July 14, 1887.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



this, let him laugh heartily at that pleasant June morn- 

 ing and the lesson I taught him, and go and do likewise. 



On another sunny day 1 was on the stream with a man 

 who wanted to borrow "some flies from me. 1 always "go 

 heeled" and my red-ibis was at his disposal. We had an 

 amusing race down stream where, the stream being 

 wider and broader, my friend had some soit of a chance. 

 So we struck in and waded down, he one side of the 

 stream and I the other, and we had no end of fun. Away 

 would go the fly, down soft as a snowflake on the ripple; 

 if the trout would rise, well and good, and if not I would 

 try my hand; and so vice versa; sometimes one would 

 succeed, sometimes the other, sometimes both. We kept 

 this up, until after going down stream some distance, we 

 came to a fence running right across the brook with 

 alders on either side. My friend made a dexterous cast 

 just over the rails, when in an instant he felt a strike 

 and called out, "Captain, I have a whale." What a com- 

 motion— flutter, splash and dash and crash. Hold lmn, 

 play lum, steady; give him the butt. Snap! away goes 

 the tip, short off. Hold on to your rod. Over the fence 

 dashes Charley, and lo and behold there was a duck, a 

 tame one. It had grabbed his red-ibis, gobbled it up and 

 was raising merry Cam with rod and line. He seized 

 that unfortunate fowl by one leg, and with vigorous 

 language and a rapid twirl put it out of that creature's 

 power forever to seize any more flies. That finished our 

 amicable contest. Not long after this, shamed into it, in 

 fact, the law was put on "Old Macedony," and the famous 

 stream had, or was supposed to have, a rest. 



It was at the expiration of the time, or very nearly so, 

 that I got word to "come over into Macedony and help 

 us." Jack drove over to see me after writing, and I said: 

 "Help you to what? How! When! Where! The law 

 is on the strea " ; we shall be caught and lugged off igno- 

 miniously to jail, every mother's son of us. Wait a while." 

 Under a wide-spreading willow, in sight of the Housa- 

 tonic, close by a rippling, bubbling trout stream, on the 

 grass together, "Jack said: "Come, now, don't go off 

 half cocked; listen, and I will a tale unfold. Let us 

 reason together: Did you see in the. paper the other day 

 that the editor of a certain Bridgeport paper had a very 

 fine mess of trout sent him?" "I did see that." "Friend 

 of my early days, do you know Pipe Chamberlain caught 

 those fish?" I did not. 'Well," said Jack, "I happen to 

 know from information received that that is the truth, 

 and those fish were caught in Macedony." Pipe was the 

 sheriff of the county and as well-known as any man in 

 the Nutmeg State; a big-hearted, broad-shouldered fellow, 

 as full of fun as an egg is of meat, and a great chum of 

 mine. "T e old scaramouch; why, Jack, I tried to pump 

 him the other day and he was as dumb as an oyster; in- 

 nocence personified. Didn't know a trout from a shiner, 

 hadn't been fishing he couldn't tell when. I made up my 

 mind he was basely deceiving me, and I told him so, and 

 he only laughed the louder." "Well, Captain, I have got 

 posted up, and you are going to emigrate from here very 

 soon ; and if you want a little sport say the word and we 

 will go." And go we did. 



Though there was a law on the stream, there was more 

 than tins; there was a law for outsiders, and a law unto 

 themselves for the dwellers close by: when they wanted 

 trout they caught them, but more than one nian had been 

 ordered off on short notice. I have had in my mind's eye 

 an unhappy "Johnny Crapeaud" who chanced my way 

 to fish, got up as only the native of Gaul can get himself 

 up, "Solomon in all his glory" nowhere, who was cap- 

 tured and led ignorniniously into camp by "Old Burt," as 

 he explained to me, for pure fun, with "sacrees" and 

 shrugs innumerable and fearful rollings of the letter r, 

 and lamentations. This victim of misplaced confidence 

 was despoiled of his rod, line and fish, and was console! by 

 being told "he had been let off cheap," and so "with rage in 

 his heart and fire in his eye," ha was started due west 

 toward the setting sun; he brought up. mayhap, in Dover 

 or Poughkeepsie, but never again was he seen on "Old 

 Macedony." 



Jack had made the startling discovery that the law 

 was up three days before the popular supposition. On 

 this hint of the- town clerk he spoke and we acted. So 

 off in the cool of the morning we drove up for Kent. 

 Where can you find a lovelier drive than along the Housa- 

 tonic? And what a salmon river that would nmke. Fol- 

 lowing up the winding river past Cat Rock, by Ten-Mile 

 Pun, by Balls Bridge and its falls, we drove on to our 

 destination. 



However, as we wanted the whole thing kept quiet, we 

 had sent word to an old hunter to keep his weather eye 

 open, and, as an extra precaution, we had provided our- 

 selves with a bottle filled with the most villainous stuff 

 that could be concocted in Kent: as I knew very well my 

 friend and myself never touched such stuff, and, as he 

 handled it so tenderly, I made up my mind Jack knew 

 his investment would turn out profitably, a result which 

 showed how level-headed my chum was* We pulled up 

 after an hour's drive at the old hunter's wigwam, put up 

 the horse, and told Burt to come along and see the fun. 

 The patrolman of the stream, who lived near by, was 

 cautiously interviewed, and the bottle containing the 

 finest old rye given him. The look on Jack's face as he 

 handed the old toper this as a present from the Captain 

 would have done credit to Burton. Then, telling the old 

 fellow to keep mum and with very serious doubts in my 

 mind as to whether we should ever see him again, w T e set 

 out for a walk up the stream. Burt whistled for Dorcas, 

 one of Sam Scranton's famous breed of dogs, and took his 

 gun and we our tackle, and so we started. 



After going up about a mile we struck in and went to 

 work. The most of these mountain streams come dowu 

 through the ravines and hills, dashing and splashing over 

 rocks and waterfalls, their banks fringed with alders, so 

 that fly-fishing is one of the lost arts here. It's no joke to 

 work your way through. Patience becomes a great vir- 

 tue here. I set to work, and I own up for once I struck 

 oil. Such fishing I never had in Litchfield county, nor 

 ever expect to have again. The stream was full of fine 

 fish, the day warm and lowery, with a light south 

 wind; jusb the day for fishing. Burt had double fun; he 

 could watch us taking them out as fast as we could 

 throw in, and every now and then up would go a wood- 

 cock which he was too good a sportsman to wish to kill. 

 "Plenty of time for them later, Captain: wait till the fall 

 weather comes; that's the time to shoot these birds." And 

 he was right. 



Once we heard the noise of the wheels from a rapidly 

 approaching wagon. Charge! Down goes the well trained 

 setter, dowu goes Burt and then the Captain and Jack 



followed suit: three of us hugged dear old mother earth, 

 but my friend was wading in the stream and could not 

 get ashore in time, and — trump of a boy that he was — 

 down he went in the water. Flat he laid himself on his 

 neck with just the tip end of his nose and mouth out, not 

 a sound nor a motion, while not more than 20ft. away on 

 the high road old Tom Stone, who made it his business 

 to patrol the road, was peering through the bushes and 

 evidently looking out for trespassers. As for me the 

 sight of the heroic exertions my companion was making 

 in the cause of fislung prompted me to come to his rescue 

 and I was on the point of betraying my hiding place, 

 when Burt walked out into full view with his dog and 

 gun. "Halloo, Tom!" "How are you, old man? 'Pears 

 to me I heard some one fishing here." "Oh, no, I 

 guess not. You heard me. I was just giving my dog a 

 little exercise." "Seen any one 'round here, Burt?" "No." 

 So the old fellow finally drove off. Talk of Venus rising 

 from the sea, you should have seen Jack. "Captain, I'm 

 most drowned and frozen stiff." We started him off on 

 a run and kept him moving, and in the course of fifteen 

 minutes lie was hirnself again. 



Then the fun grew fast and furious, Every time we 

 threw our lines in the trout would go for the bait and in 

 half an hour's fishing we had all we wanted. Jack and 

 myself both believed in moderation, we came for a fish 

 and we got what we came for; we came for rest and 

 recreation, and the lovely scenery and the sunshine, and 

 blue sky and breath of the balmy posies. All of this was 

 a positive' delight to us, we could have caught pounds 

 and pounds of big trout. We caught between us, that 

 memorable day in about 3 hours' fisliing, some 54 trout, 

 many of them fine fish that would "go all the way across 

 the basket." Then we walked back to Burt's house, had 

 a good lunch, a good drink of cider, found the old man 

 of whom we spoke still alive, which was an inexpressible 

 relief to me, and started for home. 



Half way home we met the irrepressible Pipe. "Boys, 

 you have been fishing?" "We have." "Fishing in the 

 Macedony?" "Oh no, Sheriff, the law is not off till the 

 14th and this is only the 12th." " I know better ; I know 

 when the time's up." "Old man," I said to Mm, sternly, 

 "didn't you fish this stream before? Own up!" "Well, 

 once, and only once." "And you sent your unlawful 

 gains down to Bridgeport." "1 did, Captain." "Very 

 well, sir, the next time we pass your house you shall give 

 us a glass of your best cider, and we will give you for- 

 giveness." "I will do so ! good-bye, good-bye." 



We never saw Pipe again. He sleeps his last sleep 

 close by the streams be loved to fish. Since then I have 

 once revisited Macedony, and once partially fished down 

 its waters, but it was not as of old. I did not get 54 nor 40, 

 the last time. A few fish but many remembrances. 



Gait. Clayton. 



ETHICS AND EXPERIENCE. 



HOT SULPHUR SPRINGS, Colorado, June 26, 1887.— 

 I am not a late convert, redeemed at last when in 

 "the sere and yellow leaf" like "Piscco" and "C. D. C," 

 from the artificial- fly-or-no thing to worms "and sich" 

 for bait. It must be they never fished-for-meat-or-went- 

 to-sleep-hungry in their earlier years. Ravenous hunger 

 would have impelled them to conceal the too apparently 

 deceptive combination of tinsel and feathers under a real 

 live grasshopper or a wriggling worm long, long ago, if 

 they "had been dependent solely upon the result of their 

 angling for something to eat. For me, when I go a-fish- 

 ing I go for fish. True, " it is not all of fishing to fish." 

 There are a thousand other pleasures attendant. The 

 freedom from care, the beauties of nature in myriad 

 forms, singing birds, frisky, chattering squirrels, rippling 

 waters, heavenly breezes, rustling leaves, buzzing in — 

 but why get over the edge. 



As I said before I go for fish. Having tramped afoot 

 or straddled a bronco over four or five miles to the fishing 

 water, only to discover that the "speckled beauties" do 

 not care for a glittering, skittering fraud to-day, but want 

 something more substantial, I try to oblige them. I 

 do not reel up my line, put away my flies and retrace my 

 profitless journey, now seeming eight or ten miles of sage 

 plain, rocky hillside or hot, dusty road, empty-handed 

 and only to be laughed at. That is, I don't do these par- 

 ticular things if I can find minnows, grasshoppers, dob- 

 sons or something else that the trout want. Thirty-five 

 years ago, when I first caught trout in the streams of the 

 "Great American Desert," our faith and hope and main 

 reliance, at times, were centered and concentrated in the 

 Egyptian locust and the Mormon cricket. With those 

 we could get; trout. There are conditions of the water 

 when the fly is useless. There are days, and hours of 

 other days, when fish will not touch the fly. Why, then, 

 should sportsmen insist and persist that the fly is the only 

 lure that may be used? Some insist that anything else is 

 unmanly, a deception upon the innocent, unsuspecting 

 fish. Out upon such balderdash. What more outrageous, 

 barefaced deception is there than the artificial trout fly 

 itself? It makes no pretense to being anything else. If 

 the fish is taken at all it is by a deception, and it is a fatal 

 deception to the victim. What matters to it whether that 

 deception is one concealed by substance or if it is a fraud 

 in fact as well as in its concealment? Is the latter 

 any more manly? Does it give the fish any" more 

 chance for its life? Hardly so much, as results show. In 

 point of fact the artificial lure is more fatal in effect than 

 a natural on;-. This kind of Pharisaical preaching is near 

 akin to that other which says that no bird should be shot 

 except upon the whig. What nonsense. Who makes 

 the big bag of birds but the wing shot? Who takes the 

 big creel of trout but the fly-rodsman? Fortunately the 

 latter cannot do it every day, nor in all waters, if he 

 sticks to his creed. It is these extra skil If id sportsmen 

 who exterminate game from the land and the same who 

 sneeringly designate all others who lack their peculiar 

 skill as "pot-hunters." A "pot-hunter" may be, and he 

 generally is, a very expert with the double cylinders at 

 birds on the wing, requiring a pah- of retrievers to gather 

 them in and an assistant to load and hand up his guns. 

 A "trout-hog" may handle a five or six ounce split bam- 

 boo never so deftiy and drop his gray-miller and black- 

 ant upon the water gently as snow flakes, luring the 

 fingerling trout so skillfully by a counterfeit and landing 

 them so quickly by his skill that they do not have to be 

 removed from the hook, but drop off themselves on the 

 bank of the brook. They all count, though it may re- 

 quire a magni ying glass to see them. I heard one of 

 these gentiy boast that he once caught from a stream 



that he could step across at any point and dropped them 

 from his fly-hook on the other bank without touching 

 one of them with his hands, over foiu - hundred little 

 trout. Yet we are told that men who can do these things 

 are the only genuine, simon-pure, original-Jacobs sports- 

 men, the only ones who give the birds or the fish a -'liv- 

 ing chance." Would it not be more just to designate as 

 sportsmen those who kill what they shoot and land what 

 they hook, ending the life of either in a speedy and 

 humane way and who know enough to quic killing when 

 they have acquired a fair and reasonable supply? But 

 this' may all be considered as scolding and we had better 

 drop the subject. 



I came over here the first of the. month to enjoy a little 

 fishing in June. Our laws now permit fishing with rod 

 and line, but not otherwise, all the year. They also pro- 

 hibit fishing for market, or the sale' of fish caught from 

 the public streams. Formerly fishing was forbidden from 

 Jan. 1 to July 1. Usually it is almost impossible to catch 

 trout earlier than July 1 , but this year is exceptional, the 

 seasons being nearly a month earlier than usual, Well, 

 when I came over from Denver, the streams were yet 

 high and roily, with a strong flavor of snow in the 

 water, and more or less grass land and willow land cov- 

 ered. However, the water was falling, and in the larger 

 streams a few fish could be taken, but only with minnows. 

 The fly was entirely useless. We have no angle worms 

 in Colorado, except in Denver, where they were trans- 

 planted about twenty years ago. and have since spread 

 all over the city. I never caught a trout with an angle 

 worm, but I don't call another man a horse thief because 

 he did. In the absence of other bait, many use grubs or 

 muck worms and wood worms, I. ut I have never resorted 

 to either. 



On the 10th of June the trout iiies, May flies, willow 

 flies, holgramites or dobsons, appeared in the winged 

 forms in the lower end of the park, and on the 11th, at 

 this place and above, but they extended, as I am told, up 

 to only about 8,000ft. above sea level. They were very 

 plentiful and gorgeous in wings and coloring. With 

 these for bait the fishing became at once first-rate. The 

 flies lasted five days; that is, they were not plentiful in 

 the lower end of the park after the' 15th, nor in the upper 

 part after the 16th. Occasional stragglers can since be 

 found, but not enough to rely upon. Immediately fol- 

 lowing then- disappearance the trout began taking the 

 artificial fly, but were choice in their selection. A little 

 ashen-gray miller next appeared along the streams, hov- 

 ering over the water, and when the wind blew, thickly 

 sprinkled its surface. The fish feed ravenously upon 

 these, tut they are not very filling and a reasonable 

 sportsman can easily catch all the trout he wants with 

 any modest appearing neutral tinted fly, even where the 

 millers are most plentiful. The fish are vigorous and fat, 

 and average large in size for these streams, the ordinary 

 catch ranging from 6 to 20oz., with a majority of them 

 from 10 to 14oz. I have hooked but three fish to throw 

 back into the stream — under 7in. My fishing so far has 

 been confined to Grand River, two miles up on both sides, 

 and four miles down on one side. More fish can be taken 

 in the smaller streams, but this is good enough. 



There is one fact in connection with fishing in the 

 Rocky Mountain country that seems never to be taken 

 hi to account. I allude to the almost total exemption from 

 annoyance by insects. A large share of the details for 

 outfitting a party for a fishing exclusion in most countries 

 is devoted to the methods and appliances for circum vent- 

 ing insect pests, and for neutralizing the effect of their 

 bites and stings. Innumerable lotions, emulsions and 

 ointments are provided. Elaborate nets and protectors 

 are carried along. And they appear, from all accounts, 

 to be fully necessary. The daily journal in the woods is 

 usually about half made up of particulars of fights with 

 the big fish that finally got away in daytime, and the 

 other half of how they doped themselves and each other 

 with coal-tar and turpentine and other condiments, and 

 smudged the mosquitoes, black flies, punlcies, etc., at 

 night. The party is generally fla- ked right and left and 

 whipped all along the line, on land and water, day and 

 night. I reach this conclusion from evidence of their 

 historians who publish their testimony in Forest and 

 Stream. Have had no experience. Now in this country 

 we have no such unpleasant experiences. There are no 

 black flies, punkies, sand flies or buffalo gnats. There is 

 a short mosquito season, seldom lasting more than two or 

 three weeks, in either the latter part of June and the first 

 part of July, or else wholly in the ear her part of July, 

 during which that insect may be found somewhat annoy- 

 ing at certain hours of the day or in certain places. But 

 they always disappear when the sun goes down. None 

 are seen, felt or heard during the night. Along many of 

 the streams there are no mosquitoes at all at any time. 

 It is only where there is shelter of willows, or tall grass, 

 or sloughs of dead water, that they are annoying. 

 Throughout the latter part of the summer and all of the 

 autumn there are no insect pests at all. W. N. B. 



Better Fishing in the Upper Hudson. — Mr. A. N. 

 Cheney thinks the Upper Hudson is a far better stream 

 for fish than it was a few years ago. The paper mills no 

 longer use such quantities of bleaching material as 

 formerly, and consequently a smaller quantity of limo 

 passes into the river. New processes hi paper making 

 have superseded the old methods, which polluted the 

 water to a great extent. His attention was called to this 

 fact, that lately some black bass have been, taken at the 

 foot of Glens Falls, opposite the great paper mill there, 

 which is said to be the largest in the world. It was a 

 common thing to take them there some years ago, but of 

 late years they had abandoned the place. The superin- 

 tendent of this mill says that soda ash is no longer used 

 n bleaching, and that but a small quantity of lime is 

 required in their processes, and that what is true of his 

 mill is also true of all paper mills on the river. 



Salmon in the Hudson.— State Game Protector 

 Mathew Kennedy, of Hudson, furnishes the following 

 list of salmon taken in the Hudson River this season. 

 One fish of 81bs. at Kingston Point, by John Mahoney; 

 one of 181bs. at Port Ewing, by Al. Munson; one of 14-Jlbs. 

 at Tivoli, by Christopher Coon & Co. , and one by himself 

 at Hudson of 171bs. We have recorded the latter fish 

 before, and it was taken before the passage of the law 

 forbidding their capture in nets, but we have not the 

 dates of the other captures. They were probably taken 

 durinp- the shad season, and before the new law went 

 into effect. 



