266 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



fOc*. 2fe, 1888. 



National, Park Petitions.— The following names 

 have been appended to a Copy of Che petition sent from 

 New Jersey; Henry N. Dodge, M.D., Susan M. Dodge, 

 Mary D. Dodge, Jul ia E. Dodge, Louisa M. Horne, Ella 

 Dodge, Delia B. Merritt, Mary H. Maury, James F. Maury, 

 Elizabeth Maury, Alfred Elmer Mills, Kinsley Tivining, 

 Norman Fox, Pred G. Burnham, C. L. H. Burnham, 

 Kate H. Hilliard, John C, Beatty. Julia E. Soutter, Hetty 

 B. Beatty, Caroline H. Marsh, John Marsh, H. O. Marsh, 

 Sadie Pitney Johnson, L. Juliana Halstead, Frederic 

 Vernon Pitney, S. R. Cooper, Arthur Dodge. 



'M mid mit er fishing. 



Angling Talks. By George Da wson. Price 50 cents, Fly- 

 Bods tend Fly-Tackle. By H. P. Wells. Price $3.50. Fly- 

 Fishing and Fly-Making for Trout. By J. H. Keene. 

 Price $1.50. American Angler's Book. By Thad. Norris. 

 Price $5.50. 



GUT LEADERS. 



THERE are few American anglers, I should imagine, 

 who have not at some time or another had cause to 

 deplore, or, perhaps, if not properly brought up, to exe- 

 crate at the loss of a fish because of a defective or inade- 

 quate gut leader. It is, not infrequently, a difficult 

 matter to get either good leaders or good gut at anything 

 like a moderate cost. The silkworms have the pip, there 

 is civil war in Spain, the gut is cornered by dealers in 

 futures, or there is some other excellent reason for put- 

 ting a stiff price on a hank of the best gut. Then, again, 

 the question arises, do we on this side of the herring 

 pond get any of the very best gut, whatever may be the 

 price? I am inclined to "think not, and in saying this I 

 have particular reference to extraordinarily heavy salmon 

 gut. 



I once bought of a man new in the business ten hanks 

 of as good gut as is often seen in this country at a price 

 that was akin to burglary, but his second bill rectified all 

 previous errors and made me think the dealer should be 

 indicted for manslaughter. London is the chief market 

 to which most, if not all, of the dealers in fishing tackle 

 are. obliged to go for their silkworin gut, whether it be 

 Spanish, Indian or Chinese. Unless the dealer has a 

 factory in Spain, separate and distinct from the castles 

 hi Spain, which some dealers have; and it would appear 

 to a man up a tree that if the London dealers have the 

 first whack at the gut crop they are intelligent enough to 

 take the cream of it. This may be disputed by some of 

 our own dealers, but the proof of the pudding can better 

 be established when it is first made than when it is 

 warmed over. If we do not have the very best salmon 

 gut it is posssibly because there is not a demand for it, or 

 because our method of fishing for salmon from a canoe 

 instead of floundering along the shore, does not require 

 such particularly strong gut as I have designated as very 

 best. I quote from Mr. H. Chohnondeley-Pennell in 

 "Fishing" (Badminton Library) to better illustrate what I 

 mean when I say I do not think we get the very best gut. 

 "The breaking 'dead weight strain of a strand of the 

 stoutest salmon gut, round, smooth and perfect in every 

 respect, ought not to be less than from somewhere 

 between fifteen and eighteen pounds. For gut of extra- 

 ordinary quality and strength, as much as from £5 to £7 

 per hundred strands, wholesale price, is now stated to be 

 frequently paid. Some samples of the 1884 crop, tested 

 by my friend Mr. R. B. Marston, broke at a dead strain 

 of seventeen pounds." 



Do we have any such gut? Twenty-five to thirty-five 

 cents per strand, wholesale, is a very snug price for gut. 

 Major Traherne, in his excellent article upon salmon fish- 

 ing in the same volume from which I have just quoted, 

 says that he tested a casting line (leader) and broke it at 

 151bs.; and two strands brought his steelyard down to 

 201bs. without breaking. 



To Mr. R. B. Marston, editor of the Fishing Gazette, I 

 am indebted for repeated favors in the way of specimens 

 of English fishing tackle. In one of his last letters he 

 sent me samples of leaders of twisted and of gossamer- 

 drawn gut, tied by Mrs. Bulmer, of London. 



I have tested the leaders, not exhaustively, and will 

 give the details. In Mr. Henry P, Wells's book "Fly-Rods 

 and Fly-Tackle," page 70, can be found an illustration of 

 a gut-gauge. Mr. Wells presented me with a gauge from 

 which, I believe, that illustration was drawn. One limb 

 of the gauge has marks which separate it into tenths of 

 an inch, the other linib is marked after Stubb's wire 

 gauge, and as the latter only will convey an idea of rela- 

 tive size to my readers I will use that. The coarsest that 

 I can measure is 26, the finest 32, as the slit below 32 is 

 filled with solder. The Bulmer leaders of drawn gut are 

 three yards in length and tapered from 32 to so fine that 

 I have no means of measuring to convey the size in a 

 letter. I think, however, that I have seen hairs from the 

 human head that were coarser than the fine end of one of 

 these leaders. I soaked one of these, and while it was 

 soft tested it with spring scales. It first broke at one 

 pound. I tied another loop on the broken end, and at the 

 second trial it broke at three-quarters of a pound; the 

 third time it broke at the same notch; the fourth 

 time it broke at one pound; the fifth time at one 

 and three-quarters of a pound, and the sixth time 

 it did not break at two pounds. After breaking 

 the leader five times it was 9ft. 6in. long. The five 

 breaks were all in three lengths of the fine end of the 

 leader, and all were between knots. I examined pieces 

 of the fine end that were broken off under the test under 

 a microscope (magnified 100 diameter) and found the 

 mark of the drawing tool remarkably even, without the 

 little wavy lines sometimes seen in drawn gut so magni- 

 fied. The sides were smooth and did not show any fray- 

 ing, fluffing or peeling, as the turning up of fine fibers on 

 the surface of drawn gut is variously called. This very 

 fine-drawn gut is not necessary for leaders to be used in 

 American waters, except on rare occasions. The Bulmer 

 leaders of twisted gut are also tapered. The gut is twisted 

 in ordinary lengths and .the lengths tied together, and the 

 knots whipped with silk and shellacked. In the Wells 

 gauge one of these leaders measured (Stubb's wire meas- 

 urement) 26 at the coarser end and 28 at the finer, and 

 the leaders are very evenly twisted and smoothly finished. 

 I tested one, dry, at 51bs. without breaking it. I have 

 never used a twisted leader, but shall give these a trial 

 in fishing another season and see how they wear. 



I tested two leaders of salmon gut made by Forest & 

 Son, Kelso, Scotland, for which I am indebted to Mr. 

 James B. Baker, of Elizabeth, N. J. In one leader I 

 could not find a single gut length that would enter, any 

 part of it, the Wells gauge, and this leader did not break 

 atlOlbs., which was the greatest strain of my scales. 

 The other leader had one length only that would enter 

 the gauge, and that marked 28. A 91b. strain broke that 

 particular gut length, when I cut it out, re tied the leader, 

 and it withstood lOlbs., the limit of my scales. Some 

 years ago Mr. Allen Gilmoeir, the well-known Canadian 

 salmon angler and owner of the Gadbout Rive'r, sent me 

 some of Forest's salmon flies, and with these some gut 

 lengths to attach the flies to a leader. I tested these gut 

 lengths, as I find from a memorandum, atlOlbs., without 

 breaking either. Of course natural (undrawn) gut is to 

 be preferred to drawn gut, if it could be obtained fine 

 enough. About the best fine natural gut I ever saw for 

 roundness, smoothness, fineness and length, measured in 

 a Wells gauge about 31, but a trifle heavier than that 

 figure. I tested a 3yd. leader made of this gut that I 

 used this season, and it broke at strains from 21bs. to 

 2|lbs. I could not tell just how much I had used the 

 leader, but it showed considerable wear. When gut, 

 which is nothing more nor less than the silk sacs of the 

 Chinese silkworm (Bombix niori), is stretched and dried, 

 it is covered with a yellow skin or envelope, and in this 

 condition, all sizes and lengths together, it is sold by the 

 peasants at the factories by the pound. There it is 

 bleached, sorted and tied in hanks for market. 



Gf.ens Falls, N.Y. A. N. CHENEY. 



POTOMAC FISHING NOTES. 



ALTHOUGH it is quite late in the season, Potomac 

 anglers are having good sport, and nice strings of 

 fish are brought in. At Great Falls, Seneca, Muddy 

 Branch, Point of Rocks and other noted places between 

 Washington and Harper's Ferry, a great many bass have 

 been taken, and enthusiastic anglers count on having 

 several weeks of fishing yet before cold weather shuts 

 them off. I have had some fair days right here within 

 sight of the Washington Monument, between Aqueduct 

 Bridge and Little Falls. One day last week I caught a 

 2lb. bass within sound of the bells of Georgetown College, 

 and added five striped bass and three channel catfish, 

 averaging over a pound each, to my string before I 

 stopped for the day. 



Three months out of the past six the water has been 

 too muddy for fishing; and for a time in the early fall it 

 seemed it would never get clear. I waited a week at 

 Point of Rocks in September, and then returned disap- 

 pointed. Some days it would be muddy on both sides of 

 the river and quite clear in the middle; then one side 

 roily and the other clearing up. But rains came in time 

 to dash all hope and play the mischief with long-antici- 

 pated vacation. 



Recently a great number of striped bass have come up 

 the river, and many have been caught. At the Navy 

 Yard men and boys have had excellent sport, one of the 

 latter catching thirty-five in two hours, one of which 

 weighed 61bs. . the string aggregating 351bs. 



There has also been an influx of channel catfish, clean, 

 lithe, good-looking fellows, that run from |lb. to 21bs. in 

 weight, and look first-rate on the string, even along with 

 black and striped bass. A few anglers have succeeded 

 remarkably well in catching carp, some of which weighed 

 from 10 to 20lbs. each. One of the most successful of 

 these anglers made a paste of flour and corn meal, which 

 for bait he tied up in small pieces in mosquito netting, 

 using small O'Shaughnessy hooks on strong snoods. I 

 never hear of any one eating carp; it is the sport of catch- 

 ing that leads in'the enterprise. J. C. B. 

 Washington, Oct. 23. 



TROUT AT THE UPPER DAM. 



SPRINGFIELD, Mass., Oct. 15.— Editor Forest and 

 Stream: Your articles by "Special" in recent issues, 

 on "Maine Fishing" and a case of jigging at Upper Dam, 

 have unusual interest for those who, like myself, have 

 just returned from the Rangeley waters. While at the 

 Rangeley Lake House the last week in September, a Mr. 

 Randall, of Orange, N. J., talked with us freely of his 

 trip to Upper Dam, and of some unheard of trout fishing 

 that he and his guide saw. The guide was Warren 

 Stevens, one of the oldest and most reliable guides on the 

 lakes, as I was informed. They both said they saw a 

 sportsman casting from his boat in the swift water, just 

 below the pool; his guide sat in the bow intently watch- 

 ing the rapid water; suddenly as a big trout passed up 

 the guide turned Ins eye to the pool where the fish had 

 halted, threw a heavily-loaded line into the still water 

 and with a jerk hooked the trout. The pole was handed 

 to the sportsmen and the fish was hauled in tail first. 



According to Mr. Randall and his guide Stevens this 

 novel method of catching big trout was repeated several 

 times with the same result, and acting on their account Mr. 

 Huntoon, the Rangeley game and fish warden, who ex- 

 posed Messrs. Stewart and Hollingsworth last year, was 

 sent to investigate. When he returned he reported that 

 he found several large fish, but could not detect the 

 marks of the jig, and gave his opinion that the fish he 

 saw were illegally caught with a net. 



Since my return home, I have received a call from Mr. 

 Peck of Waterbury, Conn., a well known sportsman, who 

 has been at Upper Dam spring and fall for a' number of 

 years. In comparing notes about our autumn trips I re- 

 called the incident above related, and Mr. Peck mani- 

 fested much regret that the statement of Mr. Randall 

 and his guide had made such an impression on the sports- 

 men at the Rangeley Lake House. He declared the whole 

 thing 4o be a mistake, for from his positive knowledge 

 there had been no illegal fishing at Upper Dam during 

 the season. He states that the man whom Mr. Randall 

 saw was a Mr. Hill of Boston, a perfectly honorable fish- 

 erman, and his guide was Charles Cutting of Andover, 

 whom "Special" mentions in his letter of the 27th as a 

 famous cook and companion. Mr. Peck asserts that Cut- 

 ting, being desirous of getting several large fish for Mr. 

 Hill to take out with him, packed a gang of hooks with 

 worms and caught in a perfectly legitimate way the 

 fish which Mr. Randall saw lifted into the boat as he sup- 

 posed tail first. 



Now, let your readers take these statements for their 

 face value. Doubtless Mr. Randall was mistaken, or as 

 one who is acquainted with the facts states, it may be 

 an instance of the ill feeling between the Rangeley and 



the Andover guides. Such stories are apt to arise from 

 the jealousy of these men, who, although extremely 

 loyal to their patrons, often entertain a most intense, 

 hatred, and are too ready to get each other into trouble. 

 But taken for what it is worth, this incident plainly 

 enforces the feeling among sportsmen against illegal 

 fishing and the demand for careful watching about the 

 waters of Upper Dam. 



The Commissioners have closed Rangeley and Kenne- 

 bago rivers. Why not close the passage from the big lake 

 to Richardson, swift water and pool, after Sept. 1? Such 

 legislation would remove temptation from a number of 

 fishermen who have not the moral courage to control 

 their instinct to get big fish by illegitimate means. A 

 large number of sportsmen whom I have recently met 

 look to the Forest and Stream for help in this matter. 

 They feel that you deserve warm thanks for the thorough 

 and painstaking manner in which the Stewart investiga- 

 tion was prosecuted last year. And now they want you 

 to emphasize the fact that men who go to the Androscog- 

 gin lakes for legitimate sport have some rights which the 

 Lewistown Water Power Co. are bound to respect. The 

 company have acquired liberal privileges of flowage, but 

 they have no right to stop the run of fish. They have laid 

 out so much money on the big dam that they do not want 

 to build the necessary fish way. And so they have pledged 

 themselves to stop illegal fishing, yet it is feared they 

 have winked at it this season as last. 



W. F. Sturtevant. 



PITH AND BRAINS. 



THE English chub fisher has evinced great ingenuity 

 in the matter of baits wherewith to entice his favor- 

 ite game. He has searched the earth, old stumps, and all 

 kinds of vegetation for worms, grubs, and other animal 

 life, and even the large mammals are called upon to furn- 

 ish a bonne bouche for the palate of the chub. 



Mr. Alfred Jardine, in the London Fishing Gazette 

 says: "Of all baits, 'pith' and 'brains' is the most 

 deadly for winter chub fishing. Pith is the spinal cord 

 of an ox or cow, and should be quite fresh from the 

 butcher. Some anglers use it raw, as is usually done on 

 the Trent; but I prefer to boil it for three minutes with a 

 spoonful of salt in the water, then removing it to get cold, 

 and afterward cutting it up into one-inch lengths, which 

 are kept clean in damp calico or linen, ready for use. 

 The 'brains' are for ground bait, and may be either 

 bullock's or sheep's, freshly killed, thoroughly cleansed 

 in cold water, and boiled for a quarter-hour; when cold 

 they are ready for use. The pith is for the hook — a No. 4 

 is the best size. Previous to baiting, slit up the piece of 

 pith with a sharp knife or scissors, and remove the outer 

 skin, which is useless; then insert the point of the hook, 

 and put it through the pith several times, until the bend 

 and barb are entirely covered. It is a most attractive 

 bait in slightly discolored water; also kills well in clear, 

 on frosty days, if the rivers are free from snow-broth. 

 The brains can be minced, or, if preferred, chewed by the 

 angler as he uses them, and, if this be objected to, 

 squeezed in the hand held under water; but any way, 

 they must be used very sparingly for ground-bait; nor is 

 it necessary to bait a swim beforehand, as seldom more 

 than two or three chub can be caught in the same place, 

 without scaring the rest." 



The late Greville Fennel! , in writing on the subject of 

 pith and brains, told the following story. 



A medical friend of his, very fond of drubbing, started 

 for some favorite boughs, where on arriving he found 

 another angler had appropriated the swim. 



"Good morning, sir," said the M.D.; "have you had 

 any sport ?" 



Angler replies — "Only one or two small chub." 

 M.D. — "What baits are you using?" 

 Angler — "Greaves and worms." 

 M.D. — "Try them with pith and brain-.." 

 Angler — "1 have none." 



M.D. — "You are welcome to some of mine: I have 

 plenty." 



Angler chews the brains, spits them in, baits his hook 

 with pith, and gets a three-pounder the next swim. 



M.D. hands him a little more brains, and another chub 

 is caught; then a third portion is given, with the remark: 

 "Don't fear to chew them well, for they are perfectly 

 fresh; I performed a post-niortem only yesterday, and 

 prepared the brains this morning." 



The angler said he felt sick, and must hurry home for 

 some brandy. So the M.D. regained his chub* swim, and 

 had a capital catch of fish, with the pith and sheep's 

 brains he had brought with him. 



Salt- Water Fishing Near New York.— The autumn 

 fishing for salt-water fish near the city is almost over. 

 The striped bass will soon go into winter quarters and 

 the bluefish may leave the coast very soon. The weak- 

 fish and kingfish have gone, and the coming of the tom- 

 cods proclaims that the winter season is near at hand, 

 when they are the only fish to reward the angler in 

 salt waters. These little fish are taken up to January 

 along the wharves and bays of Long Island and, while 

 they do not make much of a show in the markets, furnish 

 much food and sport for men and boys who patiently 

 angle for them. While not very gamy they are the only 

 winter fish in this locality which can be depended on to 

 take bait during the early winter months, and many tons 

 of them are captured and sold in the villages. They vary 

 in size from a few ounces up to 21bs., and are a good little 

 fish. The Long Island waters, especially those of the 

 Sound, will soon swarm with them. 



The Ragged Lake Club,— The lake from which this 

 club takes its name is in Franklin county, N. Y., the 

 northern portion of the Adirondacks. The club has 

 twenty members, all residing in Syracuse, N. Y. , and 

 Mr. A. C. Belden is its president. Three years ago it 

 started to stock the lake and established a hatchery for 

 that purpose. Mr. Fred Mather was employed to plan a 

 hatchery, build troughs, trays, etc., and put it on a work- 

 ing basis. Last spring 275,000 brook trout were hatched 

 and placed in the lake in May. The superintendent, Mr. 

 Gardiner Smith, reports the brook, which feeds the lake 

 and is only some sixty rods long, as being full of young 

 trout from previous hatchings. The club does not own 

 the whole lake and others fish in it, several gentlemen 

 having camps upon its shores. If all the Adirondack 

 clubs would follow the example of the Ragged Lake 

 Club, that region would soon be well stocked with trout. 



