68 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Aug. 15, 1889. 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 



CHICAGO, 111., July 7.— Continuing the investigation 

 set on foot by Forest and Stream into the sport- 

 ing resources of this region, I started about two weeks 

 ago to explore a section of the country lying to the north 

 of here, with an especial purpose of getting some accu- 

 rate knowledge in regard to the trout fishing accessible 

 from this point; which knowledge, it is safe to say, can 

 be called accurate only when gained at the expense of 

 careful personal effort, since what was last year a pro- 

 lific stream may this year be a barren one, and since 

 further all reports on such matters, be they from sports- 

 men or woodsmen, must so generally and generously be 

 accompanied by a salty seasoning of mental reservation. 

 The objective point of this trip was the Gaylord club 

 house, situated 300 miles north of Chicago, in the wilds 

 of the Wisconsin pine woods, but there was so much 

 divergence from the straight path thither, and so much 

 of interest found by the way, that I beg to offer first some 

 preliminary comment on the conditions and conditon of 

 that country, reserving the specific mention of the club 

 until tbe following paper, thus giving the artist a chance 

 to make a picture of the club house, and the chance 

 reader of both papers a better idea of where the club 

 house is. 



The railway line chosen in this case was the Milwaukee 

 and Northern, a busy young road that runs straight 

 north, up into the pine and iron country of Wisconsin, 

 to the south shore of the coldest of the un salted seas. . In 

 the big union depot at Milwaukee I found a chance open 

 to all travelers for a comfortable shave, and the north 

 bound sleeper open at 9 P. M. to all duly shaven north- 

 bound men. Thereinto I climbed, and at 1:45 on the fol- 

 lowing morning started northward, although I knew 

 nothing of that until we reached Ellis Junction, in the 

 middle of the pine woods, where the train stopped for 

 breakfast, and where according to the advice of Mr. Tab- 

 berner, the Chicago general agent of the road, I was first 

 to disembark. ElMs Junction is the woods station for num- 

 bers of Chicago trout fishers and deer hunters. Its post- 

 office name is Crivitz, by which it is better known. In 

 its neighborhood there were formerly numerous runways 

 for deer, and probably more deer have been shipped 

 from that point, legally and illegally, than from any 

 otber one point in Wisconsin. It is the starting point 

 for the upper Oconto country, the Thunder River coun- 

 try and also for Medicine Brook, the Peshtigo Rapids and 

 other trout waters nearer at hand. As a town it is not 

 any very great affair, consisting for the most part of the 

 railway eating-house, a saloon or so, a big sawmill and 

 its attendant population. It is, however, a very good 

 type of north-woods town. 



The station agent at Ellis Junction told me that he and 

 the district game warden, Judge Bartels, had, a day or 

 so ago, caught sixty-seven trout, which, when dressed, 

 weighed 521bs. Some of these trout, he said, were so 

 long that their tails turned up as they lay in a market 

 basket. Although I told this man that both his road and 

 my paper wished for definite news in regard to the trout 

 fishing, he was reluctant to tell me where these fish were 

 caught, and referred me to Judge Bartels, whom I had 

 not time to look up. I subsequently heard of this catch 

 of trout repeatedly during the trip, but no one knew ex- 

 actly where it was made, owing to different reports given 

 out by the fishers, naming both Medicine Brook and 

 Thunder River as the locality. This was blind trail 

 number one. 



Mr. Tabberner had told me to look up Dan Seaby, 

 whom I should find at Ellis Junction, Middle Inlet, or 

 Lake Neoquebay, and whom he recommended as a good 

 boy to guide one in that region. "Dan Seaby," said Mr. 

 Tabberner, "sent me down a basket of trout that made 

 my hair stand on end. He is catching some big ones up 

 there, and if you find him you will not need go further 

 north than there." 



I asked the station agent if he knew Dan Seaby, and 

 he had never heard of him. I telegraphed to Middle 

 Inlet and learned that he lived there, out was not at 

 home. Some one said he might be over at Lake Noque- 

 bay, which was only three miles. 



"No 'taint, neither," said some one else, "it's good 

 eight miles." 



"Well, it's only three miles over to the inlet," remarked 

 the first speaker. 



"That's all you know," said a third party, "it's fivemile, 

 easy." 



Seeing that I was fallen upon one of those reliable 

 counties, where the more you hear the more you don't 

 know, I started to walk to Lake Noquebay, relying not 

 so much upon their directions as to the road as upon the 

 general direction in which the lake lay from the railway. 

 This was blind trail number two. 



Following the railway track north through one of the 

 most desolate and impassable stretches of pine land and 

 cedar swamp it was ever my fortune to see, I came across 

 a clear little stream flowing to the right, and could not 

 resist the idea that there must be trout in it, improbable 

 as that should be so near to a ravenous railway town. 

 By the bridge grew a wild red rose, and likewise a bunch 

 of ripe red raspberries. Barring the mosquitoes, which I 

 soon drove pale and fainting from the spot by a good ap- 



Jrtication from a greenery-yallery box of lollacapop, this 

 ittle corner, by the way, seemed much like Paradise to 

 one escaped from a desk. Whistling somewhat, all to 

 myself, I set down my pack, tied a cast, and caught a 

 trout, not 40ft. from the railway bridge. Him I returned, 

 as being too small, and leaving the rose also to say good 

 morning to some later traveler, I went along exultant. 

 The country was entirely new to me, and one always 

 enjoys a new sort of country. Most black and dismal 

 and forbidding it looked, as I must say, when I left the 

 railway and started into the forest along a trail which 

 might or might not be the path to Lake Noquebay. 



A sharp walk of three-quarters of an horn- brought me 

 again to my friend the brook, this time in a dark little 

 hollow, crossed by a log bridge. I could not resist the 

 temptation, and so put down my pack again, jointed my 

 rod, and caught another little trout from 'under the 

 bridge. The swamp on either hand Avas too dense for 

 passage, and I fished no further. As I penetrated yet 

 further into the silent and solemn pine forest, the trail 

 appeared fainter and fainter. I fancied I had missed 

 the right path, and at length turned back, grumblingly 

 retracing my steps to the railway. 



Near by I found a little farm and a log house, and the 

 owner, Mr. Shepherd, told me I had been within a mile 

 or so of Lake Noquebay. "But," said he, "you'll find 



Dan Seaby over at the Inlet. It's a mile and three-quar- 

 ters from here." Fortified by a cup of tea, I started on 

 again, reflecting whether I had or had not lost any time 

 by losing my way. 



Middle Inlet I found to consist of nine families, some 

 piles of cedar logs and posts and the general debris of a 

 milling camp. The station office was in a freight car, 

 and two freight cars joined by a little hallway constitu- 

 ted the home of station agent Dropp, his wife and his 

 three children. Dan Seaby was sitting on a slab bench 

 in front of the "deyjot." He was thinking. It is a great 

 country for thinking, up there. He was a big, good- 

 natured boy of eighteen, smooth-faced and youthful, if 

 beyond man's stature in girth and height. I told him my 

 errand and his face fell a foot. "Gol darn the luck," 

 said he. 



"What's the matter with the luck?" 

 "Well, you see, I'm married." 

 "What !" 



"Yes, I'm married. That's my house over there," and 

 he pointed to a house so small 'he could have carried it 

 under his arm. "I'm married, and my wife she's sick 

 she is, and she's only sixteen, and you know how women 

 are" (this with a wise look on his boyish face). 



There being nothing else left for me to do, I sat down 

 and whistled a long whistle of surprise. "Some folks 

 never does have any luck," said Dan, eagerly jabbing his 

 knife into the bench. " That's me. I'd ruther go fishing 

 with you than anything else on earth. But then you 

 know how they is." And he sighed mournfully. 



"It aint any use, nohow," he said, brightening up 

 a bit after we had talked a while. " The dam on the 

 lower inlet is shut down, so's they can make hay on the 

 marsh below here. The creek where I caught all my big 

 trout is away out at the bottom of a big pond, and you 

 can't get at it. They won't open the gate, and even .if 

 they did, the water wouldn't run down good in less'n 

 three or four days. There's a good many trout, eight or 

 ten inches long, over in the North Branch, about five or 

 six miles. We kin ketch a lot over there — but pshaw ! I 

 can't go. J can't go nowhere. Some fellers never does 

 have any luck ! " 



The upshot of all this was that a youth by the name of 

 Dave Teeters accompanied me to the North Branch. We 

 walked four miles to the stream, and upon ascending it 

 for half a mile or so came to an elaborate logging dam, 

 beneath which lay as beautiful a pool as one could wish 

 to see. This we fished thoroughly without a rise. Ear- 

 lier in the season a lumberman' by the name of Hoff 

 caught 380 trout at this point in one day, and another 

 man at about the same time took 309. We wanted about 

 one dozen, but the above individuals had our share. The 

 stream was fished out. 



Above the dam I had my first experience of the style of 

 fishing necessary in this section. The back-water "from 

 the dam had spread up stream for neaily two miles, 

 soaking the low banks until they formed a quaking bog 

 in which it was no uncommon thing to go down nearly 

 to the armpits. Across this, however, we pushed on and 

 came into a fallen cedar swamp which could have af- 

 forded Dore gooa studies for his illustrations of the In- 

 ferno, and which passed the wildest dreams of confusion 

 I ever had. It was a mat of interlacing dried hard poles 

 and limbs, through and over which we plunged with 

 heart of desiieration. At this work the natives, with 

 their spike-shod logging shoes, are far superior to the 

 average angler; but the angler who cannot walk a 4in. 

 pole across a 40ft. abyss of bottomless Jmud would better 

 stay out of that region. 



And yet all this creek had been fished before us, for 

 we could see a trail wherever there was dirt enough to 

 hold a footprint. Later we learned that fishers from a 

 lumber camp below us had that day taken over 100 trout 

 in the stream above where we were, our entry being too 

 late in the evening to permit us to go very high up. We 

 picked out a few miserable seven and eight-inch trout 

 from under logs and among the tangled brush. The 

 short line, stiff pole, heavy sinker and bait made the only 

 practical outfit for this fishing. I found my fly-rod next 

 to useless, and I did not take a trout upon the fly. I do 

 not call that trout fishing. I learned that this stream, in 

 common with all others of the region, was persistently 

 fished by market fishers, who kept every trout caught, no 

 matter how small. There is one conductor on the Mil- 

 waukee & Northern Railway, whose name I can give to 

 the authorities of the road if necessary, who buys all the 

 trout, big and little, that the Middle Inlet boys will catch 

 for him, paying them twenty-five cents a pound. He 

 always buys these trout to eat, be says, but as I happen 

 to know of a hundred pound or so he has taken down the 

 road late this summer, I submit that he has a mighty good 

 appetite for fish. I would hardly dare connect this with 

 the fact that trout bring fifty cents a pound at this end 

 of the road. 



The train butcher also develops an occasional abnormal 

 fondness for trout, and if one of these poor, down-trodden 

 log camp fellows, who never did a day's work in his life, 

 but who insists that he has the right to murder trout and 

 venison irresponsibly, should happen to have ten or 

 twelve pounds of these little finger lings in his box, the 

 train butcher does not find it too much for his appetite, 

 I offer these facts to Mr. Sheardown and Mr, Dutton and 

 Mr. Tabberner, of the Milwaukee & Northern offices, 

 and ask them if they like it. The great bulk of the trout 

 now being taken in these waters are the result of recent 

 planting by the Fish Commissioners, and the trout are 

 being skinned out of these streams before they are over 

 3in. long. In the winter time fishing through the ice is 

 carried on continually. "Don't you think the trout taste 

 as good to us in the winter as they do to you in the sum- 

 mer?" is the answer to your protests. The law is not 

 thought of. The game warden for the district is, so 

 nearly as I can learn from his neighbors, pretty nearly 

 no good as a game warden. I could not learn of his ever 

 having made a conviction. He is either a delinquent or 

 an almighty much maligned individual, His neighbors 

 tell me that he himself never spares a fingerling; that 

 last winter he fished through the ice, and that he has pub- 

 licly declared his intention to run a hound on deer this 

 fall. That's the way they talk. Is it all due to the popular 

 f eeling against a game warden in a lawless district, or is 

 there ground for it? If he can't convict, I will tell him 

 that I had open confessions, or rather bold declarations, 

 made to me of violations of the trout and deer laws 

 enough so that I coxdd go up there and arrest two-thirds 

 of those entire communities. If the warden is not asleep 

 all day, he knows of these constant violations and suffers 



them. Put him out. Get some one in there who is awake 

 and not afraid. These fellows won't hear to sense or 

 reason. They have no sentiment to which you can ap- 

 peal. They are utterly selfish, utterly ruthless, utterly 

 wanton and merciless. They wall respect nothing but 

 the law, and that only when the law has shown itself 

 rough and unsparing. A good conviction or two once in 

 a while will save thousands of little trout, and hundreds 

 of illegally killed deer, in this absolutely lawless and 

 careless, reckless and heartless region. Get a game 

 warden, Get a man with eyes, ears and sand. I don't 

 think it would take much of the latter. This class of 

 lawbreakers is the one of all others fondest of a great big 

 bluff, and the most absently absent when it comes right 

 down to pulling a gun. 



I shall have more to say on the depletion of the game 

 and fish supply in this region in later writing, for I gave 

 the matter as extended and thorough a looking into as I 

 could, and covered a good deal of territory. What little 

 I have said here will make the history of the Gaylord 

 Club appear the brighter when we come to see it. As 

 further preparation thereto I may briefly add that my 

 story of Middle Inlet, where I lived in the freight car 

 with the station agent, and made divers trips which may 

 be condensed into later mention, made merely a confir- 

 mation of the old story of extermination. Sick of this, 

 I was as glad to reach Gaylord club house as I hope the 

 paper's readers may be. E. Hough. 



175 Moneob Street, Chicago. 



CAMPS OF THE KINGFJSHERS.-V. 



ECHO LAKE, ONTARIO, CANADA, 



EARLY dawn found us surrounding a solid breakfast 

 of fried "pike," bacon, eggs, pilot bread and coffee 

 (colored with "condemned milk" in lieu of the pure article), 

 flanked by the Jedge's "scooped" trout; and by the time 

 the sun peeped a good morning from the summit of 

 Knots' landscape, Sam, Charley Knots and the Jedge were 

 paired off and away, one boat heading up the lake, the 

 other to the bay around the point below, leaving the 

 smaller boat for the skipper to make the trip to the farm 

 at the foot of the lake after bread and a bucket of milk. 



The old rod and a bucket of frogs were placed in the 

 boat; and a straight wake was made for the rocky point 

 opposite the little island, and not till around this and in 

 a small bay, was a frog put on the hook and dropped 

 over alongside the rushes to tempt a bass or some hungry 

 longsnout looking for an early breakfast. Three pickerel 

 were taken in the little bay, two of them as full of good 

 honest fight as a bass or a trout, while the other was a 

 very stick in his motions, affording about as small sport 

 as reeling in an old oyster can. 



Can it be that fish are like the human family, some full 

 of vim and vigor and muscle, and others born tired and 

 dyspeptic and afflicted with ills and ailments that make 

 life a burden? From the great difference in the fighting 

 qualities of the members of the pike family, this would 

 seem to be the case, but hi the eternal fitness of things 

 the dyspeptics and drones and "tramps" of the tribe are 

 happily in the minority. 



Studying over this fishy problem as I went along, and 

 wishing a 51b. bass might take a notion that the frog tow- 

 ing astern would about fill some empty space in his diges- 

 tive apparatus, another point Avas passed down toward 

 the outlet where the lake narrowed to a quarter of a 

 mile, lined along the shore I was following with a growth 

 of gras§, bulrushes and bushweeds that reached nearly 

 half way across. The frog kept getting tangled up in 

 these, till to be rid of the annoyance I reeled up and laid 

 the rod in the boat, when, as I picked up the oara again, 

 1 was startled by a break in the water a few yards inshore, 

 and turning quickly saw the broad tail and two feet of 

 the body of a great fish flash in the sun for an instant 

 and then quietly disappear under the water. 



Grasping the rod and getting to my feet with the elec- 

 tricity working in the roots of my hair in a manner that 

 threatened to lift my hat, the astonished frog was cast 

 within a few feet of 'where the fish went out of eight, 

 and I waited anxiously for a few moments for a tug at 

 the fine that would begin a fight that would be the crown- 

 ing glory of all the exploits of the Kingfishers in time 

 past and for generations to come. But the looked for 

 tug didn't come; his mightiness was probably lying 

 quietly in the shadows of the bushweeds crushing the life 

 out of some luckless Canada pike that had heedlessly got 

 within striking distance of his terrible jaws. The frog 

 was reeled in and cast a few yards further down shore 

 and wound up to a short cast without a sign of having 

 been noticed; then up the belt of rushes a few yards and 

 brought back with sundry enticing yanks and twitches 

 that would have turned the head of any dull-witted pick- 

 erel; but old General Esox was too smart and wary, or too 

 busy with his breakfast, to notice an insignificant speck- 

 led frog, and all the persistent casting went for naught. 



After a half hour spent in this fruitless work, the frog 

 was taken off and a big troller tied on the line and spun 

 up and down the fringe of rushes for a hundred yards, 

 tangling in the weeds occasionally; but another half hour 

 resulting in nothing but "grass bites," the troller was 

 reeled up and the boat headed for the farm, a quarter of 

 a mile below, with the skipper in a somewhat demoralized 

 frame of mind. 



However, reflection brought the conviction that it were 

 folly to fish for this king of Echo Lake with ordinary bass 

 tackle; nothing less than a butcher's meat hook and a 

 clothesline would have prevailed over and brought him 

 to grief in the wilderness of bush weeds, grass and bid- 

 rushes infesting this part of the lake — albeit I wasted 

 another half hour trying to provoke a fight as I went 

 back, for I wanted the satisfaction of breaking a line on 

 him, if nothing more. 



Louis, who had frequently fished the lake and knew its 

 waters well, was no doubt right when lie said he had "see 

 um so long," for judging by the breadth of tail and the 

 couple of feet of body exposed by this one, he was cer- 

 tainly longer than Louis. 



This great maskinonje was seen near the same bunch 

 of rushes on two different days afterward by others of 

 the party, but could not be induced to take bait or troller, 

 and for all we know, he is there yet, the terror of the 

 Canadian pike and monarch of all the waters of Echo 

 Lake. Another was seen near the head of the lake in 

 water 4 or oft. deep, that was measured with the eye at 

 more than 5ft. in length, and I have no doubt whatever 

 that there are a great many more in the waters of Echo 

 that will weigh from 10 to 501bs, 



