Deo. 3, 1891,] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



S91 



the country justice, it stood. The case has been brought 

 in another form, and he may yet have to settle. 



The society stands well, and we have done a great deal 

 of work with our means. Woodcock have been very 

 plenty, quail fairly so, and partridges, that we thought 

 would be plenty from the number of young birds, are 

 very scarce, from some unknown cause. 



May write you further at later date. 



A. L, Andbew^S, President. 



Pkovidence, B. I., Nov. 24. 



New Hampshire Farms,— Charlestown, N. S— Editor 

 Forest and Stream: I inclose you a slip from the Concord 

 Statesman, which shows how the ''abandoned farm" 

 problem is being solved in some parts of New Hampshire. 

 The farms are sought for summer residences. Other 

 rfegions tell the same story. Sunapee Lake and the towns 

 around it, and the borders of Monadnock Lake, and the 

 elopes of Monadnock itself, show the same influx of pur- 

 chasers from the cities as soon as it was known that desir- 

 able property for summer homes was in the market. Mr. 

 Neal says, just as I wrote you a year since, that the thin 

 soil was worn out, but if Prof. Atwater is right, even that 

 is not correct, and by proper ti-eatment even these old 

 hill lands may be made to "blossom like the rose" again. 

 We have not felt such an inroad in the Connecticut Valley 

 yet, for the few deserted farms here, as a general rule, 

 are too far from the railroad to be easily accessible, but 

 death sometimes makes a vacancy in the most desirable 

 situations. If any of the readers of Forest and Stream 

 would like to start a nice "stock-farm," I can point them 

 to a rare opportunity just open in this town , 50 or 60 acres 

 of the best meadow land on the river, with a new bouse, 

 never occupied, and large barns for hay, horses and cattle. 

 I have no interest in the matter, except for the good of 

 the town, but will introduce any one to the executors. It 

 is a wonder to me that more people from New York do 

 not discover this beautiful region, "We are only seven 

 hours from the city, with three trains a day.— VON W. 



Camp Recollections,— The rewards and pleasures of 

 life in camp are not all fleeting, for often in later months 

 come recollections of the old camp on the shore of the 

 lake; of the gamy bass we worked so hard to land; of fhe 

 ducks we dropped at such long range; of the screeching 

 old loon we captured with the faithful rifle; then of the 

 spread cooked over the old stone oven, although rough at 

 some times, always tasting better than any meal ever 

 eaten in the first-class hotels; and lastly, the af ter-aupper 

 puff. With what ease he sits there, with old Max at one 

 side, while on the other old Sport sits with his head on 

 his master's knee. How often we see this picture when 

 out on our fall gunning trip, and how often we see at the 

 further end of the tent a person who seems to be troubled 

 about something. His elbows are on his knees, face cov- 

 ered by hands, and he is scratching his head furiously. 

 What can be the matter? Oh, nothing. He is only think- 

 ing how he fired both barrels into his only bevy of the 

 day, not ruffling a feather. But cheer up, old man ; it's 

 only a day off' with you. He does not need this advice, 

 for next morning he is one of the first up about camp, 

 and after a warm breakfast, or even before, he is off, and 

 not long afterward returns with a full bag. Like the 

 true hunter he is, one day's bad luck does not discourage 

 him, but he would readily confess it made him feel a 

 little sore for the time, — Boston. 



"That remiBds me." 



AS I sat in my city ofla.ce last week and read "Kin's" 

 article on the "Big Coon of Split Rock Mountain," 

 my thoughts ran back to many a hunt he and I have had 

 together on the desert plateau in Wyoming, as well as 

 Tinder "Old Dix" of the Adirondacks, or in the region 

 round Lake Champlain, and I put down the paper with a 

 pang of regret that those days were no more— a pang, 

 however, that was softened by the memory of one inci- 

 dent of the coon hunt which "Ktn" has somehow failed 

 to relate. "Kin" has told how the coon was bagged, and 

 there his narrative comes to a dead stop at the foot of the 

 pine that towered above the precipice. I am not so sure 

 he will pardon me if I tell what happened next, but I 

 have trespassed before on his good nature, and I'll risk it 

 once more. 



"Kin" is a big tall fellow of six feet three, and the 

 build of a football guard, and he has the perfectly natural 

 failing of priding himself on his strength— as other big 

 men have had before him. Consequently it is not to be 

 wondered that on this occasion he volunteered to carry 

 what coons the party might kill. For this purpose he 

 had brought along a guide basket, and when the fallen 

 monarch of coondom had given his last kick and been 

 effectually convinced that he was dead, it was placed in 

 the basket and this was then raised to "Kin's" shoulders 

 by the willing hands of his two companions. "Kin's" 

 first impression when he once had his arms fairly through 

 the straps, was that the coon felt even heavier than it 

 had looked, but he did not have much time to figure it 

 out, for Guy Ferguson, the wiry, the greyhound, the 

 walking machine of bone and sinew, was under way and 

 urging Hunter to find more grandfather coons. 



Up hill and down ledge they went at a rate that would 

 have winded a champion six-day pedestrian, and it 

 seemed to Kin that the coon grew heavier every step. 

 He heartily regretted his bargain and wished time and 

 again that the old coon was still safe in its tree — any- 

 where, in fact, but on his back. But wishing did no 

 good, and Lacy never slackened his pace. When they 

 had gone a couple of miles Kin ventured to remark that 

 the coon had the heft of a yearling steer. Guy promptly 

 Yolunteered to carry the little thing if he "was tired" 

 and Kin as promptly refused, but he had never been so 

 badly used up — not even on that winter's day four years 

 ago, when he walked fifty-foiu- miles on an empty 

 stomach. 



At last daylight came, and the hunters brought up in 

 the quiet dawn of the Sunday morning at the Bay Farm. 

 Kin slipped the basket off his tired shoulders and let it 

 fall to the ground. Oat rolled the coon and a rock that 

 would weigh 241bg. 



Kin looked around in a dazed way for an explanation, 

 but the hunters had silently slipped away, leaving him 

 to work out his own solution of the problem. Jack. 



'm mid ^iv^t ^Mhing. 



Angling Talks. By George Dawson. Price SO cents. Fly- 

 Bods and Fly-Tackle. By H. P. Wells. Price $2.50. Fly- 

 Fishing and Fly-Making for Trout. By J. H. Keene, 

 Price $1.50. American Angler's Book. By Thad. Norris. 

 Price $5.50. 



The full texts of the game fiah laws of all the States, 

 Territories and British Provinces are giv«n in the JBoofe of 

 the Game Laws. 



MAINE FISH AND GAME. 



'I'^HE remarkably low water continues, and in the back 

 JL woods the season of ice is at hand. It is now pretty 

 certain that the spawning of all the trout family has been 

 at low water this year. Ponds in New England that 

 usually supply suflScient water to drive sawmills are now 

 so low as to give almost no water at all to the half-dried- 

 up streams below. Lakes that have hitherto been con- 

 sidered sufficient in water supply to run whole cities of 

 factories have been drained to their last foot of water this 

 fall. The bottoms of rivers have lately been seen that 

 have never been seen before. Where are the trout and 

 the landlocked salmon? Generally they have tried to 

 ascend the streams for the purpose of spawning, as is 

 their wont, but generally they have failed. In many 

 cases they have ascended a short distance and have been 

 stranded in streams by the still further drying up of the 

 water during October and November. In some instances 

 men, with the true instinct of sportsmen, have been to 

 these pools and have contrived to liberate the trout, either 

 by digging channels that would permit them to get back 

 into the ponds and lakes below or by carefully lifting 

 them out and carrying them back to deei) water. Several 

 of the partially dried uj) tributaries of Moosehead Lake in 

 Maine have been looked out for in this way. Accounts 

 come of an Indian guide who has traveled a number of 

 ' miles through the woods to one of the tributaries at the 

 head of Moosehead and has liberated a great school of 

 big trout that were in a pool where they must have 

 perished from the simple drying up of the water. 

 At Rangeley the Fish Protective Association has been 

 looking out that the trout which have struggled up stream 

 to spawn and have become stranded by the falling of the 

 water, did not perish. At the head of Richardson Lake 

 and at the mouth of Sawmill Brook a great body of 

 trout were sti-uggliug for weeks to reach the upper 

 waters. They began trying to ascend late in September, 

 but the stream was too nearly dry for them to succeed. 

 Some of these trout have been stranded. And, alas! I 

 hear that some of them have been jigged out of the water. 

 In one case a pole was rigged with a hook at the end, so 

 it is told, and by this means great trout have been dragged 

 out of the water, only to be wasted. At the mouth of the 

 same stream the usual fall run of bluebacks has not been 

 seen, probably for the good i-eason that there was not 

 water enough for them to go up the stream in. At the 

 Upper Dam there has been water enough all along, so 

 that it would not be possible for the trout to get into water 

 shoal enough to strand them. Trout are reported to have 

 been spawning on the old beds at Trout Cove, What the 

 result will be to the eggs thus left when the late rains 

 bring up the lake several feet over these spawning beds is 

 a question. 



Mr. John B. Drake, of the Boston produce trade, is a 

 lover of the woods and the rod and line. He did not get 

 away to Maine during the trout season, as usual, and has 

 been obliged to content himself with a ti'ip to New Hamp- 

 shire for black bass and the possibilities of some duck 

 shooting at a pond that he is very well acquainted with. 

 He found the pond almost too low for bass fishing and 

 decidedly too low for duck shooting on the marshes. 

 The old gentleman he had with him as boatman says he 

 has never seen that pond as low in 20 years, and he has 

 located rocks and shoals in it that he never saw before. 



Mr, I, T. Waterman, of East Auburn, Me., with his 

 son, C. E. Waterman, has just arrived from a very suc- 

 cessful deer hunt in the vicinity of Roach Pond, some 40 

 miles from Mount Katahdin, They shot six deer, all 

 that the law allows them to have. They say that they 

 saw 29 in all while away and could have got several 

 more. Their prizes were displayed in a milk wagon in 

 the streets of Auburn and Lewiston the other day and 

 excited a good deal of attention. One, a very fine buck, 

 they will mount. Now there is just a shadow of suspi- 

 cion that these deer could not have been hunted fairly, 

 but that dogs were employed to nm them into the water. 

 Perhaps the suspicion is all wrong, but if it is, then the 

 gentlemen had most remarkably good fortune. Will 

 they tell the readers of the Forest and Stream how 

 they succeeded in getting so many deei? 



The officers and members of the Megantic Club, the 

 headquarters of which are in Boston, feel rather proud 

 of the success their brethren have had in hunting on the 

 grounds of the club's preserves this fall. There have 

 been killed this fall, two moose, three caribou and 

 twenty-seven deer thus far, and there is a month more 

 of open season on this large game yet. President Bishop 

 has worked very hard for a moose this fall, but has not 

 succeeded. He believes that moose are growing more 

 and more scarce in Maine, and that they are in great 

 danger of annihilation. He will try againnext year, and 

 spend a good deal of time and money to secure the head 

 of a bull moose. This will be the last one he ever expects 

 to get. 



Mr. E. M. GlUam, commercial editor of the Boston 

 Advertiser, has been spending his vacation with dog and 

 gun in New Jersey. At the old homestead he was joined 

 by his brother Charlie, of the Philadelphia Record, and 

 the older brother, who has won fame as the writer of 

 John Wanamaker's advertisements, came down for a 

 few days. The Gillam boys all love the dog and gun as 

 well as they love the newspaper profession, and of course 

 they went gunning. Quail they found to be scarce, and 

 partridge more so, and it was too early for great success 

 in duck shooting in the vicinity of Cape May. Ernest 

 did not get his deer this year, though he watched at the 

 runways for a couple of days, waiting for the dogs to 

 drive the deer into gunshot. Hounding deer is legal in 

 New Jersey for a certain length of time, I believe. It is 

 not easy to make Ernest believe that it is cruel and ter- 

 ribly destructive to deer to hunt them with dogs. He is 

 I a good shot, even at a flying deer, with a rifle, and he 



knows of no other way to get such a shot except by 

 watching at the runways till the dogs drive the deer up. 



Special. 



HIS MAJESTY ESOX LUCIUS. 



RUMORS had reached us concerning the big pike in 

 Lake Sanford. There had been plenty of open 

 talking about the trout, but in regard to the pike it was 

 different, such valuable information being held as much 

 too precious to be given to the passing stranger. 



It was only through the courtesy of a genial body of 

 sportsmen most fortunate in their possessions that Frank 

 and I found ourselves one summer's day en route through 

 the Indian Pass, and before the sun had set we had 

 emerged from the swamp at the head of Lake Henderson 

 into the little green lane at the upper end of the Deserted 

 Village, and a half hour later were washed up and wid- 

 ening that jolly circle before'the blazing logs under the 

 hospitable roof of the Adirondack Club. There was a 

 general thanltsgiving when fair Stella's heels clicked 

 merrily in the hall without, that welcome sound, the 

 dinner bell, making a most fitting accompaniment. 



It was a case where "good digestion did wait on appe- 

 tite and health or both." It was on the morrow that my 

 story begins. 



It was just threatening rain by the time we started, 

 and the dark lake, fringed here and there with waving 

 stretches of wild rice, looked in prime condition for a 

 strike. Then a fine drizzle set in, and by the time we 

 reached the lake the wind was drifting great shifting 

 patches of "squall" scurrying across the dark water. 

 Putting on our "sou' westers" we pulled down the inlet, 

 swung off the first bed of rice to otir right and overboard 

 went the spoon. Slowly we crept around the edge of the 

 point, Frank rowing and I in the stern with the rod. 

 Just as we cleared the point that rod bent double, and I 

 yelled to Frank to hold up a bit, as I guessed we had 

 struck a log. In an instant the line slackened, and with 

 a roar out of the wet he springs, showing his full length, 

 and falls back with a plunge, the black water seething 

 about him. 



I shall never forget the impression that first leap made 

 upon me, to say nothing of Frank. Here was the king of 

 the pike family ! 



When I recovered my senses I found things fairly safe, 

 "His Majesty" fairly rational and leading like a lamb, 

 and Frank, with his eyes bulging from their sockets, 

 heading with long strokes for deep water, all the while 

 hurling at me in plain French such sound advice as "not 

 to give him an inch, unless you have to;" and "mind he 

 don't run in on you." His suggestions, numerous enough 

 to have sufficed for the management of a modern naval 

 combat, were only cut short by another ugly plunge on 

 our quarter. Again the old rod bent, quivered and re- 

 covered herself for a sudden maneuver. The last exhibi- 

 tion of temper gave me a good lOyds., for the fish seemed 

 for the first time since being struck to weaken, and I put 

 the little reel to a test. 



And now, while he sulka in three fathoms, let us look 

 at the rig we are fighting him on. Having fished wholly 

 in trout water, we came badly prepared for these big 

 fellows. An old-fashioned lancewood, of some dozen 

 ounces, minus two guide rings; a small click reel — no gaff, 

 not even a big net — and lastly a spoon composed of the 

 best of gangs and the lid of a tin box bent into shape with 

 a pair of pliers. So much for the armament. 



Again and again the old fellow plunged and sawed, and 

 generally had things his own way, yet still the good rod 

 held. One lime he is too quick forme on a short line; 

 and down goes the rod and half my arm with it under 

 water. It is a relief when he rolls lazily to the surface, 

 while Frank declares he thought I was going overboard 

 that time along with the whole outfit. 



And so the fight continues, and my arm begins to ache 

 with the continuous strain. 



'•Give him fifteen minutes more, and then let's try our 

 chances at beaching him," says Frank, and I agree to it. 

 There the old monster lies half out of water like a verita- 

 ble "Monitor," while we trust to luck and continue glow- 

 ing in a great circle. I measure him with my eye. He 

 is longer than the rod case at my feet, and that is over 

 four feet. He seems to be getting sick of it. His last 

 plunge brought him rolling heavily to the surface. No 

 trout could have stood such punishment. We glance at 

 the watch. It is nearly an hour and three-quarters since 

 he took the spoon, just ofl the point, which lies now a 

 thin strip of green far behind us. Now and then I can 

 see he is getting ugly and below the waves that lap about 

 his huge green hulk, it is comforting to see the big hooks 

 sunk deep in his jaws, securely locking them. 



Suddenly he sinks straight beneath the surface. The 

 reel sings and I feel he is gathering his strength for 

 another desperate dash — a second's pause — an ugly rush — 

 and the next instant he has broken the line. The waters 

 close over him. He is gone! I sink in the bottom of the 

 boat feeling strangely tired. We look at each other; then 

 we both laugh — a laugh that sounds more like the loon's 

 than human. Then we wend our way silently homeward. 

 Not a word passes between us. Not until we reach the 

 club house and the little jug with its tiny handle is 

 handed down from its corner in the cupboard: then Frank, 

 with the air of a judge, breaks the silence with "Here's 

 a health to the king, may he live to a green old age to 

 fight many as good a battle." F. Berkeley Smith. 



"Sledging." — I am informed by Mr. Ferriss, of the 

 South Mountain Fishing Club, that "sledging" in Mary- 

 land waters means stunning fish by means of stones as 

 they lie under the shelter of rocks or in rock clefts. The 

 stunned fish is dipped out with a net before it recovers 

 from the effect of the concussion. — B. 



The Tarpon House, advertised to-day, is in a country 

 famous for shooting and fishing. 



To Dbnveh via Buelingtok' Route.— Only one night on the 

 road. Leave Chicago at 1 P. M., or St. Louis at 8.25 A. M., and 

 arrive Denver 6:1.3 Jf . M. the nest day. Through sleepers, chair 

 cars and rtining cars. All railways from the East connect with 

 these trains and with similar trains via Burlington route t" Den- 

 ver, leaving Ofaicaeo at 5:45P.M., St. Louis at 8:15 P. M., and Peoria 

 at 3:30 P. M. and 7:50 P. M. All trains daily. Additional express 

 trains, making as quick time as those of any other road, from 

 Chicago, St. Louis and Peoria to St. Paul, Minneapolis, Council 

 Bluffs, Omaha, OheyeDne, Black Hills, Atchison, Kansas City, 

 HoustQ^V all points West, Northwest and Southwest.— JLd);, 



