Apb.il 20, 1888.J 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



273 



WHERE IS THE REMEDY? 



HOW frequently the very persons whom one would 

 think should be the most interested in protecting 

 the trout are those who are the immediate cause of their 

 destruction. 



In Delaware county, N. Y.. there is a brook that is 

 about perfection for trout, and, were it not for the many 

 natural safeguards which surround it, it never could have 

 withstood the continuous and outrageous abuse it has 

 undergone each spring for several years past and have 

 any fish left. I remember when in an hour's casting one 

 could almost fill a 121b. creel with tish that would average 

 nearly fib., but now nothing but fingerlings are to be had. 

 This is how the end has be n attained: As but a small 

 proportion of the inhabitants living on or near a stream 

 of this kind are in any way so fixed that they can accom- 

 modate strangers for any length of time in even ordinary 

 comfort, it naturally falls to the lot of these few to enter- 

 tain the angler when he comes then way. They imme- 

 diately become the envy of those whose worldly goods 

 do not offer the same advantages, and the result is that 

 a dog-in-the-manger feeling prevails. Visitors suffer in 

 consequence. Now, the moment the law is up the dis- 

 appointed ones go to the stream and catch everything 

 they can, and in an} 7 manner that best serves their pur- 

 pose, so that in a couple of days there is hardly a trout 

 to ^e had worth saving. This method of destruction is 

 practicea in order to prevent those city chaps front hav- 

 ing any sport, and consequently they debar their better- 

 circumstanced neighbors from getting the dollars from 

 those chaps in the future. Their success is generally 

 complete, and as the size of the catch is only limited by 

 the immediate supply, they have a pleasant and inexpen- 

 sive way of getting square. Of course, the six-inch law 

 was not made for them, and they care as little for it as if 

 it were not on the books, knowing full well that it will 

 not be enforced against them. 



There is, however, a still greater evil than that, as it 

 means utter extermination of the trout. I refer to the 

 pickerel fiend, that lout who, from selfishness or some 

 supposed grievance, will deliberately put pickerel in a 

 trout lake, knowing full well the consequences that ine- 

 vitably must ensue. He starts on his evil mission like a 

 thief in the night and commits the diabolical act unseen 

 by any one, and were it not for his tongue, might remain 

 unsuspected. It may be a month, or a year, before the 

 damage that has been done is discovered, but by putting 

 this and that together, you conclude that such a man is 

 the culprit, and the chances are that you have hit upon 

 the right one, but the proof! How are you to get that? 

 The deed is done, and you are without redress. I have 

 in mind two instances where this outrage has been per- 

 petrated. It is sickening to think what will become of a 

 beautiful and well-stocked lake in a couple of years. The 

 spawning grounds at the outlet are yearly so thick with 

 fine fish that they can be counted by the hundred at a 

 time. Some of the most beautifully-marked and best- 

 conditioned pound and a half trout to be found in the 

 State have been taken from this lake. There are many 

 there yet, but how long will that last with those fresh- 

 water" pirates introduced? As an instance of how pro- 

 lific the waters have been, the owner related how two 

 gentlemen, without moving their boat from the spot 

 w here it was first anchored, caught nearly seventy fine 

 trout on the fly between 4 P. M. and dark, one afternoon 

 in the early part of May, a couple of years since. Judg- 

 ing from the hundreds that I have seen breaking in an 

 afternoon, I do not hesitate to believe his statement. 

 I still hope this spring to have one more try at them, and 

 expect it will be the last. 



Of what use is all the law in the world in such cases? 

 The millennium is yet very, very far away, or man would 

 be less selfish and spiteful than he is, so we probably 

 must content ourselves with things as we find them. To 

 remedy such an evil requires something very radical 

 indeed'. Can any of your readers suggest a practical 

 way out of the difficulty? Big Reel. 



MAINE FISHING WATERS. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



The fishing for trout and salmon in Maine is near at 

 hand, and although in this vicinity there is yet three feet 

 of snow, and the lakes and streams are blocked with ice, 

 yet I think the season bids fair to be as early as usual. 

 The ground is pretty fi ee from frost, and a few warm 

 days will settle the snow and ice. Thinking that it may 

 interest some of your readers and lovers of the rod and 

 line unacquainted with the localities where good fishing 

 may be had, and being a lover of the art myself and not 

 desiring to possess the whole world, but willing to 3hare 

 with a brother of the craft, I take this opportunity of 

 giving through the columns of your paper some of the 

 best fishing resorts in Maine, and the seasons of the year 

 most favorable for success. 



First comes the salmon fishing at Bangor, which usually 

 begins about the 1st of May and continues through June, 

 May being the best month. The fish run from 10 to 301bs. 

 These waters are located within the limits of the city of 

 Bangor, below the water works dam . It is in very rough, 

 rapid water, and the bed rises and falls about 8ft. The 

 fish are fresh run from the sea, and are very strong and 

 vigorous. All are caught with fly. 



Next comes the landlocked salmon fishing at Sebago 

 Lake, which is good as soon as the ice is out, usually 

 about May 1 , and lasts till into June. They are caught by 

 trolling near the mouth of Songo River, and the fish run 

 from 4 to 161bs., but I have seen them up to 251bs. The 

 large fish are seldom caught with hook and line. We 

 also get some brook trout there from 1 to 41bs. Neither 

 are very plenty. 



Next come Moosehead and Rangeley lakes. These are 

 usually clear of ice about the middle of May. From then 

 till June the fish are mostly taken by trolling; later with 

 a fly. Landlocked salmon are also becoming quite plenty 

 in the Upper Rangeley, and run in size about the same 

 as trout. At Moosehead the trout run from 1 to olbs. 

 In this lake are also togue or lake trout, from 3 to 201bs. , 

 also whitefish. All are caught with hook and line. 



In the vicinity of the Rangeleys are Kennehago, Par- 

 machene lakes, Seven Pords and many other small ponds, 

 where plenty of small trout from £ to 21bs. can be caught 

 at any time during the open season. All the places are 

 on the direct route via Rangeley, via Phillips and Farm- 

 ington. Weld Pond is another in Franklin county, twelve 

 miles from Phillips or Wiiton on the M. 0, R. R. In this 

 we get trout 1 to 41b*., salmon 2 to 61ba. ; also plenty of 



pickerel are caught by trolling and with fly. There are 

 many other small ponds too numerous to mention, of 

 which I shall be happy to give any one unacquainted 

 with Maine waters any information I am able. At all of 

 these places I have mentioned good accommodations can 

 be had and at reasonable rates. Henry O. Stanley. 

 Dix field, Me. 



Jefferson County Net Brix, — April 20.— Editor 

 Forest and Stream: Under the heading "A Bad Bill,'" 

 you call attention to Assembly Bill No. 722, introduced 

 by Assemblyman Comstock of Jefferson county, and state 

 that it is in your opinion a bad bill and should not be- 

 come a law. It gives me a great deal of pleasure to be 

 able to assure you that happily there is no danger that 

 it will become a law. It lias been recommitted to the 

 game law committe, and probably will never emerge 

 from it.. Any law which allows net fishing in the St. 

 Lawrence River, is a bad law. The Anglers' Association 

 of the St. Lawrence River, of which Mr. W. W. Bying- 

 ton is president, was organized about six years ago for 

 the purpose of enforcing the game law of the State and 

 preventing net fishing in the St. Lawrence River. It 

 secured a membership of about three hundred persons, 

 each paying $5 a, year; with the money derived from 

 membership it lias hired game protectors to patrol the 

 river, seizing and destroying the nets wherever found. A 

 great many nets have been seized and destroyed, some 

 of them very valuable ones. When the organization was 

 first foimied, there were scarcely enough fish left in the 

 river to restock it. To-day. the fishing is as good as any 

 one could reasonably desire. One year's netting would 

 destroy the labors of the past six years. Thousands of 

 people now visit the river every season with great plea- 

 sure and profit, and a number of hotels and cottages 

 have been erected. The summer residents pay a large 

 sum yearly to Jefferson county for taxes, they furnish a 

 home market at New York city prices for all the pro- 

 duce the Jefferson county farmers can raise, and they 

 employ several hundred Jefferson county men and 

 women as oarsmen and house workers, and yet Bill No. 

 722 emanated from Jefferson county. The St. Law- 

 rence River is probably safe for this year, but it won't do to 

 forget that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."— C. 



The Bait Question.— Some, time ago we published an 

 account of the Roosen process of preserving bait, mainly 

 intended for the commercial fisheries, and said that trials 

 would be made soon. On Monday last two casks were 

 opened in the warehouse of Mr. E. G. Blackford, New 

 York city. Mr. Schultze, the agent in charge, who came 

 to this country to introduce the process, had invited sev- 

 eral gentlemen to be present and Dr. J. H. Kidder of the 

 National Museum; Cant. J. W. Collins, of the U. S. Fish 

 Commission: Mr. A. R. Kidder, of New York, and Mr. 

 Fred Mather were present. Mr. Blackford ordered the 

 cask, which was sealed in New York on Feb. 24, to be 

 opened first, and several medium-sized cod were taken 

 from it in apparently fair condition and were sent to 

 Commissioner McDonald, in Washington, to be cooked. 

 The other cask contained herrings, packed in Sweden 

 last February, which were spoiled. If this method can 

 be made perf ectly successful it will be of great benefit to 

 the ocean fishermen, whose bait often spoils, involving 

 much expense. 



William Mills & Son. — We have the catalogue and 

 price list of this well know firm of fishing tackle dealers, 

 for 1888. It opens with a chapter on fishing by Henry 

 Guy Carleton, the humorist, who deals with the subject 

 in a view which differs somewhat from that of Izaak 

 Walton. The catalogue is quite an extensive one and 

 contains a few novelties. It is sent on receipt of ten 

 cents, and is well worth it. 



Floating Flies. — We have just seen some fine speci- 

 mens of floating flies, made ' by Kewell Bros, of San 

 Francisco, whose advertisement appears in another 

 column. These flies are intended for use dry, a mode of 

 angling that wili no doubt soon find favor in this 

 country, especially where the trout are educated and 

 shy. 



^iBliculinn. 



REMOVAL. 



Tlia offices of Forest and Stream are now at No. 318 Broadway. 



Every person who it sufficiently interested in the National 

 Park to do his share toward securing protection for it, is in- 

 vited to send for one of the Forest and Stream's petition 

 blanks. They are sent free. 



THE MENHADEN QUESTION. 



POSSIBLY because the Foukst and Strkam and Com- 

 missioner McDonald also think the menhaden spawn 

 in the bays, Captain Church dealt leniently with me. Who 

 knows what he might have said had he found me in less re- 

 liable company? He says they spawn at sea: is this from 

 actual observation or on the supposition that because they 

 go south full of spawn it necessarily follows that they must 

 spawn at sea? The doubt he wishes to east upon the idea 

 that these fisb spawn in the bays, seems more applicable to 

 his statement of the case, when we consider the great diffi- 

 culties attending an ocular demonstration of his theory. If 

 they do not spawn on the nearby coast, which he has far 

 from proven, where do the myriads of small fish come from 

 of an inch and a half to two inches in length that we rind in 

 the bays? 



To quote Capt. Church; "'Big Reel' makes a statement 

 in regard to Spanish mackerel which carries its own refuta- 

 tion, for men don't give away 25 fish worth a dollar each, 

 etc." Now it does nothing of the kind, simply because those 

 very Spanish mackerel were a gift, and this is quite capable 

 of proof still. There may possibly have been a moral pay- 

 ment made, in the shape of some sort of a promise, but as 

 Capt. Church only refers to dollars we will not go any i'ur- 

 the into what the reasons for the promise were. The ques- 

 tion as to whether these steamers take Spanish mackerel or 

 other food fish for fertilizing purposes is best left for others 

 to decide. Accurate information, stripped of all personal 

 interest, is as much needed now as it ever has been in order 

 to decide that question. This leads us to inquire what was 

 done with the balance of the cftch of Spanish mackerel, 

 weakfish, etc., to which I referred in my letter of March 12 

 last, Were they taken to market? Let u« see. The steamer 

 in question, after completing the haul went southward, 

 Now as Fulton Market (which wss* the nearest is iv, a di- 



rectly opposite direction, was it not alittle singular that they 

 should take that course, when any one else would have made 

 the best time possible the other way, in order that the fish 

 might remain fresh long enough to be marketable. Is the 

 hold of a •'bunkerman" the best place to keep fish fresh? 

 and as we are asked to believe so much about this question 

 in general, from the company's standpoint, it is not an im- 

 possibility that some interested person will rise and tell us 

 that it is preferable to fresh sea water. And yet they do not 

 take food fish for fertilizing purposes! 



1 am nobody's champion, but do want to see a proper re- 

 striction put upon this method of wholesale destruction, and 

 although the lane may be a very long one, we must in the 

 end come to the turning. Big Reel, 



Editor Forest and .Stream: 



I had concluded when sending you an article which ap- 

 peared in your paper of the 22d ultimo, to refrain from fur- 

 ther trespass on your columns on this subject. The effront 

 ery evidenced in his article in the current issue of Forest 

 and Stream, by your correspondent, Capt. Church, I can- 

 not let pass unnoticed, If I interpret his somewhat obscure 

 periods aright, he concedes to your readers no greater intel 

 ligence than he manifests in his article. He avows that he 

 is the champion of "fin fishing," meaning, I take it, of the 

 fraternity of menhaden oilmen. He, then, voices the senti- 

 ments of that class of men. 



In this article he writes: " 'Big Reel' says the bays are the 

 natural spawning places of the menhaden, which is amis- 

 take * * * they spawn in the open sea in winter." Are 

 these words written in jest? If they are not, I challenge 

 him to harmonize them with his reply to the question pro- 

 pounded by Prof. Goode in 1873: "Where do these fish 

 spawn and when?" Answer: "f know they spawn on Nar- 

 ragansett Bay." I say, out on such inconsistencies. His 

 knowledge on this point, indicated in his answer to the 

 above question, is supported by the answers of many of his 

 associates. The Hawkins Brothers: "In heads of bay's in the 

 spring." Benj. F. Brightman: "In all the inland waters 

 and rivers * * * in Narragansett Bay, in May." Geo.W. 

 Miles: "Along the shores and rivers." David F. Vail: "At 

 the heads of bays generally." Others, not in the oil busi- 

 ness, answered this question. Capt. F. J. Babson: "Chesa- 

 peake Bay, Long Island Sound and the waters adjoining." 

 Capt. Benj. H. Sisson: "The old fish go stealthily into all 

 the shoal water and bays, deposit their spawn and milt." 

 Capt. John Washington; "In the brackish waters of all the 

 rivers and coves." 



I ask Capt. Church when he changed his views as to the 

 location otthe spawning grounds of the menhaden? I ask 

 him to indicate the consistency between his present state- 

 ment and that of the past, and of those of the gentlemen 

 cited? In answer to a similar question Capt. Chiireh is on 

 record in this wise: "But we have abundant evidence that 

 they do spawn in this bay from the fact that often we take 

 in our nets bushels of their spawn." It is true that men- 

 haden do spawn, in part, at places other than those enumer- 

 ated, but that fact affords no pretext for Capt, Church's 

 denial of facts known by himself and others. 



Capt. Church's attempt to discredit his own answer to 

 Question 32 is a failure. Every one knows that menhaden 

 in the form of chum or on the hook are bait and nothing 

 else. It is useless to bandy phrases on that point. The 

 Captain, however, in answering the question, "To what ex- 

 tent do they (menhaden) suffer from the attacks of other 

 fish?" etc., used the words, "They are the bait or food of 

 most every fish." it is fair to presume, advisedly, and in 

 appreciation of what was required to answer a question 

 whose meaning, to wit. What other fish eat or feed on them? 

 was clear. 



I quote again from the Captain's article! "Bank- and 

 shore fishermen who fish for halibut, cod and haddock, use 

 large quantities of menhaden, neither of which are ever 

 seen in company feeding on live menhaden. If they con- 

 sumed yearly five thousand barrels of that fish by having it 

 fed to them by the fishermen, is it food or bait?" 1 think I 

 have succeeded in gathering from that statement the inten- 

 tion to convey the impression that halibut, cod and haddock 

 take menhaden only when presented to them as bait. If I 

 am right, I also ask him to explain his recorded words touch- 

 ing this point: "Codfish also catch them." 



I object to Capt. Church's assuming anything as to whatl 

 think on this or that matter. It is sufficient to consult 

 your columns for my views expressed therein. I thought 

 Capt. Church's views relative, to the abundance of food 

 fishes were wholly centered in the man and boy from Wood's 

 Holl. He again quotes the man, but leaves out the boy. I 

 was mistaken, however, for on reading on I found he doled 

 out something like SOU striped bass to the anglers of the 

 West Island Club in 1887. Whew! Mr. Editor, you may go 

 down into my pasture next summer and pick 800 huckle- 

 berries: I'll give them to you gladly. Let us see how this 

 lavish supply pans out. The first bass taken last season at 

 West Island was a 22-pounder, by Mr. D. B. Fearing, on 

 June 24. It is safe to presume that fishing was prosecuted 

 on the island for 80 days during the season. The result of 

 computation would give au average of ten bass per day. I 

 will not attempt to figure the fraction of a fish that thus fell 

 to the lot of the West Island anglers, per day, in 1887. 



Dear sir, twenty-five years since it was no uncommon 

 thing for fishermen on the rocks at Newport to catch their 

 weight in striped bass at a single fishing. This evidence as 

 to abundance of food fishes looks very much like proof of 

 their paucity. 



We will lay by in some c onvenient place these 800 bass, 

 together with the man and boy from Wood's Holl to be 

 further added to, probably in proof of the abundance of 

 food fishes. 



Note well this truism of Prof. Goode: "When he brings 

 upon his table bluefish, bonitas, weakfish, swordflsh or bass, 

 he has before him usually menhaden in another form." Is 

 this also a mistake? Now, if the presence of menhaden was, 

 so far as research could discover, disconnected from and 

 without bearing on the supply of food fishes, the operations 

 of the oil men would not to-day be the subject of inquiry or 

 discussion. 



The opposite conditions obtaining, however, these opera- 

 tions are broughtinto prominence with peculiar significance. 

 They are sui generis, and are sapping the life from a great 

 economical resource and disturbing the harmony of nature. 



Cant. Church quotes a statement of mine, that "my aim is 

 and nas been to avoid misstatements, and to so write as 

 neither to mislead, misinform nor mystify," etc., and adds 

 that this has also been his desire and intention. How near 

 has he come to fulfilling his desire? He has sought to con- 

 vey the impression that bluefish do not feed on menhaden; 

 he'has stated that they do. He has stated that menhaden 

 are rarely found in the stomachs of food fishes, and that 

 they are not the food of food fishes; also, that they are the 

 bait or food of every fish. He has sought to lead your read- 

 ers to the. belief that menhaden do not spawn in the bays, 

 and has stated that he knows and can prove that they do. 

 He has stated thatfood fishes arenotfound among schools of 

 menhaden and that they are. He has stated that cod is 

 never seen feeding on menhaden, and that codfish also catch 

 them. 



This conflict of views, or change of front, is not of long 

 standing. Prof. Goode, referring to the circular of inquiry 

 of 1873. stated that "there being no ulterior object, such as 

 future legislation," the answers thereto were without inten- 

 tional misrepresentation. Perhaps the changed condition 

 of affairs is responsible for these recent asseverations. 



ABTHTTTf MARTIN: 



WASSrfr&xoif. D, 0,) April 14 



