Deo. 29, 1892.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



561 



then the enormouB mouth opened to an alarming extent, 

 exposing to my wondering gaze the whole internal organ- 

 ism of that fish. It closed like a steel trap, and A.'b hand 

 was out of sight— in his coat pocket. At the same instant 

 he made a rush and again my reel sang its song. I 

 thought I had lost him and was in despair, but Lirsen 

 just then shouted, "Isever mind, Doc, he's all right. 

 You've got bim hooked clean down to his tail!" Cheering 

 words, those, to a tyro with his first fish in tow. 



Once more he leaped in a vain effort to free himself, 

 although A. said he was merely endeavoring to get a 

 good look at me before he came aboard. My heart leaped 

 with him and I hung to the reel handle as firmly as 

 though it was my only hope of salvation. I coaxed him 

 in once more; he was getting tired now and fought less 

 fiercely. His brilliant eyes glared again at the side of 

 the boat. Surer than a gaff', A.'s plump hand had him 

 by the small of the neck and with the same sweep lifted 

 him over the gunwale and dropped him on the floor- 

 boards, where he laid but a second before commencing 

 the most exciting dacce I had ever witnessed. I be- 

 came so anxious leet he jump overboard, that had it 

 not been for Larsen's broad grin surely I should have 

 lain down on the lively creature. He weighed a plump 

 nine and was the be^t pickerel taken that season. 



A few days later I took a mate weighing 7|lbs. on a 

 hand line, but be made no fight until after he was 

 landed. 



A. seemed to think that I needed coaching, and I 

 don't blame him, so I managed, under his judicious 

 tuition, to make quite a pretty string of pike and bass 

 before we turned homeward, but to this day I enjoy 

 hooking nothing so much as a gamy pickerel. 



A.'s lessons will be remembered long after those given 

 by the prof essors of book and birch have been forgotten, 

 and the teacher himself, or at least a vision of him, ap- 

 pears with every thrill sent along my nerves by a "strike." 



JNO. PBABODY. 



ANGLING NOTES. 



Further Concerning- Hudson River Salmon. 



My information in ree-ard to some one who attempted 

 to impersonate a New York Fish Commissioner at Me- 

 chanicville, about which affair I made a note last week, 

 was of course most reliable, otherwise it would not have 

 been written; but thinking there was more to be learned 

 about the matter, I wrote to a gentleman connected with 

 the Pulp Company at Mrchanicville, asking what he 

 knew about it, and he writes me as follows: "The story 

 about the visit of the New York Fish Commissioner to 

 this place is true, because I am the one that he called 

 upon. The man appeared to be under the influence of 

 liquor, and he said his name was B irber and that he lived 

 in Greenwich, Washington county. I pointed out a large 

 salmon in the raceway, and then he wanted a gun or 

 spear with which to kill it, as he said he had been notified 

 by the Fish Commission to get them a salmon in any way 

 that he could, and send it to them. The watchman at 

 the Plaster Mill says that the next morning about 4 o'clock 

 the man still calling himself Barber was at the mill and 

 asked for a spear, but the watchman (Wheeler) would 

 have nothing to do with him, although Barber offered to 

 watch while Wheeler went for a spear. The fishway is 

 filled up with drift wood so no fish can pass through it. 

 No one has been her© to examine or inspect the fishway 

 except Commissioner Barber, and he is a daisy." 



I presume it will be unnecessary for me to say to any 

 one in the least familiar with the organization of the 

 New York Fish Commission, that this man Barber is not 

 one of the Commissioners, and that he was simply an im- 

 poster ma,=querading as a Commissioner. That he fooled 

 my correspondent is evident, for all through the letter 

 from which I have quoted he refers to him as "the Com- 

 missioner." I find, however, in the list of State Fish and 

 Grame Protectors ti^nt the protector for the seventeenth 

 district is Charles H. Barber, and that his residence is 

 given at Grreenwich, AVashington county, and that his 

 district embraces Warren, Washington and Saratoga 

 counties. Whether thia is the man that appeared at 

 Mechanicville, and, calling himself a Fish Commissioner, 

 desired to kill a salmon illegally, of course I cannot say; 

 but if it is, it would eeem that he is wholly unfit to hold 

 the position that he does. A gentleman who once held 

 the oflice of Fish Commissioner in this State writes me: 

 "It should not be necessary for private citizens to report 

 upon the condition of the fishways, as the game protectors 

 are paid to do that work. When 1 was on the board I 

 made it a point to have them visit the fishways frequently 

 during the season to see that they were in working order 

 and that the law was observed," Of course game pro- 

 tectors have no right to spear salmon, and Fish Commis- 

 sioners have no right to order it done. If the man who 

 called himself Barber was really the State game protec- 

 tor of that name, it was his duty, when he found the 

 fishway closed with drift so salmon were unable to pass 

 through it, to see that it was cleared instead of wishing 

 to kill the salmon that were prevented, by his negligence, 

 from going up stream to seek epawning grounds. 



"Fifty Rods to the Fishway." 



The New York fish and game law contains this provis- 

 ion: "The Commissioners of Fisheries are required to 

 maintain, fifty rods from any fishway erected by the 

 State, and on both sides of the stream, signboards con- 

 taining substantially the following notice: 'Fify rods to 

 the fishway ; ail persons are by law prohibited from fish- 

 ing in this stream between this point and the fiahway.' " 

 A few years agolwrole an article in which I took the 

 ground that this fishway limit was too sweeping (at that 

 time the distance was eighty rods instead of fifty rods as 

 at present), as it was the intention of the law to prevent 

 fishing for fish that congregated to pass the fishway. The 

 close distance required at one fishway to protect ascend- 

 ing fish nay be twice or three times as great as the dis- 

 tance required at another fishway. It is obvious that 

 there must be a fixed distance to apply to all fishways, 

 ljut what should this distance be? Is not fifty rods too 

 much? Eighty rods was evidently, for it has been short- 

 ened. 



My Mechanicville correspondent writes me on this sub- 

 ject thus: "I had a letter from Mr. Pogers a little time 

 ago in which he said he thought the people should take 

 suflficient interest in the fishway to keep it clean. Well, 

 no doubt they would if it weie not for one thing. The 

 law which prohibits fishing within 80 rods of the fishway 

 has spoiled the fishing for our place, and the fishermen 



who would be interested, are now wishing the fishway 

 would go down the river, or become such a failure that it 

 would fall into decay. Now, I do not defend this view, 

 but give it to you as I hear it. The law as it now stands 

 stops a,ll fishing here, for after you get beyond the limit 

 the river is of no account, aa all the rapids are covered 

 by the limit. ' I think it might be done away with just as 

 well as not and do no damage to the fish, for hook and 

 line fishing cannot work a great injury" 



It is apparent that the signboards at Mechanicville have 

 not been changed since the limit was changed, for this 

 correspondent writes of it as 80 rods. If 'private citizens 

 must be depended upon to clear the fishways, if game 

 protectors go to the fishways only to spear or shoot fish, 

 it might be well to have such a law as the citizens want, 

 and that they will then enforce: still, I think there should 

 be some protection for fish ai'ound the mouth of a fish- 

 way, but 50 rods may be a greater distance than is neces- 

 sary to secure this protection. 



Foresight and Hindsight. 



Being greatly interested in the lake trout I have writ- 

 ten much about them, their habits, manner of fishing for 

 them, etc. Rfpeatedly I said that they never jumped 

 above the surface of the water when hooked, when seek- 

 ing food, or in play. I said it because I belived it to be 

 true. I had fished for them for more than twenty years, 

 fished in the spring when they were at the surface, and 

 later in the season when they were at the bottom. I 

 flattered myself that I knew quite a bit about the lake 

 trout, and if any one had questioned the statement about 

 their jumping I would have been quite ready to take 

 issue with them on the subject. I hau seen troutfeeding 

 on whitefish at the surface every spring for years, and 

 knew the "boil" they made in the water without showing 

 themselves as well as I knew one of these fish when it 

 was dead in my boat. I had seen the fish, as I supposed, 

 under all possible conditions and had never seen one 

 above the surface until it was gaffed. One spring I was 

 trolling and turned my head to watch an approaching 

 boat, when between the two boats a lake trout shot out 

 of the water with a leap as fair as ever was made by a 

 black bass or a salmon. Within the next half hour an- 

 other and larger trout jumped in a lilje manner clear 

 above the water as gracefully as any fish ever jumped. 

 The lake was still, not a ripple on it, and I recognized 

 the fish distinctly, and in one minute hindsight knocked 

 foresight galley west and crooked. 



Only last week I said that I had not seen any com- 

 plaints because pike were found in trout waters in 

 Eogland, and assumed that thepeople over there accepted 

 them as a necessary evil and netted them out and kept 

 them below the point of actual danger to the trout, and 

 eschewed making any great fuss about it. That note 

 was Fcarcely in type before I saw a letter in Land and 

 Water, which, while it is not exactly a complaint against 

 the pike, shows the fish in a new and undesirable light. 

 The question aa to the movements of pike in a, stream 

 having arisen — one authority, no less than the late Fran- 

 cis Francis, claiming that the tendency of the pike was 

 to work down stream ; another, Major Turle, that all fish 

 except the grayling work up stream — the writer of the 

 letter produced evidence that the pike works up stream, 

 back for feeding and breeding, and more than that works 

 up against very strong water. Writing of the Stour he 

 says: "Higher up the stream is broken by low falls into 

 sharp shallow water and swirling pools . . the keepers 

 told me that they had killed a 91bs. pike high up the river, 

 so this fish must have ascended the small falls and 

 rapids." 



Ttie pike is not credited, generally, with being able to 

 ascend much of a fall of swift water, but I once caught a 

 pike under conditions that I was careful about giving 

 unless 1 had a witness to the capture close at hand. I 

 was fishing under Palmer's Falls on the Hudson for black 

 bass and my companion was Dr. James G. Porteous, of 

 Poughkeepsie. The time was early in the summer and 

 the water was at a "good pitch" in the river. We fished 

 just below the falls, whicn are 60ft. high, in the rough 

 water. Little by little I worked up stream until finally 

 I put my bait directly under the downpour and was a 

 little surprised to get a strike. A fish to get there from 

 below had to go through wild water, and I have some 

 doubt about a bass being able to do it. I hooked the fish 

 that struck and the downpour of water formed such a 

 current upward against the rocks I was able to save the 

 fish, which to my intense astonishment proved to be a 

 pike. Had he got out of the open stream section he must 

 have taken my tackle simply from the force of the water 

 below. 



Mr. Stanley's Trout. 



The last issue of Forest and Steeam mentions Mr. 

 Stanley's brook trout as weighing 12ilbs, Is Mr.^Stanley 

 credited with two brook trout of about this weight? He 

 was credited with one, I know, and concerning that one 

 I quote from bis letter now before me: "In regard to the 

 big trout you want to know about, I cannot vouch for the 

 truth of it, yet I think it is correct. They were caught 

 after I came away. * * * He (Frank Henry, who was 

 dipping blueback trout) first dipped the big fish (a 

 female), which was so large he had the curiosity to weigh 

 it, and it weighed Iglbs. A few minutes after he dipped 

 a male of lO^lbs., both ripe fish, and he put them back." 



A. N. Cheney. 



NEW YORK STATE ASSOCIATION. 



The annual winter meeting of the New York State 

 Association for the Protection of Fish and Game will be 

 held in Syracuse, Jan. 12. Each club will be entitled to 

 representation by nine delegates. Important matters 

 will be considered. A full attendance is desired. Clubs 

 and individuals in sympathy with the association are cor- 

 dially invited to unite with it. For copies of the consti- 

 tution address John B. Saqe, Sec'y, Buffalo, N. Y. 



Striped Bass and Black Bass. 



The upper Delaware River had a late run of striped 

 bass, according to Fish Commissioner Ford. Large num- 

 bers of these fish were seen during the latter part of 

 October and early in November. Anglers tooJi, them by 

 trolling with lamprey eels for bait. One of the speci- 

 mens captured weighed 81be. Black baas were plentiful 

 at the same time. Just below Dmgman's a bass weighing 

 ollbs. was taken, 



During the season, states Mr. Ford, small bass,weighing 



from |lb. to fib. were in excess. He frequently took 

 50 or 60 in a day, and of this number not more than 15 

 would be carried home. The year IbOl was especially 

 favorable for the spawning of black bass because of the 

 absence of fireshets during thelnesting season in spring. 



The last spring was favorable also for the rearing of 

 black bass in the Grovernment ponds at Washington. 

 Fifteen adults, brought from Quincy, 111., late in 1891, 

 were placed in a large pond near the Washington Monu- 

 ment. The young fish observed during the summer were 

 estimated to number nearly 80,000, and had it not been 

 for cannibalism doubtless most of them would have sur- 

 vived. The number actually counted and stored in tanks 

 for stocking ponds and streams reached nearly 39,000, 

 Most of these were about 4in. long, but the cannibals, to 

 the number of 500, averaged about Sin. in length, and 

 some weighed fully ^Ib. 



As a result of this first and extremely successful ex- 

 periment the U. S. Fish Commission will be able to stock 

 more than 100 streams and ponds. We are informed that 

 arrangements will be made to increase this work greatly 

 in the future. 



INTERNATIONAL FISH CONFERENCE. 



Deteoit, Dec. 20.— A conference'of the various State and 

 Canadian Fish Commissions opened at the Hotel Cadillac 

 this morning. The last conference was held at Hamilton, 

 Ont., Dec. 8, 1891, when an adjournment was taken to meet 

 here in October last, but owing to the pendency of the 

 political campaign the meeting was postponed unhl to day. 



Those in attendance at the session were C. F. Osborn, of 

 Dayton, representing the Ohio Fish Commission; L, D. 

 Huntington, president, and W. H. Bowman, secretary cf 

 the New York Fish Commission; Samuel Wilmot, Ottawa, 

 Ont.; Edward Harris, Toronto, Ont, and Thomas Marks, 

 Port Anthony, Ont., representing the Dominion Fisherifs 

 Department; P. W. Gould, Leasport, president of the Fish 

 Commission of Maine; Dr. Robert Ormsby Sweeney, Sr., of 

 Dulnth, president of the Minnesota Game and Fish Com 

 mission; Herschel Whitaker, Hoyt Post and Pmijk N. Clark, 

 of the Michigan Pish Commission; C. W. Keye^, of the San- 

 dusky Salt Fish Co.; Frank -J. Amsden, of Rochester, ]SJ. Y., 

 member of the New York Cheaper Fish Pood Associatior : 

 S. A. French, of Baltimore; Judge J. J. Speed, W. W, 

 Griffin, Wm. Dupont, A. G. McDonald, John Zimmerman, 

 Otto H. and C. H. Rush, C. H. Moore, George C. Green, 

 Wm. Craig, and A. Solomon, all of Detroit. 



The meeting was called to order by Mr. Whitaker, who 

 stated the object of the conference to be a free discussion of 

 the laws of each State governing flsherie.g, with a view t<i 

 the adoption of a universal system throughout the entire 

 country. It is also desirable, he said, to adopt a uniform law 

 governing the duties and powers of State wardens which 

 shall secure a satisfactory enforcement of such laws as 

 should be adopted by the various States for the purpose of 

 regulating the taking of fish and game. Commercial fish- 

 eries, said Mr. Whitaker, should also be an important mat- 

 ter to come up for discussion, as well as the best methods of 

 restocking the streams and of securing to the public the 

 benefits of artificial propagation. The various State and Do- 

 minion governments, he said, have been liberal in the mat- 

 ter of supplying fish for food, but we all know that the laws 

 already enacted are being openly violated and therefore for 

 the purpose of acquiring universal laws we have asked men 

 interested not only in flshculture, but in commercial fishei- 

 ies, to meet with us and discuss these important matters. 



In the absence of Senator McJSlaughton, of New York, who 

 had presided at previous conferences, Mr. Whitaker was 

 chosen chairman' and Frank J. Amsden, of Rochester, N, 

 Y,, secretary. 



Letters were read from Hon. Emory D. Potter, of Toledo: 

 A. Booth, of the Booth Packing Company, Chicago; MessVs. 

 Dunning of Wisconsin, Skinner ot St. Lawrence, N. Y., 

 Secretary Stewart of the Canadian fisheries conference and 

 a number of others, all of whom regretted their inability to 

 be present. 



A letter was also read from Levi Brown, of Sand Beach, 

 Mich,, a fisherman of 30 years' experience. He admitted 

 that state fish hatcheris had been of incalculable value to 

 professional fishermen, but thought more stringent laws 

 should be enforced for the protection of the young fish. He 

 would make a penalty of from 1100 to $500 for every whitefish 

 of under pounds found in the possession of any person, 

 fisherman or otherwise. He also tnought every state shou'd 

 adopt a close season system for the purpose of giving the 

 fish a much needed rest. 



Chairman Whitaker announced the first topic for discus- 

 sion to be the necessity for an efficient enforcement of laws 

 by a paid fish and game department, and intimated that as 

 the conference was international in its scope Mr. Wilmot, of 

 Canada, might enlighten those present on the subject. 



Mr. Wilmot said that if the object of the meeting was to 

 consider the question of game laws from an international 

 standpoint he and his colleagues from Canada must with- 

 draw, as international questions should only be discussed 

 by the highest bodies in the countries interested. If it was 

 to be an interstate session he would be glad to give those 

 present the benefit of his observations. He, with the other 

 Canadians present, had been appointed by the Commissioner 

 of Fisheries to investigate the subject in all the Provinces. 

 They were now on their way back from Manitoba to Ottawa, 

 and were instructed to stop at Detroit for the purpose of 

 attending the conference. 



Mr. Huntington, of New York, gave an outline of the sys- 

 tem now in vogue in New York for the protection of fish 

 and game. The chief game protector in that State is paid 

 $1,000 per year and traveling expenses. Violations of game 

 laws are prosecuted by the State Commission and tines 

 accruing from convictions are divided, one half going to the 

 deputy protector making the complaint and the other half 

 to the Commission, which is utilized in engaging counsel 

 to prosecute obstinate cases. Mr. Huntington thought the 

 only possible way to enforce fish and game laws was to place 

 the entire matter in the hands of the Commission. 



Mr. Bowman, also of New York, said his Commission had 

 spent much time in educating the public on the importance 

 of protecting fish during the close season and the results 

 were better than could be expected. 



Mr. Gould, of Maine, said the game wardens in that State 

 were paid S3 a day and their actual expenses paid out of 

 State treasury. They make a daily report and all fines go 

 to the county treasury and thence to the State treasury. 

 They have 300 wardens without any chief. 



C. F. Ostaorn, of Ohio, said his state has one warden and 

 a deputy for eaeh county, and thought the only manner in 

 which fish and game laws can be strictly enforced is bv 

 placing the wardens under the direction of the State Com"- 

 mission. 



Hoyt Post, of Detroit, offered a resolution to the effect 

 that the necessity exists for an efficient and uniform en- 

 forcement of protection laws by a paid fish and game depart- 

 ment on the general basis of the New York laws. 



Dr. B. O. Sweeny, president of the Minnesota Fish and 

 Game Commission, outlined the plan of action in his State. 

 Deputy game wardens are appointed for two years and are 

 compensated ou t of a treasury replenished by fines for vio 



