July 7, 1887.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



617 



thinking all the while what a show I would make when 

 I carried him homei 



But, alas! pride had a fall. There waa a, band of hogs 

 hanging aronnd there, which lived on the salmon we 

 speared to got spawn for bait, and if we were so thought- 

 less as to leave any fish lying in their reach, with one 

 swallow they would put them where they would do the 

 most good— to the hog. Dressing my fish I laid it down 

 on a piece of board and was warming myself by the fire, 

 when I was aroused by somebody shouting, "Run! run! 

 the old sow has got your fish." I lost no time getting 

 there, but, alas, it was too late. She had eaten all but 

 the tail, and she grabbed even that and made off into the 

 willows, and that was the last I ever saw of my fish. 

 There is a crowning joy in every life and why not a 

 crowning sorrow. I passed through both mine that 

 morning. 



I declared war against that hog right there, and ever 

 ?tf tor, no matter how well the minnows were biting or 

 how comfortable the fire felt* I always had time to "heave 

 rocks" at her just as long as I could see a bush shake, 



I had cut the length or that trout on the big log, and 

 whenever the btiys thought they had a big one, I would 

 march them up and have them measure it, and if it did 

 not come up to the standard— and none of then! ever did 

 — I lost all interest in that one. 



A few years ago I re- visited the old fishing place and 

 found that a freshet had carried the big log off, thus blot- 

 ting out all the record of my first trout. Red Fin. 



Umpqua Ferry, Oregon. 



AMERICAN ANGLING LITERATURE. 



THE history of angling literature in America is not 

 difficult to trace for one who has clasped hands with 

 those who were sponsors at its christening, and has had 

 the good fortune to know personally almost every author 

 of note since the era of angling books began; but to do 

 full justice to each one, and to apportion to each the part 

 he has borne, and the good he has done, is a difficult task, 

 likely to become invidious. There are ma,ny exceedingly 

 valuable contributors to the general fund of information 

 in the several departments of ichthyology, who do not 

 appear as authors, and there are comparatively few 

 authors who write on the basis of their own personal 

 observations and experience, trusting rather to the state- 

 ments of accepted authorities to insure accuracy to their 

 publications, and give them the requisite backbone. My 

 preference would be not to laud the popular author so 

 much as to designate such as have been able to contribute 

 anything at all to the sum total of knowledge, and to an 

 intelligent comprehension of the fishes of the country. 

 There was a time when a printed volume was the emana- 

 tion or expression of a mind which was master of its sub- 

 ject, and its opinions were entitled to respect as those of 

 one speaking by authority, and not as the 3cribes; but, 

 nowadays, well — as Joel Penman pertinently remarks, 

 "Any fule kin rite a buke!" 



There is no end to the literature of angling. One is 

 amazed at its redundancy. Every one who goes a-fishing 

 must needs tell of it in the sporting papers, if not in more 

 pretentious publications. Their manifold collective ut- 

 terance are like the chattering of blackbirds, joyful but 

 vapid; yet they include a fair proportion of monographs 

 and random field notes, which in the aggregate form an 

 exceedingly valuable compendium of ichthyological re- 

 search. Much of this class of materials has already been 

 collated and compiled by the collaborateurs of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution into several illustrated quarto volumes 

 entitled "Fisheries Industries of the United States." The 

 full statistics of the past having been brought down to 

 date and the work thoroughly systematized, it will be 

 prosecuted to the end of time, as long as fish swim and 

 Congressional appropriations can been voted for collec- 

 tion and printing. The steps progressive toward the ulti- 

 mate accomplishment may be partially outlined in the 

 brief synopsis which follows : 



In earliest Colonial times, the reports sent to the home 

 governments from New England, Virginia and Florida 

 included a fan- description or enumeration of the ichthy- 

 ofauna of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts; and as the popu- 

 lation gradually spread toward the Ohio River and the 

 Great Lakes, interest was continually kept alive by the 

 multiplying forms which were discovered. Angling was 

 sometimes practiced by gentlemen of leisure, as we dis- 

 cover from a musty little volume printed in Philadelphia 

 in 1830, and most interesting it is, too — which gives the 

 "Memoirs of the Schuylkill Fislrng Club" from 1732 to 

 1830. Such a diary, extending over a period of nearly 

 one hundred years, must be without a parallel in any 

 land. The subsequent occupation and development of 

 the country opened out an immense and abounding field 

 for the angler and his inseparable associates, the commer- 

 cial fisherman and the naturalist — a fact which English- 

 men, who are always foremost in such matters, were not 

 slow to discover and avail themselves of. British officers 

 stationed in the provinces were able to enjoy exclusively 

 the delight of the Canadian salmon streams for half a 

 century at least before the unsophisticated settlers or their 

 neighbors in the States were even aware of their exist- 

 ence. Quietly they tossed the "Kippurns." or what-not, 

 into the sequestered xiools of a primitive wilderness, and 

 were not envied or disturbed, because, forsooth, their 

 sports were not appreciated or understood. This ano- 

 maly of tastes and pastimes can be explained. Up to 

 forty years ago Americans were too busy to while a/way 

 time in fishing. They had not accumulated the ' 'piles" 

 which now make millionaires as plenty as blackberries; 

 indeed, they hardly knew a salmon or trout by sight. If 

 they wanted sport they naturally turned to hunting. The 

 gun and the chase were incidental to their every day 

 associations, and employment of subduing the forest and 

 driving pioneer stakes. And so it happened in respect to 

 the primitive literature of this new country that many 

 topical books appeared on the dog, gun and saddle, bear 

 hunting, trapping, buffalo running, Indian fighting and 

 the like, but none at all on angling. 



Once in a while a contemplative author like Thoreau, 

 sauntering by the river side, or Willis, from "Under a 

 Bridge," or Prime in "Owl Creek Cabin Letters," or Ik 

 Marvel, wrapt in "Reveries," would lead us unsuspect- 

 ingly into secluded by-paths of the forests, discanting 

 piously upon the silvery denizens of the brooks in a 

 fashion to prompt an occasional vacation rambler to go 

 a-fishing. But these new men (novi homines) in the days 

 of their novitiate never aspired to higher game than the 

 "trout in speckled pride." The way in which they held 

 him up to tender recognition might make a sentimental 



person wish to fondle, but never to skin and eat him. 

 Prime, good master, was adolescent then and callow, but 

 he was a, born angler, well versed in the mysteries of the 

 brooks; and, as soon as ever It's heart was hardened and 

 he ceased to regard the beautiful tilings as pets, he began 

 to write bravely of kidnapping them from their fluvial 

 homes and "playing them scientifically." and so has con- 

 tinued to write for forty years, though he has never risen 

 to the higher plane of the salmon. I suppose that the un- 

 disputed pioneer of American angling literature, pure and 

 undefiled, is Charles Laninan, who came as one crying in 

 the wilderness, as early as 1848, when he printed (in Lon- 

 don) his "Adventures of a Salmon Angler in Canada." 

 The same book was issued contemporaneously in America 

 as a ' 'Tour of the Saguenay." His subsequent wanderings 

 by lake and river were woven into a double octavo vol- 

 ume of most entertaining sketches, under the title of 

 "Adventures in the Wilds of America," printed in 1856. 

 He has no peer among his countrymen. Surely it was no 

 kid-glove excursion to go salmon fishing here before the 

 era of railroads, clubs, culexifuge, and all that, though 

 the chap who daintily airs his latter day experience seems 

 as much of a "feller" as the man who took it in the rough 

 before the lad was born. No doubt the memory of the 

 Rev. John Todd has passed away with his corporeal taking 

 off, yet he was a companion of Audubon, and wrote "Long 

 Lake" in 1850, a volume which embodied the first oracu- 

 lar utterances from the Adirondack Woods. And there 

 was the Rev. Dr. Bethune, who edited a volume of Wal- 

 ton in 1840, or thereabouts; he knew the intricacies of the 

 Maine forests and the haunts of the mysterious landlocked 

 salmon for forty years before the scientists determined 

 what it was. It seems but yesterday since I knew them 

 all — indeed, Lanman and Prime are still living and hearty. 



Although I write of pastime, I would not detract one 

 iota from the meed of praise which belongs to those pro- 

 gressive men in the early decades of the present century, 

 who blazed a warpath into the fallow field of New World 

 icthyc science. There were Lewis and Clark, partners in 

 exploration beyond the Rockies, who discovered the 

 mountain trout and whitefish in 1809; Rafinesque. whose 

 synoptical report of the "Fishes of the Ohio River and its 

 tributaries," printed in 1820. was the first American pub- 

 lication in the interest of ichthyology; Dr. Kirtland, who 

 followed with his "Fishes of the Ohio," in 1828; Professor 

 Edward Hitchcock, on "Massachusetts Fishes," in 1835; 

 Storer, on the "Ichthyology of Massachusetts," in 1839; 

 Agassiz, on the "Embryology of the Salmon," in 1842; De 

 Kay, on "Fishes of New York," admirably illustrated 

 with plates, in 1842; Storer, on "Fishes of North America," 

 in 1846, an ambitious, but really comprehensive work; 

 and,' finally, a general treatise on "Fishculture," by 

 Theodatus Garlick, in 1848. These admirable text books 

 furnished a sufficient ground work for intelligent prose- 

 cution of the study, and no doubt stimulated the pursuit 

 of angling, for thenceforward angling books appeared in 

 gradually increasing numbers, the field broadening as 

 the area of the country extended. English publications 

 which had hereto served as the angler's vade mecum 

 began to be discarded, or they were revamped and 

 adapted to what gradually came to be discovered as 

 American wants and American ideas. Such were Smith's 

 "Observations on Angling," printed in 1833; the "Ameri- 

 can Angler's Guide,*' printed in 1846; Bethune's "Walton," 

 in 184S; and Frank Forrester's "Fish and Fishing," in 

 1849. The first strictly indigenous native American 

 book was John G. Browne's "Angler's Guide," which 

 appeared in 1849. It marked a new era. But Browne 

 was only a poor tackle maker, without classical 

 education or social position, and how should he be 

 expected to know anything? The critics rated him un- 

 mercifully. Nevertheless his was a very complete and 

 trustworthy guide to salt and fresh water fishing for the 

 time and well illustrated. Yet we are surprised to note 

 its deficiencies. There is not a word about Canadian 

 salmon, or grayling or striped bass, or the fifty other 

 principal kinds of fish which afford sport now. Fly-fish- 

 ing itself was then a new art. Up to 1845 it was scarcely 

 known and little practiced. Americans never knew how 

 to fish for salmon until 1850. Lanman was the only 

 angler among them who had been initiated, and he was 

 not proficient. A meager twelve lines on page 80 is all 

 that Frank Forrester devotes to salmon in America and 

 Forrester was thought to be an advanced writer. But he 

 taught the natives English only, and we should still have 

 been calling our pickerel a jack, and our trout fario, and 

 our reel a winch, and our waterproof a mackintosh had 

 we stuck strictly to the letter of his instructions; nay, we 

 might have been fisliing yet for barbel, tench and bream, 

 which do not exist in our waters at alL 



I have said that Englishmen were foremost to discover 

 the unusual attractions of our virgin salmon streams. So 

 also they were the first to divulge them to the world in 

 books. One by one those who had fished began to reveal 

 the secrets of the primeval penetralia, into which they 

 had ventured years before. "Chiploquorgan," by Capt. 

 Dash wood, and "Forest Life in Acadia," by Capt. Hardy, 

 both British officers, printed in 1858, are incomparable 

 sketches of scenes which no hearthrug knight of the quill 

 would dare attempt to portray. "L'Acadie," a London 

 book, printed in 1849, is a delightful idyl of the Canadian 

 woods. Latrobe's "Rambles in North America" (1835), 

 contains something about fishing. Though of material 

 essentially American, these books were English in senti- 

 ment and emotion. They lack the amour propre of one 

 who "treads his native heath." Long we have waited 

 for such a book, but I doubt if it has ever yet been writ- 

 ten. — Charles Hallock in London Field. 



Carp on the Fly. — St. Paul, Minn., June 22. — Can 

 you inform me how the German carp can be taken with 

 a hook and line? There are a number of lakes in this 

 State where they are quite numerous, but no one has been 

 able as yet to take them out. Any information you can 

 publish in your paper will be read with great pleasure by 

 the many readers of it here. — E. S. P. [Carp have been 

 taken with light fly tackle. In our issue of Aug. 19, 1886, 

 "Big Sandy" reported successful fly-fishing for carp in 

 Kentucky with fluttering flies, colors not given. They 

 can also be taken with grasshoppers, bread crumbs, etc.] 



Lake Hopatcong. — The fishing in this New Jersey lake 

 has greatly improved with the past five or six years, 

 largely owing to plentiful plantings of fish. Our corres- 

 pondent "Jacobstaff " was there last week and had some 

 good sport taking black bass, pickerel and perch, One of 

 the bass weighed over 41bs, 



BIG TROUT, 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Referring to the several weights of monster trout on 

 record and authenticated, as shown by your columns, the 

 largest of which appear to belong to the Rangeley waters, 

 I beg to state that I have a memorandum of a trout taken 

 in 1871, which reads as follows: 



"July, 1872.— Henry D. LaRonde, Nepision House, Lake Nepigon 

 speckled trout by balance weighed 1211)8." 



I got Mi-. LaRonde, who is the factor of the Hudson's Bay 

 Company's port at Nepigon Lake, to write this statement 

 and vouch for its truth in presence of several witnesses. 

 My impression is that the fish was taken at the mouth of 

 the Agawa River, which empties into the lake. So far as 

 I know and have seen, the trout of Rangeley waters do 

 not compare with those of the Nepigon for beauty, wl lat- 

 ever they may do for weight. I remember very well when 

 the first lot of trout was brought from Rangeley by Mr. 

 Allerton, some twenty years ago; it may be longer. They 

 were spread out on a waterproof blanket in his rubber 

 store, near the corner of Broadway and Fulton streets. 

 They were a gross-looking lot, quite immense and unprece- 

 dented for size, and very red in the belly, distended with 

 spawn and protuberant. I looked them over in company 

 with Genio C. Scott. These were October trout. 



Rangeley fish taken in June are shapely, but those 

 caught in October are impressive only for their size and 

 ugliness. Nepigon trout being taken in July are at their 

 best for comeliness, and it seems to me they are at all 

 times the brighter and more attractive fish of the two, 

 clipper built, with a cleaner ran, as your yachting editor 

 would say. The Nepigon water is by far the colder of the 

 two, andT think the more transparent. 



Mr. Page's big fish made a wonderful excitement at 

 the time of its capture and exhibition, which has hardly 

 subsided yet. There are incredulous people who will not 

 even now accept the testimony of their own eyes as to its 

 being a simon pure brook trout. They view it, in its 

 case, "as through a glass darkly," and remain uncon- 

 vinced. I do not see why this specimen should not head 

 the record until some larger and better one establishes its 

 precedence by actual presence in propria persona, either 

 alive or skinned and mounted. In 1873 Mr. Colin Camp- 

 bell, now of 42 Wall street, exhibited a dozen 5 to 81b. 

 trout at the tackle shop of Andrew Gierke & Co., in 

 Maiden Lane, which he brought from Nepigon River in 

 good order, their average weight being altogether above 

 that of Allerton's Rangeley Lake collection. There are 

 certain localities on the Nepigon where heavy fish run, 

 just as there are at the Rangeley Lakes, and my belief is 

 that they attain a size fully as enormous in the one as in 

 the other. It would be easy in these days of Rex Magnus 

 and other antiseptics to ship specimens from long dis- 

 tances, and science might be served by a very little effort 

 on the part of those whom chance puts into the possession 

 of phenomenal fish. Charles Hallock. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Referring to the size of trout caught in the Adirondacks 

 in your issue of June 23, the weights 5J and 5-jlbs. are 

 given as the heaviest weights actually caught. In July, 

 1881, I saw a trout caught under the slide of the "old saw 

 mill" on the Oswegatchie River that weighed 51bs. 13oz. 

 by three different scales. The fish had not ceased flop- 

 ping when we reached the spot, and we took his weight 

 before he had time to lose much. The fish was caught 

 by Mr. Mills, afterward keeper of the State dam at Cran- 

 berry Lake, and by him sold for $2 to Mr. James Smith, 

 of Hermon, who with George Sawyer, my guide, can 

 substantiate this statement. Had there been any way 

 to send him to Syracuse I should have sent him to Uncle 

 Rube Wood, who had caught two very large ones in the 

 same spot two years before. A. Ames Howlett. 



Syracuse, N. Y. 



TROUT IN MAINE. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Please find inclosed score of brook trout (S. fontinalis) 

 for three days in June, 1887, at Kineo, Mooseiiead Lake, 

 Me., which may be of interest to your readers: 



June 14— Saved 8; total weight, 16^1bs.; largest, 4flbs.; 

 next largest, 3|lbs. 



June 17— Saved 6; total weight. lO^lbs.; largest, 31bs., 

 and next in size, 2|lbs. 



June 18— Saved 7; total weight, 9 Jibs.; largest, 2|lbs. 



The above is a score of the three best days' fishing done 

 by the undersigned. All the fish were taken with the fly, 

 casting with an 8oz. lO^ft. Leonard rod. A cast of three 

 flies was used — silver-doctor, grizzly-king and scarlet-ibis, 

 the ibis being the hand fly. The grizzly-king proved the 

 most killing. Flies tied on Nos, 5 and 6 sproat hooks. 

 Much of my success, as also that of the past four seasons, 

 is due to my faithful Indian guide and friend, Thomas 

 Dana. N. A. Plummek. 



Last evening at Quimby Pond, five miles from Rangeley, 

 Col. John B. Marble, proprietor of Rangeley Lake House, 

 and Capt. Robert Irvine of Galveston, Texas, with Geo. 

 Thrasher as guide, caught with rod and fly sixty-eight 

 trout that weighed 401bs. , between the hours of eight in 

 the evening and twelve midnight. It was a bright moon- 

 light evening. Geo. H. Haynes. 



Phillips, Me., July 1. 



Jack Parsons, an old fisherman on Lake Bomoseen, 

 Vermont, is responsible for the following story : While 

 fishing one day he had an old brown stone jug that he 

 was very fond of in the boat, and wBen taking a nip it 

 fell overboard. A long time he mourned its loss and 

 would fish for hours on the spot where it had sunk. Some 

 years afterward, while anchored on the ground and as 

 usual fishing, he had a bite and pulled up twice, but did 

 not catch the fish; the third time he hooked it, and, as he 

 expressed it, thought he had the bottom of the lake on 

 his line, but at length managed to pull up the line, and, 

 behold, it was his jug, but with a fish inside. When 

 young the fish had been attracted by the whisky in the 

 jug, entered the mouth, and lived on the spirit until it was 

 too large to get out. Three times he had dropped his line 

 in the mouth of the jug, catching the fish the last time. 

 Some of the liquor still left he poured out and drank, and 

 then taking the jug on shore he made a fire, cooked the 

 fish in its own juice and whisky flavor, and ate it with a 

 corkscrew.— S. 



