Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Teems, $i a Year. 10 Cts. a Copt. I 

 Six Months, $2. f 



NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 29, 1887. 



I VOL. XXIX.-No. 10. 



I Nos. 39 & 10 Park Ro-w, New Vohk. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 

 The Forest akd Stream is rhe recognized medium of entertain- 

 ment, instruction and information between American sportsmen. 

 Communications on the subject to which its pages are devoted are 

 respectfully invited. Anonymous communications will not be re- 

 garded. No name will be published except with writer's consent. 

 The Editors are not responsible for the views of correspondents. 



AD VERTISEMENTS. 

 Only advertisements of an approved character inserted. Inside 

 pages, nonpareil type, 30 cents per line. Special rates for three, six, 

 and twelve months. Seven words to the line, twelve lines to one 

 inch. Advertisements should be sent in by Saturday previous to 

 issue in which they are to be inserted. Transient advertisements 

 must invariably be accompanied by the money or they will not be 

 inserted. Beading notices $1.00 per line. 



SUBSCRIPTIONS 

 May begin at any time. Subscription price, 84 per year; $2 for six 

 months; to a club of three annual subscribers, three copies for $10; 

 five copies for $16. Remit by express money-order, regi ered letter, 

 money-order, or draft, payable to the Forest and Stream Publishing 

 Company. The paper may be obtained of newsdealers throughout 

 the United States, Canadas and Great Britain. For sale by Davies 

 & Co., No. 1 Finch Lane, Cornhill, London. General subscription 

 agents for Great Britain. Messrs. Davies & Co., and Messrs. Samp- 

 son Low, Marston, Searles and Rivington, 188 Fleet street, London, 

 Eng. Foreign subscription price. $5 per year; $2.50 for six months. 

 Address all communications, 



JForest and Stream Pnbllshinq; Co. 

 Nos. 39 and 10 Park Row. New York City. 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



The Yacht Race. 



The Creedmoor Meeting. 



They Jigsed Them. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



In the Sa wtooth Range.— I. 



Adirondack Extortion. 

 Natural ±iistory. 



Black and Silver Foxes. 



Snakes and Stings. 



The Names of Birds. 



Habits of the Badger. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



Huntiner in the Shoshone. 



Moose in Maine. 



Game on Vancouver Island. 



Chat of Gun and Game. 



When the Hrost is on the 

 Meadows (poetry). 



New Brunswick Game Law. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



Mir.imicni Salmon. 



An Untoward Experience. 



FlSHCtJLiTURE. 



Fishculture in Scotland. 



The Kennel. 



Waverly Dog Show. 



Puppies aud Sawdust. 



Irish Red Setter Trials. 



A. K. C. Methods. 



A. K. C. Meeting. 



Milwaukee Dog show, 



Newburgh Dog Show. 



Kennel Notes. 



Kennel Management. 

 Rifle and Trap shooting. 



Range and Gallery. 



The Trap. 



Chamber lin Company Tourna- 

 ment. 

 Canoeing. 



A. C. A. Members, Changes of 

 Address. 



Canoe Racing and Classifica- 

 tion. 



A Movable. Canoe Keel. 

 Vachting. 



The International Races. 



Just the Size of It. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



THE CREEDMOOR MEETING. 



THE full report made in our last issue of the recent 

 fall meeting at Creedmoor left little to add in the 

 way of explanation. The entry list and the score list 

 showed that the meeting was not up to anything like a 

 decent standard in tbe way of attendance, and showed 

 that, taking the luck of weather, there are marksmen in 

 the militia as well as in the civil matches who can get out 

 about all that a rifle is capable of. 



"When we hear complaints that the directors of the 

 National Rifle Association do not put forward sufficient 

 inducement to bring marksmen to the meetings, we can 

 roint to the disproportion in prizes and entries. Why is 

 it that the Wimbledon cup has only three entries? Is it 

 no honor to take and hold such a trophy for a year? Is 

 all the sport, and pleasure, and bodily profit of long 

 range shooting gone because there is no international 

 match on the tapis with its newspaper notoriety and gen- 

 eral parade in public view? If the long-range men, who 

 are supposed to belong to what our English cousins so 

 clumsily and vulgarly style "gentlemen sportsmen," do 

 not care enough for the sport of ride shooting to keep up 

 a lively rivalry for such a piece of honor plate as the 

 Wimbledon cup, then it must be confessed that rifle 

 shooting is on a decline, and that the pot-hunting, lucre- 

 loving shots are in the ascendant. 



Again, if any one shall say that the Creedmoor range 

 has not accomplished anything in the way of making 

 good marksmen, the recent fall meeting will go on record 

 as a contradiction. The range has a proud and a grow- 

 ing record. The scores of to-day beat the scores of yes 

 terday, and each annual gathering find better weapons 

 on hand and more intelligent, more skillful men to shoot 

 them. This is progress, and the National Rifle Associa- 

 tion is to be credited with all this advance, and not only 

 on its own range, but on a hundred ranges which have 

 been called into being because a decade and a half ago 

 the Long Island shooting ground was established. 



It is to be regretted perhaps that the range has not a 

 capable statistician; by this we mean one who would and 

 could collect all the data which might be of value in the 

 future to those who see the science of fine marksmanship 

 lying behind the art as it is practiced on the range. Each 

 ndivi&ual who shoots profits by his own experience 



Each man who would become a shot must travel this 

 path of personal training, but the experience of every 

 one who goes to the range and strives carefully and hon- 

 estly to reach perfection is worth more to those who 

 rr ake rifles and ammunition, or who study as inventors 

 to improve the present weapons. Creedmoor should fur- 

 nish an immense amount of data of this sort. It does not, 

 and to that extent is not following its entire mission. 



There is nothing to be discouraged at in the past meet- 

 ing. There are bigger gatherings abroad, beside which 

 the Creedmoor assembly would figure as a corporal's 

 guard against an army corps. Yet the average shooting 

 is far better at Creedmoor than at Geneva or at Brussels 

 or even at Wimbledon. There are many causes which go 

 together to explain why we do not see crowds at Creed- 

 moor; yet, for all that, the range is exciting a wide-spread 

 influence for good, and it would be a national loss of no 

 small moment if the butts there should be abandoned and 

 a real and universal apathy fall upon the sport in the 

 metropolis. 



THEY JIGGED THEM. 

 TN a letter from a Boston correspondent, "Special," in 

 *- the Forest and Stream of Sept. 15, it was reported 

 that two Maine trout exhibited in a Boston show window 

 were attracting much attention because of their size and 

 beauty. One measured 23in. in length and weighed 

 8-ilbs.; the other was 22in. and weighed 6J1 bs. These 

 were two of a total catch of twenty-one, said to have 

 been caught Aug. 31 at the Upper Dam of Richardson 

 Lake, near the Union Waterpower Co.'s works. Mr. T. 

 B. Stewart, of New York, had the credit of their capture, 

 and the letter said; "Mr. T. B. Stewart, of New York 

 city, is just out with a better record than ever, though 

 previously he has made some good scores in taking the 

 Androscoggin trout with the fly. Mr. Stewart has visited 

 the Upper Dam, Richardson Lake, nearly every season 

 for a number of years, and almost always in the fly-fish- 

 ing season. * * * These are not the largest trout that 

 have ever been taken at that point, but they are very 

 large to be caught with the fly. * * * The many 

 sportsmen who have met Mr. Stewart at the Upper Dam 

 on former seasons, will feel like congratulating him on 

 his good success." 



It now appears that there was an error in our corres- 

 pondent's account of this affair. The weights and lengths 

 of the fish were probably as given and they were caught 

 in the locality and by the person named, but there is no 

 reason to suppose that they were taken with the fly. 

 They were jigged, or doctored with "the silent doctor." 



The method is one of which most anglers have heard, 

 but it is to be hoped that not many of those who make 

 pretension to being fly -fishermen or legitimate bait-fish- 

 ermen, are practically familiar with it. The jig is a very 

 simple implement. It consists of a hook or a number of 

 hooks attached to a pole or to a line with or without a 

 rod. That is all there is to it; no bait, no fly, nothing 

 but just bare hook. This is let down into the water 

 underneath the fish or by the side of it, and jerked up- 

 ward or sidewise. The hook is driven into the fish's belly 

 or side or head or tail, and there you have him ! The jig 

 is sometimes called "the silent doctor." Under either 

 name, as a device for taking trout on their spawning 

 beds, it is just about as infernal an engine of destruction 

 as any abhorred by right-minded anglers and resorted to 

 by poachers, fish-hogs and big-fish-in-the-show-window 

 big-name-in-the-newspaper notoriety hunters. 



Jigging has been one of the curses of Maine trout 

 waters. In the fall of the year the big fish gather on the 

 spawning beds, and there, ranged in rows, they lie 

 motionless, utterly disdainful of the most tempting wiles 

 and lures. They are not in striking mood. They can be 

 jigged; "the silent doctor" will take them; and "the 

 silent doctor" it is. Men come from distant cities, 

 appareled in the guise of anglers, equipped with expen- 

 sive tackle, inscribing on the hotel register names well 

 known in fishing clubs, hire boats and guides, paying 

 those men well to serve as accomplices, and then sneak 

 down to the spawning beds and jig trout, keeping an eye 

 out the while to see that no one detects them. When 

 they succeed in jabbing their jig into a fish, if no one be 

 near to see, they yank it in without any nonsense; or if 

 there be a spectator they "play" the impaled trout, i.ad 

 make a great ado, even to giving the butt, until the vic- 

 tim can be taken in and unjigged without detection. 

 The feat is bragged about as a fly-fishing performance, 

 I and if the marks of the jig are not too plain the fish is 



dispatched to some city show window to be exhibited, 

 after the manner of those jigged by Mr, Stewart, as 

 trophies of their captor's fly-fishing skill. 



The jigging abuse is of long standing, and the time has 

 come when an end should be put to it once and for all. 

 At the particular point in question, the scene of Mr. 

 Stewart's jigging exploit, there should be stationed a fish 

 warden to watch tins one spot through September and 

 October, or if Maine's parsimonious appropriation for 

 protection will not cover the expense of providing such 

 an officer, an amendment might be added to the law to 

 close this death trap by forbidding any fishing whatever 

 between the Upper Dam and the lake below. This would 

 be a deprivation to those who fish legitimately, but it is 

 an instance where the imiocent must suffer with the 

 guilty. 



As it is now, the wardens appear to find difficulty in 

 bringing offenders to book. Game and fish warden Geo. 

 D. Huntoon, of Rangely, did succeed last week in cap- 

 turing two jiggers, Messrs. T. B. Stewart, of this city, 

 and Mark Hollings worth, of Boston, but tardily and not 

 until most of their jigged trout had been distributed 

 around or shipped out of the State. They went before 

 an Andover justice and each put in a plea of guilty, 

 Stewart being docked $25 and Hollingsworth $28. 



The psychologic aspect of this case we are quite free to 

 confess we do not understand; the peculiar condition of 

 mind that prompts a professed fly-fisherman to jig trout 

 for brag has never been discussed in the text-books. Here 

 is a man who is presumably a devotee of fly-fishing, for 

 the name of T. B. Stewart appears in the list of vice- 

 presidents of the National Rod and Reel Association. Of 

 that organization the "aims and objects" are stated to be: 

 "The preservation of game fish by every possible means, 

 the cultivation of that fraternal feeling which always ex- 

 ists among the lovers of our gentle sport, and the holding 

 of an annual tournament to compare excellence in the 

 use of rod and reel." At the last tournament Mr. Stewart 

 gave a prize for excellence in the "expert light rod con- 

 test" in "single-handed fly-casting." It would be pre- 

 sumed that a public patron of the fine art of angling, asso- 

 ciating with fly-fishermen and being numbered among 

 them, would have the utmost contempt for such clumsy 

 fish murdering devices as a jig. Yet Mr. Stewart goes to 

 Maine and jigs trout. He yanks in the big ones in a style 

 emulating the veriest spawning bed poacher that ever 

 skulked out of the way of a warden. How is the person- 

 ality of the Harlem Mere fly-caster to be reconciled with 

 that of the Upper Dam jig dabber? Have we here per- 

 haps a doppleganger? 



THE YACHT RACE. 



ON Tuesday morning the general opinion of all inter- 

 ested in the great yacht race was that Thistle was 

 a sure winner over the inside course, but with no chance 

 in a breeze. By Tuesday night the wind was in another 

 quarter, and Thistle was generally regarded as unable to 

 sail with any of the American boats. To-day another 

 race is to be sailed, and there is no telling what the next 

 move of the popular Volunteer may be. 



The wildest fluctuations of the stock market do not 

 equal the quick changes of the public favor. It is not 

 yet clear on what grounds an easy victory for Thistle was 

 expected; all the real evidence pointed toward a very 

 close race, with chances about even. Now that Thistle has 

 been beaten, there is as little reason for pronouncing her 

 to be a slow boat as there was before for extravagant 

 estimates of her speed. Worse luck never met a yacht 

 than she had on Tuesday, and while she lost a place she 

 should have held at the start, in what little show at fair 

 sailing she finally had she did very well, fully holding 

 Volunteer over half the course. As to the race to-day, 

 there is every probability that it will be very close, and 

 reverse the poor opinion now generally held of the boat. 

 Should she win, her stock will rise as quickly as it has 

 fallen, and possibly with no more reason. 



Apart from the sport and pleasure of such races, there 

 is a great benefit to be derived from an intelligent study 

 of the results and attendant circumstances; but the pres- 

 ent tendency is to exalt or condemn a boat upon the most 

 superficial grounds. Even if she loses, there is ample 

 material for study in the Thistle, but with the present 

 hasty and erroneous conclusions pro and con, the 

 chances for a fair and thorough comparison of the 

 strong and weak points of each boat are very small, 

 and a larger part of the lessons that every prominent 

 boat can teach will be lost to all but a few. 



