Oct. 33. 1885.J 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



249 



went (mv thanks to bim for the same), and in it he remarked 

 that bass woiikl take tlie fly at the edge of weeds, no matter 

 how deep the water. That ,a;avc me some good sport last 

 summer. He also remarked on the cat-like way they often 

 follow and take the fly. T had noticed this myself and it set 

 mo to thinking, and that to trying and the trying gave suc- 

 cess. Try tliis: When vou see bass following your tly and 

 darting from side to side as you often can in clear water, 

 draw it slowly at first, then let it sink a moment and then 

 give it a quick jerk, and just at this point the bass liave a 

 great way of taking it. whereas, if you draw it slowly and 

 regularly' in, they would simply follow without taking. 

 You have often done the same thing with a kitten and a 

 string. Now, these two ideas were worth a good deal to me ; 

 these are the kind anglers ought to ''swop" and discuss. Of 

 course, in different waters bass rise best to different flies just 

 as trout do, but with trout we have a, number of standard 

 flies, with which we would attackany water with confidence. 

 Have we such with ba.ss, and if so, wiaat are they? The 

 capabilities of the bass for the fly have not yet been developed. 

 1 do not think any one would say we knew it all. As 1 have 

 said before, the bait department has got the start. Take, for 

 instance, the only book devoted exclusively to this fish, and 

 tell me which is the most prominent. 



Every man has one cast, to which he is apt to turn more 

 than to another. His favorite, in short. On our Eastern 

 lakes this is, with me, a grizzly king stretcher and red ibis 

 dropper. The first takes the big ones, the latter the medium 

 weights. For a night fly the yellow May has been more 

 successful with me thau the white miller. The biggest 

 strike I ever had and the only time I ever saw a small-mouth 

 bass break water violently like a trout was on this fly. We 

 parted connections, alas, however, he taking my fly with 

 him as a curiosity. For fear lest some of the big vs. small 

 jump on me 1 will state that there are no big mouths in that 

 lake. Yes, this is the point in which the small-aiouth is 

 decidedly inferior, to the fly-fisher, in comparison with otner 

 fish to which he is a peer, if not a superior. 



Now the summer is over and our sport is nearly done. 

 The time will soon be at hand when we .i,'et our angling by 

 mending and making tackle and by exchanging experiences 

 and discussing them. In bass fly-fishing we are all novices, 

 and differ only in degree. We must be, seeing how young 

 the art is. Therefore we would all like to learn, and to do 

 so we must exchange ideas, and we would like to hear, all of 

 us, from those iu high places, having authority, what they 

 have learned since last they wrote. At any rate, wc won't 

 leiU'u by going to sleep and letting the frog-slingers get the 

 best of us. Percyval. 



New Haven, Conn,, Oct. 17. 



ON WINDHAM TROUT STREAMS. 



I WAS in a small town in Windham county, Connecticut. 

 A friend and myself decided to try if we could not find 

 a few trout iu some of the many clear streams. They tiied 

 to discourage us by telling us that although the brooks were 

 just the thing for trout and that in foimer years they had 

 caught a great many out of them, it was no use to try now 

 as the fish were not there. This, however, had no effect on 

 us, as we were both fond of the woods and were only too 

 glad of an opportunity of spending a day in them. We 

 decided first to fish the Mashamoquet, which flows into the 

 Quiunebogue. 



We began fishing just below a dam, on which there is a 

 carriage repairing shop and a grist mill, neither of which 

 were running this afternoon, so it was perfectly quiet. We 

 began with flies, but not having a rise after half an hour's 

 fishing we tried worms, and svith the first cast landed two 

 nice trout. We tried for quite a while longer in this pool, 

 but not having any more success started down stream, 

 wading down the middle and casting into every pool as wc 

 wejit. When the afternoon's fishing was over, having waded 

 several miles, the only fish we had iu our creels were the 

 two we had landed below the dam. Being by this time 

 pretty hungry we started for home. 



The nest day we struck into a stream just above a meadow 

 which is flooded in winter and where the people cut ice. 

 The stream flows through the center of this meadow for 

 about a mile and a half, and then goes into the woods, get- 

 tine: shallower and wider. There being no pools, there is 

 said to be no fish, but we fished the meadow through and the 

 result was thirty -seven fair-sized trout. 



The following day I tried a small brook, my friend taking 

 the same route he had followed the day before. My stream 

 joined the one he was Ashing just above the meadow to its 

 rise at a spring about a mile up. Coming down this stream 

 I got thirty-eight fish, making, with the twenty-nine he got, 

 a pretty good catch of fish for a place where "there aint no 

 trout." On our way home we met an old man who, after 

 seeing the luck we had had, advised us to try the stream 

 known as the Lyon brook, saying it had been one of the best 

 streams around here when he was younger. 



The nest day we started, going west on what was known 

 in stage-coach days as the Providence and Hartford turn- 

 pike. Striking into the woods and following a wood path, 

 we came to the remains of a sawmill, which had long since 

 fallen into disuse because of its distance from the railroad. 

 This was the brook we were to fish. After going for quite 

 a while down stream along the bank lined with large pines, 

 under which the brush seemed to have died, making the 

 walking very comfortable, we congratulated ourselves that 

 we were to have a very pleasant tramp after all, although 

 we had not yet taken any fish, though we had seen a good 

 many going over the shallows. But we were soon to find 

 out our mistake, for the whole appearance of the woods 

 changed, the pines were replaced by oaks and chestnuts, and 

 the clear spaces between the trees were changed for thick 

 underbrush. We had now to keep on the edge of the bank 

 or in the stream, both being very undesirable, because the 

 few pools there were lay in the middle of the stream, and 

 consequent!}'^ we were in full view of the fish. Hoping for 

 a change we kept on in the stream, going in above our waists 

 in some of the muddy places. 1 always wear cheap canvas 

 shoes instead of rubber boots. The change came soon, but 

 it was for the worse. Trunks of trees and great rocks began 

 to obstruct our path in the stream, the drift of many spring 

 freshets aud winter storms, and these were interwoven with 

 tou^h creepers. 



We now debated whether we had not better turn and re 

 trace our steps, but decided to keep on because having been 

 on the stream for three hours we must at least have gone two 

 miles, and must be near the end of our tramp. So keeping 

 on for another hour, climbing over one trunk, under the next, 

 and cutting our way through creepers, we came rmexpeciedly 

 on a wood road that crossed the stream. Here we sat down 

 to eat what little lunch we had with us. When half through 



our lunch we were delighted to aeo a man coming down the 

 road. He seemed surprised to see us and said that people 

 veiy rarely came down the streaui owing to the hard travel- 

 ing, and then only Avhen they had to. He advised us to keep 

 on, as the traveling was not so bad below tliere, and where 

 we expected to come out was not more than a mile distant. 

 The only fish he had seen taken lately had been shot as they 

 went over the shallow places; and a" great many had been 

 killed iu this way. After half an hour of the same kind of 

 walking we heard he sound of the mill iu the distauce, and 

 knew that our walk was nearly over, Wc soon came to the 

 mill, and that finished our fishing. It was three miles home, 

 making, with the three miles going, aud the four hours on 

 the stream, one of the hardest tramps I ever took, and we 

 had not a fish to show for it. D. 

 New York, Oct. 12. 



The "KiNGtFiSHBBS." — Menominee, Mich. — Editor Forest 

 and Stream: The charge that the "Kingfishers" had broken 

 our game law I know to he false aud without the slightest 

 foundation. Having been a resident of the Lower Peninsula 

 of Michigan for mncteeu years, and spending a month or 

 two every fall in the northern part hunting, I have come to 

 know of 'the "Kmgfishers" in the years gone by, and know 

 them all to be true and ardent sportsmen, men whom no 

 one can truthfully say ever infringed the laws of the State. 

 Let any one go over the groirad where they have camped 

 and hunted and fished since the first of their camp-fires was 

 kindled in old Michigan, and I defy any one to find a single 

 person that has aught against them. I deeply regret that 

 anyone should accuse the "Kingfishers," and "l thank you 

 for your refutation of the slander.— S. E. B. 



A Big CAYuaA Lake Bass. — Seneca Falls, N. Y., Oct. 

 13.— The largest small-mouthed black bass ever recorded in 

 this section was captured yesterday off East Varick, in 

 Cayuga Lake, near here, by Mr. Thomas Blodgett, of this 

 place. The old "Triton" weighed pounds after being out 

 of water ten hours. It was taken with a fly on an S-ounce 

 rod and fought for a full half hour before being landed. Mr, 

 Blodgett took ten other bass at the same time, the total 

 weight of the catch being 32 pounds. Tom is conceded to 

 be the champion fly-caster of Seneca county, but the above 

 average beats any of his former scores. Bass fishing on 

 Cayuga Lake has been unusually good throughout the pres- 

 ent seasoH, owing doubtless to the fact that many nets have 

 been confiscated and destroyed. — L. G. S. 



Thkee to Each Rod. — In connection with some good 

 fishing, the following occurred at Big Island Pond, one of 

 the Seven Ponds, Maine, Sept, 16, 1885. Mr, E. E. Allen, 

 Boston, Mass., and C. C. Masson, of Westerly, E. I., while 

 fishing from the same boat, struck and played at the same 

 time SIX trout, three to each rod. Five of them were safely 

 netted and weighed in the aggregate three pounds and 

 fourteen ounces. As t© a choice of fly for these water.s, it 

 was noted that of fourteen fish taken one morning twelve 

 were upon the "Parmaehenee Belle" used as an upper 

 dropper. Did its location have anything to do with the 

 preference shown? This preference was marked at all times, 

 but not always so strongly as upon the occasion mentioned. 

 — M. N. 



New Mexico Tkout Fishing.— Mr. F. B. Thurber, of 

 this city, contributes to the Amerkmi Grocer a pleasantly writ- 

 ten accouut of a trout fishing excursion to the Ruidosa, a 

 mountain stream twenty-five mile from Fort Stanton. His 

 companions were Colonel Meisner and Lieutenant Scott, of 

 Fort Stanton. The party had a delightful time and caught 

 a capital string of fish. They fished with the fly, but we 

 regret to observe that Mr. Thurber speaks of his rod as a 

 ' ' pole. " 



A NiPFisiNG Masktnonge.— A maskinonge has been 

 taken in Lake Nippising, near North Bay, which measured 

 49 inche.'S iu length with a girth of 21 inches, and weighed 

 39 pouuds. Nine revolver bullets were put into the monster 

 before it was landed. It is to be sent to the Fishery Exhibit 

 in London, Eng.— A. K. T. (Ottawa, Ont,, Oct. 14). 



SHooTiNa Trout With a Shotoun is one of the forms in 

 which New England barbarism manifests itself. And yet 

 they complain of the scarcity of fish. 



Address all communications to the Forest and Stream Publish- 

 ing Co. 



SUCCESS OF SALMON IN THE HUDSON. 



AS our readers are aware, Pi-of. S. F. Bau-d, TJ. S. Fish 

 Commissioner, has been stocking the Hudson with 

 salmon fry for the past two years. The fish have been 

 hatched at Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y. , by Fred Mather, and 

 distributed by hito. in the small streams of Warren, Essex and 

 Hamilton cotmties which flow into the Hudson. Among other 

 streams stocked was Clendon Brook, fflens Falls, and our cor- 

 respondent, Mr. A. N. Cheney, has at times reported their ap- 

 pearance there in private letters and was asked for specimens. 

 Last Monday he sent six or eight fish, of six to eight inches, 

 and the following letter to Mr. Blackford, State Commis- 

 sioner: 



Glens Falls, Oct. Q.—Mr. E. G. Blackford— Dear Sir: As 

 requested in your letter of July 3, I send you to-day by Na- 



-tional Express specimens of tne young salmon from Clendon 

 Brook. I was absent when your 'letter came and have been 

 home vei-y little since, which is the cause of the delay. I told 

 Mr. Mather that I would certainly get ttiem before winter. I 



'engaged a man to take the fish, but he was not successful, 

 owing to high water. Yesterday 1 went to the brook with a 

 friend, Mr. W. D. Cleveland, of Houston, Tex., and in a short 

 time caught the number I send. You will, perhaps, remem- 

 ber that Mr. Mather sent me 40,000 salmon fry on May 21, 

 1884, and 60,000 salmon fry and 150 yearhngs April 29, 1SS.5, 

 from Cold Spring Harbor, and all were- deposited in Clendon 

 Brook, a tributary of the Hudson. The Clendon was once a 

 famous trout stream, yielding trout of 4 pounds and upward, 

 and still there are some few baskets of small fish taken 

 from it. Yesterday the stream seemed fauiy alive >vith 

 salmon for a mile, and residents teU me that tnis is 

 the case its entire length. As the trout were attending to 

 their domestic duties up stream the brook was given ovei- to 

 the salmon. They were in the deep holes and at the foot uf 

 the rifis, but evei'ywhere in numbers. There seemed to be 

 two distinct sizes, one four to six inches long, the other two 

 to three inches long. With the exception of a few chubs, sil- 

 ver chubs or fall fish, S. bullaiHs, I fomid no other fish than 

 sahnon m the stream. One bright-colored male salmon as I 

 took him from the brook discharged milt from the pressure of 



my hand. This particular fish I caught in swift water where 

 it ran over gravel. I hope Brother "Mather will have an op- 

 portunity to interview these young things that were gradu- 

 ated from his TJniver.sity at Cold Sprmg Harbor before they 

 are sent to Prof. Baird. It wovdd have been an easy matter 

 to catch a hundred yearlings during the time I was at the 

 brook, and in their eagerness to take the lure they jumped 

 clear above LUe water. After catching the first salmon Mr. 

 Cleveland exclaimed: "If that beggar weighed thirty-two 

 pounds'' (he had in mind a salmon caught this summer by Mr. 

 H. P, Wells) "and game in proportion, and I had fought and 

 killed him, it would have taken just six months to recover 

 from the excitement." The Clendon brook is posted its entire 

 length and the people are interested iu protectmg the fry that 

 have been deposited therein by the United States Fish Com- 

 missioru I trust that you will receive the salmon in good 

 order. I send but one of the .smaller size, as the other and 

 larger salmon gave no kind of show to take the hook. 



A. K Cheney. 



[We saw the fish at Fulton Market and they have gone to 

 Washington.] 



THE OYSTER PROBLEM ACTUALLY SOLVED. 



A NEW SYSTEM OF OYSTER CULTURE. 



DIJE,Il>iGr the five years that I have been engaged upon the 

 study of the oyster problem, I have never lost sight of 

 the practical aspect of it, and nave woiked from the beginning 

 in the hope that I might reach some really valuable results. 

 In the belief that what I now have to present is practical and 

 founded upon an aiDpreciation of the essential principles 

 involved, I offer it to the considei'ation of oy.stermen, especia lly 

 those who have had experience in the use of cultch for the 

 purpose of collecting spat. The TJ. S. Fish Commission, under 

 whose auspices I have been able to conduct my experiments, 

 deserves the greate.st credit for the interest which its chief, 

 Professor Baird, has uniformly shown iu this, one of the most 

 imoortant of all the pi-oblems Drought before it for solution. 



The developments made within the last six years show that 

 the solution of the most important problems in oyster cidture, 

 by means of artilicial methods, is possible. This may seem an 

 extravagantly sanguine view to take of the matter,' neverthe- 

 less it is true that it is actually possible to begin at once with 

 the knowledge now in our possession, and not only be success- 

 ful, but also be so to a degree which mu.st completely revolu- 

 tionize the business of the bed-culture of this mollusk in open 

 waters. 



The results of Brooks, Wtnslow, Rice, Mather, McDonald 

 and myself in this country the public is already more or less 

 familiar with. In Europ'e Mr. J3ouchon-Brandel3% Professors 

 Hock, Horst and Mobius have been equally active. Over 

 twenty forms of incubating apparatus have beeu used by the 

 writer in his own experiments. In none of this ax)para}tus.— 

 except in one form of it, I am obhged to admit— was it found 

 that results of startling economic importance were obtained. 

 Whde this is true, it is nevertheless a fact that observations 

 were made and results obtained whicu indicate that there is a 

 feasible method of spat cultiu-e of unlimited productiveness. 

 All that is needed is to bring together the proper combination 

 of conditions which it is now proposed to indicate on the basis 

 of well-known facts which may be verified by any one who 

 will take the trouble to do so. Unable or unwilling at first to 

 abandon the cumbersome and expensive method of .spat cul- 

 ture practiced in Europe, our results have hitherto been of 

 little practical value. This resulted from a radical misappre- 

 hension of wha1i were the essentials of a rational method. 

 While the work has beeu immediately fruitless, mechately it 

 nas not been so, for the fight gained as the result of all'the 

 work of others as well as my own, now enables me to state 

 with certainty why we have failed. Failure is a harsh word, 

 and it is an humfiiating one as well; but it will soon be seen, 

 that we have been cultivating a lot of fallacies and erroneous 

 conclusions which led to it. In a word, we have neglected to 

 think about what we have observed, so as to elaborate a prac- 

 tical theoiy of si^at culture. 



The elementary principles of the new theory of oyster, or 

 rather of spat culture, which I here propose are the following: 



1. Oyster embryos, under ordinary conditions in open water, 

 diffuse and affix themselves throughout the three dimensions 

 of such a bod}^ of sea water. This is a well-known and readily 

 verifiable fact. 



3. The fry will adhere to smooth surfaces as weU as to rough 

 ones. 



3. The surface upon which spatting occurs must be kept a.s 

 free as possible from sediment and organic growths, in order 

 that the tiny young moUusks may not be smothered and killed 

 during the most critical period of their lives. 



4. Ar-tificial fertilization of the eggs or the oyster is feasible, 

 and wUl become an important adjunct to successful spat 

 culture. 



5. Water charged with embryo oysters may be passed, 

 through a steam pump without injury to such embryos. 



6. Oyster fry adheres to the under surface of shells or other 

 collectors most abundantly because the lower side is cleanest 

 and most favorable to the survival of the animals. 



7. The spat of the oyster will grow and thrive with com- 

 paratively little Ught. 



8. The specific gravity of the water may range from 1.003 to 

 1.0235. 



9. The most favorable temperatures of the water for spat- 

 ting seem to be from 68 degrees to about TS or 80 degrees Fahr. 



10. Spatting will occur just as freely in ponds or tanks as in 

 the open water. 



These are well ascertained elementary facts and upon them 

 we must base our new method, which is essentially a system 

 of .spat culture, or method of rearing seed oystere for the pur- 

 pose of cultivation on the open beds or any suitable bottom. 

 VVe must, however, first of all throw aside as too expensive 

 any and all systems in which tiles or slates are used, especially 

 if these must be fastened together in nests and coated with 

 lime and cement, as practiced in Europe. Oysters are too 

 cheap in America to be produced by any of the old-fogy sys- 

 tems which are available there, as it whl not pay to flake off 

 the spat from the coUecl:or3 under ordinary chcumstances in 

 cultivating the American oyster for market, because of its 

 low price. 



The thing to do is to arrange the collectors used in such a 

 way as to expose an enormous area of surface to which the 

 biUions of fry floating about in the water may aifi^x itself. 

 According to the first principle stated above, we found that 

 oyster fry would diffuse and affix itself to cultch throughout 

 the three dimensions of a body of water. The collectors must 

 therefore be so arranged as to occupy these three dimensions. 

 It wiU be obvious to any one that such a method is apphcable 

 in a way which will come into competition with the older 

 methods in vogue in Long Island Sound. To effect this it is 

 proposed to pro^^cle a pond, natural or artificial, and connect 

 it by way of a long zigzag canal with the open water. The 

 area of the pond should about equal the area of the canal. 

 Both the canal and pond should be of about the same depth, 

 or say about S}4 feet at low water. No filters or any appli- 

 ance of the kind is needed, except perhaps a screen at the 

 mouth of the canal to keep out starfishes, Crustacea and pre- 

 daceous mollusks. 



The canal is provided with ledges near the top to support 

 the leceptacles for the cultch. These are formed of vertical 

 wooden strips six inches wide, .six feet long, and secured to 

 each other parallel and three feet apart by a crosspiece at the 

 top and two horizontal side-pieces six inches wide, secured 

 two feet six inches from the top of the vertical pieces. Coarse 

 wire netting is then secured to the edges of the vertical strips 

 below the two parallel cross-piece?. This netting will then 

 form, with the wooden fi-ame, a basket three feet wide, three 

 feet deep and six inches tlhck. Such a basket wiU hold som,e- 



