494 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[July 10, 1890. 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST, 



CHICAGO, 111., June 27.— One evening last week, as 

 was announced to be the intention, Mr. A. Hirth, 

 of Spaldings', Mr. John Soderbery, of Blorngren Bros., 

 Mr. A. H. Harryman and myself started for Yorkville, 

 on the Fox River, not far from the scene of Mr, Loeb's 

 piscatorial accomplishments. Mr. Hirth also brought 

 along his friend, Dr. Shayne, and we all took the 4:30 

 train for Aurora, over theC. B. & Q., changing there for 

 YorkvilJe. which is 12 miles further and just 51 miles 

 from Chicago. We reached this place at 6:18 P. M. 



Ab soon as we saw the river we knew we should have 

 no fishing, for it was running full of muddy water, trib- 

 ute of the recent storms. We therefore made no pretense 

 at fishing, beyond catching a few bullheads and rock 

 bass the next day, and three small black bass, so diminu- 

 tive that we threw them back. We did, however, find 

 what seems to us a very good fishing water when the 

 river is right. There is no dam from Yorkville to the 

 Mississippi, except two corporation dams with good fish- 

 ways, so we were told, and the bass run up this stream 

 in quantities. There is said to be a fish way in Yorkville 

 da n, though how good a one we could not tell. Below 

 the dam there are two or three islands and several bars, 

 where, without violating the law against fishing under a 

 dam, one can, in proper time, have fine sport with the 

 fly at small-mouthed black bass. Of this we had abund- 

 ant proof, for we saw numbers of fish, though we could 

 do nothing with them. Mr. Wolf red N. Low tells me he 

 used to go fishing often at Yorkville, but never had any 

 luck there. I presume that, as with all other river fish- 

 ing, the sport here is capricious, but am nevertheless in- 

 clined to class this as one more of the cheap and good 

 fishing trips out of Chicago. I think some day I will write 

 a book and call it "Five Dollar Fishing Trips From 

 Chicago." We left the city one evening, staid two nights 

 at Yorkville and got back at about 9 A. M. the second 

 morning, and the total expense of the trip was just 

 $5.35 apiece, and that included a 12 miles ride by livery, 

 bright and early one lovely morning, to catch the 6:37 

 train at Aurora. Almost any of the little trips, such as I 

 sometimes speak of around here, can be made for a sum 

 not any greater, and this is what commends them to 

 many whose limited means does not prevtnt them from 

 enjoying a day off. 



I may have told some pretty tough fish stories lately 

 from this country, but I am going to tell one now that 

 will discount anything yet, and the funny part of it is that 

 it is true or, at least, I think it is true. If I should simply 

 offer to wager that I could take a man to a place where 

 he could have sinall-inouthed black bass jump into his 

 boat— half a dozen of them, probably a dozen, more likely 

 two dozm, and perhaps fifty, I should be thought a trifle 

 wild, no doubt, but that is just about what it amounts to, 

 and just about what I am nearly ready to do. 



At Yorkville we heard a good deal of talk about "jump- 

 ing bass," and learned that it had been practiced quietly 

 because it was thought illegal. One man said he had 

 caught 140 bass in that way one night. Another admitted 

 having taken a dozen one evening. A boy came into town 

 the evening we were there, and he had three bass that he 

 had "jumped." We heard of another party who had six 

 taken' in that way. Mr. Hirth and Dr. Shayne were fish 

 ing near the bridge in the evening when two men came 

 along, one with a long pole. They said that, as the water 

 was high and muddy and the night dark, it was a good 

 time to "jump bass," and they were going to do it. An 

 arrangement was made by which Dr. Shayne was to go 

 along with them. Mr. Hirth came over to the hotel and 

 began to tell about how his friend was fishing over there 

 in the dark with bait and how he would soon show us a 

 string of bass, etc., etc. We told him that we could not 

 be fooled about bass fishing that way, and that if his 

 friend caught any bass, he would do it with a seine. On 

 the following morning he really did have eight or ten 

 magnificent small-mouthed bass, some of them four or 

 five pounders. He said the boat took over 50, and claimed 

 that some one had stolen more than two dozen out of the 

 wash tub where he left them at the rear of the hotel. He 

 disclaimed any use of a seine, and told the following 

 story: 



"We only went down about three miles in all," said he; 

 "you have to go down stream to jump them. The night 

 was dark. They ran the boat along, about 8ft. from the 

 bank, at a little angle to the bank, and the fellow in the 

 stern kept thrashing the water along the bank with the 

 pole and stirring up the grass and bushes. They said 

 the bass lay inshore and went to sleep, and were scared 

 by the noise, so that when they saw the boat as they 

 started for deep water they would try to spring over it. 

 I don't know what the theory is, but I know we caught 

 an awful lot of bass. I should think that more than half 

 the bas3 went clear over the boat. They said they some- 

 times had a net up on that side of the boat, and held the 

 shore side of the boat down close to the water's edge, so 

 they could get over the edge easier. I had bass hit me in 

 the face as I sat in the boat. One hit one of the men on 

 the nose and hurt him. The boat got full of flapping 

 bass. I didn't mind it at first, but I feel like a horse 

 thief now. You could clean out all the fish in the river 

 that way. I thought I would just go and get some fish 

 for the crowd to take home, seeing they weren't biting 

 any." 



For myself, I do not care about taking home any fish 

 that I can not catch myself and catch on a rod and line. 

 I have no reputation that suffers badly enough to hurt 

 me if I come home without any fish, and I do not see any 

 use in countenancing any such practice as this, or a 

 worse one, for the sake of getting some fish to take home. 

 But here was really a very curious thing, and I confess I 

 should have liked to see it tried, with my own eyes, 

 and some day I may. 



I have no proof to offer on this fish story but the follow- 

 ing: Young Rpddig, a barbpr and fisher of Yorkville, 

 was taking me across the river in his boat when we 

 felt a fish strike the side of the boat as we approached a 

 clump of lily pads on a bar. We had just been talking of 

 "jumping" fish. "You see how they do it," said he. 

 When I was a boy, down in Indiana, we used to be igno- 

 rant enough to go seining. We never could do much at 

 catching bass in the seine, for they would jump over it. 

 When they got to going over it in that way, we would 

 just reverse the seine, and carry it with the float line in 

 front, and the lead line held up a little behind. The bass 

 would jump over the float line, and we caught them on 

 the seine, not in it." 



I have tried to tell this story to several friends, but they 



won't hear it. Charlie Burton said, "If you print that 

 yarn you'll have to leave the town." They all talk al>out 

 this way. Now, either there's a lot of us awfully fooled, 

 or else we've got a big joke on a good many people. 



I consulted Mr. Wolfred N. Low, a prominent attorney 

 and sportsman of this city, as to the illegality of such 

 fishing. "It is probably illegal," said he, "under that 

 clause of the law which prohibits any other device than 

 hook and line." 



This is my story, and, if it is true, we have found one 

 of the most destructive methods of killing bass yet dis- 

 covered on Fox River. 



June 88.— Anent my fish story, about the bass jumping 

 into the boat: it seems that one of the doubters who 

 scoffed at such an idea lately met a friend of his from 

 Indiana, to whom he told the yarn as a paralyzer. "Well, 

 now," said the Indiana man, "if that man wants to bet 

 you $50 that you can catch fish that way, don't you 

 take him up, or you will lose. I have caught many a bass 

 in just that way on the Kankakee." 



Mr. Hirth has been having a good deal of trouble lately 

 with his customers, to whom he has related the foregoing 

 story of the jumping bass. No one would believe him , 

 and at last he grew desperate and concluded he might as 

 well hang for a sheep as a lamb, and began telling the 

 following, for which he vouched with great solemnity of 

 countenance: 



"1 had lain my rod down on the bank," said he, "and 

 the tip was resting on a bush in such a way that the min- 

 now was about four feet above the water. I stepped away 

 for a moment, and when I came back I heard a splash- 

 ing in the water, and I hope I may never if there wasn't 

 a string of bass like an endless chain jumping for my 

 minnow! The nose of each fish touched the tail of the 

 one ahead of it, and such was the steadiness of their 

 movement that there was a regular arc of ba*sin the air. 

 It looked like a stiff string of bass. As fast as one fell it 

 darted back under the water and started in again. I saw 

 I had a chance such as only comes once in a lifetime, and 

 I ran to get my Kodak, so that I could have indisputable 

 photographic proof; but when I got back one of the bass 

 had got the minnow and they were all gone. I was very 

 much disappointed." 



This last story I do not more than half believe myself, 

 but a good many people will believe before they will the 

 other, which is true. 



Mr. L. J, Marks, of the Board of Trade, has just re- 

 turned from a week's fishing trip up in Wisconsin. He 

 is pretty well sunburned, and tells some fair to middling 

 stories, but he is a good deal longer on sunburn and 

 stories than he is on fish. 



Mr. C. W L^e, also of the Board of Trade, writes me 

 to-day: "Mr. R H. Mabbatt, one of the Boarrl, one day 

 last week caught forty- five bass in one of the Oconomo- 

 woc Lakes, none of which weighed less than 21bs. ; pretty 

 good, I think, for a place that has been fished to death." 



I presume I may mention in this connection as well as 

 anywhere, that Mr. Lee himself starts next week for a 

 long trip of pleasure. He goes first to his former home 

 in Ohio for a visit, then to Montreal, and then takes a 

 trip lor England, through which country and France he 

 will make an extended tour, vi-iting the remoter districts 

 especially, and using chiefly the bicycle for getting about 

 the country. Mr. Lee will study the sports, especially 

 the water sports, of the old country, and will tell Forest 

 and Stream something about them. His return is about 

 the middle of September. 



Two gentlemen known in sporting circles here, whose 

 names are suppressed out of consideration for their fam- 

 ilies, went fishing last week on a alleged preserved and 

 planted trout stream near Mukwanago, Wis. They 

 waded, toiled, sweated and swore through several miles 

 of mosquitoes and mud, and caught kO or 40 fish. Un- 

 fortunately the fish were all chubs. They saw no trout. 

 They flatly contradicted the report that a mascallonge 

 was lately taken at Mukwanago Lake, and say that the 

 man who says that there ever was a mascallonge or a 

 trout in that region is a fabricator or a mistaker, one of 

 the both. E. Hotjgh. 



WHO ARE THE FISH HOGS? 



SHEBOYGAN FALLS, Wis., June 30.— Editor Forest 

 and Stream; In your issue of June 26 under the 

 head of "Angling Notes," it is suggested that "it would 

 be better to do away with all bait-fishing and stick to the 

 artificial fly, so that the trout would grow up and increase 

 and there would be plenty for all." 



Now, if the circumstances are the same in New York 

 State as in Wisconsin, I beg to differ, for the reason that 

 more "fingerlings" are taken from the trout streams of 

 this State by the exclusive fly-casters than by those who 

 use bait. On my jaunts for brook trout I have noticed, 

 as a rule, that the bait-fishermen throw back all trout 

 under Gin. that are likely to live, while the so-called only 

 true anglers for trout, the fly-fishermen, creel everything 

 they succeed in landing, regardless of size, their sole aim 

 evidently being to make a "big count." On a recent trip 

 an old, well-known and legitimate sportsman of Fond du 

 Lac, in a short time one day, took from one of Hie streams 

 of the State, on a single hook, baited with angle worms, 

 thirteen speckled beauties that weighed lllbs , and I ven- 

 ture to say that he had as much real sport and made a 

 far better showing than a party of five elaborately 

 equipped fly fishermen I met on a later trip, who at the 

 time had ninety-two, mostly fingerlings, the whole lot of 

 which would not balance the scales with the Fond du 

 Lac man's thirteen. 



Another unjust feature of such a law would be its dis- 

 criminating tendency in favor of fly-fishermen, who 

 really do more to deplete the trout streams than the bait- 

 fishermen do. Another objection is the expense of an 

 outfit such as is necessary for successful fly-fishing, which 

 the ordinary fisherman cannot afford, and we hold that 

 the farmer's boy or the sportsman of moderate means is 

 as much entitled to take trout from streams stocked by 

 the State (providing they use legitimate means) as their 

 brother anglers, the fly -fishermen, who are fortunate in 

 possessing a more plethoric purse. There is, too, a class 

 of pirates that hail from the cities who ought not to be 

 tolerated on a trout stream. As an example, o? which 

 there are many, a party of three Chicagoans came up 

 into Wisconsin recently, and hiring three local nimrods 

 to fish for them, they camped on one of the best trout 

 streams in the State for about two weeks, shipping hun- 

 dreds of trout to friends at home, to whom we presume 

 they conveyed the idea that the precious gifts were solely 



of then: own catching. Such parties would no doubt be 

 welcome if they would content themselves with taking 

 what trout they require to eat while in camp and a rea- 

 sonable mess to take home when they break camp. I 

 believe the most effectual and just method for the better 

 preservation of brook trout, in addition to the present 

 provisions, would be to shorten the lawful season for 

 catching, say from May 1 to July 15. W. C. T. 



EARLY MORNING ON THE STREAM. 



AOME, old man, wake up, if you're going trout fish- 

 \j ing with me." This greeting, emphasized by sev- 

 eral and sundry hoists of the bed clothes, met my unwil- 

 ling ears full four hours earlier than any decent man has 

 aright to be out of bed, one beautiful morning not so 

 long ago, a morning the charms of which at a reasonable 

 hour might have been remarkable, but to me at 4 A. M. 

 seemed the very personification of everything to be 

 avoided. However, with a resolute cousin forty pounds 

 heavier than yourself at one end of the sheet, and noth- 

 ing but an innate sense of modesty at the other, beef will 

 usually tell; and after a hearty breakfast, preceded by a 

 milk punch such as only the fair hands of the aforesaid 

 cousin's wife can concoct, life seemed more worthy the 

 living, and the trout brook, eight miles away, nearer than 

 good resolutions on New Year's day. 



Immediately after breakfast our caleche came around 

 the corner, and, reader, I wish with all my heart you 

 could have seen the general get-up. It had been origin- 

 ally painted a bright red, body, wheels and shafts, but 

 what with time, mud and accidents, it resembled nothing 

 so much in this world as a very bad case of eczema. I 

 never in all my experience with country turnouts, and I 

 have driven in almost every town in New England, saw 

 its equal. Horse strong and well built, but not pretty; 

 and narness with the aid of several ropes, etc., in a fair 

 state of preservation. The driver was a genuine Yankee, 

 with face upon which the ravages of time were plainly 

 visible, also the marks of wind and weather, with hands 

 like a side of mutton, and hard. Heavens! when I was 

 introduced to Zeke Sprague and he gripped my digits as 

 though he were holding a plow handle, he left a mark 

 that has not been obliterated yet. 



"From the city, I guess," was his first question, in a 

 tone that fully harmonized with his exterior. "Wal, I 

 ruther guess we can show ye some traout fishin', and if 

 ye don't say Zeke knows his biz before the day's 

 through I'll eat my head." 



Meantime lunch, poles and bait had been carefully 

 laid in the bottom of the team, and Zeke, couBin and my- 

 self piled in and the equipage started. 



Long before the first milest' me was passed our rural 

 friend knew my entire genealogy, even to the remote 

 ancestry who came over m 1647, all my business pros- 

 pects, who were my friends, everything that had hap- 

 pened during an uneventful life, and a great many 

 things that never did happen. You can't help admiring 

 a man who is not afraid to ask you if the fair creature 

 upon whom all your hopes of future happiness are 

 centered, t-quints. Think of the generations of "Gallic" 

 ancestors that man must have had to ask such a question 

 in entire good faith. He ought to have been chief ques- 

 tioner in the Inquisition. The expression of sut prise 

 that came over his face when I told him that one eye had 

 been entirely destroyed when she was a child, and all the 

 fingers of her right hand taken off by a hay-cutter when 

 she was spending a summer in the country, was im- 

 mensely funny. He was apparently lost to the world for 

 a minute, and then to me, "Kinder "think I should hustle 

 'round and get a girl that's all there." It rather stag- 

 gered him, as he said, to see "such a nice-looking young 

 feller running after a girl that was all chopped up, un- 

 less" — and this in a calmly ruminative tone — "she's got 

 spondulicks." 



However, he asked no more questions, confining him- 

 self to very unique descriptions of the farms passed, 

 charmingly frank accounts of their owners, one of whom 

 I remember " was so gol-darned mean that he wouldn't 

 shave 'cause soap cost fifteen cents." He kept us in a 

 constant state of explosion until the brook was reached, 

 just as the sun peeped over a high hill to the eastward: 

 and in truth I made a vow then, a vow by the way, that 

 somehow I forgot the next morning, to be up with the 

 lark and enjoy the brightest, pleasantest time of the 

 whole day. 



Don't smile. I'll wager all my own hats that some- 

 time in your life you've promised yourself the same 

 thing. Have you forgotten those long walks you were 

 going to take before breakfast? Be honest and don't 

 throw a stone at me, until you have gone back 10 or 12 

 years, waked up at, say, 5:30 A. M., thought "to-morrow 

 will do just as well, I don't feel like getting up this morn- 

 ing." Did to-morrow ever come? 



What a curious sensation a man has when, his pole 

 jointed, reel and line ready for business, he carefully 

 creeps to a likely looking spot and gently drops his wig- 

 gling worm in just the right place. Nobody ever caught 

 a lOOlbs. brook trout, but, by Jove, that pull must mean 

 at least a 50-pounder. You strike and land a measly lit- 

 tle fellow, just large enough to have swallowed the 

 hook and, it seems to you, a foot of the leader. Curious, 

 isn't it, but it's always the little fish that are firmly 

 hooked, the big one usually just manages to catch his 

 lip, drop on the bank, and after you have grabbed f or 

 him and frightened all the fish within 10 miles, slide back 

 into the brook with a sort of "Come birdie, spring is 

 here," air, and leave you, if you have the passion of a 

 fisherman, the solace of strong language, and mighty 

 poor comfort it is, too. 



Still, all the big ones do not escape, and we meet at 11 

 o'clock to compare notes and fish, and to eat lunch. 



Total 42 fish, two of which are considerably over lib. 

 It's rather early yet, the meadow flooded and the fish not 

 particularly hungry. Still, 42 fish are not to be sneered 

 at, and, the sandwiches. Did ever two slices of ham 

 with a little bread taste better? The happiest time in a 

 man's life must be when, after a morning's exercise in 

 the open ah, he stretches out at full length on the grass, 

 in the shade, and listens to the noises made by God's 

 creatures, with everv sense at perfect rest. So ended my 

 first trouting expedition of the year, for business called 

 me to Boston by the afternoon train, with fish enough for 

 my breakfast and a few over for friends. 



May Zeke Sprague and his miraculous equipage be 

 preserved until the trout cease to haunt Wadleigh brook r 



A. F. E. 



