Nov. 1, 1889.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



mi 



CAPE MAY DRUM FISHING. 



THERE is do denying the fact that the drum is in the 

 main an object of heartless piscatorial neglect. In 

 the South — its permanent home — itr is pooh-poohed e*n- 

 phatically. As for the North, the prevalent feeling wiih 

 regard to it here is very lukewarm, favoring the creature's 



firetensions perhaps a little, hut yet holding any direct 

 audation ot it as in poor sporting form. One locality 

 here however, to its credit be it said, sees the matter in 

 its right bearing; estimating the majestic inches, splendid 

 fighting qualities and the gustatory worth of the species 

 at their right value, and classing their possessor, as is its 

 due, among the chief salt water piscatory prizes. 



The fish is an annual visitant to the Cape May waters, 

 sojourning therein throughout all the finer months. But 

 the period when it is to be successfully fished for here is 

 a relatively brief interval, including as a rule little more 

 than the last two or three spring, and the like number of 

 the earliest summer weeks. If it takes the bait with any 

 avidity later than this it is something greatly out of the 

 line of its ordinary programme. 



Coming fairly under the head of a blue water enter- 

 prise as it does in the main, and with blow and squall as 

 a chance contingency lo be reckoned with, a boat of the 

 stauncher class is in order for this diversion. The tackle 

 employed is a 30 or 40 fathom handline of a stouter 

 quality, to the end of which, weighted by an appropri- 

 ately heavy sinker, a large strong halibut hook is attached. 

 The favorite bait is a quahaug, which is used quite an 

 nature!., being simply bound in its cracked shed well 

 upon the back part of the shank of the hook, leaving the 

 point bare to get in its work without interference. It 

 should not be forgotten to state that it is on the days 

 justly to be distinguished as halcyon that the fish bites 

 the best, foul meieorological conditions— more particularly 

 easterly spells— taking all the gastronomic snap out of it. 



The fishing grounds commonly resorted to comprise the 

 chain of oyster reefs stretching along the Delaware Bay 

 shore of the Cape and rounding its point seaward. These 

 reefs may be said indeed to constitute in our time the 

 staple haunts of the fish hereabouts, and where it seeks 

 the molluscan and crustacean appetizers which form 

 the menu demanded by its notably fastidious palate. 

 Occasionally, however, fair fishing is to be had in 

 the ocean inlets opening into the peninsula, and more 

 especially during the hotter spells of the season, in the 

 seaside breakers as well. 



As will be surmised, this fishing admits only of bottom 

 fishing pure and simple. Naturally, solicitous care is 

 exercised to select a rpsting place tor the lure where it 

 will be displayed to the best effect and readily attract the 

 eye of the passing fish. Preliminary soundings are re- 

 sorted to to attain this end, and the bait is further re- 

 newed from time to time, the drum having no use for 

 stale diet, turning up its nose at it in fact without the 

 least show of ceremony. 



The most interesting form of the sport is unquestion- 

 ably that to be had in the surf. The use of a boat is dis- 

 pensed with here, the breakers being too rough for a boat 

 to live among them. The fisherman finds his point 

 cTappui in his own stout underpinning as stationed waist 

 deep among the combers. From his post here he casts 

 his line — by a peculiar knack taking a long time to be 

 perfectly acquired — in such places in the watery wetter 

 beyond him as he has reason to believe prove attractive 

 resorts to his game. When a fish is hooked there is in- 

 deed fun alive to the fore; the heaving breakers lifting 

 the creature often to the surface and so revealing much 

 of the combat to the naked eye. The onlooker — whose 

 stake in the gentle art is notoriously of a vested char- 

 acter — is, as well he may be, immensely taken by this ex- 

 hibition, and in reality it is treasured as a big memorial 

 nugget by him; but all the same when the contest is 

 ended he will quite surely see the propriety of belittling 

 the victor's laurels in his own mind, which is the amiable 

 way with all of us mostly when we have been regaled 

 with the spectacle of notable deeds, and whereby we 

 flatter ourselves that in some sense we get even with the 

 doers. 



The fishing on the oyster beds and in the ocean inlets 

 is of the usual off-shore marine order, the bait being 

 dropped plumb to the bottom or nearly so. The length 

 of line required to be put out varies as a rule from five to 

 six fathoms, but double this allowance will occasionally 

 be needed. As is plainly obvious, a bite at shoi t range is 

 the bite that most surely facilitates the fastening of the 

 hook. But this favor does not come altogether as one 

 would desire in every instance, and what really gives 

 proof of proficiency on the part of the piscator is his 

 ability to do his work equally well with a long or short 

 stretch of gear. 



The drum's mode of taking the bait, if not exactly a 

 rabid demonstration, is nevertheless a procedure with a 

 notable degree of tone in it. But it takes the prick of the 

 hook to rightlv call forth the creature's gameness, and 

 when this incident takes place it lets itself loose instanta- 

 neously in a way that would do no discredit to a mustang 

 in the first stage of its disciplinary experience with spur 

 and rawhide; rushing and tearing about in every conceiv- 

 able direction, but mostly keeping well down in the 

 water, as if realizing that at th.s particular stage of its 

 fortunes daylight and destruction were convertible terms 

 with it. The fisherman's game is of course to play the 

 creature until it is sufficiently exhausted to be taken in 

 out of the wet without threatening the wreckage of his 

 gear. In this undertaking he will be engaged in ordinary 

 instances some five or six minutes; and when he happens 

 to be fast to a veteran fish, for a considerable longer in- 

 terval. If some would be led to aver that these scrim- 

 mages are of a defective style in that they want the due 

 lasting quality, it is to be confidently retorted that as 

 such things go when timed by the watch, and not by 

 one's heated imagination, they are decidedly lengthy. 

 All angling contests, let it be openly declared, would 

 seem ludicrously brief when timed by the cold mechanic- 

 ism of the chronometer beside the stretch that would be 

 ascribed to them by the upper-air belligerent when taking; 

 his cue from the promptings of his high-strung feelings 

 only. Furthermore, we are to bear in mind that in the 

 present case the piscator boasts the rare advantage 

 of waging battle on the merciless basis of a line 

 manipulated directly by the hand and thu3 readily re- 

 sponding to the applications of ruder muscular force, and 

 at the same time sufficiently coarse and strong in mo^t 

 instances to answer the purpose of the hangman. No 

 fish less than a whale, it is scarcely too much to affirm. 



could hope to^tave off the moment of submission for any 

 considerable period when brought to book in this fashion; 

 and the drum shows what stuff it is made of by holding 

 out as pluckily as it does. If, in the place of this cut- 

 throat equipment, the rod and reel and suitably light run- 

 ning tackle were brought into requisition in trying con- 

 clusions with it, our finny hero would of a certainty 

 prove one of the toughest of combatants, perhaps, indeed, 

 turning out a veritable piscine Napoleon; for this, with 

 the backing of the fitting opportunity given the creature, 

 would seem one of the most reasonable surmises. 



Of feather weights and juveniles, one never sees a 

 single specimen among the-catches, their numbers being 

 made up exclusively of fishes of maturer years, and 

 rating all the way from 80 to 50 and even GOlbs. If the 

 admission must be made that the returns of the sport are 

 apt to be fluctuating, experience demonstrates that this 

 is in the line of fishing in general, and, therefore, we 

 have no right to look for anything different. A good 

 catch for a single hand, as the rating of our time goes, 

 may be put at three or four fish a day. Takes of this 

 scope will sometimes be repeated at brief intervals. 

 Sometimes, again, a series of days will all unaccount- 

 ably, and in despite of abundant apparent promise of 

 better things, turn out flat blanks. Still, again, the 

 angler must content himself with the putting in of his 

 day with the requital of a single fish. So it goes, after 

 the usual system, or the want of it, attending the dispen- 

 sation of their awards by the piscatory fates. Of preach- 

 ing we have had enough; far too much, indeed, for men's 

 appetite for the delectation. Nevertheless, we may be 

 permitted to drop the adjuration here that the way of 

 the little bee, as set forth in a well-known distich, is a 

 very winning one in this sphere of action and has a 

 special application thereto; and for whoso that devotes 

 himself to the work of the field in question in the true 

 spirit of the poetized lesson, the fate of getting badly left 

 is in nowise (as yet) on the car*ds. 



It will surprise no one, however, to learn that the scale 

 of success was much higher years ago. since of yore our 

 fish life universally was in much more plentiful supply 

 than now. Thus in due order stories recounting the big 

 hits made, in the fishing in the past are very rife on the 

 Cape. So far as bait-fishing is concerned, it would ap- 

 pear from these narrations that the bagging of from 

 twenty to thirty drums was no infrequent day's work 

 with one handliner even so late as in the forties of the 

 century. But it becomes manifest from these sources of 

 information that the seiners were the true heroes of this 

 pristine fi-hing, the fact that the drums were more given 

 at that earlier day to foraging for their feed nearer the 

 shore than now, particularly favoring the use of the net 

 in their capture. The reports of the hauls made by this 

 apparatus are in some instances well calculated to excite 

 one's gravest wonder. Below, one of thpse reports, at- 

 tested not by hearsay but invested with the authority of 

 contemporary journalistic indorsement, and given to the 

 public in M7e's Register of July, 1883, is appended, being 

 copied at second hand from Professor Goode's "American 

 Fishes:" "Some days ago a haul was made in Great Egg 

 Harbor near Beesley's Point. Cape Mt y, at which 218 

 drumfish was (sic) caught, their entire weight being 

 from 8,000 to 9,000ibs." 



ThiB catch, of course, calls for no elucidatory comment, 

 the fact being stated with such business-like brevity and 

 directness, that its full significance appears at once on its 

 face. One could wish that it had been the regale of a 

 monster barbecue, with the fitting addenda of fiddle and 

 "straight four," as the ways of the latitude would readily 

 have admitted, but the historic muse being silent regard- 

 ing this point, we cannot promise ourselves that it was . 

 the occasion of any marked expression of rejoicing. For 

 the decline in fishing we cannot in justice so much blame 

 the fisherman as the oysterman. The former has doubt- 

 less had a hand in the thinning out of the fish, but the 

 latter, by the unceasing push shown by him in pillaging 

 the oyster reefs of this particular section makes the 

 sustenance of the species here a problem of much less 

 easy solution than it was of yore, and consequently a 

 check has been given to the old-time freedom with which 

 it congregated in the locality. But the total withdrawal 

 of the breed from the district as a contingency of the 

 near future anyway, is not to be feared. Doubtless for a 

 relatively long period one may promise himself a bout 

 with the fish hereabouts if he addresses himself to the 

 business with an adequate understanding of its ins and 

 outs. 



In preparing the drum for the board its susceptibilities 

 in this particular should be scrupulously heeded or 

 trouble may be looked for. Thus the attempt to serve it 

 up with entire acceptability in the guise of a boiled dish 

 or a chowder is bound to end in disappointment, the 

 creature's culinary bent being, sooth to say, too rigidly 

 fixed to admit of a clean cut unexceptionable exposition 

 of these methods of kitchen practice. To treat it in the 

 way most fully answering to the demands of its nature 

 in the sense now concerning us, the cook should slice it 

 in delicate steaks, and having coated these well with egg- 

 batter, submit them to the action of the frying pan, and 

 witti the right art brought to bear in this mode of work- 

 ing, a plat is produced sure to evoke the thankful plaud- 

 dits of all so lucky as to have it set before them. 



W. L. Tiffany. 



Fishing in the Lower Susquehanna.— About the mid- 

 dle of October Mr, W. L. Powell, of Harrisburg, a mem- 

 ber of the Pennsylvania Fish Commission, caught a good 

 many wad-eyed pike, lccally known as "salmon," at 

 File's Eddy. * On Oct. 25 I saw one of the pike at Colum- 

 bia weighing 81-lbs. Peach Bottom is growing in favor 

 as a point for black bass fishing. Conowingo is another 

 good place. Robert Stewart, who lives there, takes out a 

 good many visitors. At the present time, on account of 

 the muddy water, few bass are caught. There are nu- 

 merous places along the Columbia and Port Deposit road 

 which are famous resorts for anglers. — G. C. C. (Port 

 Deposit, Md., Oct. 29)^_ 



Providence, E. I., Oct. 21. — Soon the '-American 

 whiting" will be here, as they are being caught just 

 below at Wiekford. These fish are speared by lantern 

 light, as they follow the flood tide up the beach. They 

 had been absent for eight years until last year, when 

 they came in great numbers. — Cohan net. 



Fishing at Patchogue.— Patchogue, Long Island. — 

 Fishing has been very good and fish are plentiful still. 

 Some very nice bass were caught in the surf the other 

 day, one of the striped bass weighing 701bg,— L. B. T, 



NEWFOUND LAKE- 



pHARLESTOWN, N. H., Nov. 2.— Editor Forest and 

 Kj Stream: Probably Col. Riddle has sent you the in- 

 closed from the Massachusetts Union, but I want to be 

 sure you have it. "We began to stock Newfound Lake 

 with landlocked salmon in 1878, the year- after we began 

 at Sunapee, and it has been followed up nearly every 

 year since. We also put the saibling, of which Prof. 

 Baird sent us the eggs, in Newfound Lake, hut I fear 

 they were destroyed by the lake trout (namaycush), of 

 which the extract speaks. I have sometimes thought 

 they got changed, d la Pinafore, and got into Sunapee 

 by mistake and started the new trout. — Sam'l Webber. 



The report, which will be hailed with satisfaction by 

 anglers in New Hampshire and elsewhere, is as follows: 

 Col. George W. Riddle, of the Board of Fish and Game 

 Commissioners, has returned from a trip of three days to 

 Newfound Lake and is in the most jubilant frame of 

 mind over the fishery interests in that locality. It will 

 be remembered that the Legislature at its last session ap- 

 propriated thf sum of $1,000 for the establishment of a 

 hatchery at Newfound Lake, leaving the location of the 

 same in the hands of the Fish Commissioners. The latter 

 visited the lake and after some negotiations with property 

 owners selected a site at Bristol, advertised for proposals, 

 let the contract, and the house was completed on the 10th 

 inst. at an expense of $700. When the Commissioners 

 first visited Bristol they met with every encouragement 

 from the citizens, who pointed to a catch of 109 trout 

 weighing l,0001bs., as indicative of the fishing facilities 

 of the lake, and guaranteed that there would be no trouble 

 in getting all the trout needed off the spawning beds. 

 Superintendent Hodge, of the Fish Commission, assisted 

 by residents of the town, has just completed five days of 

 work at the lake, in which he was assisted by George H, 

 Fowler. Charles N. Drake, George D. Cross and E. T. 

 Pike. They made the almost unprecedented haul of 500,- 

 000 lake trout eggs, whichhave been placed in the fishing 

 trays at Bristol. Walter Aiken, of Franklin, was present 

 some of the time and was much interested in the opera- 

 tions and delighted with the success achieved. Between 

 200 and 300 spawning trout were secured weighing from 

 6 to 121bs. each. The method employed in catching them 

 was to visit the spawning bed in the night and scoop up 

 the trout with a net, the best time being between the 

 hours of 12 and 4. Dr. Fowler at one scoop secured four 

 trout weighing 401bs. The trout were placed in a tank 

 and towed a distance of one and one-half miles to the 

 hatchery. The expense of securing this great stock of 

 trout and spawn has been trifling, and it is estimated 

 that the sales of young fry which can be made in the 

 spring will entirely liquidate the expense of the hatchery. 



The Commissioners also visited a stream eight miles 

 distant in Hebron, which flows into Newfound Lake, 

 and took a look for salmon, discovering about 50 weigh- 

 ing from 5 to lOlbs. each. They caught 12 by means of a 

 net, but there were but two females among the number. 

 From one of these they secured 5,000 eggs. They also 

 discovered evidence of these magnificent fish being 

 speared, one dead salmon with spear marks upon bioi 

 and weighing 12lbs. being found which contained 8,000 

 eggs. The Commissioners have offered a reward of $50 

 for the conviction of any person who has been spearing 

 these fish, and propose to make the guilty parties suffer 

 for their transgressions of the law. 



The establishment of the hatchery at Bristol seems to 

 have been a most successful move. 



A CRANK SPEAKS UP. 



THERE are cranks and cranks. Whoever reads this is 

 probably a brother angling crank, for the other 

 species of this large family will disdain such "trash" as 

 the Forest and Stream; is made up of. Do you own a 

 gun or a "fish pole?" If so, you will at once recall some 

 near friend whose ideas are entirely at variance with 

 your own; and all summed up, he finds no other word to 

 express his supreme contempt for either one of the two 

 blessed articles than, "You are a crank." But we cranks 

 of our family can take from its case a rod, light, sym- 

 metrical and loving in all its parts — I say loving, for do 

 we not, as cranks, have to love our rods, guns and 

 tackle? The rod U jointed for perhaps the hundredth 

 time. We feel its Weight; and the mind is carried to a 

 fine fat trout caught here or there. Not only is the trout 

 again at the end of the line and the weight felt the same 

 as in actual experience, but the grand scenery, the cool 

 and invigorating air, the freedom from care and busi- 

 ness, all combine to even now cause that restful and 

 exhilarating sensation that comes from a trip such as we 

 cranks only know. 



Does there live a man who never cared to and never did 

 catch a fish or shoot a quail or to quiver with that excite- 

 ment only gotten when squinting along the rifle barrel 

 at a buck, and calls us cranks, but who loses every year 

 he lives the most enjoyable of all pleasures given us? 



Take away my guns, my rods, my waders, duck coats 

 and general outfit, so that I can not fuss over and look 

 at and fix over and lay plans and review the past; and 

 you take away a part of my mind; for my mind is 

 stored with past pleasures and is continually being stored 

 with those fond anticipations that only hunters and 

 anglers ever realize. How we cranks do anticipate far 

 ahead dm-ing the winter months to the time when we 

 stroll along the beautiful streams with rods and flies or a 

 gun on the hills; and how much we enjoy the tired 

 tramps, wet rains, slips into the water and tumbles over 

 snags. But we have the sport and do not tire of it. Why 

 is it that we do not tire of it, and that the older we grow 

 the more we want? Do any of my crank friends know 

 of one who at any time in life says or has said, "Well, 

 I'm wrong; I'm a crank on fishing" and hunting in every 

 sense; my imagination has led me to think it was fun to 

 fish and hunt; hut I can buy them cheaper; I will sell all 

 my guns and rods and buy what I want," and who sticks 

 to this resolution feeling perfectly satisfied that he has 

 been in the wrong? I do not remember having met one, 

 and all crank friends seem to get worse every year. 



It is not crankism but the gift of a desire to see nature, 

 to be free, to have a sort of sentiment akin to poetry and 

 music, that only nature can satisfy; so be proud of the 

 name "crank" when the scoffer stands by, as you fuss 

 over and pack and unpack the tackle and guns. Tile. 



Names and Portraits of Birds, by Gurdon Trumbun. h. 

 book particularly interesting to gunners, for by ita use they can 

 identify without question all the American game birds which, 

 tney may MIL Cloth, 330 pages, price $2,50, For sale by Fobbsk 

 two Stbsam. 



