JtJNE 33, 1893.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



887 



CAMPS OF THE KINGFISHERS.-I. 



GREEN LAKE, MICHIGAN. 



Anticipation and Preparation. 



In casting around for a place to make our annual sum- 

 mer camp for 1891, we had Borne difficulty in making a 

 selection from the several good points in northern Michi- 

 gan under consideration, but it was at last decided to try 

 Green Lake, a body of water lying about fifteen miles 

 southwest of Traverse City, of which we had heard so 

 much as "the best bass lake in Michigan," that we felt 

 that nothing short of a camp on its shores would give us 

 rest and ease the "innard yearnin' that had been a pes- 

 terin' of us" to pay it a visit for the last rive or six years. 

 If we made a camp on some other lake and happened to 

 run against a disappointment, there would be growling 

 and grumbling because we had not camped on Green 

 Lake, and we made up our minds that we would not be 

 satisfied during the rest of our lives and die happy with- 

 out fishing Green Lake. 



For five or six months before the time set for the start 

 Green Lake had frequent place in our thoughts; every- 

 thing seemed to take on a greenish tint long before the 

 grass sprouted in the spring, and even the mess boxes, 

 the frog box, floating minnow tank, tool box, the boxes 

 containing the canvas boat, Dutch oven and the glass 

 minnow trap were given a fresh coat of dark green paint 

 to harmonize with the surroundings, when we were once 

 settled on the shore of the Mecca of our winter dreams — 

 Green Lake. 



What a world of comfort there is in anticipation , and 

 with what profound satisfaction and pleasure the grizzled 

 angler overhauls his tackle, looking 

 carefully over "calamities" to see 

 that everything is in place in the 

 mess chests and the tents in good 

 order for the next camp, knowing 

 all the time that "the old man 

 with the scythe" is closing up the 

 gap as the years go by, but hoping 

 the while that when the season is 

 over he may succeed in eluding 

 him for just a few more times in 

 the woods, . 



To make more certain about the 

 fishing in the lake, my friend Jim 

 Mason, of Leland, Mich. , suggested 

 that I write to his brother Aleck, 

 who had lived near by it for sev- 

 eral years and who, he said, could 

 give all the information needed, 

 and I could depend on it as reli- 

 able. I wrote Aleck, and in answer 

 his letter read: "There are plenty 

 of both the large-mouthed or black 

 bass, and the small-mouthed or 

 green bass [which looked mightily 

 like Aleck nad got the two varie- 

 ties a trifle mixed in his mind], 

 and I think there will be no trouble 

 in getting boats, and not only 

 Duck Lake but three other lakes 

 can be reached from Green Lake, 

 and as good bass fishing as can be 

 found in Michigan. I could meet 

 you if necessary at Interlocben, 

 which is very near to where you 

 would camp by a beautiful spring 

 and stream With trout in it, also 

 plenty of trout fishing all arouud 

 here, and an abundance of milk, 

 butter and eggs to be had, etc." 



Shade of Izaak ! Could heart of 

 angler yearn for more? "A beau- 

 tiful spring and a stream with 

 trout in it" strucka chord in my 

 heart that never stopped vibrating 

 till we were two whole days in 

 camp, and even as I write this I 



can feel a faint flutter, but it's something like old Dave 

 Brockus's squeaky old fiddle when he played "Hang On" 

 and "Hell's Broke Loose in Georgia" for "us boys" in 

 front of the lime kiln, a good many years ago — "a leetle 

 out o' chune," the result, doubtless, of too much antici- 

 pating before the start. 



I wrote old Sam S., my side partner from Kentucky, 

 some very vivid letters about Green Lake as I kept learn- 

 ing more about the great sport we were going to have, 

 till at last he took to writing his replies on green tinted 

 paper, and I may say with fear and trembling that he 

 still holds my letters as a menace and claymore of ven- 

 geance over my head. I had great confidence in Aleck's 

 representations, but for the discomfiture of some others 

 of the party who were disposed to be a trifle skeptical I 

 wrote to Postmaster Colbjornson at Interlochen asking 

 about supplies, the fishing in the lake, etc., and received 

 a reply of which the following is a copy in part, verbatim 

 et punctu-at 'em, to wit: "I keep a good store myself 

 and can supply you with all the requirements for camp- 

 ing out in regards to provisions There is two lakes they 

 are 1| miles from my place and the fishing is immense 

 plenty of them and large there has been pickerel caught 

 weighing 18-J and 211bs. each There is about 2,000 feet 

 between the two lakes and a splendid camping ground 

 As near as I can guess there is about 1,000 acres in each 

 lake and they are the finest lakes for fishing in the State 

 of Michigan." This and some more without a dot, dash, 

 comma or break of any kind in the whole two pages and 

 a half, and the reader is left to shift for himself in the 

 matter of punctuation and rounding up the sentences — 

 as I did. 



That letter settled it, and Green Lake stock went up 

 with us in an alarming manner for the next two or three 

 weeks and was the cause of another ten-page letter to 

 Old Snakeroot that nearly destroyed his peace of mind. 

 The outlook for sport was better than for years past. We 

 had it in mind, however, that pickerel rarely pull the 

 scale to 18i and 211bs. and we fell into the notion 

 without much effort that the fish mentioned by the P.M. 

 must have been maskinonje. More glory in store for us 

 —in anticipation: "A leetle too good for the Joneses," 

 perhaps, but we would take it all in; the splendid camp- 

 ing ground, the beautiful spring, the trout, the bass and 

 the muskinonje, and b& thankful to the gods for the op- 

 portunity. „ ml 



A letter ws-proces^hed to Mason requesting him to 

 ■iving tb' 



hire three boats, get a load of straw and some lumber on 

 the ground the day before our arrival and to meet us at 

 Interlochen with a team to haul the calamities to the lake 

 and then (I may be permitted to speak for myself) we 

 waited and dreamed of camps and springs and trout 

 streams till the day set for the start — the 16th day of July. 



The Gathering of the Kingfishers. 

 The most anxiously looked for day of all the year came 

 at last, and with it "Old Snakeroot" and "Old Frigid" 

 (Sam S. and Charley F. from Frankfort, Ky.), and in the 

 evening we took the train on the Panhandle to Richmond, 

 Ind., and from there over the old "fishing line," the 

 Grand Rapids & Indiana Railway, for Traverse City, 

 Michigan, a road that for the past twelve years has car- 

 ried us to more camps of solid comfort and good sport 

 with the rod than usually falls to the lot of most anglers 

 in a lifetime. 



"Old Knots," that bundle of perversity, notions, contra- 

 dictions, goodness, and some cussedness, with a grain as 

 gnarly as a maple knot, was not with us, he having by 

 force of circumstances dropped out of the party a couple 

 of years before to flock by himself. TJncle Dan Sloan, 

 the truest and best beloved comrade of them all, and the 

 one brother of the gentle craft closest to my heart in all 

 the Camps of the Kingfishers since the war, was called 

 by the Master on the last day of April, 1890, to make his 

 camp on the shore of the Unknown Lake, leaving of the 

 old party of 1885 only Old Sam, Charley and "Old 

 Hickory" as a reminder of the happy camp at the mouth 

 of Sweeney's Creek on Central Lake in that year. I am 

 not ashamed of the tears that came to my eyes at his 

 death, for I loved him as a brother, and no one can take 



A NEST OF THE RUFFED GROUSE. 

 From a Photograph. 



his place in the camp or in my heart. Peace be with him 

 in the wilderness of the Unknown Land. 



Another old angling friend, Mr. H. C. Culbertson, 

 president of the famous Cuvier Club, had been with us 

 the previous year and was eager to try it again, having 

 made up his mind there was more solid comfort to the 

 square yard in a camp of the Kingfishers than anywhere 

 else "on the face o' this livin' airth." Two other disciples 

 — Harry Foulds and Ed Gooder — who had been in camp 

 with us for a short time the year before, were to meet us 

 at Traverse City on the 17th, having gone ahead a couple 

 of weeks to look after some interests they had at Omena 

 Heights, a summer resort on Grand Traverse Bay. Then, 

 early in June I had received a letter from brother 

 "Kelpie," of Central Lake, Mich. — who needs no intro- 

 duction to the readers of Forest and Stream— in which 

 he said he was in very poor health ; hadn't eaten as much 

 as a healthy chipmunk for three months, and that if we 

 made the camp within easy reach and had room for him 

 he would like to join us and see if he could regain a lost 

 appetite and pick up enough muscle to stand up for a 

 couple of rounds against a full-grown Michigan grass- 

 hopper— "kickin' barred." A hearty invitation was at 

 once sent him to pack his grip at the appointed time and 

 meet us at Traverse City on our way to Green Lake, at 

 the same time throwing in a few hints as to the kind of 

 tackle he might find needful in handling a few of the 

 21-pounders that would doubtless be "a-layin' for him." 



When we left Cincinnati we had hoped to make con- 

 nection at Traverse City with the 12:35 P.M. south bound 

 train on the C. & W. M. R. R., a new road finished some 

 time the year before, but owing to some delay at Wal- 

 ton junction, where we changed from the main line, we 

 missed it by about ten minutes — just enough to warrant 

 the bestowal of a few well-chosen blessings on our hard 

 luck and the connection that didn't connect, "Kelpie," 

 Harry and Gooder were waiting for us at Traverse City, 

 and we passed the afternoon in talking over the pros- 

 pects at Green Lake, cussing a little at times at the loss 

 of precious time that could have been used in putting 

 the canrp in order long before sundown only for that 

 missed connection, and waited impatiently for the next 

 train, which would leave at 3: 15 the same evening. To 

 make matters worse, it began to rain about 5 o'clock, 

 which seemed to justify a little more cussing of not quite 

 so mild a type as missing the train had called for, and in 

 speaking of it afterward Kelpie said he thought the case 



very ably handled. But we got away at last, and after a 

 run of fourteen miles in twenty-five minuteB were yanking 

 the calamities out of the baggage car at Interlochen; and 

 piling them up under the projecting eave of the station 

 out of the rain, which was still falling steadily without 

 much sign of holding up. 



Mason and his son-in-law were waiting for us (they 

 had been waiting since noon) with a two-horse wagon, but 

 now it was a question whether to make camp that night 

 in the rain or stay all night at the only "hotel" in the 

 village and wait for morning. It was decided to make 

 camp, and the wagon was loaded with the tents, mess 

 boxes, tool box and the big box of "grub" with a few 

 smaller packages to fill up the chinks, leaving a fair load 

 of other things that we couldn't find room for on the 

 wagon. 



Mounted on the top of the load with the son-in-law, 

 Charley and I and Mack Barney— a much-browned son of 

 Ham whom we had brought along as "keeper of the fry in' 

 pans" — started for the camping place, leaving Mason and 

 the others to hunt up another wagon and follow with the 

 rest of the baggage as soon as they could. Out through 

 the scattering village of twenty or more unpainted houses, 

 the road led past a big sawmill on the little stream con- 

 necting Duck and Green lakes into a pleasant woods, 

 where the drive would have been very enjoyable only for 

 the rain, but somehow a smart drizzle, as this was, has a 

 tendency to detract from the beauties of a landscape, 

 especially when camp is to be made in it. However, we 

 had our rubber coats, and as the mess boxes didn't leak, 

 and the two big duck bags containing the tents, flies and 

 bed clothing were in a manner waterproof, we could 

 afford a show of hilarity and feel thankful at the same 

 time that the rain was not coming 

 down in torrents. Charley and I 

 took turns in reminding the driver 

 that he had a "mighty fine pair o' 

 hosses," and that darkness would 

 soon be along, both of which hints 

 had the effect of taking us over 

 the last quarter of a mile at a 

 sweeping trot that kept us busy in 

 trying to keep the calamities and 

 ourselves from being scattered 

 along the road. When on the 

 point of asking the sailing master 

 to "take a reef in his off hoss," as 

 a matter of easing the rolling of 

 the craft, he sung out from his 

 lookout f or'ard, "Boys, there's your 

 camping ground," and in ten min- 

 utes more the wagon was unloaded 

 under the partial shelter of some 

 trees growing along the edge of 

 the high bank overlooking the 

 lake, and Baker (the son-in-law) 

 started back with instructions to 

 bring out the rest of the baggage 

 and the boys, if they had not 

 already hired another team. 



We hadn't time for more than a 

 brief survey of the pretty sheet of 

 water spread before us; the tents 

 were to put up and beds to make 

 for the night and the shadows in 

 the woods admonished us to bestir 

 ourselves before darkness came 

 down. The axe and the hatchets 

 wereg ot out of the tool box, the 

 ' burlap ripped off the bundle of 



tent pins, tents pulled out of the 

 - - - ■ I bags and we went to work with a 



will in the pattering rain. A 

 glance over the ground sufficed to 

 determine the location of each 

 tent, as the place was level, free 

 of underbrush and the soil so sandy 

 that it absorbed the rain as fast as 

 it fell. While Charley and I 

 steadied the uprights Barney drove 

 the four corner pins for the guys, and then with the two 

 hatchets and the axe we all took a hand and soon had 

 the first and largest tent in shape and a fly over it. By 

 the time we were through with the next one it had 

 become so dark that we couldn't see to drive a pin, and 

 we got out and lighted a candle, fitted it into an old 

 bayonet for a candlestick, and while one sheltered it 

 from the rain, the other two drove the pins and stretched 

 the fly over the tent. We decided to put up only one 

 more, a small A tent for Barney, as the two already up 

 would hold the whole party without crowding, and there 

 would be better light and more time in which to put up 

 the other one in the morning. The old bayonet was 

 stuck in the ground near one of the tents where the 

 slanting rain would miss it and we stopped to rest a 

 few minutes, for we had worked like beavers and were 

 tired, and hot, and "sweatin' like a nigger at a hoe- 

 down," and hungrier 'n a bear after a hard winter's 

 hibernation. 



In "projeckim 'round" after some dry wood to start a 

 fire Barney found an old resinous pine stump, which fur- 

 nished the groundwork for a famous camp-fire, and in a 

 few minutes we had a roaring blaze two yards high, that 

 lighted up the woods for rods around so we could see to 

 work almost as well as by daylight. Why hadn't we 

 thought of it before it got so intensely dark! Mason had 

 got a good-sized load of straw, and boards enough to build 

 a small house, the greater part of which he had slanted 

 over the pile of straw to protect it from the expected rain. 

 For this forethought and precaution we felt duly thankful . 

 We took advantage of the bright light of the camp-fire to 

 spread a rubber piano cover and some rubber blankets in 

 the two tents and hastily move all the dry straw into 

 them, and then we put up Barney's tent and moved the 

 mess boxes and other things into it out of the wet. No 

 signs of the boys yet; no rattle of a wagon broke the still- 

 ness ; no answer to our long drawn out yells that had dis- 

 turbed the silence of the night at intervals ever since we 

 had finished putting up the second tent. With a gravity 

 of speech habitual to him, Barney "reckoned somethin's 

 turned up, or Mister Culbertson done bin hyar shore." 

 He had been with Culbertson two or three trips up the 

 Nepigon and at other places as cook and game keeper, and 

 knew his man. 



All this time we were getting hungrier. 



While Barney felt his way down the hill for a camp- 

 kettle of water Charley and I ground some coffee, sliced a 



