608 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[June 30. 1892. 



She Mpartsntm §awi&i 



CAMPS OF THE KINGFISHERS.— II. 



GREEN LAKE, MICHIGAN. 



The rain was over, and the sun, struggling up through 

 a hank of low-lying, ragged clouds over at the head of 

 the lake, gave promise of a fair day for fishing when we 

 were ready to "joint up;" but now another backset 

 awaited us — we hadn't enough boats for the party. 



Mason said he had hired three boats of a man living at 

 the foot of the lake, but when he went after them, the 

 day before we arrived, the old Ananias had gone back on 

 the contract and he couldn't get them. Harry and Gooder 

 had, however, provided for an emergency by shipping 

 over from Traverse City a fiuely-modeled 18ft. boat, 

 which was now on the way from the station on a wagon 

 hired at the mill, and the son-in-law said he knew of a 

 good "skift" above the dam at the mill that he could 

 hire, for which he was at once dispatched with the wagon : 

 and these, with the Osgood folder ready to be taken from 

 its box and put together, about settled the boat question, 

 and we felt better. 



But the camp was first to be finished up and turned 

 over to the keeper of the fryin' pans before any fiBhing 

 could be done. 



The other tent was put up, the straw divided around 

 and the beds made to suit the notions and convenience of 

 those that were to use them. The Colonel's bed was soon 

 ready. A layer of straw was spread in one corner of the 

 "Kingfisher's nest" and the Colonel, as old Sam said, 

 "jest blowed into the mouthpiece of a big rubber bed- 

 tick till it swelled up like a bullfrog when he's gittin' 

 ready to sing a bass solo." The inflated tick was laid on 

 the straw, the blankets spread, a few pats given to the 

 pillow, and the job was done; a bed worth a ten-acre field 

 full of the $1.49 affair at the hotel that had collapsed 

 under him and doubled him up into the shape of a half- 

 closed jack-knife. 



A table 3 ft. wide and 12ft. long was made, supported 

 by six stout posts driven in the ground and leveled up 

 with a pan of water— the oldtime woods method; and a 

 fly 15 X 18ft. was stretched over it, one edge of the ridge 

 pole spiked 81ft. from the ground to a convenient pine 

 tree, the other resting in the crotch of a sapling cut for 

 the purpose; and we were prepared for sun or rain. 



Meantime Barney had constructed for himself a kitchen 

 table between two trees back of his tent; driven some 

 wire nails in the trees on which to hang his fryin'-pans, 

 tinware, etc. ; contrived a fireplace with a couple of short 

 lengths cut from a big green sapling, on which he laid 

 the two iron bars, 4ft. long by fin. square, finishing up 

 his arrangements with the time-honored forked stakes 

 and green pole laid across, on which to hang the camp 

 kettles for making soup, "bilin' 'tators an' sich." [All 

 these details of camp making may not "remind the old 

 camper of anything,*' but they may be of interest to the 

 younger fry.J 



Everything was finished to our pleasement, and it only 

 remained to hoist the old flag, without which the camp 

 never seems to look just right. There's a power o' cheer 

 and comfort and company ia the blessed old rag; its 

 starry folds have lightened many a weary tramp and 

 march for the old boys in blue, and even in a peaceful 

 camp in the woods there is a sense of rest and security 

 under it that nothing else can give. Returning in the 

 evening after a day out on the water, pulling against a 

 disheartening head wind it may be, fagged out and 

 hungry, and out of humor over a day of poor luck, a 

 sight of Old Glory as you round a point, its stars and 

 stripes fluttering and whipping in the breeze, revives the 

 flagging spirits and puts new strength in the muscles, the 

 oars fall with sturdier stroke and a "Hooray, there's the 

 old flag!" goes a good way toward shortening the dis- 

 ance to camp. 



God bless the old flag; may its stars never grow dim. 



The Colonel and I decided to stay in and hunt up a 

 pole, hoist the flag and finish up a few probably forgotten 

 trifles about the camp, while the others got ready to hunt 

 up a mess of fish for supper. 



Rods were jointed, minnow tackle rigged, Charley 'a 

 bucket of "home grown Kentucky fish worms" over- 

 hauled for minnow bait, and when the wagon came back 

 shortly after with the "skift" they were off. Harry, 

 Gooder and Kelpie in the Traverse City boat and Snake- 

 root and Frigid in the skiff, leaving the Colonel and 

 Hickory standing looking down on them from the top of 

 the bank with such a wistful expression that old Sam 

 was moved to shout back, "Never mind boys, we'll leave 

 a few o' the little fellers fur ye." 



Baker and Mason left for home, the latter promising to 

 come back in the morning and put us oh to the lurking 

 places of the bass around the lake, which if I remember 

 proved a great help to the bass. 



We found a flag pole after a deal of hunting through 

 the bresh up shore, and when we had carried it to camp 

 on our shoulders and got it up and well braced, first try- 

 ing on a small iron pulley near the top and reeving the 

 halliards, I toggled on the flag and ran it up while the 

 Colonel fired a salute of five guns from his big revolver 

 to give a patriotic tone to the proceedings, and as the 

 light breeze swung it out in lazy folds from the staff we 

 gave a rousing cheer, helped out by the keeper of the 

 fryin' pans, that brought an answering yell from the 

 boys in the boat a half-mile across the lake, and the camp 

 of the Kingfishers for 1891 was ready to extend the hos- 

 pitalities of the season to any stray brother of the craft 

 that might happen along hungry and athirst. 



We busied ourselves around the camp during the after- 

 noon making a trifling alteration here and there that 

 might add to the general comfort, and wondering the 

 while if the boys were finding any work for their rods. 



Mason had shown Birney a "fine spring" at the foot of 

 the bank, a tiny stream running out of an old barrel sunk 

 in the sand by loggers, as he said, very clear and cool, 

 but if it were the "beautiful spring" he had written us 

 about it might be safely set down as a failure and a big 

 disappointment as compared with a few hundred other 

 springs and other frigid streams at which we had slaked 

 our thirst in the past dozen years in northern Michigan. 

 "Bunkoed agin," had been old Sam's only comment, as 

 he moistened his thrapple with a cup of it before getting 

 in the boat. While down at the spring some time during 



the afternoon for a fresh drink, we had a good view of 

 the upper part of the lake. Up to the left was the head, 

 less than a quarter of a mile away, while to the further 

 shore, looking straight across, was perhaps three-quarters 

 of a mile, narrowing for a mile or more below to where it 

 made a sharp turn to the left and was lost to sight behind 

 a long, low, wooded point, where Mason said we would 

 find some good bass fishing. As far as we could see the 

 shores were wooded to the water, and on the whole it was 

 a pleasant picture to look on, but not one that would have 

 moved a landscape artist to any alarming symptoms of 

 enthusiasm. Mason said that from the camp to the lower 

 end of the lake was about four miles, the outlet of which 

 was the Betsy River, flowing into Lake Michigan at 

 Frankfort. This was the lake of promise: the waters we 

 had dreamed about for many moons. 



The boys came back before sundown and sneaked 

 quietly in to the landing without the fog-horn accompani- 

 ment, with which old Sam usually heralds his return 

 from a successful foray on the bronze-backs; but we 

 thought this a ruse to "fool us" as to the number and 

 size of the fish they had brought in, towing, it might be 

 at the sterns of the boats on a couple of well-filled 

 stringers. We waited patiently while they pulled the 

 boats up on the beach, climbed laboriously up the steep 

 bank and "stacked rods" against the lower limbs of a 

 handy tree, and then it needed no questioning as to the 

 results of the day's fishing. 



The unusual length of old Sam's honest countenance— 

 of a good average "longness" at all times— would have 

 made a funeral procession look cheerful by comparison, 

 while Charley's disappointment had struck in on him so 

 deeply that he looked blue and shriveled, Harry, the 

 bright, good-natured youngster of the party, looked as 

 disconsolate as a girl that had mislaid her wad of chew- 

 ing gum, and Brother Gooder might have been taken for 

 a fugitive cashier who had slipped up and struck the bot- 

 tom of a "wheat deal" with the funds of the bank. 



Kelpie, of them all, climbed the bank to the level of 

 the camp, calm and unruffled, placing his feet carefully 

 in the loose sand and against an occasional friendly root 

 where they would be surest of a "toe holt," serene as a 

 summer morning and looking at peace with himself and 

 all the world. Leaning his rod in the crotch of a project- 

 ing limb near the break of the bank, he turned, and in 

 his deliberate, hesitating manner of speech, said, "Well, 

 Hickory, I've had a very pleasant and enjoyable time to- 

 day, and I'm only glad there are some blue gills left in 

 Green Lake. There may be some bass in it, but wedidn't 

 find them. I guess we'll have to start you and the Colo- 

 nel out in the morning to hunt them up for us;" and then, 

 with the same deliberation of movement that had marked 

 his speech, he removed the dead grass hunting coat in 

 which he had sweltered all day, replaced his boots with 

 a pair of low shoes, wriggled himself into a knit jacket, 

 lighted his pipe with the same careful deliberation, and 

 planting himself in one of the folding armchairs— chief 

 among the comforts of the camp— he sat with legs out- 

 stretched and hands locked back of his neck, gazing 

 dreamiJy out on the placid lake, a picture of perf ect con- 

 tent that was good to look upon. 



Rare old Kelpie! An earthquake would not disturb 

 his poise or relax the tension of his nerves. Gentle man- 

 nered and kind to every living thing, even tempered and 

 unselfish always with the comrades of the camp, and a 

 keen and conscientious sportsman in every fiber of his 

 frail body, there are few like him. Would there were 

 more; the denizens of the waters and the wild things of 

 the forests would have rare friends. That's Brother 

 Kelpie as we knew him when the camp broke up some 

 three weeks or more later. 



Old Sam was not in such an amiable frame of mind. A 

 day of poor fishing generally has the effect of elongating 

 his face to the extent that he is liable at every step to 

 stumble over his chin, and at times it takes a turn that 

 moves him to sulk and want to break camp and go 

 "some'rs else," a defect in Samwell's constitution that 

 we have striven much with him to overcome. 



When he had relieved himself of his rod and tackle 

 box hanging over bis shoulder by a strap, he made a bee 

 line for the table and poured from a "vial" bearing the 

 legend "O. F. C," what the Colonel called a "germ de- 

 stroyer," and as the graduated medicine glass containing 

 it took an iq^ward slant in the direction of the top 

 branches of the neighboring hemlock, we knew by the 

 glint in his eye that he was "histin' in a consoler" to take 

 the wire edge off his disappointment over the day's expe- 

 rience. The dose seemed to reach the spot and take effect 

 with commendable celerity; the crow's feet at the cor- 

 ners of his eyes relaxed, and as his face broadened under 

 the mellowing influence of the "pasifier" — "What luck, 

 Sam?" was timidly ventured, with a view of giving him 

 a chance to relieve his overburdened mind. 



"Luck? No luck at all, 'less ye call it luck to set an' 

 snake out a passel o' wurthless red-eyes an' bluegills, tho 

 ef I must say it, a bluegill kin jest knock the spots off'n 

 a trout a hustlin' an' a cavortin' 'round when he finds out 

 he's swallered a fish worm with a hook in it. 



"This is the lake, I believe," a smile disturbing the 

 sou' west corner of his mouth as he glanced furtively at 

 me; "that's a swarmin' with 4 an' 51b. bass an' 20lb. 

 pickerel, an' 'muskylong' that kin swaller a shoat with- 

 out greasin'; splendid campin' place an' a beautiful 

 spring— 30ft. bank o' loose sand to slide down," waving 

 his hand toward the bank, "an' a little water dribblin' 

 out of an ole bar'l fur a spring— best lake fur bass in the 

 State o' Mishigan," with a spasmodic wink at Charley, 

 "and so fourth etsetery. Jeems Mackerel you've a heap 

 o' sins an' lies to anser fur, ye hev." 



And then, the crowd restored to good humor, old Sam 

 broke forth into one of his periodical fits of impromptu 

 doggerel, which he had doubtless been concocting all 

 the afternoon, sung to the melody (?) of "Old Grimes" in 

 a crow- toned, rasping voice that would have made a 

 tuneful accompaniment to a saw-filing match: 



THE DOGGEKEL. 

 Avr—' l Grimesy, Old Buy." 

 Five anguliars went out to fish 



Along Green Lake's wild shore; 

 They fished an' fished, an' fished an' fished, 



An' then they fished some more. 

 They fished for bass and pickerel, 



But didn't git a smell, 

 They didn't ketch a siDgle hass 



Nor nary pick-er-el. 



Here the proceedings came to a standstill to^give Sam 



time to get on the trail of the next verse and oil the 

 machine, when touching the belt shifter the buzz saw 

 started again: 



The bass he is a cunnin' cuss. 



An' mighty smart and sly, 

 He Btole the bait from off the'r hooks 



And winked the other eye. 



The musky long's a m'ghty fisb. 



As long as a small boat. 

 Jeems Mackerel says -ole truthful Jeems— 



He kin swaller a small shoat — 



"Without greasin'," he added, "a sort of a codicil," as 

 he explained to the Colonel. 



At this point a discussion arose as to the merits of a 

 verse of poetry with a codicil tacked on to it, old Sam 

 admitting that it was not perhaps as good poetry as some 

 of Br'er Starbucks quoted poetry with which he fills up 

 the gaps in his fish an' wolf stories in Forest and 

 Stream, but claiming it was equally appropriate to "the 

 occasion an' surroundin's, an' good enough, for the 

 Joneses never wus used to the very best o' poetry nohow." 



When the hilarity had subsided the blessed old sinner 

 was clearing his throat preliminary to inflicting another 

 verse on Kelpie and me, who were not in the festivities, 

 "tetchin' on the proper fightin' weight of the trout an' 

 the bluegill," as he said, when fortunately Postmaster 

 Colbjornson drove up in an ancient buggy, the body of 

 which was a cross between a flat car and a wood scow, 

 with our supplies which he had promised the evening 

 before to bring out some time during the day— a sack of 

 flour, a big ham, salt pork, onions, eggs, etc., a crock of 

 butter that Harry said had a surprisingly similar smell 

 to the axle grease they had enjoyed at the hotel, a can 

 of coal oil for the lantern, and a can of pure maple 

 syrup with a hickory bark flavor to it that stamped it as 

 "the genuine article from the backwoods of Vermont," 

 This meant flapjacks for breakfast. 



Barney dressed and fried about a score of the goggle- 

 eyes and bluegills, and we had our first fish for supper, 

 after which came the camp-fire and a history of the day's 

 fishing. 



They had fished around the head of the lake, around a 

 long rush-grown point of sand lying six or eight feet 

 under water that reached a matter of forty or fifty rods 

 down the lake, the bottom covered with "mu&'rat" grass, 

 where the water began to deepen— just such water and 

 bottom as a lazy pickerel would hunt up for a summer 

 resort— and from this point around into a deep bay. rush- 

 lined and grass-grown, over many nooks of "bassy" look- 

 ing water, on down to and around the long point at the 

 elbow of the lake, where Sam and Charley crossed over 

 to the mouth of the little stream connecting the two lakes 

 to fish awhile and catch some minnows; fishing slowly 

 along and carefully -with the cunning and patience of old 

 bass fishers — all without a solitary sign or symptom of a 

 nibble from bass, pickerel or "muskylong." Not much 

 wonder that old Sam's chin hung down in the way of 

 his feet as he climbed the bank at camp. 



They stopped at the sandy point opposite the camp on 

 their way back, and tying on smaller hooks took with 

 worms forty or fifty bluegills and goggle- eyes, which 

 saved them a "shut-out," in baseball parlance, and the 

 ignominy of a Ashless supper after a whole day in camp. 



Green Lake stock went down like the temperature in a 

 Dakota blizzard, but it would have been hardly fair to 

 condemn it utterly without a further investigation. May 

 be the fish were off their feed and would bite next day, 

 or the next after, and we took heart from the hope that 

 was in us. 



Charley said, "Hickory, I'm not going to kick nor 

 worry my brains over a lot of poor doggerel like old Sam 

 because we didn't get any bass; I'll say nothing and wait 

 till you and the Colonel take a turn at the lake and see if 

 you get any." 



The Colonel, however, said he would stay in camp and 

 take it easy and not wet a line till some one else brought 

 in a bass, and I was to have the canvas boat, and with 

 Mason make a trip of exploration and investigation clear 

 around the lake on the morrow by sundown if possible to 

 study the water, locate the likely places and bring in 

 some bass, if they were to be found. Kingfisher. 



A SPORTSMAN'S DILEMMA. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



The problem of how and where to spend one's summer 

 vacation has, no doubt, presented itself to nearly every 

 reader of Forest and Stream. Probably few of my 

 brother sportsmen, however, have ever been confronted 

 with such a problem as presents itself for my considera- 

 tion to-day. Our courts recognize the month of August 

 as that portion of the year set apart by common consent 

 for legitimate pleasure and recreation. So the month 

 of August is at my disposal. And^since the first day of 

 September, 1891, I have quietly but diligently figured, 

 planned and arranged to put in the thirty-one days of 

 the month of August, 1892, to the best possible advan- 

 tage. The whole month of July and at least half of the 

 month of June are still before me, in which to perfect 

 my plana, but an inventory to-day of plans already per- 

 fected shows the following anomalous condition of 

 affairs : 



In the first place, Harry Beal and I have completed 

 our plans for a two weeks' outing about the lake at the 

 source of the Elokomon in Wahkiakum county, Wash. 

 Thi3 trip we must take, for we have contracted with a 

 guide to meet us at Cathlame t on the first day of August, 

 and besides it is doubtless one of the most lovely places 

 on earth for the sportsman during the summer vacation. 



Two months ago I promised Grant Patton that I would 

 go with him for two weeks in August to the country 

 about the ice caves of Mt. St. Helens. This trip I 

 am particularly a nx ious to take, a3 I have never as 

 yet seen those wonderful caves, carved out of the pure, 

 solid ice. Neither have I killed any of the elk or bear 

 that herd about the pretty lakes of that country. Won- 

 derful stories, too, are told of the trout of those lakes. 

 Grant asked me to-day if I would be ready. 



Not long Bin ce a surveying party returned from the 

 headwaters of Gray's Eiver in Pacific county, Washing- 

 ton. Thrilling stories they brought of the big game and 

 big fish of that country, and Harry and I at once set 

 about cleaning up our Winchesters and Colts for a two 

 weeks' trip to that region in August. It must be a great, 



