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FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Aug. 10, 1895. 



" That reminds me." 

 A good story relating an experience of a Boston party 

 in the Maine woods came to me the other day. The two 

 gentlemen in the case had gone into the woods intending 

 to enjoy two or three weeks' fishing at one of the Maine 

 sporting camp resorts, Procuring a guide they started in 

 on the trail, intending to reach the camp by night. When 

 darkness came they found themselves hopelessly lost. By 

 good luck they finally discovered an old logging camp, and 

 making themselves as comfortable as possible on the log 

 floor, they retired to rest, tired and hungry beyond expres- 

 sion. One of the gentlemen (a tenderfoot in the woods) sud- 

 denly awakened his friend and the guide, declaring that he 

 could not stand the smell pervading the old camp. His 

 companions could smell nothing and advised him to go to 

 sleep and give them a chance also. Again and again he 

 awoke complaining bitterly of the smell which no one 

 could detect but himself. As it was raining hard outside 

 he was compelled to remain inside, and all hands passed 

 a miserable night owing to his complaints. The strange 

 odor from which he suffered alone was incomprehensible 

 to the others, but in the morning they resumed their 

 search for the right path, finally found it, and arrived at 

 their destination about noon. After a dinner and a short 

 rest, they prepared to go fishing, and. then the secret of 

 the mysterious odor came to light. It seems that our 

 tenderfoot sportsman, never having used a fly and having 

 some doubts as to his ability to compete with his friend in 

 the number of trout taken by this method, had fortified 

 himself before leaving home with a good sized box of 

 angle worms to use as bait. The box he had tied up in 

 his pack, and on undoing the latter to get at his tackle 

 the cherished box of bait came to view in a terrible state 

 of decomposition. The smell was awful, and as the afore- 

 said pack had made his pillow in the old logging camp the 

 night before, the secret of his discomfort was exposed. 

 His disgust was comical beyond measure, and to this day 

 any mention of the much abused angle worm is passed 

 over by him in silent contempt. Hackle. 



BOSTON AND OTHER PARTS. 



Ex-Governor William Pitt Kellogg, of Louisiana, 

 looking every bit as young as when 1 used to meet him in 

 Chicago ten years ago, has been spending a few days in 

 Boston, visiting Commodore Miller, of the Charlestown 

 Navy Yard, who is a relative. The Governor used to be a 

 great fisherman, and I find him as enthusiastic in that 

 direction as of yore. He has just returned from a trip to 

 northern Canada, and speaks in the highest terms of the 

 sport he has had. The region he visited is away back to 

 virgin soil, and he mentions the muscallonge and bass 

 fishing there as superb. The muscallonge in particular 

 run to very large size, and are of that bulldog variety 

 which fight to the bitter end. He captured one big fellow 

 weighing 17ilbs. on a 6oz. rod, and says there was sport 

 enough in that little experience to satisfy the most ardent. 

 In a few days he will leave Boston for another trip to the 

 same waters, and expects to eclipse all his previous records 

 this time. 



G. F. Curtis and brother, of Boston, have just returned 

 from the Adirondacks, where they have been fishing the 

 Fulton Chain of lakes. They liked the country so well 

 that they will return at once and resume their interrupted 

 recreation. Mr. G. F. Curtis took one trout weighing 31bs. 

 5oz. , besides several others of less weight, and hopes to do 

 even better on this trip. 



Professors G. S. Lamson and J. C. Rolfe, of Ann Arbor 

 University, Michigan, have been fishing in the White 

 Mountains of New Hampshire, near Waterville. A letter 

 from Prof. Lamson received about two weeks ago stated 

 that the fishing was amazingly bad, but I have since 

 learned through Prof. Rolfe that the last days of their 

 stay gave them great sport. In that country it is nearly 

 all stream fishing in rapid water, and the taking of a trout 

 weighing one pound provides quite as much sport as the 

 capture of a three-pounder in the quiet waters of a. pond ; 

 lilbs. was their largest fish, and he gave Prof. Lamson a 

 royal good fight before he was finally landed. The two 

 gentlemen are now outfitting for a camping trip into the 

 Moosehead region. They expect to be gone five or six 

 weeks. Guides will be secured at Kineo, and from there 

 they will start into the woods, finally coming out near 

 Jackman. All the best ponds will be visited, and I hopB 

 to hear when they return to the city in September that 

 success has attended them from the very start. 



W. K. Churchill and Mr. Bird, of Walpole, leave in a 

 few days for the Moesehr d region. They expect to be 

 away nearly three weeks and being well acquainted in 

 that section (having been there several times before), will 

 do well without doubt. The very best kind of sportsmen, 

 they delight in the woods, and enjoy every moment of the 

 time. Even when at home they often find time to visit a 

 comfortable cam£> which they own near some good bass 

 and pickerel ponds down on the Cape. 



Barely have I witnessed such a complete exodus of 

 people from the city as is taking place in Boston just 

 now. The vacation season is at its height, and it is truly 

 wonderful to note the increased interest in fishing among 

 all classes. Hardly a man or boy goes away without some 

 sort of an equipment for some kind of fishing. During 

 the past week it has seemed that everybody who could get 

 a rod or line has been on the move. Nearly everywhere 

 along the coast they have had good luck. At Swampscott 

 the tautog have been coming in nicely. J. T. Soutter, of 

 Boston , has been down there visiting his friend, John Mason 

 Little, for a few days, and together they have had some 

 excellent fishing. Mr. Soutter leaves the first of the com- 

 ing week with Capt. Philip Little for Lake Memphrema- 

 gog. Black bass fishing and brook trout in the streams 

 adjacent to the lake is the object of the trip. The old 

 bridge at Wareham, on the south shore, from which so 

 many fishermen have cast a line in years gone by, is again 

 proving its worth as a stand for the capture of small 

 striped bass. Dr. Richardson, of Boston, captured an 8- 

 pounder there a few days ago, and others are doing well. 

 Very light tackle is used, and the place is one of the finest 

 spots along the coast when the small bass begin to school. 



C. H. Edson, of Boston, whose family is summering at 

 Buzzard's Bay, goes down quite frequently and always 

 has a try at the fishing, generally with good success. 

 Judge R. O. Harris manages to spend a day or two at the 

 bay pretty often, but is not able to go nearly as often as 

 he would like to owing to his inability to get away from 

 business. G. H. Eddy, of Boston, known among his 

 friends as a lucky bluefisherman, has gone down to Har- 

 wich, Mass., to visit his friend, C. A. Hall. Bass fishing 

 in the ponds near Harwich is a part of their plan, and no 

 effort will be spared to capture some of the big ones lately 

 reported as inhabitants of the waters of that section. 



Baes fishing at Lake Winnepesaukee, N. H., is now at 

 its best. The vacation people lately returned from there 

 have had very good luck and report an unusual number 

 of anglers at the numerous fishing points around the 

 lake. J. E. S. Pray and wife, and G. B. Hoyt and wife, 

 of Exeter, L. G. Hoyt and wife, of Kingston, and Chas. 

 Burr Towle and wife, of Council Bluffs, leave for the lake 

 in a few days for a t (vo weeks' trip. Most of the party 

 have been there together for several seasons, and have 

 quite a record as successful bass fishermen among those 

 who have been going there year after year. Brown's 

 Hotel, on Long Island, will be their headquarters. The 

 best fishing grounds are close to the island, and as they 

 will be at it early and late good scores may be looked for. 

 F. W. Wellman, of Lowell, is quartered at the lake. He 

 has his horses up there, in fact drives up from Lowell. 

 Mr. Wellman's father was an angler of the very best sort, 

 and the son is a worthy descendant of his sire. He has 

 been in Boston during the last week replenishing his 

 tackle, and has a color from sun and wind that will 

 never be worn off until the January thaw. Squam Lake, 

 but a short distance from Winnepesaukee, is his favorite 

 fishing place, and he finds great pleasure in fishing in 

 deep water there for big pickerel and perch. 



The Chapman party, consisting of L. D. Chapman, Dr. 

 A. R. Brown, Frank Tibbetts, Dr. W. P. Defries and I. 

 H. Caliga, all of Boston, have returned from Nantucket 

 in high feather over the good luck which attended their 

 trip. A good score of bluefish was made, the honors as 

 to numbers being fairly well divided. Capt. Swain was 

 their skipper, and most of the fishing was done near the 

 "rips" off Great Point. Recognizing that no well-con- 

 ducted fishing party should be started without a Jonah, 

 Mr. Chapman was selected as the unlucky individual and 

 had to stand a lot of good-natured chaffing during the 

 early part of the day. As the hours wore on this gradu- 

 ally ceased, for a very good reason. The Jonah was get- 

 ting the fish, and when he finally landed one of lljlbs. 

 (scale weight after return to shore that nigh t) ample apol- 

 ogies poured in on all sides, and a new victim was looked 

 for who could better fill the bill. 



C. S. Anthony, auditor of the Fitchburg R. R., and 

 Myron W. Whitney, the great singer, have each made a 

 lucky strike in bass fishing during the past week. Mr. 

 Anthony's good fortune occurred at a pond near Keene, 

 N. H., where he captured one big fellow and several 

 others of less weight. Mr. Whitney has a summer home 

 on Long Pond near Plymouth, Mass., and among the bass 

 which fell victims to his skill was one which weighed a 

 plump 41bs. 



E. A. Hitchcock, of St, Louis, whose trip to the Nepissi- 

 guit after salmon was mentioned in Forest and Stream 

 a short time ago, has arrived in Boston very much 

 pleased with his outing. The fishing was highly satis- 

 factory, in fact much better than expected. H. C. 

 Litchfield, of Dame, Stoddard & Kendall's, who has 

 helped equip Mr. Hitchcock and his brother, Hon. Henry 

 Hitchcock, with fishing tackle for several years, was the 

 recipient of three fine grils e (through the courtesy of Mr. 

 H.), which were much appreciated. The three fish 

 weighed about 91bs., and were real beauties. 



Squeteague fishing near Warren, R. I. , in the Warren 

 River, an arm of Narragansett Bay, has been wonder- 

 fully good during the past week. Moses Childs, of Warren, 

 took twenty in one morning a few days ago; and Dr. 

 Hall having occasion to cross the river to see a patient, 

 dropped a line overboard, and while rowing had a strike, 

 and landed one of 81bs. Some Boston parties will prob- 

 ably go down in a few days, without they get word that 

 the fish have left the river. 



The fame of the Megantic Club seems to be spreading 

 to many distant places, and Forest and Stream in its 

 mention of Megantic Club notes has aided greatly in 

 making the club known to sportsmen everywhere. W. 

 H. Barrett acquired knowledge of the club through 

 Forest and Stream at Paris, France, and within a few 

 days has left Boston for a tour of the preserve. This 

 gentleman has fished extensively abroad, and now that 

 he has come so far to make the Megantic trip, deserves 

 success. 



Dr. A. R. Brown, of Boston, leaves for the preserve 

 next week. He is a friend of Dr. Geo. Ainsworth, and 

 the two men will, I believe, visit the different club camps 

 together. 



The witch hazel divining rod, which was procured to 

 locate water at the Megantic Club house, has performed 

 its mission with glory and honor in spite of the amuse- 

 ment and ridicule excited by its use among many mem- 

 bers. During the first trial the wand doubled up at a 

 particular spot into which a well was driven. The result 

 was an abundance of elegant spring water at a temper- 

 ature of about 48°. Who says a witch hazel wand is no 

 good now? Hackle. 



Death of an Angler in the Woods. 



Passaic, N. J., Aug. 4. — Editor Forest and Stream: In 

 a letter received last week from my wife, who is on the 

 St. Regis River, near Spring Cove, in the Adirondacks, I 

 learn that the skeleton of a man was found in the woods 

 near there, on an old trail which has not been used for 

 four or five years. It had evidently been there a long 

 time, as the flesh was entirely gone and the clothing 

 decayed. A rod, basket, bait box, and rusty purse con- 

 taining $59 were found near the remains, which would 

 indicate that the man was some sportsman there on a 

 vacation. The proper authorities were notified, and they 

 went in and brought the bones in a box. What disposi- 

 tion was made of them I do not know, as I learned no 

 further details. 



It occurred to me to write these facts to Forest and 

 Stream, not knowing but thus the friends of the missing 

 man might possibly learn them. Undoubtedly there are 

 people somewhere who are still grieving over his disap- 

 pearance; Arthur F. Rice. 



AN INCIDENT OF PEEWAUKEE. 



One day, along in the latter part of June, I wrote a 

 piscatorial friend and crank of Decatur, Illinois, that I 

 contemplated a trip on my wheel to some of the excellent 

 fishing resorts of Wisconsin. By return mail I received 

 letters from three members of a club of which I had 

 formerly been a member, who clamorously insisted that I 

 do nothing of the kind, but that I meet them at the 

 Illinois Central depot on the following Sunday morning 

 and accompany them to Peewaukee Lake, Wis. The 

 Decatur contingent consisted of the brothers R. (Dick and 

 Will), Lew G., Rass H., and Dr. R., every man a 

 thoroughbred and all expert anglers except "Rass," who 

 needed instruction and got it. We were determined to 

 be on hand for the early morning fishing on Monday. 

 Our train left Milwaukee at 9:80 P. M. and arrived at 

 Harfcland after ten. We routed out the liveryman,reached 

 the lake shortly after eleven, pitched our tent and were 

 in bed by midnight. 



Our camp was in a little grove at the lower end of the 

 lake, controlled by a character known to the fishermen 

 of Milwaukee as "Bill Hendricks." "Bill" makes a 

 specialty of catering to camping parties, feeding all 

 comers at the nominal price of twenty -five cents a head 

 and generally on the fish they catch themselves. Never- 

 theless "Bill" is a good fellow and no man can beat him 

 frying fish — not even the man who catches them. 



Will R. and the Doctor had an experience that I believe 

 is worth recording. They were casting live frogs in 

 the hope that the wily (I believe wily is the proper word 

 to use in this connection) bass would so far forget him- 

 self as to "bite" at them. After repeated casts the Doctor 

 had a strike, but was pained a moment later to find it was 

 no longer attached at the other end of his line. Mr. R. 

 was just ready to cast, and at the Doctor's request cast at 

 the spot where the walking delegate had recently ordered 

 the strike. His experience was exactly like the Dcctor's; 

 he got a strike, but no fish. In the meantime the Doctor 

 had reeled in and found his frog gone. A moment later 

 Mr. R. raised the end of his line from the water and 

 found that his own frog was not only intact, but that a 

 second frog was hooked on below the one originally 

 placed there. 



The bass had evidently taken the Doctor's frog, and 

 seeing Mr. R.'s a moment later had undertaken the task 

 of gorging "two at a time," with the result that the first 

 one was hooked out of his mouth and he lost both of 

 them. The Doctor, commenting on the incident later, 

 remarked that it was very strange and worth recording 

 in the Forest and Stream, but that he would a "durned 

 sight rather have caught the fish." 



Altogether we had a most enjoyable time, although we 

 did not catch as many fish as we could have wished. 

 The beauty of the lake and its surroundings, combined 

 with the almost perfect atmospheric conditions, however, 

 more than compensated us for our lack of luck. As you 

 well know "it is not all of fishing to fish." 



Next year we are going further north, where we can 

 get some trout fishing; we are all fly-fishermen; and bait- 

 casting, while well enough in its way, does not exactly 

 fill the bill with the man who delights to cast the fly. 



Rex Piscator. 



Chicago, III. ^_ 



THE LEAP OF THE BASS. 



And now the veteran Mr. Hal lock enters the lists with 

 an unique theory that the bass leaps from the water to 

 shake off a louse or beetle. This may well be. All or 

 many old soldiers can remember how at times they 

 would have outjumped the record, if they had thought of 

 it, to rid themselves of the marauding and exasperating 

 gray back. They couldn't run away from it, and when 

 on the march they couldn't stop to go hunting. But 

 whether or not Mr. H. is correct there are some sentences 

 in his article which seem to be contradictory. He says ,. 

 "The arching rod, which is bearing, all the time that the 

 fish holds on to the water, a much heavier strain than the 

 dead weight of the fish" — and just below, "to lessen the 

 strain on the line so as to prevent the suspended dead 

 weight of the fish from breaking tackle or tearing the 

 hook out." If the rod bore a heavier weight than the 

 dead weight of the fish, then why should the dead weight 

 of the fish break the rod? 



And again he says, "The bass holds hard until bis 

 strength is exhausted, when he relaxes, of course; where- 

 upon he becomes immediately conscious of a diminished 

 tension of the restraining force" — and leaps to shake off 

 the tormentor. Of course Mr. H. meant "eenamost" ex- 

 hausted; but bass don't wait, as a rule, until that time to 

 jump. They jump a long way before they exhaust, and 

 I don't believe the lift of the rod tempts them to leap. If 

 it did, they wouldn't have time to do anything else. And 

 he says, "Of course the fish comes out of the water with 

 his mouth open." Maybe it's "of course" in the case of a 

 "small mouth," but in the case of the other fellow he'd 

 have so much water in that cavern of his that his mo- 

 mentum would be cut off in its prime. 



The truth of the matter, I suspect, is that we all follow 

 the movement of the fish with the rod, when the fish 

 leaps, just the same as we do when it is in the water, in- 

 stinctively. We keep a judiciously taut line. A fish has 

 sense same as a horse. If the latter gets a bumblebee in 

 his mouth he doesn't shake his tail. And I don't believe 

 a fish reserves all his shake for his aerial demonstration 

 either. I suspect if we could see a fish in his struggles in 

 the water we should see shakings there too. The hook is 

 in his head and he shakes it to get it out. He'd be ex- 

 tremely foolish if he didn't. Much more so than "Potta- 

 wottomie's" bass, which, after he had shaken the horrible 

 thing loose, turned round and tackled it again. He was 

 a bigger fool than "Thompson's colt." After all, where 

 would these fishermen have a bass go, if not into the air? 

 Ever think of it? He can't get away from the abominable 

 thing in the water. That's where he got it. Is there any 

 other place for him to go? 



Let's get back to hoopsnakes. 0. 0. S. 



Potomac Notes, 



The Potomac water is again clear of mud and the bass 

 have been biting fairly well. Members of the Woodmont 

 Club have had good fishing during the past week. Mr. 

 W. H. Gulick is high rodsman with a 51b. bass and 

 several 2-pounders. Drs. Harbin and Thompson and son, 

 of the same club, have been fishing with fair success. 



The Anglers' Club, at the Great Falls, have not been 

 able to do much as yet owing to unfavorable conditions 



