July 18, 1888.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



633 



A 



ALLIGATOR GARS AND BLACK BASS. 



NEGEO man, heretofore found credible, told me 

 . yesterday about an alligator gar attacking a boy 

 some two weeks ago. The little fellow, about ten years 

 old, was bathing in the Calcasieu River. The colored 

 man, at work in a field near by, heard him call for help, 

 and, running to the rescue, found him in the clutch of a 

 monster gar, a,nd it was not till he had been hammered 

 three or four times lustily with a club that the fish let go 

 his hold. The boy was sb badly mangled about the abdo- 

 men, the walls of which were cut in a dozen different 

 places, that peritonitis set in, and he died on the third 



%&n any one tell me how large the alligator gar grows? 

 I saw one' caught on a trot line on the Lower Calcasieu, 

 about a month ago, so large that two men could not lift 

 him into the boat, after his skull was smashed with a 

 hatchet. They started to tow him to shore, but, unfor- 

 tunately, the line broke, and he sunk. One of the men 

 estimated his length at 1.3ft. and his weight at 1501bs,, 

 the other thought he was at least loft, and would weigh 

 SOOlbs. Probably both over-estimated, but he certainly 

 was a monster. - .... 



'•Macon Angler ' complains that the black bass in ins 

 vicinity will not rise to the fly, and attributes it to the 

 abundance of insect lite in the waters which they inhabit. 

 I hardly think that can be the reason, from the fact that 

 in a small pond on my plantation, where a number of 

 bass have been left by the recession of the waters of the 

 bayou, and which abounds with insect life (I caught 

 eighteen different species of insects there one evening, 

 "and it wasn't a very good day for bugs, either,"), they 

 take the fly freelv. The more gaudy-colored the better, 

 the red -ibis and 'a green and yellow nondescript of my 

 own making being the favorites. It is the first time, by 

 the way, that I have ever found the red-ibis amounting 



to anything as a bass fly. 



To what extent has the black bass been found m salt 

 water? I caught one, M. salmoides (big-mouth), in the 

 Calcasieu River, so near the Gulf that the water was too 

 brackish to use, and, in fact, where the tide was running 

 fast enough to make rowing against it quite laborious. 



H. P. IT. 



Lake Charles, "Louisiana. 



SPEAKER BOYD'S WINNINISH. 



A TALL man, over 6ft. in height, who hails you cor- 

 dially, but with an expression of disappointment 

 because he cannot swap some fish stories with the Lone 

 Fisherman of Beaver, left Quebec one night in the month 

 of last September. Twenty-four hours later he was a 

 tired but welcome guest at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. 

 This man of symmetrical figure holds a high position in 

 the Keystone State. It is the Speaker of the Pennsyl- 

 vania House of Representatives, Henry K. Boyd, who 

 grasps you by the hand as he says: "Well if I can't find 

 one fisherman, I'm in luck to stumble over another." 

 He introduces me to a natty man, a slightly undersized 

 and agreeable gentleman with a diamond scarf pin, and 

 the man inside the well fitting clothes answered to the 

 name of "Bald Eagle, of Herkimer," for it is the Hon. 

 Jimmy Husted. 



It was midnight, but everybody keeps "early" hours 

 in New York, at least whiie the dog star rages, and 

 I heartily enjoyed Speaker Boyd's "over-true tale" about 

 Ins two weeks'sojourn with his Indian guides at Chicon- 

 tinic, away at the end of navigation on the Saguenay 

 River, below Quebec, and his grand luck in Lake St. John, 

 175 niiLs from Quebec, among trout and winninish. 



Brown as a berry, with a suspicion of Canadian wild- 

 erness appetite still on him, Mr. Boyer describes his 

 journey in the Canadian wilds in pursuit of the gamiest 

 fish that swims and the liveliest fighter of the northern 

 lakes. He says: "Many fishermen dote on grayling fish- 

 in ", this fish having many of the characteristics of 

 speckled trout, and the pursuit under difficulty of the 

 grayling adds ardor to the sportsman's joys, because they 

 are hard to find and still more difficult to catch. These 

 are smaller in size and do not fight with a hundredth 

 part of the pluck and tenacity of the winninish, which 

 are by a peculiarity of piscatorial nomenclature called 

 'landlocked salmon/ The distance, tlie expense and 

 physical exertion required to catch this wonderful fish, 

 and the few isolated localities in this or any other land 

 where the winninish can be captured, makes the sport 

 rare and adds vastly to its charm. I had a friend who 

 fired my imagination by telling me of a beautiful spot in 

 Canada', at the foot of the Great Discharge, where the 

 whole Saguenay River pours out though a narrow gorge 

 into a circular lake dotted with islands; this tremendous 

 current meeting in its reckless course the little rocky 

 islands becomes churned up into all conceivable sorts of 

 eddies and swirls. It is in the white cream and froth of 

 this boiling mass that the best and biggest fish love to 

 resort. He told me one could see the fish rolling like 

 porpoises in the foam, as they disappear exposing to view 

 their large fork-shaped tails. "When you see a four- 

 pound winninish playing in the foam, pick out the big- 

 gest "ail, let your cast of flies go overboard and you've 

 got him. 



"I spent one day as the guest of the Laurentian Club, 

 at Montreal, which takes its name from the Laurentian 

 Mountains that surround Lake Edward, twenty-five miles 

 long, and full of trout. At the Laurentian Club I heard 

 more of the winninish; I resolved to make a break for 

 Quebec and the fieh country. The next day I bought my 

 supply at Quebec, and having long since discarded the 

 red worm for a fly-book, I had every fly from a Jack- 

 Scot to a grizzly-king in my pocket. I made the time fly 

 at Quebec, for my mind was all aglow with the prospect 

 of sport, novel enough to kindle any angler's imagination. 



"My guides were selected, two trusty Indians, who ac- 

 companied me to Lake St. John, 175. miles distant, as 

 magnificent a sheet of water as my eyes ever beheld; its 

 width is twenty-five miles, and it was a thing of beauty 

 to watch the glowing sunset among the hills which were 

 grim and grand, gloomy and majestic along the Saguenay 

 River, where I did my best fishing. We camped on the 

 banks of the river, and for ten days slept on beds of 

 balsam boughs, a sleep so sound that no noises could dis- 

 turb us. I caught all the fish we wanted on the first 

 evening after we erected our tent, they were broiled and 

 'done brown' for a breakfast which Augustin might 

 have envied. But it would take me till broad daylight 

 to tell you the joys of sitting in the stern of a birch bark 

 canoe. 9ft. long, comfortably surrounded by camp duffle, 



while two stalwart Indians rush the light canoe up 

 seemingly impossibe rapids which leap and dance with 

 fairy foam, through the most beautiful and picturesque 

 country in Canada. 



On' the 30th of August I began my fishing for the 



the Columbia River, for which he paid $15,000 yearly. 

 He for years kept up a hunting box near Bonanza City, 

 Idaho, which was located on the top of the Continental 

 Divide, according to report. 

 Mr. C. E. Fargo, of C. H. Fargo & Co., is just back 



lumping fish on Murray's wa-na nish. In three hours I from a lucky trip at Gay lord club house m Wisconsin, 

 'had seven good-sized fish, in spite of the vain in the mom- Mr. M. M. Gay lord is up with the club now, and will 



probably remain during the greater part of the summer, 

 his health being poor. 



I have spoken earlier of Messrs, W. H. and E. F. Corn- 

 stock as expert fly-fishermen for bass. These gentlemen 



ing, one of 3J -lbs., one of 2£lbs. and five of lib. each, lllbs. 

 in all. Tuesday, Aug. 81, I had my best day, and caught 

 twenty fish in spite of the storm and rain, one 3£lbs., one 

 31bs., two21bs. each, two Ulbs. each, three Ulbs. each, 

 eleven lib. each, 281bs- in all. 



"Never again do I expect to have such joyful and hila- 

 rious experience, save I come again among the Lauren- 

 tian Mountains and among those jumping fish. Five 

 times (I had two flies on) I made double catches; four 

 times I landed both fish, but the fifth I lost the end fish, 

 a 3-pounder, while the other jumped over the head 

 of the Indian, who sat in the bow, and I caught the 

 'winny' on the jump in the landing-net. Oh, the joy of 

 it ! I don't wonder now that President Arthur used to 

 spend the summer months in this fisherman's paradise. 

 Mv biggest catch was a 3J-pounder on my lead fly, and a 

 1-pounder on the tail fly, and I landed both. My Lau- 

 rentian Club friends advised my taking strong taskle. I 

 took my very light bethabara trout rod. with lancewood 

 tip, which I have used fifty times among the trout streams 

 in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, and with a 

 light but strong silk line, it admirably answered my pur- 

 pose. We got caught in a storm five miles out on my 

 first day's fishing on Lake St. John, where there are said 

 to be 81b. winninish , and nothing but the level-headed 

 Indian, Sebago, my best guide, saved us. Our light skiff 

 would not have lived twenty minutes longer, as we sprung 

 a leak a mile from shore. 



"Saturday ended my glorious sport, for all things have 

 an end, and Walter Scott says 'a bag pudding has two 

 ends.' I bade my guides farewell on the wooded shores 

 of Lake St. John, a regretful one to us all, and as our 

 locomotive pulled out of the forest primeval, the glowing- 

 words of that famous fisherman, Adirondack Murray, 

 kept repeating themselves: 'Less than one hundred miles 

 from Lake Edward, clue north, lies the famed Lake St. 

 John, the 'native soil' of the grandest and most illus- 

 trious game fish, without any exception whatever, that 

 plows through fresh waters.'"' James M. Scovel. 



are just back from Brown's Lake, Wis. , where they have 

 had' their usual success. They tried the rather novel 

 experiment of fly-fishing for bass by moonlight, and one 

 evening took 15 black bass, besides a number of rock bass 

 and the like. M. E. F. Comstock took 10 bass on the fly 

 in that lake after 10 A. M. of July 6, and in the evening 

 of the same day took 7 more after supper. In Twin 

 Lakes, in last June, these two gentlemen on two consec- 

 utive days, caught 18 bass, some of which weighed Slbs. 

 On the 10th of June, 1888, the two killed 108 bass in one 

 day on Brown's Lake, all on the fly. Mr. W. H. Corn- 

 stock took a 3£lb. large-mouthed bass on the fly in Loon 

 Lake this spring, and says the large-mouth rises closer to 

 the surface than the small-mouth, and requires more 

 delicate casting, rarely taking a trailing fly or one badly 

 cast: whereas the small-mouth will take the fly lower in 

 the water while trailing. Both of these gentlemen say 

 that the small-mouth is out of sight gamer than the large- 

 mouth, and both insist that in proper weather they can 

 take more bass with the fly than can be taken with bait 

 so far as the number is concerned. As they laugh at the 

 idea of returning all bass weighing less tnan 31bs., I 

 presume they do not catch fish on the average so heavy 

 as those taken by our bait-casters. There is no misstate- 

 ment in regard to the latter fact. A few of our best 

 bait-casters here will not keep a bass weighing less than 

 31bs. ; but considering the murderous qualities of bait- 

 casting, and the constant heavy strings thus killed, I 

 think this is the least they can do to relieve themselves 

 of the odium attaching to pot-fishermen. E. Hough. 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 



C\HICAGO, July 8.— Mr. E. C. J. Cleaver is just back 

 / from a trip around Ashland. He and Mr. Mat. 

 Benner had great success with the trout in the Bruns- 

 willow, near Philip Kobl's cabin, three and a half miles 

 west of Minersville. Their trout did not run heavy. 

 They did not face the rough country which had to be 

 crossed for the 2lt>. trout country. They went over into 

 Turtle River country after mascallonge, but found that 

 country wild and with no boats but 30ft. dugouts, which 

 they could not use. They found mascallonge at Butter- 

 nut Lake. All these points in Wisconsin. 



Mr. Fred C. Donald, G. P. A. of the C. & A. railway, 

 and Mr. Chas. S. Burton, city passenger agent of the 

 Kankakee line, had good luck a short time ago on Wau- 

 saukee River, Wisconsin. They caught sixty-one trout 

 in one day before 3 P. M. A nine miles buckboard ride 

 is a feature of that trip. Mr. C. E. Rollins had a great 

 catch on those waters a week earlier. Mr. Burton is now 

 hesitating between a trip this week to the Pentwater, on 

 the west shore of the lower Michigan peninsula, and one 

 to Eau Claire, Wisconsin. He gets good reports and 

 strong invitations from both places. 



The Oconto and the Pike in Wisconsin have both been 

 doing well this spring. Ellis Junction, on the C. & N. 

 W., is a good point to go in on the former stream. 



Mr. F. P. Taylor says he can get grayling any time he 

 w ants to in Michigan, but he won't go with 'me after 

 them. He says he caught plenty — five years ago! 



Messrs. A. Hirth, Chas. Heath, Nath. Moore, Mr. and 

 Mrs. L. F. Loeb and Mr. M. Lippman went over the foot of 

 the lake to St. Joseph, Mich., Saturday, after bass. 



Mr. W. C. Wise starts this week for a fly-fishing trip in 

 Washington Territory. 



Mr. W. Kennedy, of Pittsburgh. Fa., lately passed 

 through here after a most successful trip after Lake Su- 

 perior big brook trout. 



Mr. Frank Greenwood Pratt, of St. Louis, outfitted 

 heavily here Saturday for a Lake Superior trout trip. 



Col. Jas. Kilbourne, of Columbus, who lately led into 

 Gogebic paradise country Messrs. H. A. Lanman, F. F. 

 Hoffman, F. W. Prentiss and R. E. Sheldon, proved him- 

 self so doughty an angler and so worthy a chief, the 

 above gentlemen, when they reached this city on their 

 return, presented him with a beautiful fly- book and 12 

 dozen flies, the book bearing the names of the donors. 



We are having lovely fishing weather at this date. Our 

 anglers are all going ©ut, and are all having success, 

 whether at bass or trout. The season seems unusually 

 favorable. There has never been so much fishing tackle 

 sold in any year in Chicago as during this season, and 

 buyers ask"for the better grades. Sporting interests are 

 growing here. 



Chicago, July 9. — Fishing for bass and pickerel has 

 been unusually good of late below the dam on the Kan- 

 kakee at Momence, 111. Two men caught thirty bass 

 there in one day of last week. The run seems to be in 

 which was due in early June. 



This same peculiarity seems noticeable at the lakes 

 also, and is doubtless due to the late and cool spring. The 

 earlier bass taken seemed to be mostly t wo or three years 

 old and averaged small. The big ones are now biting 

 ravenously, and it is questionable if any season ever 

 offered better fishing here in any late years. 



Mr. W. A. Toles, of the Globe Light and Heat Co., just 

 back from Twin Lakes, Wis., where he spent two weeks, 

 reports the fishing better there than he ever knew it. He 

 and his friend Mr. Hobler took 751bs. of large and small- 

 mouthed bass and pickerel in two hours' fishing. The fish 

 were rising much better the last week than the week 

 before. 



A somewhat noted sportsman came to his end this 

 week in Mr. Hiram A. Pearsons, who was drowned while 

 bathing from a yacht off the lake front here. Mr. Pear- 

 sons was late of San Francisco, where he had quarters at 

 the Pacific Club. He was thirty-one, a bachelor, a mine 

 owner, very wealthy, and noted in the Rockies as an 

 enthusiastic and liberal sportsman. He is said to have 

 had the exclusive privilege of fishing the headwaters of 



New Brunswick Trout Netters. — Kingston, N. B., 

 July 6.— One can scarcely think it possible in this enlight- 

 ened age. with books and journals such as the Forest 

 and Stream to read, that young men having the least 

 grain of spirit in their composition could so far forget 

 themselves as to drive a long distance to one of our best 

 streams to fish trout with a net. Sunday, June 23, sev- 

 eral parties started from Moncton. Just a6 the last few 

 people were going to church they drove through the 

 streets on their way to the fishing grounds, with fishing 

 rods sticking out of the carriage. That is about all the 

 use they put then rods to. To one of our fishery over- 

 seers, Mr. Lazare Guimnauel, great credit is due for the 

 effective manner in which he traced, captured and fined 

 the law-breakers. Upon his arrival at the brook he seized 

 a lot of trout bearing marks of a net. They refused to 

 pay the fine, and stated that they did not net the trout 

 but bought them from a fellow that they met on the 

 brook. Mr. Guimnauel thought the statement rather 

 transparent, as some of the same party were known to 

 have netted trout on the same stream last year, and told 

 them that unless they paid the fine he would call assist- 

 ance and take every one of them to jail. They at once 

 saw that Mr, G. meant business, and paid the fine, which 

 amounted to $30. I have no doubt they felt good, and. 

 enjoyed their drive home. Too much cannot be said in 

 favor of Mr. Guimnauel in this the initial move made by 

 any fishery overseer in this county to protect the trout 

 fishing. We would have good trout fishing if others 

 would follow in his steps and snub these netters, which 

 are a disgrace to themselves and the community in which 

 they live. I would advise Mr. G. to keep a watch on 

 those living much nearer to the brook than Moncton, 

 and if reports are true, he could reap a rich harvest by 

 visiting a certain freezer situated less than a hundred 

 miles from Tweedies Brook.— Sportsman. 



The Color op Trout. — A recent writer in one of the 

 New York newspapers under the above title tries to ex- 

 plain the variations in the external and internal color- 

 ations of the brook trout. The nature of the bottom and 

 of the body of water determine the hues of the fish. The 

 color of the flesh is regulated by the food. These state- 

 ments may contain more or less truth and they may sat- 

 isfy some readers; but we must not lose sight of the fact 

 that the external colors can be changed suddenly at the 

 will of the fish, as explained in the abstract of Mr. 

 Goode's paper published in Forest and Stream May 16, 

 1889. It has long been a favorite theory that the pink 

 color of the salmon is derived from crustaceans which it 

 is said to feed upon at sea; but we do not know, in the 

 first place, that such food really nourishes the salmon, 

 and, in the next place, several other well-known fishes — 

 mackerel, menhaden, alewives — devour immense quan- 

 tities of red crustaceans, but their flesh never changes to 

 pink. Evidently some writers have sirnply jumped at 

 conclusions and there is room for more elaborate study 

 of the color problem . 



Vermont Trout. — Waterbury, Vt., July 12. — There 

 remain but two weeks more for trout fishing in this State, 

 as the new law makes the close season begin Aug. 1, one 

 month earlier than formerly. I believe it would have 

 been even better had the date been July 15 or even July 

 1. I have dressed several trout containing well developed 

 eggs as early as July 4. The law seems to have been 

 very generally regarded in this section, and I believe 

 next season will show the value of the measures taken 

 to protect what trout we have. "Catch all you can" still 

 remains the motto, but trout are so scarce it usually re- 

 quires hard work and many trials to get even a moderate 

 string, and except in a few instances the "trout hog" 

 would have no chance here. I recently returned from a 

 very enjoyable two days' trip to one of the best streams 

 in this county. Heavy rains and high water made the 

 fishing poor, and my friend and myself had only seven- 

 teen good trout to share at the end of two clays' steady 

 work.— F. E, A. 



The New Jersey Trout Season Closed July 15.— 

 The trout, however, had closed the season before I was 

 ready, as I got only nine in two days' fishing with all 

 kinds of conceivable flies. ^C. A. S. (Paterson). ~ 



