4B4 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[JVm 36, 1890. 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 



CHICAGO, 111., June 20.— Everybody is now out fish- 

 ing, or has just got back, or is just about to start 

 out. And everybody is catching fish too. This seems to 

 be a great season out this way. 



The Fred Taylor and Frank Arrow-smith party got back 

 last week from their annual trip to the headwaters of the 

 Little Oconto, forty miles west of Ellis Junction on the 

 Milwaukee & Northern, and they had 1,800 brook trout 

 with them. I am not saying a single word. 



Bdly Payson is also just back from a trip up the Mil- 

 waukee & Northern. He caught an average of about 

 sixty trout a day, and had 300 in all. I hear he wa3 also 

 on the Little Oconto. 



Mr. Fred C. Donald, general passenger agent of the 

 Chicago & Atlantic, Mr. Levings, an engineer on the 

 same road, and Mr. C. S. Burton, of the Kankakee Line, 

 were last week up at Ellis Junction after trout. They 

 did not go very far from town, and seem to have tried 

 fishing in the horribly bushy and much fished little creek 

 right near town. They caught a few trout, but were 

 fairly driven out of the woods by the mosquitoes, which 

 are worse this year than for a long time, owing to the 

 prevalence of high water all the spring. The agent at 

 Wausaukee still writes down reports of high water. He 

 says he can't bet on the trout yet, but he can on the mos- 

 quitoes. 



It was Mr. Levings who told Messrs. Donald and Bur- 

 ton of the fine bass fishing in the Tippecanoe River, in 

 Indiana, and this week the three gentlemen above named 

 are going to take the offishial ear, Fredonia, of the C. & 

 A., and go down there and have about the most fun ever 

 was. Scott, the colored boy who belongs to the car, is 

 going along to cook, and there will be. great days on the 

 car. The Fredonia will probably lie off at Ora Station. 

 Below there the Tippecanoe runs close to the railway. 

 It is a broad, rocky stream, full of riffles, and can be 

 waded nearly all the way. This luxiirious party will 

 have a handcar go along on the track opposite to them, 

 and will thus have transportation for their ice, fish and 

 eatables. The Tippecanoe is here a good stream for fly- 

 fishing, and the bass are the small-mouthed, but this 

 party will use some minnows, against which Charlie 

 Burton puts his glass minnow trap on the handcar. The 

 bass will have to come down when a whole corporation 

 goes out after them this way. I came very near going 

 on this trip myself. I told Charlie Burton I was going 

 fishing with a' party on the Fox River next Saturday, and 

 then he invited me to go down on the Tippecanoe with 

 them, on Saturday, all of which nearly turned my hair 

 gray. It is matter of *grief that one cannot fish all the 

 streams at once, for life is so short. 



It seems that Mr. Loeb, of A. G. Spalding & Bros., was 

 out with a picnic party below Aurora, on the Fox River 

 in this State, a week or so ago, and came back with long 

 accounts of the bass they c aught on the fly in that stream. 

 His story so fired Mr. August Hirth, who presides over 

 the fishing tackle department of the same house, that he 

 also must go fishing. Mr. Hirth is a celebrated fly-fish- 

 erman, his art being fairly equal to charming the birds 

 from the trees. Mr. John Soderberg, Mr. A. H. Harry- 

 man and myself will go along to watch him fish. All 

 joking aside, however, the bass have been taking the fly 

 in fine shape on the riffles of the Fox, near Oswego, Au- 

 rora and Yorkville. The C. B. & Q. is the line to these 

 points 



It is probable that our party will not catch many fish 

 on Saturday, for tonight there have been disastrous storms 

 all through this section. Cyclones have wrought destruc- 

 tion through northern Illinois. Torrents of rain are fall- 

 ing to-night. Dispatches to the press from Boscobel, 

 Wis,, report heavy floods there and say the trout streams 

 are ruined, the trout being swept out into the meadows 

 and left to perish. The streams of this region will doubt- 

 less be too high for good fishing for a few days now. 



Day before yesterday I met Mr. W. L. Shepard, Secre- 

 tary of the State Sportsmen's Association, just as he was 

 outfitting for a trip to Crosby's place, on big Twin Lakes, 

 Wis. A3 I had just gotten in from that same country, I 

 implored Mr. Shepard to procure a head net and a bucket 

 of mosquito "dope" before he went into the woods. He 

 grew pale, and hurriedly purchased those commodities 

 )(• for himself and two friends. A man can have a lot of 

 iin with the mosquitoes up in Wisconsin this season. 



Messrs. H. & W. H. Manegold, Julius Roehr, Robert 

 Kt etchmar, Jr., and Henry Roethlisberger, all of Milwau- 

 kee, rev rned last week from a mascallonge trip through 

 *he lower Eagle Waters chain of lakes. They had a box 

 full ,bf fish,- but their largest mascallonge weighed only 

 lGlbs^ Their mimes probably stuck out over the boat and 

 scared H; fish . VUfa, Robt. Seidl, of the same city, came 

 down on"the<-saruo train from Twin Lakes, with some 

 'lunge and r ' * of p**p 



Billy Mussey'and a friend or two are fishing in the 

 lakes near Madison, Wis., a " ^ry beautiful locality. Billy 

 some time ago provided himself with a fine new rod, 

 which some enterprising rod speculator sold to him for 

 $2.50. It was one of the "combination" sort, the kind 

 you can make into a cane, a sketching stool and a clothes- 

 horse all at once, and which can be operated by a child. 

 Billy ought to feel all right about that rod, for he got a 

 good deal of wood for the money. 



Mr. Lew Pitcher, of the Board of Trade, with Messrs. 

 J. B. Goodman, Jas. Whitney and J. E. Jenkins, recently 

 returned from a week's fishing on Lake Winnebago, out 

 of Neenah. They had remarkably good luck, th catch 

 of small-mouth black bass, aside from all sih j^ss, 

 pike, etc., running 56, 40, 28, 35 and 82 per day. These 

 bnss were taken on the trolling fly, over the reefs. &j r. 

 Pitcher explains that he uses a gang of flies on a long 

 leader, sometimes attaching a minnow or so also on the 

 leader. The minnow, he thought, attracted the bass, but 

 they usually took the fly, and often he had three bass on 

 at once. I should think one fly would be more fun, 

 Neenah is a good place to go. If I were asked to advise 

 a party where to go and be most certain to get some fish, 

 I believe I should recommend Neenah. The fishing there 

 is varied. The Milwaukee & Northern, or the C. & N.W. 

 is the road to take. Mr. Orr, of the Board of Trade, and 

 his friend, Mr. Bartlett, took 3501bis. of bass on Winne- 

 bago in three days this spring. That ought to be pretty 

 near enough. Mr. Pitcher mentions ha ving heard of four 

 shad taken on Winnebago this year. These fish weighed 

 about 3^1b3. and are supposed to be part of a plant put in 

 six years ago. I have heard nothing of the "moon-eye" 

 fishing in the Neenah River this spring, but that must be 



just about due now. The "fly" was on the Wisconsin 

 lakes in abundance last week. 



Mr. C. W. Lee and a friend have had some fun fishing 

 for the big lake perch some distance out in the lake. 

 They caught some weighing a pound and a half, he 

 thought. The secretary of the Grand Calumet Heights 

 Club, Mr. Marshall, says the perch fishing off their beach 

 is now good. The annual meeting of this club, for elec- 

 tion of officers, etc., occurs next Wednesday night at the 

 Grand Pacific Hotel, of this city. 



The last I heard of myself I was up in Wisconsin, or, 

 rather, in Michigan, and had just finished breakfast at 

 Watersmeet. At this point Mr. Vliet, the general passen- 

 ger agent of the Milwaukee, Lake Shore & Western Rail- 

 way, together with his friends, Mr. Kennedy and Mr. 

 Bonnell, bade me good-bye as then- train rolled north for 

 Gogebic. I was to go south to State Line and thence seek 

 out Charlie Gammon and his associate pilgrims, who were 

 supposed to be in camp somewhere over on Vieux Desert. 

 Watersmeet is right on the divide, and I was told that I 

 could get some trout fishing there, barring the high 

 water. To the north, bass; to the south, mascallonge, 

 dead oodles of them, according to all accounts. 



By and by a freight train came along, and in course of 

 time we got to State Line, and there I shouldered my 

 pack and inquired of the station agent whether he could 

 direct me to a wild-looking man with a side-bar mous- 

 tache. "Oh! you mean Mr. Gammon, do you? Well, he 

 and all his party have pulled out from Vieux Desert and 

 gone down to Three Lakes, about twenty-eight miles be- 

 low here." 



"Did they have any fish?" 



"A few. They had one good 'lunge. Some other par- 

 ties sent down a good lot from Vieux Desert last week. 

 They bit better last week than this. Mr. Gammon left 

 here two days ago." 



Nothing was left but to climb on the freight train 

 again, which was done, after the conductor had oblig- 

 ingly waited till the agent had learned by wire that the 

 Gammon party was still in camp out at Three Lakes. 



It was our fortune to have a sick locomotive on that 

 particular freight train, the way she gasped, groaned was 

 painful in the'last degree. The sylinder was worn so 

 that the packing would not stay. At Eagle River we 

 took the engine to pieces and scraped it, but it didn't seem 

 to go any better, and w-e were devoutly thankful when 

 at about 1 o'clock, P. M., we pulled into Three Lakes. 

 Here I got lunch and learned that the party I sought 

 were in camp on Lone Stone Lake, about 9 miles east. To 

 this spot I got some of the usual complicated directions 

 of the North Woods, I was to go so many miles to such 

 and such a place I had never heard of, and then follow 

 the trail till it turned to the right, and then take an old 

 trail that led off somewhere else, and by and by I would 

 get there. My informant begged me with tears in his 

 eyes to let him take me over with a team, price $5, but I 

 reasoned that I could make just about $5 in two hours 

 and so set out on foot, supplied with a lunch or tw T o, some 

 matches and a general idea of which way the stream ran . 

 At first I went along about like Al. Bandle's railroad 

 train, which ran eleventy-'leven miles in 'leventy-'leven 

 minutes and a half, but after the first five miles of mud 

 and mosquitoes I slowed down a little. My pack, which 

 weighed about 40 lbs. in all, appeared to weigh more than 

 a four-year-old buck. And there w^ere 400,000,000 mos- 

 quitoes that bit me every half mile, in spite of head-net 

 and pennyroyal "dope."' By rare good fortune, however, 

 I kept on the right trail, and dreading extremely a night 

 in the woods under such conditions, 1 struck so good a 

 gait that after a time I knew I must have passed over not 

 only 9, but 11 miles or more of ground. Asa rest in 

 carrying my pack, I tried "toting" It Avith the strap 

 passed across the forehead, Indian fashion, and, on the 

 whole, found I could travel faster in that way, a sort of 

 jog trot being then possible. 



The long arid crooked lane through the deep pine w r oods 

 and swamps finally ran up on a high ridge. Through the 

 forest I could see a streak of lighter sky, and knew that 

 I was near the lake. At length it broke full into view, 

 and racing down the slope I saw the white tents shining 

 through the green trees upon the shore. Here in a few 

 moments I cast off my pack and took a long breath. A 

 boat was passing inshore between camp and the opposite 

 line of green woods, and I hailed it. 



"Hello, who are you?" came the answer. 

 "Mighty hungry," I replied, and some one laughed and 

 the boat turned and shot in toward camp. E. Hotjoh. 



MAINE FISHING. 



THE sportsmen have generally returned from their 

 spring fishing trips, and reports are fairly satisfac- 

 tory. At Moosehead the fishing has been excellent, with 

 the trout rather larger than usual. Fly-fishing there has 

 begun to some extent, though the weather has been cold 

 and the season has been backward. The Kineo Club, of 

 Boston, started on its annual trip to Moosehead last week. 

 The number of sportsmen who have made up the party 

 in former seasons was somewhat reduced, and new men 

 were invited. J. B. Thomas, Jr., the commander of the 

 club, was prevented by press of business from going. He 

 is one of the partners in the Standard Sugar Refinery, 

 organized and owned by his father for many years, and 

 with the Sugar Trust business has been rushing. Mr. 

 Walter Sanborn was also prevented from going with the 

 club by pressure of business. Mr. Lauriat, of Estes & 

 Lauriat, is soon to sail for Germany, and consequently he 

 gave lip his trip with the Kineo Club this year. Among 

 those who have gone are Mr. Frank Wise, of Fisher & 

 Wise; Mr. Hunnewell, of Doe & Hunnewell, and Mr. 

 Albert Nickerson. Mr. W. S, Hills followed the party 

 after they had been gone several days. Mr. Hills is one 

 of the most genial of sportsmen, and he has the sympathy 

 of <all of the clan in his affliction — one of the hardest for 

 th^ sportsman to bear — that of partial blindness. But his 

 c age is sufficient to cure even cataracts of the eyes. 

 He ia determined that he will recover his eyesight, and 

 thoroughly believes that the way to do it is to visit the 

 old haunts and try to see the old sights again. 



Some of the brook fishermen report remarkably good 

 catches since the weather became warmer. Mr. Foster, 

 of Foster & Weeks, this city, has just returned from his 

 native town — Bethel, Me. — where he has visited the old 

 brooks again, with a wonderful string of trout as the 

 result. He reports the brook fishing in the neighborhood 

 of Newry and Bear River very good. 

 Reports say that the landlocked salmon fisherman are 



still catching some fish of fair size in the Sebago waters, 

 though large fish have been scarce this year. The catch 

 of landlocked salmon in the Rangeley waters has not 

 been remarkable, or even very satisfactory, this vear 

 thus far. Mr. C. D. McDuffee, of Manchester, N. H , is 

 reported as taking a salmon froth Kenebago Lake the 

 other day weighing GJlbs. Several smaller fish have 

 been taken from Rangeley Lake, but very few from the 

 lakes below. 



J. H. French, well known to sportsmen as a hotel 

 keeper at Andover, Me., has sold his hotel at that place, 

 or at least the bargain is made, to the Thomas Brothers, 

 Albert and Frank, proprietors of the other hotel at the 

 same place. Mr. French is to give up the hotel, and also 

 the transportation business over the buckboard road in 

 to the lake. He is at present lessee of the Union Water- 

 power's hotel camps at the Upper Dam, and he proposes 

 to remain there and build a couple of cottages on the 

 lands of the company, one for the better accommodation 

 of ladies visiting this fishing resort and the other for his 

 own home. I understand, from good authority, that he 

 has the permission of the company to build these cot- 

 tages. He looks upon the undertaking as a safe one, 

 since it is probable that the railroad from Phillips to 

 Rangeley, now building, will be running by another sea- ■ 

 son, whereby it is expected that travel will be doubled to 

 those lakes. 



June 24. — One of the members of the Kineo Club has 

 beaten the record in the way of lake trout (namaycvsli ) 

 this season. Mr. J. F. Nickerson, in the wholesale gro- 

 cery trade of Boston, brings back from Moosehead a lake 

 trout weighing 19|lbs. This is no fish story, for Mr. Nick- 

 erson produces affidavits of the exact weight. This is t he 

 biggest trout yet, though not a pure Salvia fontinalis, 

 and Mr. Nickerson is justly very proud of it. 



Another big catch this season was that of Master Willie 

 Clough, of Lynn, Mass., a lad only twelve years of age. 

 In company with his father he made a trip to Mooseluc- 

 maguntic and Cupsuptic in May. At noon one day they 

 went up to one of the Cupsuptic camps to dinner. The 

 boy at play in one of the boats at the wharf threw over a 

 hook with a dead minnow on it. Soon he felt a fish, and 

 saw at once that it was a big one. He played if . and 

 finally landed without assistance an 8lbs. trout. 



It seems that Mr. Fox, of New York, who took a 71- 

 pound trout from the Narrows, Richardson Lake, at the 

 time that Mr. Guild, of Boston, took his 10^-pounder, of 

 which the Forest and Stream has already published an 

 account, had rather bad luck. The lake was very rough 

 that day; indeed, so rough that soon after the big trout 

 were taken they were obliged to quit fishing. The wa ves 

 were so high that they decided to stop at Camp Veve Vale 

 till the little steamer came down on its afternoon trip, 

 and get aboard for the Middle Dam, instead of attempting 

 to have the guides row them down. They reached the 

 wharf at that camp all right, though a little wet by the 

 high seas and considerably benumbed with the cold. But 

 the big trout were in the boats all right up to this point. 

 The guides — I will not give their names, for they are not 

 in the habit of making blunders — took Mr. Guild's trout 

 out all right; but, alas, for the 7A-pounder of Mr. Kox! 

 The guide took him up and attempted to step on to the 

 wharf. The fish was slippery, as only acold trout knows 

 how to be slippery. The guide's hands were numb with 

 the cold. The trout went down between the wharf and 

 the boat, and is there to this day for a 11 that has ever been 

 seen of him. The fish was supposed to bo "stone dead." 

 but it did not rise, though they waited and watched till 

 evening. Poor Mr. Fox was really to be pitied, lie has 

 been fishing many trips, but never succeeded in taking a 

 big trout before. Moral : Always handle trout, and make 

 guides handle them, by locking the thumb and forward 

 finger into and through the gills from below. It is abso- 

 lutely impossible to lose a fish if it is taken hold of in 

 this way, whether it be alive or dead. 



Mr. Samuels, President of the Massachusetts Fish and 

 Game Protective Association, and author of that charm- 

 ing new book, "With Fly-Rod and Camera," has just re- 

 turned from a trouting trip to Nova Scotia waters. He 

 reports the fly-fishing excellent with fair sized fish. He 

 is much pleased with the extent of lake and river that is 

 easily accessible there. He visited the old haunts of the 

 lamented Prouty. His hands are brown enough to last 

 him through another siege of literary work, but there is 

 an absenee of the usual black-fly bites. Mr. Samuels 

 thinks that he was too late for these torments of the 

 angler; they come very early in this section. 



But the fishing resorts are about to be given up for the 

 season by the regular anglers, and the excursionists are 

 to take their places. Excursions are planned to the Dead 

 River region and to the Seven Ponds, to the Rangeley , 

 and to Moosehead; Tuft's Pond in Kingfield, lakely dig- 

 nified with the name of Tuft's Lake, is also to become ani 

 excursion resort, that is if excursion par-Lies can be ad-j 

 vertised into going there. The advertisements propose 

 the best of fishing for gamy trout. Well, the excursion- 

 ist will not hurt the fishing much. That is one consola- 

 tion to the anglers who have been in the habit of visiting 

 these waters. The gamy trout will probably keep out 

 of the way of the bait that is offered by the ordinary ex- 

 cursionist, and one good dose of live mosquitoes will wind 

 up the fishing. Spew ax. 



PENNSYLVANIA ANGLING. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



In "Angling Notes" in your paper much information 

 is given in short form. All anglers should help to enlarge 

 this column. About Aug. 1. 1889. the Pennsylvania FjSjj 

 Commission, through Mr. W. L. Powell, sent 4,000 Oali- 

 fornia or rainbow trout from the Allcntown hatchery tiJ 

 me at Harrisburg, which I placed in the Big Spring, a 

 Newville. On the opening day, April 15, my sou tool 

 one on a fly which measured 6in. Two weeks ago 

 caught one 7 iin. long. Yesterday I took two 7Mn. ant 

 one Sin. long. When they were placed there last Angus 

 there were none over l|in. in length, so they have growl, 

 at least Gin. in ten months. The "four I caught were al 

 taken where the water was 30in. deep and running swifi 

 I caught fifty -nine trout yesterday, but no ram bows, i« 

 the quiet, still, running parts of the stream, I also took 

 few brook trout in the same stretch of water that th 

 rainbows frequented: they gave considerable sport, jump 

 ing out of the water three or four times, and then sulk 

 ing a little before landing. I took a brook trout yestei, 

 day about 9in. long that had a scar across the back of 

 neck and about ^in. of its gill cover gone, exposing tb< 

 gills. It was evidently struck by some Bharp instrumenl 



