Jan. 6, 1887.1 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



469 



m mid §mr ^iBhing, 



Ad^-ets all commmioations to tMc Fwest and Stream /V*. Go. 



FLORIDA RESORTS AND ROUTES. 



Editor Forest and Stream : 



The seasnu has afvived when sportsmen prepare for a 

 trip to Florida, ami i_n formation regulating transportation 

 may proTe accepialile. Each year new sections are 

 beins; opened np by railroads. 



The Balifax TJiver can bo reached by leaving Jackson- 

 viUe at 13:30 P. M. by the J. T. & K. W. Railway. Rol- 

 leston, on the St. John's River, is reached a,t 2:55, and 

 Tomoko, on the Halifax, at 5 P. M. 



Tampa, on the southwest coast, has been rendered ac- 

 cessible. Leaving Jacksonville by J. T. & K. W. Railway 

 at 18:30, Tampa is reached at 8:50 P. M. 



Access to Indian River is easy by the Enterprise & 

 Titusville Railroad, leaving- Jacksonville at 9:10 A, M. by 

 the J. T, & K. W. Railway, reaching Titusville at 3:30 

 P. M. At Titusville connection is made with the steamer 

 Eocldedge for landings on Irulian River, 



Far-famed Cliarlotte Harbor, with its umivalled fish- 

 ing, can be reached inside of seventy hours from New 

 York. The traveler can leave Jacksonville by the river 

 steamer Jolm Sylvester at 8:30, or by the J. T. & K. W, 

 at 9:30 A. M., 12:80 and 3:30 P. M., remain overnight at 

 Palatka. and leave there by the Florida Southern Railway 

 at 9:13 A. M., arriving at Pimta Gorda, (Charlotte Harbor) 

 at 10:30 P. M. Or by a train of Floriday Railway & Navi- 

 gation Co., leaving Jacksonville at 8:30 P. M., connecting 

 with Florida Southern Railway at Leesburgh or St. Cather- 

 ine's, and thence to Pxmta Gorda. One can go by J. T. 

 & K. W. Railway from JacksonviUe at 12:30 P. M,, 

 stopping at Lakeland, taking train next day at 6:15 for 

 Punta Gorda. At I^mta Gorda (Charlotte Harbor) a 

 large hotel is in course of construction, and will be com- 

 pleted at an early day. Until the hotel is finished sports- 

 men had better stop at Cleavela.nd. A steamboat leaves 

 Cleaveland and Punta Gorda for Pmita Rassa, southerly 

 end of Pine Island and Fort Myers, thrice weekly. A 

 large and comfortable hotel has been erected on Pine 

 Island, where sportsmen can obtain boats and good ac- 

 commodations. Aii Fresco. 



JacksonvilI/B, Dec. 30. 



A BEAR ON A FLY-ROD. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



"Wonders will never cease. Riflemen hit the buUseye 

 and the world wonders, admires and praises, but was a 

 story ever better told or a feat ever better accomplislied 

 than my companion for many a year in the good old 

 times in the Adirondacks now for the first time relates 

 of his feat with a split bamboo fly-rod — a Murjphy make. 

 Oh, ye shades of Jules Verne, Dave Crockett, Adirondack 

 Murray and Ed Derby! You ask if I believe it? Why of 

 coTirse I do. Ask Dr. R. if L. S. ever exaggerated a trout 

 captru'e. Never! If Dr. R. is so easily humbugged ask 

 Cort Moody, and if he don"t, as an old Adirondack guide 

 and hunter, agree with Dr. R., why it must be regarded as 

 incredible. Next! S. S. N. 



P. S. — The bear tracks are still seen and the mouth of 

 the brook also, but the latter only with a powerftd tele- 

 scope, but no trout. " S. S. N. 



The tale told by L. S. here follows: 



I saw lately an item in a paper stating that IMr. Murray 

 was soon to publish two books on the Adirondacks. I 

 was glad I saw that item, for it told me it was time, if 

 ever, to reveal a secret I had carried many years. It can- 

 not be called an old story, though the facts I am about to 

 relate occurred long ago, for this is the first time I ever 

 mentioned it, I should not do so now were it not an innate 

 peculiarity of all Californians that they do not like the 

 slow-going people of "the States" to jump their claims. 

 With this long jjref ace I will begin the story, 



I was staying one hot July at Bartlett's, when the only 

 occupation was eating, smoking and lounging. Fishing- 

 was out of the question, as all the ti-out had long since 

 left the raj)ids. Lute Evans came to the landing in his 

 boat, going nowhere, but tired of holding down chairs 

 where he came from. We discussed the trout question, 

 that and the deer question being never-ending subjects 

 up there. I never knew a guide who didn't profess to 

 know where there was "an all-fired lot of trout," vi-ith 

 many more strong sounding words thrown in. If you 

 get him to take you there, and fail to take the fish, he 

 tells you how many Mr. Chapin caught there, intimating 

 that if you fished as well as Mr, C, you might be as for- 

 tunate. Who can fish as well, or who can argue against 

 such an insinuation? Dm'ing the conversation Lute told 

 me of one Bill Moody, who had left that joart of the 

 country, but when there had a perfect trout mine in a 

 stream entirely unknown except at the mouth, which 

 comes into the Saranac River, just above the "Middle 

 Falls." I secretly resolved then and there to prospect 

 that stream and mine before the setting of the sun. 



Arriving at the mouth of the stream I hid my boa,t in 

 the brush and struck ofi: into the back country by an old 

 lumber road. After walking nearly a mile I came to the 

 conclusion that the stream as a trout mine lacked one 

 very important requisite, that was water. There was 

 none it it. Also that the alders were fighting each other 

 for standing room. I retraced my steps, repeating, "it 

 was ever thus, from childhood's happy hours I've seen 

 my fondest hopes decay," when I was 'brought to a halt 

 by seeing in the path dkectly in front of me, not 30ft. ofi:, 

 a beautifid black bear, seated on his hindquarters, and 

 inviting me with his fore paws to just step that way a 

 moment if you please. I said he Avas beautiful, I mean 

 as bears go. He had long, clean black hair, which gently 

 waved in the wind, showing the ghnting su.nlight upon 

 it, and strongly-made arms such as I had long wished to 

 possess in order that with them I might confoimd mine 

 enemies. He had claws and teeth that looked as though 

 they were capable of performing any task the Creator in- 

 tended them for when he fiivst designed bears. 



When in a tight fix one is apt to notice many things, 

 • and to remember many. Drowning men are said to have 

 brought in Adew before them all the incidents of their 

 Eves. I hope I may not be di'owned. My ijrocession was 

 marching by on the double quick. Among the rest I 

 noticed a small dog I knew, who many yeai'S ago had one 

 of his eyes«eut out by a whip-snapper in the hands of a 



cruel hack driver, who passed the door where the dog sat. 

 I bad not thought of that poor dog for years. Call it 

 providential interference if you wnll. At any rate it gave 

 nic an idea I was not slow to act upon. If a dog's eye was 

 taken out with a whip, why not a bear's \vith a fly hook? 

 I had on my line two flies. The stretcher was a coachman 

 tipped with gold, body peacocJc hurl, wings lead- 

 colored pigeon. The dropper was a small brown hackle. 

 I should explain that this selection of flies was made 

 for trout and not for bears, I was in very good training 

 at fly-casting at the time; but in casting for trout and 

 casting for bears' eyes there is this difference; In casting 

 for troixt an inch more or less in the length of the line is 

 of no consequence, as the trout comes forward to meet it. 

 In casting at a stationary object like a bear's eye the line 

 used must be exactly the right length or it will fall short 

 or strike beyond. If one had time to practice, the length 

 in time could be adjusted to the distance. Bears won't 

 generafly stand that without disagreeable objections. I 

 "drew the line from the reel until I thought I had the 

 right amount, made a cast straight and quick, prepared 

 to strike liard as soon as the fly reached its aim. It fell, 

 or ratiier flew, an uich short. I again drew from the reel 

 an inch and an eighth, and cast again, planting the hook 

 (a Sproat) square in the bear's right eye. 



A shar]), well-tempered fish hook, when one thinks of 

 it, is an ugly thing. Bartlett had told me of Coleman 

 ]3uttiug one into his nose, Coleman being unaware he was 

 fast imtfl Bartlett made a few gentle remarks as he was 

 being lifted oft' the boat seat. Bears as a rule lead such 

 quiet, uneventfid lives that a fly-ljook taJjing out the 

 working part of this one's eye w as 8uch a new cxpoi-ience 

 tliat he took no more interest in me. but occupied liimself 

 witli rubbing the remains with Ids paw. Having got the 

 range, as a lifleman would say, it was an easy task to put 

 the coachman into his remaining optic at my leisure. I 

 then had a. blind bear on my hands. With a stick I drove 

 him into the river, where in his perj)lexity he sank to the 

 bottom. 



Should any one doubt the truth of the story they can 

 see the mouth of the brook as they go up the river in the 

 spring, and the old lumber road if it is not overgrown. 



Santa Cruz, California, L. S. 



A COUNTY WARDEN SCHEME. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



There are times when to save the patient's life heroic 

 treatment must be taken and the sm-geon's knife used. 

 Thousands of dollars haA* e been paid by the State of Ncav 

 York for the propagation and protection of fish, and in 

 consequence the supply in inland waters has become so 

 plentiful that marketmen have become daring and reck- 

 less, indiflierent to and defiant of laws, and cunning and 

 sly as foxes in their nefarious traffic of illegal fishing. 



The time has come when, if this destruction is to he 

 stopped, and the good work of our Commissioners of Fish- 

 eries is to be of any permanent value, and the money ex- 

 pended by the State of practical use, Ave must have further 

 means for preventing illegal fishing. Knowing that the 

 people are fully in sympathy with such a com'se, and are 

 Avdling to adoxjt any reasonable means to accomplish so 

 laudable an end, it is suggested that a bill be jn-epared 

 and presented to the coming Legislature embodying sub- 

 stantially the following requirements: 



First — Requiring the Supervisors of every cormty in the 

 State to annually appropriate the sum of $1,000, to be 

 made part of the general tax of the county, which sum 

 shall be used exclusively and solely for the protection of 

 game and for fish within the waters of their resiDCctive 

 coimties. 



Second — Requiring the Supervisors at the annual session 

 next succeeding the passage of mch a law to appoint tAvo 

 county game and fish protectors at a salary of $500 each, 

 who shall give good and acceptable bonds to the coimties 

 from which they shall have been appointed to faithfully 

 discharge the duties of their oflice. 



Third — These officers shall have power of aiTCst and 

 receive the same portion of penalties as noAv provided by 

 om- present laws, and shall report annually to the Com- 

 missioners of Fisheries and to the supervisors then* acts, 

 money received, etc. 



You will readily see, with a population in any coimty 

 of 100,000, the percentage of such a tax to each individual 

 Avould be too insignificant to be known to taxpayers, and 

 yet when aggregated of sufiicient importance to accom- 

 plished the desired purpose. 



The application of such a laAv in every county in the 

 State would give us over 100 men, each familiar Avith the 

 waters of their county, familiar Avith the men Avho now 

 defy the law, and directly and continually at hand to do 

 the Avork. 



This is simply what, it seems to me, would be practical 

 and effective. Sykacuse. 



MASSACHUSETTS SEA FISHERIES. 



THE time seems to have come wdien Massachusetts 

 should have a marine fish commission, or rather it 

 seems to have come to the senses of those interested that 

 such a commission is needed. The active efforts of Deputy 

 Commissioner F. R. Shattuck the past season to protect 

 the lobster from an utter annihilation, brought about by 

 its value as a food fish, has drawn attention to what is 

 needed in the direction of oiu' marine fisheries. It is 

 shoAvn that the value of the lobster catch landed at Boston 

 alone is over $300,000 per annum, while if the wdiole State 

 of Massachusetts be included, $375,000 Avill no more than 

 cover what these fish are Avorth to the trade. The best 

 lobster dealers are becoming interested, and doubtless the 

 State Avill be asked to create ' a conunission to look 

 especially after the interests of our marine fisheries. If 

 the value of the entire marine fishing industrj^ is taken 

 into account, the wonder wiU be still greater that the 

 State of Massachusetts has so long allowed so great an 

 interest to go without a special commission to look after 

 its needs. The value of the mackerel catch alone, before 

 it began to be apparent that the fish were being exhausted, 

 as has been quite plainly shown by actual facts the past 

 season, was some $3,500,000 landed by the New England 

 mackerel fleet, chiefly at Boston, Gloucester and Province- 

 town. Then, if the entire catch of codfish be included, 

 with all the fresh fish landed at our ports, it can be shoAvm 

 that the fishing industry is worth to Massachusetts alone 

 some $11,000,000 or $13^000,000 ijer annum. Yet this in- 

 dustry has gone on year after year in the most haphazard 

 manner, on the principle of catch all you can and sell it 

 for all you can get, and if not, tlirow it into the dock. 



Maine has a marine branch of her very able fish com- 

 mission, and already good results are apparent. Any of 

 the good things of nature which are to be had for the 

 catching or the hunting are liable to be abused and 

 wasted, and the time is coming when the sujjply of our 

 marine food fishes can only be kept up by protection 

 during the breeding season and perhaj^s with the aid of 

 artificial propagation. The pursuit of the menhaden has 

 about exhausted the supply, and the purse seine around 

 the mackerel in the early spring, when they are hardly 

 worth the taking, will soon exhaust the supjjly. Why, 

 in your own Ncav York harbor, good Fobest and Stream, 

 as your Commissioner Blackford will tell you, there are 

 thousands of barrels of Uttle mackerel landed every 

 spring, not worth the catching, and often they go into 

 the dock unsold. It is not reasonable to suppose that this 

 can all be remedied at once, but the remedy must be 

 found ere long, or the mackerel fishery will have seen its 

 best days. The least the States can do is to create intel- 

 ligent commissions to look after such interests. 



Another very desirable feature is a uniformity of lobster 

 protective laws along our entire New England coast. The 

 lobsters are almost entu-ely stripped from Long Island 

 Sound, one of their natural breeding grounds, by persist- 

 ant fishing and retaining of even the smallest lobsters 

 caught. In many of the restaurants in the coast cities, 

 and even in New' York, these infant lobsters are served 

 as a great delicacy. It Avould be just as reasonable for 

 the farmers to kill all their calves for veal and then ex- 

 pect to find oxen for beef; and indeed it Avould be possible 

 by such a practice to exterminate the entire race of beef 

 cattle. Special. 



INDIANA ANGLING. 



FORT WAYNE, Ind.— I find noted in the "Gazetteer" 

 "good bass, pike and j)ickerel fishing near the city." 

 We have no pickerel in oiu- waters, but it may be your 

 informant meant the wall-eyed pike, using the local name 

 for them. These Ave have and large ones. This season 

 twenty-five or thirty have been taken weighing from 5 to 

 181bs. each, and any number were taken weighing less. 

 Were it not for the" illegal use of seines, dip nets, etc., we 

 would hav^e as good fishing in our riA'ers as we could 

 reasonably desire. Our anglers are awakening to the 

 pleasiu-es of fly-fishing, for which Ave are indebted to Mr. 

 E. S. Csgood, of Boston, a gentleman who ti-avels through 

 here, and who took from oiu- stream seven black bass in 

 thirty-two minutes, using a 3ioz. rod: and I took nine 

 black bass in as many weeks, but then "delicacy, colors" 

 and "when to strike" were, as you will observe, practically 

 new to me. I expect to do better next season, as prac- 

 tice aaid observing one who has been there beats a book, 

 although the book should not be derided, as it only directs. 

 You will soon hear of casting tournaments in Indiana as 

 well as in New York and Boston. 



HoAv can a pound wall-eyed pike be distinguished from 

 a Sanger of same weight? We have both, but which is 

 which? 



While fisliing the West Lakes one day in October with 

 a friend, we stopped for luncheon near a long point of 

 land extending out into the lake. As I never like to 

 have a line out w-hile appeasing an appetite such as only 

 a fisherman or a section hand has, I placed my rod in a 

 secui-e place in the boat and fell to. My friend on the 

 contrary would "rather fish than eat," so placing a large 

 chub on the hook he cast his line out and felt for the 

 basket, but Avatched for the fish. His zeal was soon 

 rewarded, and he landed a large-mouthed black bass, 

 weighing on our pocket scales 41bs. 3oz. This fish had 

 been struck with a spear, and a deep, ghastly gash was 

 cut jiist forward of the spinous dorsal fm, and looked to 

 us as though it had been done two or three days before. 

 The Avound Avas a bad one, and for the time being made 

 me just a little sick of fish. Then it was the question of 

 the sensibility of fish to i^ain came up AA^th us, and for 

 the pm-pose of enlightment on this question, although it 

 may seem brutal, with the point of the hook we scored 

 the wound, Avliich operation was responded to by the fish 

 by that quivering motion of the tail ahvays seen when 

 killing them Avith a knife by severing the spinal cord. It 

 seems to me that if fishes are not sensible to pain, when 

 the voracious pike, the gamy black bass and piratical 

 dogfish meet, the result of the encounters would be that 

 a great many of these fish would be traveling around 

 Avith chunks of flesh torn or bitten out of them, "muti- 

 lated but still ia the ring," and perfectly healthy, happy 

 and contented. John P. Hance. 



THE SIX-INCH TROUT LAW. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



As the trout laAV in New York is to come to the front 

 this winter, in all probability, it seems well to inquire 

 whether the line heretofore draAvn between brook trout, 

 legal and illegal (6in. in measurement) was fixed after 

 fully considering the age of the fish. If it was so, what 

 was the supposed age Avhen 6in. was reached? Will some 

 of those interested in the matter or those that are posted 

 in fish grow^tli kindly answer? 



Of com-se the conditions of groAvth in natural streams 

 must have been considered, and any doubt as to length at 

 certain ages must have been overbalanced by elements of 

 certainty arrived at and made use of. 



The Avriter believes that protection should be furnished 

 in the first and the second years of groAvth, but whether 

 it should be extended to include the third year, making a 

 trout four years of age before he can be legally taken, is 

 perhaps a question upon which fishermen may differ. 



As the main part of fronting is done in those pleasant 

 days of May and Jime when the summer is opening, it 

 might perhaps be well to vary the question by asking 

 Avhat the length of a trout will probably be in June of the 

 third year of his groAvth. Will it be quite 6in.? 



A New Yoke: Fisherman. 



Trout Pictures. — There are on vicAv at Messrs. Abbey 

 & Imbrie's, 18 Vesey street, this city, three paintings by 

 Mr. Wakeman Holbei-ton. The "Rise," the "Struggle" 

 and the "Death." They are in Mr. Holberton's best vein, 

 and show careful study. The trout are accurate and life 

 like, and the setting gives pleasing effect to each. IVIr. 

 Hollserton is a conscientious and skillful deUneator of 

 game fish and angling scenes. 



The life business of the Travelers Insurance Companjr, of Hart- 

 ford, is increasing faster ttian tliat of almost any other company 

 in existence.— Affi;. 



