268 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Oct. 27, 1887. 



already. Still I tarried, but three more shots decided 

 me and 1 hurried back as best I could and found the boys 

 seated upon a log. "Not much this time," greeted Allan. 

 "Well, then, what in the dickens is all this fuss about? 

 Where is your deer if you have one?" 



"Oh, it's only a little fawn; go and look at it." I went 

 and looked at it and there lay as pretty a buck as I ever 

 saw. This one was Allan's deer. 



Whether it was asleep or not I don't know, but he got 

 within 30yds. of it before he discovered it, and there it 

 was lying where it had been all night before. A bullet 

 through the head had laid it low forever. Perhaps it was 

 not a tug to get him out of the woods, for he was no play- 

 thing. Dressed he tipped the beam at 2581bs. After 

 hanging him up in a safe place we concluded that we 

 were too tired to do any more. So ended our first day in 

 the woods. Tctel. 



Casselman, Ontario. 



Mr. Garett's Game Preserve. — At Uplands, Mr. 

 Robert Garrett's country residence, at the junction of 

 Edmondson avenue and the old Frederick road, the owner 

 has established a miniature game preserve. Up to the 

 present the only game on the preserve are English pheas- 

 ants, of which there are about two hundred. The eggs 

 were imported from England about one year since. The 

 first lot, numbering seven hundred, failed to hatch, but a 

 second lot, that were packed under the. directions of Mr. 

 Garrett's gamekeeper, produced good results. The eggs 

 were placed under common hens, and when the birds 

 were hatched they were hand-raised and then turned 

 loose on the preserve, which consists of about twenty-five 

 acre3 of wood and open land, inclosed with a wire fence 

 about four feet high. The buds, though nearly grown, 

 have not taken to the woodland, but disport themselves 

 in the open. The male birds are very beautiful, and 

 present a tempting sight to would-be poachers as they 

 run along the ground. But the only poachers that the 

 big stalwart gamekeeper has had to contend with so far 

 have been what he termed "varmints," which include 

 coons, opossums, bats, rats, weasels, etc., with now and 

 then a bird hawk. The gamekeeper, who was imported 

 from England with the birds, is a typical English keeper. 

 A Yorkshire man himself, tie brought with him a York- 

 shire terrier, which assists him in his labors. The birds 

 all know him, and do not appear much frightened when 

 he approaches them, and he is carefid not to let strangers 

 go near them unless he is in the lead. Immediately ad- 



{"oining his lodge he has enormous wire coops, in which 

 te has a number of old birds, that have to be viewed 

 from a distance, as the keeper fears they would rise on 

 the wing at the approach of a stranger and kill themselves 

 against the wire covering. To avoid accidents of this 

 kind a fine specimen of the English bull-terrier is stationed 

 near the coops, where he can keep guard in the absence 

 of the keeper. The little Yorkshire terrier is thoroughly 

 broken to his work. He is the constant companion of his 

 master, and if any of the birds leave the inclosure he 

 finds them and cautiously assists to drive them back. He 

 will not let a stranger pick up even an acorn from the 

 ground, much less handle a young bird. Scattered 

 around in the neighborhood of the birds are a number of 

 coops, in which are confined common hens with broods 

 of young chickens. When these chickens reach the 

 proper age they will be used for the purpose of hatching 

 out pheasants. When the day for the shooting arrives 

 the birds will be scattered as much as possible, and then 

 the gamekeeper and his assistants will beat the cover, 

 and as the birds fly over the sportsmen the air will be 

 filled with shot holes, and the gamekeeper will probably 

 be instructed to bag enough game for the lunch which 

 follows the shooting. At least that is the programme as 

 interpreted by a gentleman who claimed to know all 

 about the shooting business as conducted on game pre- 

 serves. — Baltimore Sun. 



Delaware Game Law. — The late Legislature passed a 

 game law which provides that it is unlawful for any per- 

 son not a citizen of this State to hunt, kill, take or destroy, 

 sell, or expose for sale, or have in his or her possession, 

 after the same has been killed, any partridge, quail, 

 woodcock, grouse, rabbit or hare, reed bird, ortolon or 

 rail, unless he shall have first obtained a license from the 

 Delaware Game Protective Association. Under the pro- 

 vision of the amendment the licenses are to be issued 

 upon the payment of $25 each, which, however, will not 

 permit the killing of any game bird mentioned above for 

 market or sale. One-half the license money is to be paid 

 the game association and one-half to the school fund to 

 be divided be ween the three counties. The hunting of 

 any of the game above mentioned while the ground is 

 covered with snow is also prohibited under a penalty of 

 $5. The quail season does not open until Nov. 15. — V. 

 M. H. (Milford, Del.). 



Latimer, Iowa, Oct. 18. — Prairie chickens are quite 

 plenty now, and are packed in large coveys. The shoot- 

 ing is better than it was in September, as the birds are 

 more readily found in the cornfields. About the 1st of 

 September, G. W. Myers, a farmer living near this place, 

 was out hunting chickens with an Irish setter. The dog 

 came to a point on a small knoll in a stubble field. Mr. 

 M. being back under the hill, but within shooting distance, 

 saw a covey of seven birds standing up in the short stub- 

 ble near the dog, and what was the most remarkable part 

 of all, he fired seven times and killed the seven chickens, 

 none of them moving or taking wing. Cranes are mov- 

 ing now, but no ducks or geese yet; a few cold rains will 

 bring them down from the north. We do not have any 

 fall jack snipe shooting, but always get some golden 

 plover. The Forest and Stream is eagerly looked for 

 here, and the older it gets the better it is. — Rand. 



Augusta, Ga., Oct. 15. — To-day the season opened on 

 quail and nearly all other game in this county. The 

 wea,ther is yet too warm and dry for successful shooting 

 and much will not be done until after a rain. Although 

 the August freshets drowned out many of the swamp 

 birds, yet the crop of highland birds are reported quite 

 plentiful. We are expecting great sport in about two 

 weeks. — J. M. W. 



Newburgh. N. Y., has a number of Sunday gunners 

 who regularly drive out on that day with dog and gun. 

 Where is our game protector?— Storm King. 



The Automatic Shells.— Salmon, Neb.— Editor For- 

 est and Stream: Your correspondent "W. H. D." asks 

 about the automatic shrapnell shell scratching the barrel 

 in its exit. It will. I fired one from a new and bright gun 

 and the marks are plainly seen. They shoot well but I 

 should not like to use them in a fine gun.— J. F. Layson. 

 Fort Shaw, Mont.— "W. H. D." wants to know if John's 

 patent automatic shrapnell shell would scratch gun bar- 

 rels. As far as 1 have tried it I do not think it will. I 

 have fired six rounds out of a 10-gauge Remington and 

 fail to find a scratch. The way I load is to use paper 

 shell, 4|drs. powder and one Winchester pink edge wad; 

 take expelling pin out of crimper, crimp shell good. At 

 a target at 100yds. 9x9in. I put in 36 pellets No. 5 shot; 

 penetration fine.— R. H. W. 



Salem, Richardson County, Neb., Oct. 15. — Quail are 

 more plentiful here this season than last. Few have been 

 killed since the hard winter of 1884-85, and the past sea- 

 son has been very favorable for hatching. Prairie chick- 

 ens did well, but the city sportsmen got them in August 

 before the law was off. It makes me "red-headed" to 

 locate a few broods of chickens and then hear the guns 

 of the "city chap" knocking them over while I am wait- 

 ing for the open season. — J. F. L. 



m and §tier fishing. 



Addrem all communications to the Forest and Stream Pub, Co. 



LONG ISLAND SOUND. 



THE fishing in Long Island Sound north of Greenport 

 is always good, especially for sea bass and blackfish. 

 Those fish coming in from the ocean, first reach the rocky 

 coast west of Orient Point, and there find abundance of 

 their natural food among the sunken reefs and rocks for a 

 distance of twelve or fifteen miles, as far as Horton's 

 Point. Beyond that point, further west, the shore is 

 sandy and the bottom free of rocks, so that fish are not 

 found there. The in-shore west of Orient Point is lined 

 with rocks; and outside in the Sound, for a considerable 

 distance, lie submerged reefs, where fish resort in great 

 numbers. 



The fishing here this season in the inside bays, Peconic 

 and Gardiner, has been unually good, especially for sea 

 bass, blackfish, weakfish, bluefish and porgies, and also 

 in the waters around Montauk Point. Some two weeks 

 since we passed three days in a yacht near Bostwick 

 Rock, Gardiner's Island, where we enjoyed excellent 

 sport with the sea bass and blackfish, taking also in the 

 creek plenty of round clams and hard crabs. It was 

 then too early for fowl, and we saw but few flocks of 

 coot and no black ducks; but late in this month there will 

 be abundance of coot, sheldrake, old squaws, etc., in 

 these waters. Many of these fowl are shot by sailing on 

 them, and this practice is allowed by a special act of the 

 last Assembly. 



Several years since the fishing in these bays was un- 

 surpassable, but the placing in them of countless num- 

 bers of fish pounds has almost spoiled the sport. The fish, 

 coming in from sea, follow the line of shore instead of the 

 deep channels, and so are captured by those set nets that 

 extend from the edge of the shore outward for twenty or 

 thirty rods, and this plan is most injurious to the hand 

 line committee, and is the occasion of strong protest and 

 fearful condemnation. The fish so taken are iced, boxed, 

 and sent to New York markets, where they supply food 

 for the million, but leave but little sport and spoil for the 

 resident anglers of these shores. Isaac McLellan. 



SHEEPSHEAD. 



SHEEPSHEAD, which are considered the best salt water 

 fish along the coast come into the inlets and bays of 

 New Jersey about the 1st of June, are most numerous in 

 July and are found in those waters until October. In 

 years past they were numerous in all the inlets and bays 

 from Barnegat to Cape May. This season, as with the 

 drum, very few have been found; and most that have been 

 caught were taken at the wrecks outside of the beach. 

 A number of years ago a good many men alongshore made 

 a good part of their living fishing for sheepshead in the 

 season, which were readily sold from 6 to 10 cts. per lb. 

 Myself and Kale Parker, no doubt well known to some of 

 you readers, caught 105 in two tides in the channel of 

 Barnegat Inlet with ho»k and line. I speak only of 

 hook and line fishmg. They weighed from 6 to 121bs., 

 average about 91bs. There I caught my largest sheepshead, 

 16£Lbs.; I showed it to some of the fishermen who came 

 alongside, as being the ' 'boss" fish. One man, Criss, showed 

 one that he had just caught weighing 221bs. ; it was the 

 biggest sheepshead. I ever saw. 



At the cross channels of Manahawkin Bay many were 

 caught; in the channels and at the Anchoring Island of 

 Little Egg Harbor sheepshead were plenty and readily 

 taken. Just outside of the Inlet was about the best ground, 

 called the Sods. Years ago these Sods were a low island, 

 and at low water a famous place for shooting sea birds. 

 The island was washed away leaving only the Sods in some 

 12ft. of water upon which black mussels grew and sheeps- 

 head gathered there to feed. It was not unusual for from 

 20 to 40 to be taken by one boat ' when the weather was 

 such that boats could lie there. I have counted 62 boats 

 at one time. Since then the beach has made out and 

 covered that part of the Inlet. At Great Egg Harbor, 

 Hereford and Rio Grande Inlet very many sheepshead 

 were caught formerly, This season there were very few. 

 The disappearance of sheepshead must cause a consid- 

 erable loss of revenue to the people alongshore. What 

 has become of the fish ? have they disappeared from some 

 physical cause in their usual places? Perhaps some of 

 your scientific readers can explain. In Barnegat Inlet 

 there are now none of the black mussels that sheepshead 

 used to feed on there, and this may account for so few 

 fish being there; but at Little and Great Egg Harbor the 

 black mussels are taken away by the hundreds of tons for 

 manure; the sheepshead were not there; perhaps like the 

 drumfish they have been gobbled up by the purse-nets of 

 the fish factories and their race that used the coast are 

 nearly exterminated. 



Sheepshead have given the most interesting fishing in 

 these waters because they are real game and the most 

 valuable of any fish caught there. Every one taken is of 



so much value to the fishermen, hence the great interest i 

 and sport. There is no pleasure for sportsmen to catch 1 

 fish simply to kill; they must be of use to make the pur-il 

 suit interesting. 



The bait for sheepshead in the channels is open soft || 

 shell clam or black mussel, but at the wrecks or where I 

 small fish are bad on the open bait whole soft shell clams 

 or small sand crabs are used, sometimes fiddlers or surf j 

 bugs, but they are not of much account. I fish out of a 1 

 small boat with a 9ft. rod and reel and 18 thread line. I 

 The man with me (there is no fun fishi ng alone) fishes 

 from the stern with a hand line, so our lines do not become 

 tangled, and I can fish over 18ft. of space, which cannot 

 be done with hand lines in a tideway. In all my fishing 

 I have never found sheepshead to bite on both flood and 

 ebb tide. I think they feed on one tide and on the other 

 sleep and digest then food. PurveS. 



Philadelphia, Oot. U. 



FISHING NOTES. 



PICKEREL seem to be not only abundant this season 

 in the lakes and ponds of New Jersey, but unusually 

 hungry, considering the large amount of feed in these 

 waters. On Saturday last "Curly" McCracken, of Hack- 

 ettstown, caught a fine lot of fish in Allamuchy Pond, in 

 Warren county. A few days previous a local fisherman 

 took the largest pickerel ever seen in the pond. It was 

 an old-timer and weighed over 81bs. Instead of making 

 a great talk over his catch the successful angler had a 

 level head, kept his mouth shut, and went back the next 

 day and yanked out a lot more of big fish and had the 

 pond to himself. 



While it is said that black bass have stopped biting in 

 the Delaware River, Lake Hopatcong and Greenwood 

 Lake, such has not been the case in the Allamuchy 

 Pond, Decker Pond, on Pochuck Mountain, or the Wall- 

 kill. Some fine pickerel are being taken in the two last 

 named waters, as also in Double Pond, on Vernon Moun- 

 tain, in Sussex. 



There has been and is, as far as 1 know, some quite 

 good black bass fishing in several of the feeding ponds 

 of the Morris Canal between Waterloo and Hacketts- 

 town. 



The striped bass fishing has been remarkably fine this 

 autumn everywhere. The catch at West Island has ex- 

 ceeded that of many previous years. The run of fish was 

 very large. Plenty of bass have been taken off the New- 

 ark Bay bridge, many of good size. At Gifford's, Staten 

 Island, at Ettingville, at Hell Gate and all along the 

 shores of the Hudson, anglers, with sand worms for bait, 

 have had sport. Between King's Bridge and Dobb's 

 Ferry I counted from the car windows eighty-three bass 

 anglers the. other afternoon. 



In the Shrewsbury a week ago there were plenty of 

 biting bass, as there were also in Barnegat Inlet two 

 weeks previous. The fishing in the former place has now 

 ceased. Off Long Branch and down the Jersey coast and 

 off Montauk, L. I., many big bass are being taken in nets. 

 South, the fishing for "rock fish," as the striped bass are 

 called, continues to be very fine in the Potomac River. 



W. A. 



New York, Oct. 2i. 



QUEBEC TROUT FISHING. 



DURING the month of September last Mr. Bucke and 

 I spent a few days very pleasantly with the trout in 

 the townships of Clarendon and Thorne in the Province J 

 of Quebec. 



We left Aylmer on the evening of Friday, Sept. 23, by J 

 the Pontiac and Pacific Junction train passing north at \ 

 6:15 P. M.; arrived at Shawville at 8:25, and drove to the J 

 residence of Mr. R. McJanet, postmaster at Yarm, about i 

 3£ miles distant, where we arrived about 9:30 P. M. Mr. J 

 McJanet did not expect us as we had written to him a 

 few days before saying that we could not go at present: 

 but he did not take long to show us that we were wel- j 

 come and that he r tended to make us feel at home and 

 enjoy our visit, winch we certainly did, thanks to the 

 hospitality of himself and his energetic and kind wife and 

 family. 



The next morning we drove to the River Quyon, about 

 four miles distant, and afterward visited two small lakes 

 (names not known to me), near there, where we managed 

 to basket about thirty nice, though not large, brook trout. 

 The scarcity of water in the river, owing to the dryness of I 

 the year, and the approach of the breeding season, had ■ 

 the effect of causing the trout to seek the deeper water of 

 the lakes. Had we been able to get a boat on the small 

 lakes I fancy that we should have had some excellent sport, 

 as the fish were rising almost incessantly about 150yds. 

 from the shore. 



During the day, Mr. Bucke was successful in bringing 

 down a wild pigeon and a partridge. 



The next day being Sunday we strolled over to Green I 

 Lake, about a mile from Yarm, and called upon Mr. 

 Judgsen, whose house is beautifully situated among the 

 trees on the hill just above the lake.. Mr. Judgsen kindly 

 lent us his canoe, and we took a short paddle down the 

 lake — a lovely sheet of clear and evidently very deep 

 water. Certainly one could not wish for a more beauti- 

 ful situation for a house than that occupied by Mr. 

 Judgsen. It is in every respect charming. They said 

 there were trout in the lake, but of this fact we were not 

 able to satisfy ourselves. In the evening we all went to 

 hear a learned divine hold forth in the schoolhouse at 

 Yarm and were struck by the zeal and earnestness of 

 the worshippers (Methodists, principally, I fancy), and I 

 think they must have been struck at our "fishy" appear- 

 ance, as we had only one suit of clothes each with us. 



On Monday we tried the. Quyon River, about seven , 

 miles from Yarm, and met with fair success, but the fish , 

 as before were not large. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon 

 we started for Phillips's Lake, about three miles further < 

 north. In this lake, casting from the shore, I took six 

 nice trout in about an hour. Mr. Bucke and Mr. McJanet 

 tried trolling, but did not get anything, nor did they take 

 any trout with bait. It is evident from the appearance of the 

 water in this lake and from what we heard, that during 

 the proper time of the year, the trout fishing must be 

 excellent, and we are determined to pay it a visit during 

 the spring of 1888. The scenery about Phillips's Lake is 

 beautiful and one might get accommodation at the house 

 of Mr. Trudeau, not more than 100yds. from the spot where 

 I caught the trout in the lake. He has a large punt which , 

 only requires a few repairs to make it watertight. It 



