July 5, 1888.J 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



477 



There were many hours of fairly suitable weather that 

 were spent in idleness, for it did not pay to waste them 

 on either Jock's Lake or Jones's— both magnificent sheets 

 of trout water, which should have given us all we wanted 

 to do. But the party with the butter tubs was the only 

 one that could get trout out of them; and that party, it is 

 Currently thought, had only the one butter tub full that I 

 saw, but several more: and for many years the same 

 party has enjoyed the same success, sending out from one 

 tub to a dozen of solid meat trout. Members of this party 

 go out from the camp at early daylight, return in a 

 couple of hours with many pounds. They disclaim the 

 use of set-lines, baited traps and gill nets, but before net- 

 ting and fishing through ice became illegal, during the 

 times when Jock's Lake had no inhabitants on its shores, 

 this party made no secret as to its methods. Now they 

 claim that the nets which they are known to have are to 

 catch minnows for bait, their buoys for lake trout. 



There is no doubt in the mind of any one who lives in 

 this locality, but little, if any, in that of visitors', that 

 Jock's Lake and Jones's are being systematically netted 

 and "skinned" of their trout. Unless some steps are 

 taken to prevent, the time is soon coming when they will 

 cease to be trout lakes. 



The game constable I have never met, but common 

 report says that he is too old and infirm to prove a source 

 of danger to those disposed to violate the la w. 



Mr. Barber has made an attempt to restock the lake, 

 putting in some 8,000 fry, but he had little hopes of suc- 

 cess, inasmuch as a large proportion of the fry furnished 

 him were, he says, so very young that many had not as 

 yet gotten rid of the sac. 



There are numbers of moneyed men who are buildin g 

 private camps on these lakes: unles they, by concerted 

 effort, stop illegal and destructive fishing and'thoroughly 

 restock these waters, the tide of fisherman travel to Jock's 

 Lake will cease. 



The many comforts and conveniences there furnished 

 to us — and I do not remember of a place in the Adiron- 

 dacks where in every respect there exists so perfect a 

 combination as at the' Forest Lodge— will have but little 

 power to draw when we can get no good fishing without 

 further journey into the wilderness. 



If there were reasonable chance that an hour or two in 

 the morning or evening spent on the lake would give a 

 man even one such trout as my one evening secured to me, 

 manv would, contented with the comforts for the rest of 

 the day, go often and stay long. Otherwise they will be 

 apt to seek further. Piseco, 



P. S. — I did not see, hear or feel a niosquitonor punkie: 

 saw but few flies, and was troubled very little by them. 



A WEEK WITH THE TROUT. 



JOHN had written us that the 30th was the date. That 

 is he had entered into a contract with certain of the 

 larger Cranberry Lake trout to run up the inlet, gamj r 

 and hungry at that time, and we were to be there ready 

 for them. 



Our party was not strong numerically, but in brain and 

 tongue pow-er it was, being composed entirely from the 

 bar. The Prophet, ex-City Attorney, small but wiry, 

 the Asst. District Attorney, thin and sarcastic, and a 

 homely, partially bald, plain lawyer, not prepossessing in 

 appearance, but bad for fish. 



Leaving home on Saturday, at noon of Sunday we 

 were at Fine, St. Lawrence county, where John Ward, 

 one of the oldest and most reliable guides in that section, 

 waited with horses to cany us to Star Lake and Walker's, 

 the last house on the road in. A cold, drizzling rain 

 threatened the return of a winter already nearly nine 

 months long as we started, but we pushed on, and after 

 a hearty meal at the Star 1 Aike House and the transfer of 

 our baggage at Walkers to a heavy lumber wagon, we 

 were soon footing it through the aisles of the forest 

 primeval the five miles that yet remained of our journey 

 to the inlet. 



The trees, although yet only in the bud, were already 

 listening to the soft voice of coming spring; the after- 

 noon, whether caught in the wet meshes of the network 

 of rain or shot through by the golden arrows of slanting 

 sunlight that send-occasionally- forced their flight through 

 the clouds overhead, was the promise of fairer days to 

 come, and released from legal bent our minds were buoy- 

 ant as those of boys, our legs springy as a hound's, and 

 our voices vied with the early robin and jay. 



The walk was just enough for an appetizer, and at six 

 o'clock we emerged on the inlet at Sternberg's hospitable 

 cabin more than ready for the fried trout, hot bread and 

 maple syrup that awaited us. Perhaps the occasional 

 imprint of a small slirn shoe seen in the soft spots of the 

 wood's trail we had traversed had to do with it, but be- 

 fore the pipes of the older fishermen had fairly begun to 

 glow after supper the A. D. A. (Asst.-Dist. Atty.) had 

 found young ladies, the daughters of the house, and 

 made their acquaintance over the melodeon. I cannot 

 blame the young people. He was not handsome, but had 

 a good voice, and the girls were both exceedingly 

 pleasant. 



We found two other fishermen on the ground, but with 

 clouded faces. The trout had not begun to run ; it was 

 too early, and they were bound for Gull Pond the next 

 morning. There at least creels could be filled, while here 

 on the inlet fishing was a waste of time. 



We listened to their reports with sobered minds, but; — 

 we had been trouting before, and determined to know 

 for ourselves the outcome of the inlet. There were two 

 miles of glorious rapids and big fish there if only they 

 might be caught. 



Clean beds and quiet consciences gave us such rest as 

 only comes to those who are so blessed, and when we 

 broke the ice to wash in the morning — for ice formed 

 half an inch thick that night— it was in the glad sunlight 

 of a glorious day, and our friends of the night before half 

 regretted their move to the pond. However, they were 

 soon off, and we, after such a breakfast as might reason- 

 ably do for three meals, shouldered our baskets and rods 

 and started down stream. 



i ' Simply to live in this ah- is a delight," said the Pro- 

 phet as he trugged sturdily onward, "the glory of life is 

 good health and ." 



"A full pocket-book," suggested the A. D. A, striding 

 behind. " The two give me a glimpse of Paradise." 



The plain lawyer only sighed. 



Three-fourthsof a mile from the house we reached the 

 head of the rapids, and rods were joiuted, lines stretched 

 and the fishing soon began, 



It may be that yea rs of varied experience had taught 

 us how and where to take the finny prey with more cer- 

 tainly than our friends who had deserted the stream the 

 day before ; at least certain it is that when at noon we 

 met to rest and discuss the substantial lunch John had in 

 his basket our creels were reasonably well filled, and 

 that when the sun touched the western treetops and we 

 '•lit out" for home we had ninety-eight haudsome fish to 

 show for the day's sport. None of them were very large, 

 however, not exceeding half a pound in weight, and we 

 decided to try new ground, or water, for a day or two, 

 and return to the inlet later in the week. Consequently, 

 on Tuesday morning we embarked in two boats with 

 blankets and provisions for a camp, and having added 

 another guide to our party started up stream on the trip 

 to Buck Pond. 



At about eleven o'clock, after a delightful paddle— de- 

 lightful to us, paddle to the guides— of some eight miles 

 we landed at Griffin's crossing, so-called, cooked and ate 

 our dinner, and hiding one boat our guide took the other 

 •'woods fashion" on his head, we divided the remainder 

 of the duffle between us and started over a three-mile 

 trad to the xiond. 



There is one oddity about timber distances that has 

 always impressed me. Evidently the measurements are 

 made either by the eye when the brain is asleep and can- 

 not assist, or the chain is stretched by the birds high 

 above all hills and valleys, underbrush, slashings and 

 windfalls and with no account of the extra steps required 

 to surround a dead tree that has fallen across tho trad, or 

 to force one's passage through an abattis that the winter 

 storms have made. The three-mile tramp to Buck Pond 

 was declared by the plain lawyer to be fully four and one 

 half miles, by the Prophet put at five, by the A. D. A. at 

 seven, by the guide without the boat at "the toughest 

 trad he had ever crossed," and by the guide with the 

 boat on his head— at simply three miles ! But judging 

 from our own experience, had we toted that boat it would 

 have been equal to the journey from Albany to New York 

 by land. 



John said we scared some deer from a beech ridge we 

 crossed. If our crashing and stumbling, tumbling and 

 groaning did not scare all the bears into the neighboring 

 counties it was because they couldn't be scared. At half- 

 past three we found Buck Pond, and, after a needed 

 breathing space, leaving John to build an open shanty or 

 " lean-to" for camp, two of us took the boat and two 

 others a raft and sought at once to try the fishing. 



The A. D. A. and the homely lawyer took the raft, and 

 after pulling it with much waste of muscle and some ex- 

 tremely illegal expressions to a spot— simply a spot — near 

 the center of the pond, began to fish. For twenty 

 minutes no success, then with a start the A. D. A. took 

 out a quarter-pounder and his companion followed suit, 

 and. in forty minutes the pair had captured forty fish 

 almost of a size. Then as suddenly as it began the sport 

 ceased. Flies were tried with sparing success, and both 

 men were about to seek the shore when it became ap- 

 parent that the raft, unsettled as it had been from the 

 moment of embarcation, had at length decided that its 

 day was past and had begun in a slow, water-logged, but 

 exceedingly sure fashion" to go to pieces ! 



For a moment the horror of the situation held both 

 voyagers speechless, then the deep bellow of the elder 

 lawyer and the fine tenor of his friend rang wildly over 

 the quiet surface of the pond. 



" Boat ahoy! we're sinking! " 



No response. 



" Boat ahoy! Come quick, our raft is going to pieces!" 



From the distant boat a single cry, the Prophet's voice, 

 " Take a log apiece and swim ashore! " 



"By Jove! If I can get out my pistol I'll shoot at him!" 

 said the plain man. 



"Don't! the recoil will sink us sure." begged the other. 

 "Call again," and call they did. At last, just as the 

 supreme moment had arrived and the raft was but a 

 mass of fioatwood practically held together by the 

 strained legs of the lawyers, the boat leisurely ap- 

 proached, and the Prophet inquired : 



" Had any luck?" 



" Get U3 ashore out of this," growled the A. D. A., " or 

 we capsize your boat! Don't you see we're sinking! " 



" 'Taint deep," murmured the Prophet, still he rescued 

 his brethren, and having fished to his own heart's content 

 we all returned to camp. 



John had a substantial " lean-to " erected large enough 

 to shelter half a dozen, with sufficient green birch cut to 

 last all night, and soon the cheery sizzle of the trout hi 

 the pan and coffee in the pot sounded in our ears. 



Supper means a great deal to men who had performed 

 the physical labor we had since dinner, and, although 

 some eighty pounds of trout had been taken from the 

 pond, the guides announced when we were through the 

 meal and had lit the meditative pipe that we had eaten 

 nearly a basket full of fish and would have to keep 

 steadily to our rods if we intended to eat as much at every 

 succeeding meal. 



Later the moon, round and yellow, rose and looked at 

 us through the treetops, and a hoot owl away on a dis- 

 tant hillside began to berate us for disturbing his solitude. 

 One after the other we replied to the feathered remon- 

 strant, but he would deign no call except in response to 

 the clear, high tones of the A. D. A., and we concluded 

 that the bird of night must recognize some hidden cama- 

 raderie expressed in the voice of our friend since he as 

 promptly sent his answeiing cry. 



"Both fond o' bein' out nights," suggested John, and 

 the conversation ceased. 



At ten we turned in, having piled the fire high with 

 green logs which crackled and sissed, then burned red 

 and white with intense heat. At two the homely lawyer 

 arose and replenished the heap, disturbed more by some 

 bad dream of uncollected fees than by lack of warmth, 

 his comrades said, and at five A. Mt the reveille was 

 sounded. 



An early breakfast with the golden rays of the morn- 

 ing sim gilding the trout pan and coffee pot, and the 

 Prophet, one guide and the restless lawyer took another 

 trail, a mile by word of mouth, two by leg, for Cage's 

 Lake in the hope to capture some of the large trout said 

 to harbor there. 



The morning was an effort on the part of spring to 

 overtake summer, warm and sunny. The trail wandered 

 up and down all the steepest hillsides and through the 

 roughest timber, and after an hour of positive work the 

 three fishermen stood sweltering on the shore of the lake. 



An old raft was discovered and taken possession of by 



the Prophet, while the lawyer and guide built a new one. 

 That is the lawyer oivd -engineered the guide, and the 

 guide budt. The fishing proved to be excellent, plenty of 

 water and great expectations, but owing to a cloudless 

 sky the catching was poor. At high noon three trout 

 weighing a little over a pouud each were the result, and 

 the "party left then- rafts, tramped steaming over the 

 trad, which had not shrunk or been straightened since 

 morning, and at two P. M. sat once more at the camp 

 table at the pond. 



The A. D. A. having varied his morning's sport with 

 hunting had treed a hedgehog, which, after vainly 

 trying to burn out he had anathematized and allowed to 

 escape. Dinner over the party shouldered boat, baskets 

 and packs and made the long carry back to the river. 

 Seven halts were ordered, and at each one the homely 

 man drank from some " thunderbrook," dry except dur- 

 ing the rainy season, and was refreshed. The rills of the 

 mountain beat the bills of the still every time as nature's 

 restorers, 



Arriving at the river the plain lawyer and a guide took 

 the light boat and rifle, and ran ahead hoping to see 

 something worthy a shot on the down trip. And they 

 did. 



Halfway back to Sternberg's the voyagers discovered a 

 fox snugly coded upon the bank evidently watching for 

 his evening meal. 



"Shoot him!" cried the lawyer, then filled with sud- 

 den valor, " I'll shoot him myself ! " he continued, and as 

 the boat drew toward the game, still silently watch dig- 

 its approach with his bright black eyes, the worthy at- 

 torney pulled his,82-cal'. Smith & Wesson, and at the dis- 

 tance of about fifteen feet fired point blank at reynard. 



The result was a cloud of dust, a tossing red brush, a 

 gone fox and an astonished hunter! He afterward ex- 

 plained that " the confounded boat hit the bank and 

 spoded his aim! " but his friends smiled. His skill with 

 the pistol was known of aforetime. 



A run of two hours through the silent evening tinged 

 with the glorious colors of a dying day down the wind- 

 ing river now rustling between banks fringed with reeds 

 and willows, now sweeping noiselessly through grand 

 avenues of forest with distant vistas of hemlock and pine 

 doubled in the silver and steel of the water at their feet, 

 and just as the full moon climbed the eastern sky and 

 poured her soft light upon the world the boats touched 

 shore again at the Sternberg cabin. 



The best ones of the party prayed that night for rain, 

 but it came not, and on Thursday morning we sallied 

 forth and spent a delightful day along the rapids. De- 

 lightful is that freedom which the office man finds in 

 out-of-door life and nature's changeful beauties, the 

 rustling woods, the brawling, foamy stream, the sunlit, 

 cloud-flecked sky; but our success was even less than on 

 Monday. The fish were indeed running up stream, but 

 only the minnows, suckers, shiners, and dace were in 

 any numbers. Each dark pool that contributed one or 

 more trout to our creels supplied as many dozen worth- 

 less fish to nibble the bait or tear the fly, and when night 

 came a beggarly show was the result, excepting one 

 beautiful Salvia fonfdnalis which weighed past l^lbs. 



On Friday therefore we determined to strike through 

 the woods by trail to the Oswagatchie, seven miles, and 

 try that water, reasonably thinking our luck could be no 

 worse. At early day we bade our host Sternberg fare- 

 well, leaving our heavier dunnage to be sent out by 

 horses to Fine, and with rods and creels started on the 

 long walk to the river. The air was warm and grew 

 warmer, but each horn' the woods had added to our en- 

 durance, and without great weariness we reached the 

 stream at about eleven o'clock,, and after lunch began 

 fishing. 



Soon we found that here too the lack of rain made the 

 sport poor, but we worked on as fishermen should, with 

 ' ' hope springing eternal " as we waded from pool to pool 

 until we came to the falls, a series of plunges which the 

 waters make over three benches of rock, each perhaps 

 twenty-five feet in height, and broken so as to render the 

 view exceedingly picturesque. It required some two 

 hours to work our way carefully by this portion of the 

 river, occasionally taking a dark trout from some pool, 

 and at six P. M. we at last reached the bridge, tired and 

 hungry, with light creels but lighter hearts, regretting 

 one fact only, that our outing was over. 



A ride of five miles brought us to Fine and early on 

 Saturday morning we drove twelve miles further to the 

 railroad. On our way wo enjoyed the unusual sight of a 

 deer feeding in the grassy levels in the open field, which 

 trotted quietly away as we approached. At eight A. M. 

 we took our train and at five P. M. w-ere once again in 

 the busy marts of trade, refreshed, renewed and ready 

 for the" daily struggle for bread ; yet with a green and 

 woodsy memory of that week put aside for enjoyment 

 over the evening pipe when winter winds do blow, 



F. E. H. 



ST. LAWRENCE BASS FISHING. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



As might easdy be imagined, the opinion handed down 

 by Judge WiUiams in regard to the seizure of nets in 

 Jefferson comity, the full text of which was printed in. 

 your paper of June 14, caused much concern among those 

 interested in preserving the excellent bass fishing that 

 has made the St. Lawrence River such a popular resort 

 for sportsmen. It was expected that the net fishermen 

 would take the decision as a license to go ahead with 

 their business, which was stopped some eight or ten years 

 ago. The fears of sportsmen in this regard have not been 

 realized. The fish protectors have been as vigilant as 

 ever and only a few nets have been found on the St. 

 Lawrence fishing grounds. Warrants for the arrest of 

 all those having nets set have been issued by Justice 

 Boreland, of this place, and the offenders have been given 

 to understand that the statute imposing penalties for fish- 

 ing with nets has not been declared unconstitutional by 

 Judge Williams, who refers only to that portion relating 

 to the summary seizure and destruction of property. 

 Some of the parties arrested have been discharged, it 

 having been found that they were fishing with sturgeon 

 nets, which, on account of the large mesh, would not take 

 bass or other game fish. Others have taken their nets 

 out of the river and have given had for future appearance 

 in court. There are now no nets in the river on the 

 American side between this place and Alexandria Bay 

 known to the protectors or any one else. 



Fishing is good. What is something remarkable for 

 this stream, the water this year is from two to three 



