May 27, 1886.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



3 81 



pond with Assembly bill No. 609 ; bearing tbe impress of 

 being championed by Hadley, of Franklin county, made 

 chairman of the Assembly committee on game laws by the 

 Speaker, a professed 'sportsman, of which committee 

 Berry, of Fulton and Hamilton, and "White, of Oneida, are 

 members. This is all that is known of its origin, history or 

 motive. 



It may be presumed that these men, as others aiding to 

 pass it, have correctly represented their constituents and 

 will return home at the end of the session in the glory of 

 their efforts, their salaries in their pockets and decorated 

 with the title of "honorable" to their names. Be it so,while 

 the public must submit to the law and individuals condole 

 themselves with their own private opinions upon the event 

 of their work, for so is the law. 



It will take years, however, if it ever can be, to repair the 

 benefits which this change has undone. Under the law of 

 1885, the efforts in time and money to re-stock waters the 

 past year have been more than doubly increased over 

 previous years upon the faith of that law. The coming 

 year will.most likely witness its relapse or abandonment — a 

 prospect anything but cheering to those having the matter 

 at heart. It looks, and is doubtless intended as the first step 

 toward repeal of all laws protecting fish and game in the 

 interests of the great marts of trade. Whether so or not, it 

 will have a most depressing influence upon all further efforts 

 by the treatment it has received at this legislative session. 

 The other defects and changes need not be noticed. 



Another specimen of the same kind is the bill (by Hadley) 

 professing to protect song birds for "five years," only with 

 an exception that it should not apply to those who kill them 

 to study their "habits or history" without limitation. Of 

 course, all who kill song birds can say they are studying 

 habits and history. Hence the law would be nugatory. 

 Whether this is by oversight, incompetence or by design or 

 otherwise, the reader may judge. Comment is unnecessary. 



John D. Collins, Secretary. 



Utica Game and Fish Protective Association, May 17. 



LARGE AMERICAN TROUT IN ENGLAND. 



AN enormous American trout has recently been taken in 

 England, as will be seen by the following letter to 

 Land and Water: 



Sir — A pond trout of 9)^ pounds may well make a troller's 

 mouth water. Yet this was the weight of a "trout," 2 feet 1 

 inch long by 7 inches deep, which was captured in the ponds 

 of Mr. Basset, of Tehidy, near Camborne, just a week ago. 



I have seen the fish and identified it as a specimen of the 

 American lake trout (Salmo fontinalis), with which Mr. Bas- 

 set stocked his ponds some nine years since. This one was 

 taken on a ground line, but the fish" is said to show excellent 

 sport when taken on a trolling bait, and it is an exceedingly 

 voracious feeder. I apprehend, however, that its presence in 

 a pond probably means the extermination of all common 

 trout in it. Thos. Cornish. 



Penzance, April 20. 



Although Mr. Cornish speaks of it as a "lake" trout, by 

 which name we know the 8. namaycush, this is no doubt a 

 slip of the pen. The editor of Land and Water appends the 

 following to the above letter: 



"Mr. Cornish's information will be of the greatest interest 

 to fishculturists, both in England and America. In America, 

 where the fontinalis is indigenous, the weight recorded is 

 rarely exceeded; and recent investigations have tended to 

 show that the largest ever captured weighed 12 pounds 2 

 ounces. The fish is commonly called a brook trout, although 

 Mr. Parker Gillmore has contended in these columns that it 

 is a char; and the knowledge that it can attain so great a size 

 in a mere pond in England will doubtless be a surprise to the 

 majority. The big American fish referred to above was 

 caught in the Rangeley Lakes, noted waters for producing 

 large fontinalis, which are widely known as Rangeley trout 

 in the States. We note that the fish took nine years to 

 attain to the weight of 9£ pounds; it would be interesting to 

 learn how large the fish were when placed in the pond. We 

 read in Forest and Stream that an Oquassa trout is said 

 to have grown 10 pounds in six years." 



BRANDY POINT TROUT. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



In reading over Capt. Barker's letter on the above subject 

 in your issue of April 22, it occurred to me that a short nis- 

 tory of Brandy Point might be interesting to at least a por- 

 tion of your readers, especially to those who visit the 

 Rangeley lakes. Away back in the forties this point was 

 known as a famous Indian camping ground from time to 

 man unknown. 



All the old growth of trees were marked with Indian 

 hieroglyphics made with stone implements, and the grounds 

 were cleared near the extreme point, and many Indian relics 

 have been found there. 



The Point is situated about two miles above Upper Dam, 

 on Lake Mooselucmaguntic, making out into the lake a mile 

 or more from Sandy Cove. No one in later years knew of 

 this fishing ground except a few of the old hunters of this 

 region, Annance, the Indian who was educated by the State, 

 and did some hunting on these lakes; also Metallac, the lone 

 Indian of the Magalloway; and to Phillips the famous hunter 

 of the thirties, who froze to death on the Cupsuptic; also 

 to your correspondent from 1840 to the present time. 



In 1880 we accompanied Mr. John A. Monheimer with his 

 brother and a gentleman from Kentucky on a fishing trip up 

 through the Rangeleys, who were also guided by the famous 

 John Danforth. Arriving at Upper Dam we found the 

 camps crowded with some fifty fishermen from all parts of 

 the country, all trying for and expecting the big trout, but 

 only securing some five or six fish a day. This was about 

 the middle of September. We secured our rooms and rigged 

 our rods, and tried the old places below the dam, capturing 

 several pound trout, and after satisfying ourselves that the 

 river was being overfished and the chances slim for much 

 sport there, I proposed to my party to go on up the lake for 

 a try, and one of them joined me, and we pulled directly to 

 Brandy Point, and soon found we had struck them, for in 

 two hours we had netted seven trout weighing thirty-five 

 pounds, the largest one seven and a quarter. Coming on 

 night we ieturned to camp, and had the pleasure of surpris- 

 ing about fifty men by moonlight, with our seven fish spread 

 out on the grass and the men standing in a circle around 

 them. One of the guides came to me privately and offered 

 me fifty dollars to tell him where we caught them. Probably 

 his party sent him. 



The next day we all went up and camped there for sev- 

 eral nights, and caught a satisfactory lot of trout and 

 smoked them Indian fashion — spread on cross sticks over a 

 slow night fire. 



After my party left the lakes, I introduced Gen. Hubbard 

 and his friend from New York to the Point. They were 

 stopping at Camp Kennebago, and they bad such good suc- 

 sess that they came the next year and camped twenty days 

 on the Point, but that year the trout did not come on until 

 October, when it was close time. 



While at the Point with Gen. Hubbard, a gentleman from 

 Philadelphia, with a lady for a guide, came down from their 

 camp on the Cupsuptic and fished a day or two, and while 

 there the woman caught an eight-pound trout and played 

 him very handsomely, and reeled him in and netted him 

 alone. These trout were very highly colored and very gamy. 

 They were coming on to their beds to spawn. The beds are 

 formed of pebbles collected together by the trout themselves, 

 in a surface several feet across^ and every year they come on 

 and clean off all moss and sediment that gathers there dur- 

 ing the past year some time before the spawning season 

 arrives, and at such times they will readily take the fly. 



All the trout I have ever seen taken at Brandy Point were 

 taken legitimately — with fly hooks only. 



Steamers running up and down the Mooselucmaguntic pass 

 very near the point and parties can send and receive their 

 mails daily, and the scenery from this place is the finest on 

 the lake, and being only five miles from Captain Barker's 

 camps at Bemis stream, a party might occupy one of his 

 beautiful camps and go daily for a fishing excursion to this 

 place and return in season for tea at camp. The fishing 

 grounds are sufficiently extensive to give plenty of room to 

 several boats and on certain days large catches are frequently 

 made. 



The name "Brandy" Point is very suggestive to gentlemen 

 of tbe "old school," but nowadays the State laws prohibit 

 brandy. I. G. R. 



Bethel, Me. 



KINGFISHERS GETTING LOST. 



THE idea of "Kingfisher" and old Ben being lost in the 

 "bresh" and almost in sight of their old camping 

 grounds, where one would imagine they knew every section 

 post, not only in the Intermediate region, but in the whole 

 Traverse region; but the tenderfoot may smole his best 

 smile, even "Yo" and "Wawayanda" will indulge in a hearty 

 laugh at the dilemma, and "Nessmuk" will give us some- 

 thing trite at our expense, for I must confess "I've bin thar," 

 and got lost within gunshot of a public road. "Norman" 

 can extend a hand of greeting and a word of sympathy, be- 

 cause I have not only been lost but have dumped out a 

 basketful of beautiful trout climbing over just such a net- 

 work of fallen trees and limbs, the results of those "capfuls 

 of wind" that once in a while sweep across the Traverse 

 region and almost cover up the trout creeks and streams in 

 Northern Michigan. Sore and bruised I again set to work 

 to replenish my creel (for it was all my life was worth to at- 

 tempt to recover the trout fallen from their creel in my 

 tumble. I could not cut a stick long enough to strike bot- 

 tom). How readily the genuine angler gets over such little 

 mishaps, and goes in for such sport as only comes on a 

 Michigan trout stream. There are times when I almost long 

 to drop a worm into the old streams or cast a fly for gray- 

 ling in the feeders of the Manistee, or jump into the Board- 

 man and lay out long casts while trout are rising to the fly, 

 while Pine Lake streams rise into my dreams as I turn over 

 the memories of the past. May the fates ever favor old Ben 

 when he hooks "spotted sardeens." I was hoping he had 

 taken to the fly, even though he can lay "a'out" half a mile 

 of line to hang on to a tree. Try it, Ben, and you'll get 

 something bigger than "sardeens." 



"Kingfisher". will remember I have always held up the 

 brook trout as the sport par excellence for the angler, but his 

 telling combats with Micropterus dot. stirs the blood, makes 

 him an object to be envied. Here are waters teeming with 

 fish while running up the river— but not to stay— but some- 

 how nary a bass comes to our hooks. A splendid bay, with 

 favorable surroundings and everything denoting bass, but 

 the water is fouled with sawdust— sawdust that stifles fry 

 by the millions, and that a bronze-back could not exist in. 



North of us, south of us, within a day's sail, lie trout streams 

 that Ben would delight to fish; big boulders, massive rocks, 

 swirling waters, deep holes full of big fellows where a "little 

 sardeen" won't stand a shadow of a show, and fishing palls 

 on the senses because of the voracity of these spotted big 

 ones, who will often rise to anything like hair and wool, 

 even a salmon fly will draw them jumping from the waters, 

 and the angler is obliged from shame to quit fishing. I pre- 

 sume eternal sunshine cannot be the home of the brook trout, 

 but as I write this, a vast expanse of pack ice thirty miles by 

 ten miles wide is waiting for the balmy spring breezes to 

 move it out and permit us to get up to the trout streams. 

 Seeing this dreary, frigid mass makes one long for some of 

 the soft, warm days that come in April at the home of the 

 Kingfishers! May they ever enjoy their summer outings in 

 dear old Michigan ; but if they ever desire a change, let 

 them communicate with "Norman," and the boy who so 

 longed to pull the oars for the old one-armed veteran while 

 he "tussled" with his big bass, who has almost grown into 

 manhood, promises not to "wrastle" with him, but run him 

 up along the north shore to fishing grounds that will warm 

 the cockles of the old bass fighter's heart. Minnesota has not 

 the soft lambent beauty of Michigan, and our fishing grounds 

 do not please by drawing masses of dude sportsmen to eDjoy 

 the smiles of summer resort belles, but to the angler who loves 

 quiet nooks, wild rugged beauty, towering rocks, huge 

 monoliths towering skyward around whose base old Superior 

 ever beats in somewhat mournful cadences, or lashes in storm- 

 tossed grandeur, but where rock fishing for speckled trout is 

 perfection. To the angler who loves to push up against a 

 seething mass of waters into a chasm where the sunlight 

 rarely reaches; where cliffs rise 150 feet above you, and big 

 trout twenty -four inches long are caught every summer and 

 are not considered as rare specimens. 



I would not say for a moment that Minnesota is no place for 

 ladies to come for fishing, because they do come here, and 

 some of them prove themselves adepts in taking the brook 

 trout; but the nights are cool, decidedly so; and camping is 

 something that must be provided for more liberally than in the 

 regions in which the Kingfishers have made themselves a 

 name. Even "Kelpie" would not go out and roll up in a 

 blanket and sleep all night in this cool region; but the days 

 are loveliness, the fishing superb, wild fruits in abundance, 

 and the air an elixir for many of the woes of humanity. 



Norman. 



Duldth, Minnesota. 



The Travelers, of Hartford, has no empty "classes" to cheat its 

 policy-holders; it has $8,055,000 assets and $2,089,000 surplus for their 

 protection.— Adv. 



Black Bass Protect Their. Nests.— At Newton Center, 

 Mass. , about seven miles from Boston, there is a handsome 

 sheet of water called Crystal Lake, which was stocked with 

 black bass some years ago. This season a pair of these fish 

 chose a spot where the village boys bathe as the proper place 

 for them to make their nest. Last week one of the boys 

 stripped and walked in at the customary place, but had not 

 gone far before his companions heard him scream and he 

 rushed ashore with a bleeding toe. Investigation showed that 

 the toe was lacerated with fine scratches, and while the boy 

 claimed to have been attacked by a snapping turtle, the 

 others ridiculed the idea and suggested that he had been 

 scratched by a brier. Another boy tried the place with the 

 same result and declared that something had bitten him and 

 had tugged away at his toe. A council of war was held and 

 three boys ventured cautiously in to investigate. Hand in 

 hand they went, peering anxiously into the water, when 

 they saw a rush and the two outside boys were bitten while 

 the middle one escaped. One of the bitten boys fell flat on 

 his back, and as his feet went up a large black bass came to 

 the view of bis comrades on shore and the mystery was 

 solved. The boys having found out what sort of an enemy 

 they had to deal with now take in sticks and drive the fish 

 from the nest before venturing in. As the teeth of the black 

 bass are like minute bristles no serious harm was done, but 

 three boys were badly scared for a while. 



The Worcester Fish Day.— Worcester, Mass., May 22 

 — On Tuesday evening the Worcester Sportsmen's Club held 

 a special meeting, at which the subject of the annual fish 

 day was discussed, and sharp criticisms were made of the 

 manner of making returns on the part of some of the mem- 

 bers. A motion to substitute a field day with trap shooting 

 was laid on the table. The committee, L. G. White, G. J. 

 Rugg, David M. Earle, E. S. Knowles and A. B. F. Kinney, 

 were instructed to draw up strict rules and regulations, and 

 to rule that a man's returns of fish shall be looked upon as 

 honest only in accordance with his ability and reputation as 

 a fisherman. The contest will be for honors only, and each 

 man who attends the supper is to pay for himself. The 

 committee yesterday reported in print, as follows: "The 

 committee appointed by the Sportsmen's Club to make 

 arrangements for the annual fish day decided upon Thurs- 

 day, June 3, for the fishing and the following evening for 

 the supper. With regard to the day, a radical departure 

 from that of former years is proposed by the committee. 

 There are to be no sides chosen, but the day is to be devoted 

 to a fishing trip for individual honors and records. It is 

 hoped by the committee that every member will join in the 

 sport. A first-class supper is to be furnished, and a good 

 social time is promised. 



Killing a Salmon.— One evening W. J. Florence, the 

 actor, sat in the club room telling of his exploits on a salmon 

 river in New Brunswick. "How many salmon did you 

 catch?" a visitor inquired. Florence nearly fell from his 

 chair at the ignorance displayed in the question. "Fisher- 

 men, sir, "said he, with freezing hauteur, "never use the word 

 catch as you apply it. They kill salmon. They never catch 

 them." The rebuked listener turned scarlet, but made no 

 response. A moment afterward Lawrence Jerome, the uncle 

 of Lady Randolph Churchill, and an excellent story teller, 

 began to talk of his adventures on a salmon stream. He was 

 describing himself as standing on a bank at daybreak whip- 

 ping a "jack Scott" over the water, when he hooked a big 

 salmon. "I was so excited," he said, "that I dropped my 

 slungshot into the water and lost the fish." "Dropped 

 what?" Florence asked in open-eyed astonishment. "My 

 slungshot," Jerome replied. "Why, what could you do 

 with a slungshot at such a time?" Florence inquired. "Best 

 thing in the world to kill a salmon with," Jerome said, go- 

 ing right on with his story while everybody roared. — Phila- 

 delphia Press. 



Salmon Angling in Maine.— We have lately published 

 several accounts of the captuie of salmon in the Penobscot 

 with rod and reel, and in consequence of these reports Mr. 

 Thomas J. Conroy concluded to try his flics in those waters. 

 Mr. Conroy had never killed a salmon, but had cast with a 

 salmon rod in the annual tournaments of the Rod and Reel 

 Association and had carried off some prizes for his skill. He 

 left for Bangor on the evening of the 18th and three days 

 later took a twenty-pounder, which we saw on Saturday 

 last at 65 Fulton street. He writes that there were twenty 

 rods on the river that day and that six fish were hooked, but 

 only two were brought to gaff. His fight lasted one hour 

 and twenty minutes and the fish led him nearly a mile. Mr. 

 Conroy thinks that it will pay the angler to go there about 

 June 1 and try his skill. It is gratifying to know that the 

 stocking of the river is beginning to bear fruit. 



The Trout in the Milk Can.— The Bangor (Me.) Com- 

 mercial tells this pretty little sequel of the trout in the milk 

 can story: "A few days ago the New York newspapers 

 published the story that a milk dealer of that city had found 

 a trout in a can of milk which had been shipped from the 

 dairies of Capt. J. W. Benedict, of Warwick, N. Y. Now 

 Capt. William Hobson, of the Seventeenth Maine Regiment, 

 and Capt. Benedict were in the same army corps during the 

 war of the rebellion. They became the warmest of personal 

 friends, but were separated in 1862, since which time neither 

 had heard anything of the other. Two days after the ap- 

 pearance of the trout story Capt. Benedict received a letter 

 from Capt. Hobson. The latter had read all about his old 

 comrade's trout in the milk can. The result has been the 

 opening of a warm correspondence between the two veterans 

 and the arranging of a pleasant reunion at an early day. 



Michigan Anti-Spearing Law. — Editor Forest and 

 Stream: Permit me, through your columns, to acknowledge 

 the receipt, through the mails, of a copy of the seventh 

 annual report of the Michigan Sportsmen's Association, and 

 to call attention to the absence from its synopsis of our fish 

 laws of the Statutes of 1872, Section 2,3 91, making it unlaw- 

 ful to take fish, except with hook and line, in the counties of 

 Mecosta, Newaygo, Osceola, Wexford, Manistee, Grand 

 Traverse, Leelanaw, Antrim, Emmet, Cheboygan, Macki- 

 naw, Charlevoix and Barry. I am not aware that these Jaws 

 have been repealed. They are embodied in a "warning 

 notice," a copy of which 1 inclose, which was drafted by two 

 of the lawyers of thi3 county, and was intended to prevent 

 spearing.— F. H. Thurston (Central Lake, Mich., May 19, 

 1886). 



