Got. 24, 1889.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



269 



dropper; take seat in the stern of the boat and cast out 

 in the whirling waters at the foot of the rapids. Some- 

 thing rose! the flies drifted on; we saw a trout rise again, 

 but somehow* we hadn't caught on. While retrieving the 

 line a good-sized trout jumped clear from the water, 

 missed the flies, but we missed the trout. 



Never mind, it was fun; no need to get nervous; 

 plenty more in that hole; they don't know what flies 

 are; keep cool, we'll get them yet. Thus we soliloquized. 



How pleasant to sit here alone and listen to the dron- 

 ing bum of nature's bass, to watch the coming waters. 

 Here's a big green caterpillar coming down stream; will 

 the dainty trout rise for it ? 



Ugh, the beast; a big trout rose almost under the tip of 

 my rod and quietly sucked the fat monster in. My very 

 skin creeps along my back as I think of it. 



Laying out thirty feet of line as gently as we knew 

 how, and watching how the tail -fly fell as it came down. 

 Ah. that's perfection; "No snowflake ever kissed the 

 water prettier." Wh-i r-r, b-u-z-z, a miniature leviathan 

 must have taken my tail-fly and is bound for Lake Michi- 

 gan, twenty miles distant. "Never be in a hurry except 

 when going for a doctor," so my reel still whistled and 

 screamed; let her scream; if the fish is so big that I am 

 likely to be pulled into the rapids, why I can swim. The 

 thumb gets some pressure on the revolving plates, and we 

 get hold of the handle and begin to fight him. Inch by 

 inch he contests our claim and won't yield: the little rod 

 bends and springs until we imagiue the creek must have 

 a pike in it, and we have got the pike, and it's a big one; 

 but as the fish comes to the surface there is no question 

 about fontvnalis. Quickly slipping the landing net under 

 him we land him in the boat, as handsome a fish as ever 

 came to a fly, and a pound and a half in weight. 



It made no difference what fly — yellow mays, Port- 

 lands, grasshopper, hooker, coachman, Seth-Green, oriole, 

 hackles, anything else— the little fellows jumped for all 

 of them. I used big lake flies, even some salmon flies, 

 and caught a creel of trout weighing from three-quarters 

 of a pound up. I had small midgets in my book and 

 could have caught; and counted my trout by the hundred, 

 but I did not kill a single small trout. Drifting down 

 stream I cast ahead of my boat and had just the same 

 grand sport — no need to use worms; trout came to every 

 cast if I wanted them. 



Two days after this I was in another stream where I 

 used every kind of fly in my book, and could not raise a 

 single trout. I could see one lying on a sand-wash, 1 fished 

 for him two hours. During that time I lay hidden behind 

 the maple brush and watched him rise at every leaf that 

 came down stream. It was a handsome trout of lOin. 

 length, and I was going to have it if I stayed there all 

 day. I sat and watched until I saw it rise to every green 

 leaf and float down underneath it as if in search for 

 something. 



I have it, my beauty ! You're mine, unless you get 

 sight of me. 



Taking out my penknife I cut a small maple leaf across 

 to the center vein, bent on a small black fly, and switched 

 out into the stream, my snell run through the leaf, leav- 

 ing the tiny hook underneath. I cast about a yard above 

 him. He rose instantly and went for that leaf; but no 

 examining this time. He struck; I was head of him, and 

 though the gut was as fine as the finest bair, I landed 

 him at my feet a victim of his own inquisitiveness. 



Coming down stream I dropped my flies about twenty 

 feet ahead and took in once in a while a nice trout. My 

 creel held a dozen weighing about 71bs. My friend with 

 whom I was staying fished up stream. We met; he had 

 twenty trout, all killed with, worms, none of them aver- 

 aging mine in size or weight. 



SaidF.: " There's a big fellow in a hole down here I've 

 been fishing for — spent a full hour at him. He skinned my 

 hooks of about half a dozen worms. I broke two hooks 

 in the hole; wish you would try him." 



I tried him; he tried me, and beat me. The hole was 

 waist deep, the waters ran swiftly through it, and curved 

 around the roots of an old cedar tree. 



Taking the tip of a worm, so that it would squirm, 

 I fastened it to a big fiery brown-hackle and let it drift 

 under the root of a tree. A gleam of white shot up 

 through the darkening waters. I felt a sharp tug and 

 struck. Away the fish bolted like a racer down stream. 

 With lightning rapidity the thought flashed through 

 my brain. How deep is that hole? Can I keep my feet 

 in those sharp waters? My friend was jumping. "You've 

 got him! Take to the creek! You'll lose him if you 

 don't!" 



My bine was running out at a rate that indicated the 

 approaching end, when I plunged in to wade — #aae did 

 I say? The second step I could find no bottom. Throw- 

 ing myself forward the stream carried me across the 

 hole, about 15ft. wide. I kept my rod out of the water, 

 and the moment I struck bottom I began reeling in; but 

 the line came in slack for some feet. My friend on the 

 bank consoled me, "You will lose him! He has your 

 leader around that bush." Too true, I found to my sor- 

 row, he had made straight for this piece of brush, and 

 with a sharp jerk turned up stream again. I saw him as 

 he darted past me, a big fresh-run trout, just come in 

 from the lake. Wading down I unloosed my leader, 

 found the gut snell broken at the hook. 'Twas no use 

 storming or saying cuss words. Poor Anglo-Saxon never 

 improves an angler's temper. I registered a vow that 

 S. fontinalis was not going to beat me again. I proposed 

 to have him if it took me all the next day. My dozen 

 trout furnished supper for the family. I spent the even- 

 ing boating in the bay with my wife and retired to rest 

 none the worse for my wetting. 



The first rays of light streaming in our room woke me. 

 Hastily jumping into my fishing suit, and without putting 

 on wading boots, I took my rod and started on a run 

 down the trail leading to the creek. I stood above the 

 hole, the scene of last evening's ducking, bending on a 

 big white-miller that had just come from the maker's 

 hand, and putting my landing-net together I drew about 

 80ft. of line from the reel and dropped the fly into the 

 broken waters. It floated grandly; foot by foot I watched 

 it, giving line as freely as the stream carried it along. 

 My eye was peeled; every nerve ready to respond to sight 

 or feeling. Amid the music such a stream will always 

 make when compressed into such a small area, I heard a 

 distant "chug" and saw a flash of white. I struck sharp 

 and drove the hook home, The trout turned to the j 

 snarled roots. "Softly, my beauty; you beat me yester- ; 

 day, my turn to-day." I played him carefully against | 

 the rush of. w&terg and in two rnirmteg he lay under my 1 



rod, drowned by the very elements he had so long sported 

 in, mouth wide open and gasping, the white-miller fast 

 at the corner of his mouth in the upper jaw. Slipping 

 the net under him I scooped him without even wetting 

 my feet. I killed him with my knife and at once started 

 for the house. 



"Well, Grandpa Norton, what do you thing of this?" 



"Well, well, well, is that the fish that gave you a duck- 

 ing yesterday? He's a handsome fellow; weighs over 

 21bs.; the biggest trout I ever saw come from that creek. 

 Caught with the fly. too. You may well feel proud of 

 him." I was proud of him. 



In one of the feeders of the Manistee River I was drop- 

 ping flies for grayling. Once in a while I would find 

 enough standing room to use ashortBethabara-wood rod. 

 and by skillful manipulations spring my fly under the 

 bushes overhanging the stream where the current ran, 

 using some small Foster flies sent me by the editor of an 

 English sportsman's paper, all of them black or dark 

 brown, so minute that when they touched the water I 

 could not see them; but the grayling did. If I could find 

 a place where the sun's rays came through the foliage 

 and sent an orange ray athwart the stream, there I could 

 find grayling. By getting up stream above this spot I 

 could drop a fly across the light ray, instantly a grayling 

 arose. I could see them rise, and waiting to strike them, 

 by a sharp spring of my rod I drew them to me without 

 alarming the balance of the fish in the pool. 



I had a red-tag, a strange-looking fly with a fuzzy red 

 tail. In one spot I think I caught all the fish there were 

 in that one pool — six of them. In a large open pool 

 where I could see grayling I did not raise a single fin; 

 they would not even deign to come up and look at it, but 

 did take a bumble-bee. 



In August of late years, when business does not press, 

 we sometimes spend a day on a Lake Superior stream 

 within a few miles of Duluth. Here the conditions are 

 different; water is wine-colored, free from clay or mud; 

 the trout are wild and vicious, snap at any and every- 

 thing — salt pork, grubs, larva?., worms — even a big bass 

 spoon skittered across a pool will raise them by the dozen. 

 Climbing the hills and striking the stream miles away 

 from the mouth, we have found pools that seemed alive 

 with trout; but the big boulders made such splendid hid- 

 ing places you had to find the trout. I have stood in the 

 water thigh deep and cast all around me, when my 

 friends declared no trout were in the pool, until a yellow- 

 may or a grasshopper would bring up a trout from under 

 their rods when they were fishing with worms. After 

 finding the trout they could catch them with worms. 

 They would outnumber me every time, but the pound- 

 weight trout came to my fly. After heavy rains I have 

 stood at the mouth of a stream and cast into a rush of 

 waters. I could see no trout, but thought some ought to 

 be there. Casting out, I found my line and flies going 

 lakeward. The Seth-Green and dead wing-coachman are 

 taking flies with fresh-run trout. Try them miles up 

 stream and trout scarcely look at them. Put on big 

 fuzzy hackles and you will get trout in any water and in 

 any kind of weather. W. D. Tomlin. 

 Duluth, Minn. 



Canandaigtja Anglers' Association.— Canandaigua, 

 N. Y., Oct. 19. — The annual meeting of the association 

 was held last Wednesday evening, with the following 

 election of officers for the year: Fresident, Dr. C. 

 T. Mitchell; Vice-President, J. S, Crawford; Secretary, 

 Mark T. Powell; Treasurer, Frank M. Durand; Executive 

 Committee — Marvin Sutherland, James Menteth, W. H. 

 Fox. Dr. C. T. Mitchell and H. Seymour Cooley. The 

 banquet was held in the Webster House. Exquisite 

 menu cards were photographed by Crandall Bros, from a 

 crayon drawing by Fred D. Crandall. At the conclusion 

 of the feast Dr. C. T. Mitchell, president of the associ- 

 ation, delivered as his annual address a beautiful poem 

 entitled "The Unlocking of the Streams." The delivery 

 was listened to with interest and close attention through- 

 out, and the author was applauded vigorously at the close. 

 Monroe A. Green, of Caledonia, superintendent of the 

 State fish hatchery and brother of the late Seth Green, 

 was then introduced, and in response to queries by differ- 

 ent members, expressed an affirmative opinion upon the 

 advisability of stocking Canandaigua Lake with ale wives 

 for food and bait. The discussion of this question was 

 participated in by many different members, and the pre- 

 ponderance of opinion was in favor of the experiment. 

 It was noted by well-posted anglers tha t in waters stocked 

 with alewives trout fishing has been excellent. There 

 were a couple of skeptics, however, who informed the 

 members that their experience with alewives for bait was 

 far from successful. An expression of the meeting was 

 largely in favor of the experiment, and the executive 

 committee was empowered to investigate the subject and 

 act in their discretion. Mr. Green also advised ^rutting 

 German trout into the lake. He described them as one 

 of the most handsome of the finny tribe as well as the 

 most palatable. He mentioned the fact that he recently 

 caught a German trout weighing 6^-lhs. He said they 

 grew rapidly and were very gamy. He informed the 

 association that an application for 50,000 of these fish for 

 Canandaigua Lake would be honored. 



Abundance of Humpback Salmon. — The smallest sal- 

 mon of the Pacific is the humpback or garbusche (Onco- 

 rhynchus gorbuscha) of authors. In numbers, however, 

 this species surpasses all the others, and statements of 

 facts concerning its advent into streams read, to the un- 

 initiated, like wild romances. Photography has been 

 employed, with partial success, to give an idea of the 

 struggling masses of fish as they are about to enter cer- 

 tain rivers; but only those near the surface of the water 

 can be shown. Mr. Charles Hirsch, of the Karluk Pack- 

 ing Company, San Francisco, has recently described to 

 us an unusual run of this salmon in Karluk Eiver. About 

 the 6th of July, 1880, a glut of humpbacks came into the 

 Karluk and continued five weeks, during which time no 

 other salmon could enter the river. It was impossible to 

 pull a boat across the stream. A seine 90ft. in length, 

 hauled at 6 A. M., took an enormous draught of fish. 

 About 140 barrel, or 7,000 salmon, were dressed out of it 

 from that hour to 6 P. M., and afterward the men were 

 occupied three hours in clearing the seine. The re- 

 mainder of the fish were in a mass about 4ft. deep. At 

 the end of the run the humpbacks begun dying, and those 

 that did not get up to Karluk Lake were floating down 

 dead or dying for one month. The banks of the stream 

 were strewn with dead fish, and. the stench was more 

 easily imagined, than endured, 



Large Brown Trout.— Mumford, Oct. 15.— Monroe 

 A. Green, superintendent of the State hatchery, was 

 busy around the hatchery on Friday, and hearing some 

 disturbance in the wild pond just north of the hatchery, 

 he went there and found a very large German or brown 

 trout trying to get up the raceway to spawn. Mr. Green 

 and his men caught the fish. It weighed 6-Jlbs., meas- 

 ured 25in. in length, and contained. 6.000 eggs, which 

 can he seen in the trough at the hatchery now. This fish 

 is 6oz. larger than the one caught by Messrs. Hart and 

 Babcock last spring. One caught one vear ago by F. J. 

 Amsden weighed 51bs. 6oz., but the one caught by Mr. 

 Green is the largest on record in this country. It can not 

 be over five years and eight months old, for the only 

 German spawn that has been imported reached the 

 hatchery Feb. 18, 1884. 



Supposed Fossil Trout.— The Portland Oregonian 

 recently published a note on the discovery, by William 

 G. Dillingham, of a fossil trout in Gordon Creek. The 

 fossil is 15in. long and in a state of perfect preservation, 

 "every scale of the fish as plainly marked hi the rock as 

 if cut by a skilled artist." We hope that Mr. Dillingham 

 will at once take steps to secure this valuable specimen, 

 for, as already stated in Forest and Stream, the salmon 

 family is not represented in. America by fossil remains 

 except by the genus Iihabdofario of Cope, and the exact 

 relations of this form are doubtful. Will some of our 

 friends in Portland keep us advised of the steps taken 

 with regard to this interesting subject? 



Appearance of King Salmon.— In the Nushagak 

 River, Alaska, in 1888, Capt. H. E. Nichols, of the U. S. 

 Coast Survey, found king salmon running June 17, and 

 they had been observed a few days earlier. He saw two 

 of these salmon at St. Michaels June 28; they were said 

 to be the first of the season. The species is perhaps best 

 known as quinnat, Sacramento or Columbia River sal- 

 mon. The Sacramento is the southern and the Yukon 

 the northern limit of this well-known fish. A few king 

 salmon enter Karluk River, Kodiak, late in May, and 

 spawning fish can be found in that stream until the end 

 of August. 



Honeoye Lake.— Bristol Center, N. Y.— Heneoye 

 Lake is four miles long and one wide, very shallow with 

 mud bottom; there are some very large bass of the large- 

 mouth variety. I have taken one of 7Ubs. — L. J. R. 



Vincennes, Ind. — Crappies are found in abundance in 

 the spring in ponds about one and one-half miles from 

 here. — B. 



REV. ABNER P. BRUSH. 



PERHAPS, in the. Judgment of a majority of people, the fitting 

 place to record the good qualities of a clergyman who has 

 passed away from tins life would be the religious press. But I 

 can conceive of no better medium than Foujisr and Stream 

 through which to say a few words regarding my dear friend, Rev. 

 Aimer P. Brush, rector of St. Thomas's Parish. Bath, N. Y., who 

 died at the rectory, Oct. 8, 1889. in the fifty-ninth year of his age. 



I had known him for eleven years, and although many years 

 mv senior, nis heart was as young as mine. I am free to confess 

 that the affinity born so long ago, and fostered and strengthened 

 through all these years, was brought about by mutual tastes 

 along the line of the gun and rod. With hut two exceptions, for 

 nine consecutive Junes we have taken a fortnight's outing along 

 the Loyal Suck and tributaries in Sullivan county. Pa., after 

 trout. Very bright spots in the calender have these trips been, 

 and now that they have gone forever the sweetness of their mem- 

 ories will largely recompense for their non-recurrence. Our fare- 

 well "meet" was in June last, when, although prevented from 

 angling very much by the floods, we still had a pleasant, time at 

 the cottage of a mutual friend who had come up the mountain to 

 visit us. A brief account of this trip was published in Forest 

 and Stream. 



Thrown from his carriage in April, 1888, Mr. Brush sustained a 

 fracture, of the hip, that kept him in ordinary for months, aDd 

 did awav with Sullivan county for that June, to his great regret. 

 Last June, although walking with a cane, he was bound to visit 

 the old fishing grounds again, and it was a surprise to me how 

 well he stood the trip. Mis had hip did not affect his rod arm, and 

 our scores stood about as of old, two to one in favor of the rector. 

 Possessed of great nervous energy, with a conscientious view of 

 his duties towaid his large and busy parish, he pluueed into work 

 again, onlv to find his vitality failing, and a complete cessation of 

 labor imperative. But it was too late; he gradually became 

 weaker, and in spite of everything being done that kind hearts 

 could suggest, he died. 



What more need be chronicled than the universed remark of 

 every one, young aud old, rich and poor, church people and 

 others, in the large circle of his acquaintance, wheu they heard 

 the sad news, "He was a good man." He was a friend to every 

 one. A most genial aud whole-souled companion. Unselfish, 



had discovered, with a generosity that fishermen in general are 

 not endowed with. 



There is a beautiful cold spring, clear as crystal, welling up 

 near the mouth of a little tributary of the Loyal Sock. Many's 

 the time we have quaffed at its head while eating our lunch after a 

 hard day's fish." Six good miles it was to the cottage, and here we 

 would put up our rods, light our pipes and take a long cool draught 

 before starting. Wo were just ready to climb the mountain on 

 our homeward wav, when Mr. Brush said, "Come, pard, let's ko 

 back and take one more drink at the old spring, we may never 

 have another chance together." 



i wonder if there are springs somewhere where they who drink 

 may drink and drink again through, endless years? 



Dansvillb, N. Y., Oct. 15. H. W. DeLonq, 



tgislfmltnrq. 



DIMINISHED MACKEREL CATCH— A falling off is 

 reported in the catch of mackerel in the vicinity of the Mag- 

 dalen Islands, and it is said that the New Englaud fleet, 

 using hook and line, has returned to Prince Edward Island, 

 to continue fishing while the weather permits. The decrease 

 in the yield is ascribed to the use ot purse seines "and other 

 devices for the wholesale slaughter of fish," referring, per- 

 haps, to the utilization of steam to replace sail power and 

 handwork. There is no doubt that the take of mackerel 

 this season will figure as the smallest known for many years, 

 aud that the fishery will bring disaster to most of the fleet. 

 The purse seine is justly styled a destructive appliance in 

 the present depleted condition of our mackerel schools, for 

 it ensnares and destroys myriads of fish too small to be ■ 

 saleable. Chapters might be written, however, on wasteful 

 and injurious methods in the fisheries against which there 

 is no adequate protection. What shall we do when mackerel 

 become too scarce to make the fishery profitable? Some of 

 our adventurous merchants will send vessels to the Irish 

 and Norwegian coasts; others will, perhaps, chase the. frigate 

 mackerel iu southern waters, while it is possible that the 

 "thimble-eye" of the coast of California will have its fol- 

 lowers. Iu the meantime we trust that the efforts of the 

 Government to multiply this useful food fish through the 

 medium of its Fish Commission will be rewarded with 

 abundant success. ' " 



