Nov. 6, 1890.1 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



31S 



m m\A Jfft^r fishing. 



The full tests of the game fish laws of all the States, 

 Territories and British Provinces are given in the Book of 

 tfte Game Laws. 



PENNSYLVANIA STREAMS. 



AUBURN, Susquehanna C aunty, Pa., Oct. 21.— The 

 trout season, closing July 15, was very satisfactory 

 to the fishermen. More and larger trout were taken 

 than for several years past. Streams that were supposed 

 to be entirely depleted gave good creels of fine fish. The 

 unusual rainfall of the past two years kept the streams 

 full, and the very mild winter furnished favorable con- 

 ditions. 



Pickerel fishing in the ponds has also been good. Per- 

 haps about the usual number have been taken; but all 

 the fish I have seen and handled would average fully 

 twice as heavy as those of several years past. 



Bass fishing in the Susquehanna has not been very 

 satisfactory. High water has been the leading obstacle 

 to good sport. For whenever the river cleared, which it 

 has done but a very few times the entire season, good 

 catches of fine fish have been taken. With me, minnows 

 proved the most killing bait; yet stone cats are more gen- 

 erally used. With a dry fall and consequent clear water 

 October is one of the best months for black bass fishing 

 in the Susquehanna. During the forenoon of Oct. 7, '81, 

 myself and a companion took thirty-one, using minnows. 

 But the past three falls have been very wet, destroying 

 the fishing. Unusual high water in May must have 

 covered with sediment and destroyed a great number of 

 eggs, but was beneficial in preventing spearers from 

 getting in their nefarious work while the bass were pro- 

 tecting their nests. With dry weather and clear water 

 another season, we predict good fishing at almost any 

 point on the Susquehanna between Rummerfield and 

 Tunkhannock. 



From my own observation and what I can learn I con- 

 clude the law has been more respected than ever before. 

 Some arrests were made at Tunkhannock and fines im- 

 posed. Still there is need of more thorough enforcement 

 of the Jaw. Dynamite has been used in the east branch 

 of the Meshoppus Creek and hundreds of pounds of fish 

 destroyed. The parties have been very bold in their 

 dastardly work, and should not be allowed to go unpun- 

 ished. But there are no wardens or associations to prose- 

 cute offenders, and it is a thankless job for private indi- 

 viduals to undertake. Bon Ami. 



THE GOLDEN TROUT. 



IN this journal several years ago appeared my first de- 

 scription of a new trout from Sunapee Lake, N. H., 

 under the name of Salvelinus aureolas. At the time of 

 the publication of this description there was some dis- 

 satisfaction on the part of some persons who were inte- 

 rested in the fish and the lake from which it came because 

 the specific name was not derived from the lake from 

 which the types came. I refrained from applying the 

 name sunapee or sunapeensis because of my belief that 

 the trout would be found in other parts of New Hamp- 

 shire and probably other New England States. Dec. 

 5, 1889. Forest and Stream announced the discovery of 

 the golden trout in Dan Hole Pond, N. H., a lake in the 

 extreme eastern portion of the State and belonging to the 

 drainage system of the Gulf of Maine, while the waters of 

 Su napee Lake find their way eventually into Long Island 

 Sound. Between Sunapee Lake and Dan Hole Pond nu- 

 merous mountain ranges exist. We did not call atten- 

 tion at the time to the. fact that the two trout obtained at 

 Dan Hole Pond by Col. Hodge in 1889 were collected for 

 him by Mr. Roberts, of Water Village, N. H. 



I have learned from Col. Hodge that a golden trout was 

 obtained from this pond before he secured his two speci- 

 mens. This was forwarded to the Museum of Compara- 

 tive Zoology, at Cambridge, Mas., and there is scarcely 

 any doubt that it is one of the specimens figured by Mr. 

 Garman in the nineteenth annual report of the Massachu- 

 setts Fish Commission. This paper by Mr. Garman was 

 also published separately under the title, "The American 

 Salmon and Trout, Including Introduced Species," and 

 the specimrn here referred to is illustrated in figure 16 of 

 this paper. I think that if any one will examine this 

 figure, which was made by Mr. S. F. Denton, he will at 

 once recognize in it the trout of Sunapee Lake and Dan 

 Hole Pond. Indeed Mr. Denton, when about to make 

 the drawing of the Sunapee trout for me, remarked upon 

 its resemblance to, one he had drawn for Mr. Garman. 



After the publication in Forest and Stream of Dec. 5, 

 1889, of the occurrence of Salvelinus aureolus in Dan 

 Hole Pond, I learned that a certain amount of skepticism 

 was current as to the fact of its existence in the lake 

 mentioned, and it was asserted that the specimens 

 sent to Col. Hodge, and by him forwarded to the National 

 Museum, were really obtained in Sunapee Lake and 

 palmed off upon him as specimens from Dan Hole Pond. 

 In order to settle the matter beyond all shadow of a 

 doubt, certain friends of Col. Hodge resolved to go per- 

 sonally to Dan Hole Pond and obtain the golden trout, if 

 possible. These two gentlemen, Messrs. Walter Aiken 

 and Frederick M. Dey, went to the pond and, at the cost 

 of much personal discomfort, secured four examples of 

 the trout, and forwarded two of them to me for confirma- 

 tion of the correctness or Col. Hodge's previous discovery. 

 A male was sent to Dr. Quackenbos, and another one to 

 Col. Hodge. Mr. Aiken tells the story of the undertaking 

 in the following letter: 



"Franklin Falls, N. H., Oct. 31, 1890.— Dear Dr. 

 Bean: Well, we have been to Dan Hole Pond and got 

 back alive. The weather was simply infernal. It rained, 

 it snowed and it blowed a gale. We struck the worst 

 place for grub in the United States. I had Col. Hodge's 

 permit to take four trout. The first day we fiahed all 

 day without a bite or seeing a fish. At night we put out 

 a 75ft. net, one end on shore and the other anchored out 

 in the pond. In the morning we had two preadamite 

 aureolus jack trout. They looked to me like very old 

 trout. The next day I took a fine young-looking female 

 trolling with the spoon. I took this fish some distance 

 from our net and away from reputed spawning ground. 

 Next night we got in the net one jack aur§glm. This 

 filled our permit of four trout, and we started for home, 

 foiled Meredith one hour before tram time and packed. 



the fish the best we could. The jacks [males] were very 

 highly colored when taken, but I noticed that they were 

 losing color when packed. I sent you one jack and one 

 female, Dr. Q. one jack and Col. Hodge the other. The 

 question is now fully settled and the doubters should give 

 it up. From what I could learn these trout were once 

 very abundant there, but years of spearing, together with 

 perch, suckers, pickerels, eels and an enormous quantity 

 of redfins to eat the esrgs, have made them very scarce. 

 There are no hornpout in the pond. * * * — Walter 

 Aiken." 



The specimens thus obtained were received by me in 

 due time and are now preserved in the Smithsonian In- 

 stitution. The female contained no eggs and had either 

 spawned naturally, or was stripped after capture. The 

 length of this example is 20|in. In the stomach were the 

 remains of ahout 20 smelt. The colors are much plainer 

 than in the male, there being scarcely a trace of golden 

 color on the belly and only a faint pinkish tinge on the 

 lower fins. The male is 16 inches long and his jaws 

 are well developed. The spermaries are moderately 

 large and would have furnished a considerable quantity 

 of milt. The colors of the male were still intense; 

 the rich orange of the belly is particularly noticeable. 

 The ventrals, anal and lower lobe of the caudal have a 

 broad milky white margin, not limited behind by a dark 

 line as in the brook trout. In both examples the gill- 

 rakers are curled at the tip. The male has been injured 

 by having apiece bitten out of his tail behind the adipose 

 fin. The wound healed, leaving a crooked tail: yet the 

 trout was in excellent condition and was doubtless active 

 in its movements. 



Thanks to the energy of Cob Hodge and the able co- 

 operation of Messrs. Aiken and Dey we have advanced a 

 step forward in the study of the golden trout. Will those 

 who are interested in the history of these beautiful fishes 

 help us to gain a clearer knowledge of their distribution 

 and habits? T. H. Bean. 



FISHING WITH THE "LITTLE GIANT." 



ON reading Dr. HenshalPs description in Forest and 

 Stream last winter, of his new invention, the so- 

 called "Little Giant" bass rod, I was at once> struck with 

 the fact that here was the very rod I had been looking 

 for to use in sea fishing on the New England seashore, 

 where I have spent several summer vacations. I had 

 found my ordinary Henshall bass rod a good deal too 

 limber to stand the strain of the long line and heavy 

 sinker with anything like comfort. Now, here was a 

 rod but a trifle heavier, and yet designed specially for 

 handling a heavy sinker in deep water. I was therefore 

 much pleased on receiving Chubb's catalogue for 1890, to 

 find that he was prepared to furnish this new rod, and 

 ordered one at once. It is a very pretty rod to look at, 

 even the cheapest grade — ash and lancewood — like mine, 

 and is very well balanced and pleasant to handle. 1 

 fancied that I could not cast quite so far with it as with 

 the larger Henshall rod, but this may have been from my 

 greater familiarity with the old rod. Besides, this is no 

 special disadvantage in sea fishing at the place where I 

 intended to fish, as it is not necessary to cast more than 

 20 or 30ft. 



So I took my "Little Giant" last summer down to Mano- 

 met, Mass., which is the corner of Plymouth opposite to 

 the tip of Cape Cod. and gave it a fair trial, in the inter- 

 vals of unsuccessful .attempts at black bass fishing, in the 

 famous Plymouth ponds. 



I was thoroughly pleased with the rod. The best fish- 

 ing at Manomet is for tautog, or perhaps better known as 

 blackfish (Hiatula onitis), which during the summer are 

 found in considerable numbers round certain rocks close 

 to the shore, usually covered at high water. The local 

 fishermen, of course, use stout handlines, with a sinker 

 weighing some four ounces. They anchor some little 

 distance from the rock, in such a position that the strong- 

 tide is running from them toward the rock, and cast in 

 close to it, allowing the sinker to lie on the bottom. 

 Lobster is the bait commonly used, preferably in the con- 

 dition called "blacKskin," that is, just ready to shed the 

 shell, as this holds on better and offers more resistance to 

 the thieving Scunners." Sea clams {Maetra) are also 

 used when they can be procured, and once we succeeded 

 in getting half a dozen small rock crabs, and "hung" a 

 tautog with every one of them. The fish run to a good 

 size, 4 and 5-pounders being common, while large fish, 

 up to 10 or lllbs., are not rare. 



I had only fair luck with them myself, averaging 

 only a couple of fish every time I went out, and my 

 largest only weighed 4-Jlbs., but I got nothing less than 

 1-Jlbs., and only one as small as that, with several two 

 and three-pounders. A small tautog succumbs speedily 

 to the "Little Giant," but they are game fish, and the 

 larger ones make a strong fight for their lives, making 

 very savage downward rushes, and trying to get to their 

 shelter under the overhanging rocks. They frequently 

 escape by tangling up the line in the rock-weed so that 

 one is forced to haul in on it by hand till it breaks. I 

 lost several good fish in this way last summer, and twice 

 in playing large fish had them tie me up in the weed, and 

 succeeded in clearing the line without losing the fish, 

 thanks to the tough, leathery lips. 



Owing to this habit of the tautog, of rushing for shelter 

 as soon as he is struck, all the pressure the tackle will 

 stand must be put on at once, and I was surprised to find 

 how much the rod would stand, and how soon the fish's 

 rush was checked, as, with thumb on reel, I let the line 

 slowly run off. I never timed myself to see how long 

 it took me to kill a large fish, but it seemed an age when 

 I fastened to the first large one. 



The codfish, which we occasionally catch while tautog 

 fishing, is a marked contrast to the latter in regard to 

 gameness. A small codfish, say 21bs. in weight, yields to 

 the spring of the rod with hardly a struggle, while it 

 took only a couple of minutes to kill a 51bs. fish — just one 

 good strong rush, dragging off several yards of line from 

 the reel, and then collapse, and victory for the little rod. 



I also caught a great many cunners with the little rod, 

 but as none of them exceeded lib. weight this was little 

 or no trial of the capability of: the rod. 



I used an ordinary multiplying reel, with 50yds. of 

 braided linen F line, a 2 0 Sproat hook and a 2oz. sinker, 

 below the hook. 



" On the whole, I found the rod thoroughly satisfactory 

 for this kind of fishing, both for ease in managing a 

 heavy sinker in deep water and. for its killing capacity. 



WASHJNCWON, D t O, JOHN MURPQOB, 



TULL1BEE OR MONGREL WHITEFISH. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



I saw to-day, opened in the fish market, a barrel con- 

 taining whitetish {Coregonus albus) and lake herring 

 {C. arlidi). Among the lot were some twenty tullibee 

 {Coregonus tullibee Richardson). They were taken by 

 gill nets at the lower end of Lake Erie, in its deepest por- 

 tion, where the water is found to average some 200 or 

 300ft. in depth. This is the only point in the lake where 

 the salmon trout (S. namaycush) is found, only stragglers 

 are ever found at other localities, the lake, as a general 

 thing, being quite shallow, averaging from 20 to 30ft. 

 outside of this deep locality. Dr. Richardson was the 

 first to describe this fish, in his "Fauna Borealis Ameri- 

 cana," under the name of Coregonus tidlibee (more cor- 

 rectly Orgyrosomus tidlibee), in 1826, while on his over- 

 land journey to the Arctic Sea, accompanied by Sir John 

 Franklin. In 1810 I found this fish quite abundant at 

 the Sault Ste. Marie, the natives taking them in the 

 usual way, at the foot of the rapids, with the hand dip- 

 net. They called them the Poissons des Francaise, 

 "the Frenchman's fish;" being, as they declaimed, a most 

 superior fish it was necessary to give them a prominent 

 name. In 1850 Prof. Agassiz, in his Lake Superior Jour- 

 nal, gave a description of the fish, then new to him, 

 under the name of Coregonus tidlibee. In 1855 I found 

 this species, or variety, of the whitefish quite abundant 

 on the Deschutes River, Oregon. Specimens then col- 

 lected were sent to the Smithsonian and described in the 

 Pacific Railroad Survey, Vol X., p. 326, under the name 

 of Coregonus williamsoni Grd. 



Three years ago Mr. Charles J. Sheffield, of this city, 

 brought me the skin of a fine specimen that answers in 

 every particular to the descriptions alluded to above, 

 from upper Colorado, where he had passed the season in 

 elk hunting. He informed me they were found in many 

 of the lakelets there, and took the hook freely and at 

 times rose to the fly. 



In 1877 I received a specimen of the tullibee from the 

 Bass Islands, Lake Erie. This was the first and only 

 specimen coming from these waters until the ones men- 

 tioned above. It was new to the fisherman who sent it, 

 and being an old man in the work and more than an ordin- 

 ary observer, he considered it something unusual, and as 

 he remarked, " 'Tis neither a lake herring nor whitefish, 

 so it seems to me it must be a sort of mongrel between 

 the two." This specimen was described by Dr. Jordan in 

 the "'Fishes of Ohio" far the Ohio Slate Geological Re- 

 port. I still retain a plaster cast of the same. 



We have here a most interesting fish, whose life history- 

 is little known, ranging over an immense extent of terri- 

 tory, from a height of 300 to 8.000ft. above the sea; a true 

 Orgyrosomus, standing between the genera Thymallus 

 and Coregonus, and probably more abundant and equally 

 distributed than generally supposed, as it is passed over 

 by the careless observer, taken most often for a very 

 large herring or an undeveloped whitefish. 



Dr. E. Sterling. 



Cleveland, Ohio. 



[The tullibee is certainly a singular and interesting 

 whitefish and so different from all the rest that Dr. Jor- 

 dan has set it apart as the representative of a distinct 

 subgenus under the name Allosomus. It is readily dis- 

 tinguished from Williamson's whitefish by its projecting 

 lower jaw and narrow premaxillaries as well as the short, 

 deep and shad- like body. It seems to be difficult to 

 obtain specimens of this fish for museum collections. We 

 have seen one recently sent East by Mr. Frank N. Clark, 

 of Northville, Michigan.] 



VERMONT TROUT. 



WATERBURY, Vt., Oct. 26.— Editor Forest and 

 Stream: I notice in a recent issue an item re- 

 garding the trout fishing of Vermont the past season, and 

 mentioning Northfield and Waterbury as good points. I 

 heard the fishing was very good at Northfield, and from 

 all reports I think more than the usual number of large 

 trout were taken. They tell a story of one Northfield 

 enthusiast who secured a good supply of ' - wums" in the 

 fall, and keeping them through the winter, used them to 

 take a nice basket of trout on opening day, April 1, when 

 the snow was a foot deep. 



Regarding this place your informant must have been 

 wrong, as I do not think any one would be repaid for 

 coming any distance by the fishing near by, though there 

 is sometimes very good fishing in adjoining towns. 

 Waitsfield, mentioned in your note, and Howe (distant 

 ten miles and reached by Mount Mansfield stage from 

 this place) are usually good points. We get our best fish- 

 ing near by early in the season, as the streams soon be- 

 come nearly fished out, and after a few weeks we must 

 go some distance to get good fishing. I think if your 

 correspondent had tried fly-fishing in places where any 

 large trout were found he would have had good success, 

 as it has been my experience that many of our larger 

 trout will take the fly freely at times when they will not 

 notice bait. Worms, however, are the usual bait and are 

 generally successful. 



The trout fishing in all this section is very uncertain at 

 best, as many of the finest streams have been "cleaned 

 out" by fish hogs, who fish for count and keep everything 

 they catch, and even if the six-inch law could be enforced 

 it would take more time than we have had since its pas- 

 sage to give the troiit any chance to increase. The open 

 season, as it stands now — April 1 to Aug. 1 — is favorable 

 to the trout, as the snow remaining on the mountains 

 keeps the water high and roily until late in the spring, 

 and we rarely have much, if any, fishing before May 1. 

 I hear that the Legislature now in session may change 

 the season, making it May 1 to Sept. 1, but if we wish to 

 keep what little fishing we have left this should not be 

 done. 



A recent editorial, commenting on the Vermont Com- 

 missioners' report, reads very nicely and I have no doubt 

 the gentlemen deserve all the praise that has been given 

 them, but they are taking too much for granted in as- 

 suming that the six-inch law is, or can be, by present 

 methods, enforced. Speaking of this section I know it is 

 not, and that the majority have no regard for it what- 

 ever, so far as taking the small trout is concerned, though 

 they may not say as much as formerly about the number 

 of their catch. Many of our best streams are so situated 

 that they cannot be protected nnless constantly watched 

 and the people living near them are not doing that by a 

 large majority. But these persons are not the only ones 

 wh,o disregard the. Jaw, T could, name one prominent 



