March 8, 1888.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



127 



But there are fish enough there, if they will only catch 

 on. The lake is actually teeming with the gamiest fish 

 in the world. The efforts to restock its waters have been 

 well directed and attended with marvelous success. The 

 Fish Commission have earned the everlasting gratitude 

 of anglers, as well as of owners of real estate about the 

 lake, who profit by the boom. Trout are taken in large 

 numbers every year, but I never saw one jump into a 

 boat, or willingly leave his cool retreat below, and I never 

 knew any one to catcli so many that he would not be glad 

 to try it again the next day. In the tanks at the State 

 hatching house I have seen tbe Salmo ttebago (landlocked 

 salmon) weighing lOlbs. or 121bs., and in the same tank 

 the Salvelinus fontinalis (common brook trout) and the 

 newly-named Salvelinus aureolus (golden trout) nearly as 

 large*, with many specimens of the latter two weighing 

 from c!lbs. to 51bs. On their spawning beds in the fall I 

 have seen scores of the aureolus so indifferent to approach 

 that only the law prevented one from actually dipping 

 them up in landing nets. The landlocked salmon are 

 not taken so freely as the others, but I have seen a few 

 heavyweights taken by patient anglers, and any quantity 

 of the brook and golden trout weighing from gloss to 61bs. 

 These things have come witliin my observation as a 

 newspaper man, and it is needless to say that I was lured 

 on to the fishing grounds. 



I sat all day in the scorching sun fishing in sixty to 

 eighty feet of water, without so much as a nibble. But 

 I knew the trout were down there all the same, because I 

 had the evidence of my own eyes at the hatching house 

 and on tbe spawning grounds the previous season, and 

 because I saw one after another landed, after a gallant 

 fight, in neighboring boats; and I shall be just fool 

 enough to sit there a full week next summer, with or 

 without company, until I am rewarded for it, for I have 

 known a greenhoru who didn't know a fly from a sinker 

 to pull away from the ground with three or four trout 

 weighing together a dozen pounds, as the reward of two 

 or three horn's' fishing, while the experts around brought 

 up only the shiners that they let down. I have also seen 

 a 31b. aureohts so tangle up three long lines in ten minutes 

 that three men and a boy couldn't disentangle them in a 

 day, when I would have been glad to have sacrificed 

 three fines for one half as large rather than go home 

 empty-handed. When one of these fellows starts off with 

 a bine in sixty feet of water it is fun alive, and there is 

 excitement all through the fieet until he is safely dipped 

 into the boat ten minutes or half an horn* later, and sized 

 up by Ms satisfied captor. 



But 'Sunapee was famous for its black bass long before 

 anybody thought of sinking for Salmo and Salvelinus, and 

 it is a pretty hot day when an ordinary fisherman cannot 

 take enough to satisfy him in one way or another — if not 

 by fly tin-owing, then by trolling a spoon hook along the 

 shore, or sinking with hook and worm over the rocky 

 shoals. For myself there is sport enough in trolling along- 

 shore when it takes all my strength to pull against the 

 waves, while my companion pulls in half a dozen weigh- 

 ing from a half pound to a pound and a half. I have 

 caught them weighing 31bs. and have seen those that 

 weighed between 4lbs. and 51bs. 



Black bass are protected by law "between the thirtieth 

 day of April and the fifteenth day of June," and trout 

 and salmon "between the thirtieth day of September of 

 any year and the first day of May next following (except 

 that Jake trout may be taken with single hook and line 

 only during the months of January, February, March, 

 and April). Neither can be taken at any time ' 'in any other 

 manner or with any other device than the ordinary way 

 of angling with a single hook and line with bait, artificial 

 fly, or spoon." The penalties are sufficient and the 

 authorities watchful enough to make poaching unprofit- 

 able, much to the satisfaction of anglers in quest of legit- 

 imate sport or a savory meal. To prevent the depletion 

 of brooks by hirelings who would thrive by catching- 

 small brook trout for city hotels, the Legislature of 1887 

 imposed a penalty of fifty dollars upon every person 

 having in his possession over ten pounds of "brook or 

 speckled trout," and five dollars per pound for each pound 

 in excess of ten pounds, the whole string liable to be 

 seized and forfeited to the prosecutor. Technically this 

 law would apply to the large specimens of fontinalis taken 

 from the lake; but such was not its intent, and I do not 

 apprehend that "Swirl" would get into trouble if he 

 should take one of the mammoths weighing over ten 

 pounds, though it might trouble him some to actually 

 get such a trout into his possession. Come up. Fritz. 



If the writer who signs his communication "Colqu- 

 houn" will send address, we will be glad to print the 

 paper. 



Tackle. — Editor Forest and Stream: Anentthe subject 

 of fishing tackle, permit me to say that "Percyval" has hit 

 the traditional nail once more on the head. For the all- 

 round rod for the all-round man there is nothing so far 

 like the all-round lancewood. "Percyval" mentions the 

 steel rod. Some time since there was mention made in 

 your columns of a steel rod the "Horton." Are there 

 any men, readers of your journal, who have used this 

 rod sufficiently to pass an opinion on it? If so, will they 

 confer a favor on the writer, and I doubt not others, by 

 coming to the front with their criticism? The fishing 

 season cometh on apace, and just as like as not there are 

 numbers of fishers who find it necessary to purchase a 

 new rod who would be induced, if the steel rod is an un- 

 qualified success, to invest in one. Remarks are in order. 

 Will those who have used the automatic reel please add 

 their testimony pro. and con. — O. O. 8. 



The Wa-Wa-Yanda Fishing Club, of New York, has 

 elected officers as follows: President, County Clerk James 

 J. Flack; First Vice-President, Edward Kearney; Second 

 Vice-President, Martin B. Brown; Third Vice-President, 

 Alderman James J. Mooney; Treasurer, George Jeffreys, 

 and Secretary, John Burke, A resolution was unani- 

 mously adopted calling on New York Congressmen to aid 

 in the passage of Congressman McAdoo's bill to prevent 

 the wholesale destruction of game fish along the coast by 

 the use of drag nets and steamers. A. L. Ashman was 

 selected as Chairman of the. Executive Committee. 



The Hackensack..— A New Jersey law- forbids taking 

 striped bass and white and yellow perch from the Hack- 

 ensack River except with hook and line. The netting- 

 has been very destructive. 



"FISHING IN THE POTOMAC." 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



There are writers and writers, as there are fish and fish. 

 But when a praticed and entertaining writer attempts to 

 tell what he doesn't know about — good fish and fish- 

 ing, he makes a "mess" of it (if I may use a modern 

 classic term). In other words, "a little knowledge is a 

 dangerous thing" — even when it concerns "Fishing in the 

 Potomac," under which title Mr. J. II. Connelly has lately 

 contributed to your clumns a readable but misleading 

 article. 



Fact and fancy, fancy and fact— that's the summing 

 up of the whole 'matter. Mr. Connelly's stay among us 

 was short, and disappointing — in many ways— but doubt- 

 less he has come as near the truth as most others do who 

 take information hurriedly, and second or third hand, or 

 who get knowledge through their inner consciousness 

 and a spyglass. Any tyro in fishing hereabouts— even 

 among boys who never cast any line but one to their best 

 girls— know vastly more of Mr. Connelly's subject than 

 he does. It is clear he never spent any time in fishing 

 hereabouts— unless, indeed, off the wharves of Alexandria; 

 and even there he seems to have had no luck. Possibly 

 he did once wander away to the bridge over Hunting 

 Creek, close by Alexandria, to see the "coons" catch cat- 

 fish, but "only this and nothing more." We sympathize 

 with him; we even pity him. In his case, as in love and 

 war, "it might have been" is the true refrain that 

 sounds sadly over the lost past. He might have had fish- 

 ing and fish, but he would not. He might also have 

 concealed his wautof experience, by abstaining from dis- 

 playing his ignorance, along with his great facetiousness 

 in Forest and Stream, but he would not. 



Without myself pretending to a complete knowledge of 

 the subject, I may yet humbly venture to show — very 

 briefly— that Mr. Connelly knows far less, just enough to 

 lead him astray. 



According to him, the Potomac consists of two parts- 

 one below the Great Falls, the other above them. The 

 former is about 133 miles in length and all but fourteen 

 miles is tide water. The latter— the part above the Falls 

 —is about 370 miles long, and adding the larger tribu- 

 taries, like the Shenandoah and G oose Creek, Mr. Con- 

 nelly has performed the feat of making the little word 

 "above" spread itself over about 500 miles of the finest 

 bass waters in the United States! The great ductility of 

 that word had never before been demonstrated, perhaps, 

 so another philological wonder and benefactor have been 

 added to the lists! 



But after intimating there is indifferent bass fishing in 

 all that region, he says nothing more about it! As if one 

 were to ignore all of Byron above his worst part — his dub 

 feet! or all of New York city "above" the Battery! But 

 we dwellers on the Potomac would not complain— least 

 of all would this review ever have been written — had Mr. 

 Connelly displayed even a fair degree of knowledge of 

 the lower Potomac, the part to which his article is de- 

 voted. He clearly shows that he knows nothing of the 

 fine bass fishing below the Falls, ?'. e., between Little Falls 

 and Great Falls— at the Feeder, McQuade's, and the Broad 

 Water, etc. — but he knows of a railroad to Great Falls! of 

 which we benighted and disfranchised denizens of the cap- 

 ital never heard before! He seems never to have heard of 

 the great catches that have been made of bass and roach 

 (striped bass) in the beginning of the season, at Little 

 Falls (I have myself known hundreds taken in a single 

 day there); but it is true this generally lasts only a short 

 time. Eockfish are caught in the season in the whole 

 tide water of the Potomac; excellent catches are made in 

 some seasons at Alexandria , and I have never known any 

 day in the regular season when the water was clear, that 

 rockfish could not be caught almost anywhere in the 

 river proper below the Falls, or its bays and tributary 

 creeks." 



Mr. Connelly throws the dust of ridicule and doubt on 

 the assertion of Washington regarding the fish found in 

 the Potomac in his day. And, as if to cap the monument 

 of his own ignorance, he actually does this on no other 

 ground than that what is not now a fact never could have 

 been. In other words, if Mr. Connelly learns little or 

 nothing about fish and fishing in the Potomac in this 

 time, Washington could have known nothing of them in 

 his! What Mr. Connellv did not find at Alexandria, in 

 his brief sojourn, in 1887, Washington could not have 

 known in almost a lifetime spent on the same stream in 

 the previous century. 



And as if this were not enough, this audacious and 

 logical correspondent goes on to assert as facts what every 

 one else, even in Alexandria, must know to be false; for 

 Mr. Connelly seemed to have heard of bass fishing at Oc- 

 coquan Falls and above them and only a short distance 

 below Alexandria. Bass are even occasionally caught in 

 Hunting Creek, still nearer that city. (If this be doubted, 

 let Mr. Connelly consult Mr. Moore, of Alexandria, as to 

 his experience last season.) 



Mr. Connelly asserts there are no carp here! He does 

 not know that monster carp are caught opposite Wash- 

 ington and below, the season through. To be sure, they 

 are not yet so abundant as herring sometimes are in a 

 barrel, but they are sufficiently numerous to induce fish- 

 ing for them , and are increasing rapidly. 



Another astonishing error of your correspondent is due 

 to his ignorance of the fact that the so-called "tailors" 

 are nothing less than the renowned bluefish. Yet he says 

 they and "spots" are "tolerable pan-fish, in the taking of 

 which no real angler can find any sport". It will be a 

 mild surprise to fish epicures to learn that spots and blue- 

 fish are only "tolerable" to the palate, and to anglers that 

 catching the latter is no "sport"! 



Mr. Connelly evidently never went down the river at 

 all to fish for "tailors" nor sheepshead, nor drum, nor, 

 indeed, anything else, yet these and other kinds of fish 

 are caught, in season, in large numbers, in the brackish 

 water of the Potomac, and anglers from the capital and 

 Baltimore resort to Piney Point, Leonardtown, and vari- 

 ous other places to catcli them. I must even confess 

 that, for one, I enjoy rod fishing for "spots" (Cape May 

 goodies, -as they are called along the Jersey coast), for 

 they bite quickly and warily and pull hard when hooked . 

 Nor am I so aristocratic as, like Mr. Connelly, to despise 

 good perch fishing. And in a creek not far from Alex- 

 andria, I can any day find him half-pounders, white and 

 yellow— often "two at a time"— till his arms ache from 

 the labor of pulling them in. Perch fishing has indeed its 

 advantages, among which I reckon these; first, that it 



second, that one is almost always sure of reasonable suc- 

 cess, which can not so often be said of most other kinds 

 of fishing. 



We are sorry— very sorry— Mr. Connelly did not fall in 

 Jove with our dear "Potomac herring"! but even went so 

 far as to throw big Latin names at him! Now I have an 

 ichthyological dictionary and the U. S. Fisheries Reports 

 at my right hand; but I will not descend to Latin when 

 I mean a simple, ordinary herring! Whatever his faults, 

 herring shall be at least kindly addressed by his ordinary 

 title, for I'm not sure he ever had a dictionary in which 

 to hunt up any others. We are all of us weeping also 

 over the mud in the Potomac, and pray for the day when 

 there shall be feAv "big rains," and the big steam dredges 

 shall stop stirring up the river bottom in the process of 

 improving the "flats" opposite the capital. We also be- 

 moan the "shoaling" of the Potomac, and especiallv that 

 the ancient port of Bladensburg is closed to East India- 

 men and other vessels like the Great Eastern; but when 

 it comes to the nets set for over 100 miles, from Alexan- 

 dria to Pt. Loukout, we fairly rage and gnash our teeth! 

 But then, if, as Mr. Connelly would have us believe, there 

 are few fish and "no decent fishing in the Potomac," 

 what in the name of Izaak Walton and the truth are all 

 those nets set for? Do men set nets for fun? In our 

 ignorance we had always supposed it was for fish! But 



Washington, D. C, March 3, 1888. 



— 7^ 



DIAMOND POND AND SUNAPEE TROOT. 



f "\ H ARLESTO WN , N. H., Feb. 25.- Editor Forest and 

 Stream : The letter of "C. D. C." in Forest and 

 Stream of Feb. 18, comes in very apropos with my letter 

 which precedes it, I was not aware that both redand. whte- 

 fleshed trout were taken in the Diamond Ponds, having 

 never taken any of the white-fleshed variety myself, but 

 as I have said, I have never taken any in the Upper Pond 

 or "Little, Diamond," as it is called. 



The last time I was there, three years ago, was on the 

 4th of July, and I then whipped the Upper Pond without 

 success for three hours, early in the morning, with a com- 

 panion, who is a well-known expert with the rod, but 

 neither of us got a rise. My friend had taken some very 

 large trout the week previous, with the fly. The outlines 

 of one of which, which weighed 2£lbs., I saw on a piece 

 of birch bark. 



He got disgusted at our want of luck, and started 

 through Dixville Notch, for the "Middle Dam," while I 

 went down to the Lower Pond, and caught a fine basket- 

 ful of the red-fleshed trout, or "bluebacks," as I think 

 them, with bait, in about ten feet of water. 



I never thought to inquire if the large trout of the 

 Upper Pond were in any way different from those of the 

 lower one, which I have taken with both fly and bait. 

 Those with the fly being usually taken about sunset, near 

 the shores, but I have never seen any difference in those 

 I have caught. Now I have always supposed that the 

 color of the flesh was influenced materially by the food, 

 but if. as Mr. Chase says, he has taken both varieties in 

 the same waters, it goes to indicate the existence of two 

 entirely distinct species. The flesh of the red variety is 

 not a salmon color, but a full deep red, like a raw beef- 

 steak, and answers to the European .charr. 



Possibly Mr. W. C. Prime, who speaks of Diamond 

 Ponds in ids delightful book, "I Go A-Fishing," may throw 

 some light on the matter. Should I be able to go to the 

 Diamonds this summer, I will send specimens to Dr. Bean 

 for analyzation, and I wish Mr, Chase would do so, as he 

 is much nearer the ponds thau I am. and may be able to 

 control his time, so as to hit the proper season, more cer- 

 tainly than I can. I have always been too late or too 

 early for the Upper Pond. Should these two co-existent 

 varieties be proved, it is in favor of the theory of two 

 long-established varieties in Sunapee, but at the same time 

 I do not feel convinced yet, mainly from the very great 

 differences, not only in color but in" conformation, which 

 are reported in the case of the Sunapee "conundrum," 

 and which look much more like a hybrid than an original 

 variety. 



My first acquaintance with a Sunapee trout was far 

 more than fifty years ago, when a 31b. specimen was sent 

 to my father while I was getting my early education at 

 brook-trout fishing in the neighboring streams, and I well 

 remember my juvenile astonishmeat at the sight of a 

 trout of such gigantic and unprecedented size. 



The first time I ever visited the lake to fish was about 

 1844, when, being at home on my summer vacation, I 

 joined a party of young folks who went out to the lake 

 on a three-days' fishing and picnicking excursion, under 

 the pilotage of the late Edmund Burke, of Newport, N.H., 

 then Commissioner of Patents. 



We were told on reaching the lake that we were too 

 late for the trout, which could only be taken with long 

 lines in deep water, and had to content ourselves with 

 catching perch near the shores. 



The stock of trout had got very much reduced twenty 

 years since by constant netting, clubbing, and shooting 

 on the spawning beds, and Dr. Fletcher, of Concord, who 

 was then Fish Commissioner, caught the "black bass 

 fever," and stocked the lake with bass, which he caught 

 in Lake Champlain, and brought over. Luckily for the 

 trout, he had the wisdom to stock it the same time with 

 fresh-water smelt from Lake Winnepesaukee, and the 

 latter have furnished ample food for both, even if their 

 habits were not so different — the trout taking to deep 

 water when the bass come up into the shallows, and 

 the latter being quiescent in the spawning season of the 

 trout. When Mr. A. H. Powers and myself were ap- 

 pointed Fish Commissioners in 1876, both of us being 

 natives of Sidlivan county, and he then living at Grant- 

 ham, close to the upper end of the lake, our first 

 thought was to stock the lake, as a natural trout water, 

 with landlocked salmon, which we immediately began 

 to do, and in '78 or '9, having an offer from Commissioner 

 Stanley, of Maine, of 25,000 "blueback" eggs, we at 

 once accepted the proposition, hatched the eggs at Ply- 

 mouth, and placed 10,000 (I think) of the young fry in 

 Sunapee. 



Now, if this plant was moderately successful, it has fur- 

 nished a pretty good basis for the new variety, and if the 

 new fish has not developed from these, there is still the 



possibility, as suggested by Dr. Quackenbos, and men- 

 tioned in my last, of a hybrid between the male trout and 

 takes little time and money to reach the ground, and, J the female salmon; selecting this mode of statement, in- 



