the other hand, the small-mouth does 

 not take the fly freely (remember I am speaking of legitimate 

 fly-fishing, not trolling with flies), and it is but the small ones 

 that take it at all, as a rule. The big-sized small-mouths are 

 seldom caught that way. Four years ago I saw a number of 

 complaints about the black bass not being a reliable fish for 

 the fly, etc., but nearly all these articles were from Pennsyl- 

 vania, New York and Ohio, and referred to the small-mouth. 

 If the writers had tried the large mouth they would prob- 

 ably have changed their opinions. I have caught the large- 

 mouth black bass in running waters, in ponds and in lakes. 

 Swift running water is the best for fly-fishing. The state- 

 ment that they invariably like mud and weeds, and go no- 

 where else, is simply not true. 



I have caught the large-mouth in the Amite, in East Baton 

 Rouge Parish, La., as clear and pure a river as any trout 

 stream I ever saw in New England or Canada, and I have 

 fished when a boy in many of the waters of that section. 

 The upper Ouachita, in Arkansas, is another clear stream 

 and is full of them, as are all the clear rivers and creeks 

 through the piny woods in Alabama and Mississippi. I 

 was glad to see a defense of the large-mouth by "Salmon 

 Roe," of Newport, Ark., a short time since in the Forest 

 AND Stream, i have fished in many of the streams of "Old 

 Rackensack," and agree with all of "Salmon Roe's" state- 

 ments as to the merits of the large-mouth. The large-mouth 

 is just as gamy when hooked (if not more so) than the small- 

 mouth. In saying this I am backed by the authority on the 

 black bass. Dr. Henshall, who in his "Book of the Black 

 Bass," writes: 



"There is a widespread and prevalent notion that the 

 small-mouthed bass is the 'game' par ezcelknce, but I doubt 

 if this distinction is weU founded. In common with most 

 anglers I at one time shared this belief, but from a long 

 series of observations I am now of the opinion that the large- 

 mouthed bass, all things being equal, displays as much pluck 



and exhibits as untiring fighting qualities as its small- 

 mouthed congener." 



Whenever the merits of two game fish come up for dis- 

 cussion there is one simple question that will decide at once 

 their respective merits; and that is— which takes the artificial 

 fly the best? Cvrtonyx. 

 Fort Stanton, New Mexico. 



THE MINNESOTA LAKE PARK REGION. 



IF any of your readers wish to borrow "sucease of 

 trouble," let them gather together their fishinsr kit and 

 spend a week or two at some of the numerous lakes around 

 Detroit City, Minnesota. "Wawayanda" has sung the 

 praises of Loughborough, and "Kingfisher" is now chanting 

 a pa;an anent Carp Lake, but some day, when the divine 

 afflatus seizes me in its irresistible grip, T shall blow a 

 Pyrrhic blast about the Lake Park Region of Minnesota, 

 that will make them pale their ineffectual fires. I could tell 

 of one modest angler who took sixty4.wo bass— smallest 21, 

 largest 4^ pounds— in three half-day fishings, besides pick- 

 erel, pike-perch galore, and who. had he been a "fish hog," 

 could have doubled, yea, trebled the slaughter. Come try 

 the hospitality of Colburn, of the Hotel Minnesota, or of the 

 St. Louis Club House, three miles down the lake, or, if jg be 

 true anglers, leave the town behind, take a boat down 

 Pelican River, through Lakes Sallie and Melissa, into Lake 

 Pelican, and if black baas and wild raspberries don't surfeit 

 your soul, drop me a fine and I'll come down, swear you to 

 secrecy, blindfold your eyes, and take you "over hill, over 

 dale, throus^h bush, through brier," to Witch Lake, original 

 and unknown, save to Fidus Achates and myself. There be 

 Mkropterus salmoides and M. dolomieu lurking in wait for 

 the wriggling shiner or the speckled frog; there the great 

 lake pickerel, savagely impatient for the ghttering spoon, 

 and apt to smash the treble hook with the first clutch of his 

 iron jaw ; there the croppie, alias the Campbellite, alias the 

 new light, alias the bream, alias the roach, ahas the "pot- 

 kiver," who, if he be of the regulation weight of a pound 

 or a pound and a half, will give your sis-ounce rod all it 

 wants to do to turn him, and who, if you give him the 

 chance, will take a coachman, a professor or a red ibis with 

 all the fierce dash and vigor of tiabno sahclvuis himself. 



I went down to Detroit chiefly to iry a new rod which I 

 had just finished— handle 18 inches of red cedar, two joints 

 of bethabara, total length 8i feet, weight 6i ounces. The 

 first three fish I struck were, respectively, a four-pound 

 bass, an eight-pound pickerel, and a six pound pike-perch. 

 To test the rod i gave the pickerel the butt with full vigor; 

 result, I am aching now for a fish large enough to break that 

 rod. Split bamboo is good, lancewood is be'tter, but, as my 

 boatman yelled in ecstasy, "Hain't that bath-berry a daisv." 

 For years have I been seeking the ne plus ultra, the seek-no- 

 further, the Ultima Ttmk, as it were, of a rod, and now I 

 cry "Eureka!" Henceforward and forever I am the cham- 

 pion of bethabara. At Detroit some of us tested the betha- 

 bara, the spUt bamboo, lancewood and greeuheart. The four 

 rods were "pretty much of a muchness" in weight and 

 length. Each one was clamped at tlie butt, so that seven 

 feet were clear. A four-ounce weight was then attached to 

 each tip, and the deflection from the horizontal measured. 

 Result— split bamboo 7i inches, lancewood 5 inches, betha- 

 bara 4^, greenheart 4. The weights were allowed to remain 

 on eight hours, then removed, and the permanent deflection 

 measured. Split bamboo 3 inches, lancewood 2\, greenheart 

 li, bethabara J inch. Stiffness and elasticity combined, you 

 see, ahead of all the others. It has one drawback; it's the 

 meanest wood to work that ever taxed the patience of a saint 

 —or a fisherman. Nothing but patience and a wood rasp is 

 of any avail. To try to reduce it by a plane, drawing knife 

 or spoke shave, is but vanity and vexation of spirit. 



While staying at the St. Louis club house, a German ac- 

 quaintance from St. Louis was fishing a few yards from 

 shore, using live minnows. Time after time his line would 

 steal slowly out, but when he struck he failed to hook his 

 fish. Disgusted at last, he spil upon his hands, took a firm 

 grip of his pole, and the next time stnick savagely and 

 hooked something. Those who were watching from the 

 shore were sure, from the resistance shown, that he must 

 have hooked a muskallonge, but soon yielding to the steady 

 pull, there appeared above water, first a long bill, then a 

 snaky neck, and then the water was lashed to a foam by 

 what appeared to be waving wings and splashing feel. 

 The astonished fisherman, with a gasp of, "Mein Gott! it ish 

 de devil!" dropped his line and retreated to the other end of 

 the boat, while the uncanny thing at the other end of the 

 line gave a great flop. There was a momentary turmoU, 

 and away, with a diabolic "Ha! ha!" sailed a loon, with 

 twenty feet of good fish line streaming from his bill. Not 

 having seen the occurrence myself, I can't, of course, swear 

 to the truth, but those who know A. B, Bowman, of St. 

 Louis; Samuel Spalding, of Chicago; Van Tyle, of Cleve- 

 land, or Filley, of St. Louis, know their word is as good as 

 any man's, and they are my authority. H. P. Ufford. 



PHILADELPHIA NOTES. 



QHEEPSHEAD are biting well at Great Egg Harbor Bay 

 O this week. Boats from Somers Point are bringing 

 in many. They are taken at the old wreck near the inlet. 

 The ice of last winter it is said carried out the bass in the 

 Brandywine, and the fishing there this season is poor. Steps 

 have been taken by ex-Sheriff Thomas Henderson, of Union 

 Furnace, Huntington county. Pa., toward indicting the pro- 

 prietors of the Tyrone paper mills, for pofluting the Juniata 

 River with poisonous chemicals from their works. Thousands 

 of bass have been killed and the mortality of the cattle 

 watered in the stream has been so great that the farmers have 

 had to keep their flocks from going near it. 



A meeting of the State Fishery Commission was held at 

 Harrisburg on July 32, to arrange for the distribution of 

 the $25,000 appropriation lately made by the Pennsylvania 

 State Legislature. It was apportioned as follows: For a 

 whitefish hatchery at Erie, $5,000; for the improvement of 

 the western hatchery at Corry, $1,000; for the erection of a 

 flshway at Columbia Dam, $9,000, and for current expenses 

 for 1885 and 1886, $10,000. Messrs. Gay, Duncan and 

 Porter were appointed to arrange for the Erie hatchery and 

 improvements at Corry, and Messrs, Spangler, Derr, Mc- 

 Giunis and Gay to procure plans, etc., for the fishway at 

 Colujnbia. 



The corresponding secretary was ordered to communicate 

 with the sheriffs and commissioners of the counties border- 

 ing on the Delaware, Susquehanna and Schuylkill rivers, 

 with a view of having existing fish laws more strictly cariied 

 out, and to consult with the Attorney General in regard to 



the legality of the claim of the Reading Railroad for repairs 

 to the fishway now at Columbia Dam. 



Important arrangements for the employment of fish war- 

 dens on the Susquehanna, Delaware and .tuniatawere made. 

 The move made by ex-Sheriff Henderson against the Tyrone 

 paper mills grew out of the late activity of our State Com- 

 missioners, and an opportunity will be given the paper 

 manufacturers to abate the nuisance. If this is not done 

 action will be at once taken. No blueflsh appeared at Bar- 

 negat this week. Homo. 



BASS HIBERNATION. 



Editor Forest and Stream; 



The cause of the hibernation of black bass seems to be 

 attracting the attention of many of the readers of Forest 

 AND Stream. With us this fish is considered extremely 

 sensitive to cold, ceasing to bite immediately on the appear- 

 ance of cold winds, both in the sprina: and fall. One illus- 

 tration : The 2(ith of October bass had been biting freely off 

 the east end of Middle Island, Lake Erie. The morning of 

 the 21st was ushered in by a cold wave from the north. "Not 

 a bass bit that day nor the two days following. On the 34th 

 the wind changed to the south, with a rise in the thermom- 

 eter of 30\ Immediately the bass gave abundant signs of 

 life and sport ; schools of a hundred or more al^ a time'could 

 be seen breaking water around the boat, so voracious as to 

 often seize the bare hook or lead sinker. During the period 

 ol; absence of this fish the pike-perch and herring (C. clupei- 

 formu) w£re caught daily in great numbers, the "fall in tem- 

 perature seeming to have no effect upon them. 



It does not seem possible that a lack of food has any con- 

 nection with the hibernation of this fish; ninety per cent, of 

 its food here, and especially around the islands' at the head 

 of the lake, is made up of the lake shiner (AUyurum ndgaris). 

 It is rare you find any other food in their stomachs, and it 

 is the principal bait used to lure them. To be sure, they 

 will take crawfish, silver spoons, artificial flies of the red 

 ibis and black ephemeral stripe, frogs and helgramites. One 

 of the best baits I ever tried is a bit" of pork rind, cut out 

 minnow-shape and fastened on the hook with a bit of copper 

 wire. It has the advantage of lasting two or tbi-ee days, 

 certainly a great comfort to the unscientific angler, when 

 this iudividual counts up the largest score at night. The 

 general conclusion is that black bass are not as particular 

 about food as reported, but for steady diet the bass prefers 

 the shiner. It is silvery, toothsome and easily digested; is 

 found in schools of countless millions every day in the year, 

 and furnishes the bait for pike-perch and other winter fishes, 

 but no bass are taken at such times In these places, though 

 abundant in the right season. 



As soon as the late faU storms from the north chill the 

 waters down to 45^^ Fahr., the black bass hibernate in great 

 numbers among the rocks and places sheltered from the 

 action of the waves in rivers and estuaries, where the vfatef 

 weed {Elodea canadensis) abounds he, in company witll 

 the large mouthed, straw bass and sunfish [Fomotis) are 

 found in great masses taking their winters sleep> This 

 water weed grows on and near the surface in great sub- 

 merged masses, so dense as to arrest the passage of a skiff or 

 hunting boat through it, With the first heavy fi-osts it sinks 

 to the bottom and forms a perfect bed for all the hibernating 

 fishes. Here they pack in such numbers that twenty to 

 thirty barrels of fish have been taken at a single haul of the 

 seine through the ice. On one occasion, as I am credibly in- 

 formed, seventy-five barrels were taken from one of these 

 beds in two clays' fishing within an area of three acres, cov- 

 ered with this sunken weed. All had to be brought to the 

 surface of the ice with the imbedded fish. None of the non- 

 hibernating fishes, such as pike, perch, pickerel, musca- 

 longe and shiners, are ever taken in these hauls. We have 

 heard of the black bass being speared through the ice, also 

 the gar pike (Lepidmtmis), the most sensitive to cold of all 

 our fishes, unless it be the cat {Pimelodus), and even one of 

 these was taken through the ice last winter at Dover Bay by 

 one Mr. Moore. He was fishing through the ice with shiners 

 for bait, taking pike and herring as fast as his cold fingers 

 could handle them, when to his surprise a ten-pound catfish 

 was hauled out in the usual way. As he remarked to me, 

 "1 was as much surprised when I saw that cat as though a 

 humming bird had lit on my finger." One swallow does not 

 make a summer, neither does the appearance of these liiber- 

 nating fishes out of season make them the less so. We will 

 call it a freak of nature by way of easy explanation. 



Dr^ E. Sterling. 



Cleveland, O. 



The Six-Inch Trout Law. — A correspondent sends us 

 the following notes from the Watertown, N. Y., Times of 

 recent dates: "Dr. Boyd, of Pulaski, during a weeks fish- 

 ing at Redfield, captured 760 trout. Last week a party left 

 Pulaski for two days' fishing at Redfield Square, eighteen 

 miles distant. During the two days they caught sixty-two 

 pounds of dressed brook trout, besides what they required 

 for eating. While Baldwin was hauling in a three-quarter 

 pounder he had the misfortune to fall over backward into 

 the water. He struck on his back and went under. Sutton 

 said to him, 'Save it, George,' and as he came to the surface 

 with the water streaming from his mouth and eyes, he an- 

 swered, 'You bet I will." There are more down here." Our 

 correspondent adds: ' The trout in Redfield and other 

 streams of this locvlity have become small. I find six or 

 eight below six inches to one above and believe it must be so 

 with others. Large catches are freely mentioned. It is too 

 bad, but the six-inch law seems to all but a few to be a dead 

 letter." 



Mortality Among- Fishes. — A report has been made by 

 Prof. S, A. Forbes, of the Illinois State College, on the mor- 

 tality among the perch of Lake Mendota. The Professor 

 believes that death was due to a spherical germ which is 

 about 1-35,000 of an inch in diameter and is found iia the 

 liver and kidneys, sometimes forming afjscesses and destroy- 

 ing the cells of "those organs. This germ resembles in a gen- 

 eral way those which produce certain diseases among men 

 and animals, such as small-pox, chicken and hog cholera. 

 These diseases often break out among fishes in waters where 

 a certain species increases until it seems to need thinning. 



Classification of Anglers.— The London FisMug (Jazette 

 playfully classes anglers after the mode of ornithologists, 

 thus: "* * * Be they (Tr«toto?-&'* (waders seeking their 

 scaly prey in shallow waters), or Natatores (paddlers breast- 

 ing the current in skiff, punt, canoe or coracle); be they 

 Insessores (perchers on the slippery beam of a weir 'on perch 

 intent'), or be they simply of the vast longshore family of 

 banksters," etc. 



