4B2 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



I MAY 25, 1893. 



THE "KINGFISHERS" IN CANADA— II. 



Big Basswood Lake. 



We were out with the sun in the morning, a trifle stiff 

 and sore from a too close contact with Bro. Dyer's iioors, 

 but otherwise in g<jod trim and humor for a big break- 

 fast—for we wore hungry as wolves— and to begin the 

 work of making camp. 



Dyer came out to inspect the outfit and offer a few sug- 

 gestions about locating the tents, which gave us the op- 

 portunity of getting the first good sight of him, and he 

 was certainly the oddest looking little "ole cuss"— witli 

 the wind meandering tlirough Ms whiskex-s— that we had 

 seen for many a day. 



He was rigged out in a pair of well patched doe skin 

 breeches tliat scorned a near acquaintance with his shoe 

 tops, so slick and glazed with grease and other foreign 

 substances that a tly would have slipped and broken its 

 neck had it attempted to locate on them. These held up 

 by a strap buckled around his waist, an old unglazed 

 woolen sliirt, and his head adorned with a low, flat- 

 crowned hat of the same aacient aspect, around under 

 the band of which were stuck at various ajigles a lot of 

 feathers from the tail of a grouse. But it afterward 

 tm-ned out that Bro. Dyer was like a singed cat — a good 

 deal better than he looked— and we got to respect him for 

 his independence and a vein of good practical sense. 



The cook made a big pot of coffee, fried some ham and 

 eggs, making use of Dyer's big stove in the summer 

 kitchen at the soutli end of the house, and we ranged our- 

 selves around a big table iu the dining-room, old Sam re- 

 marking from the head cf the table that "he wished he 

 had a qaartz mill to breali up them round, flat rocks that 

 Dobie had played on 'Jeems Mackerel' fur ship biskits." 



Breakfast over, we lost no time in getting to work at 

 making camp, even though we had to sprain the Sabbath 

 in doing it. Four tents were put up right at the edge of 

 woods in the open space east of the house, a table built a 

 few yards from them, over which t)ie big fly was stretched 

 not more than 50ft. from the kitchen door, and we began 

 to feel at home. However, we were not "on our ovsm 

 dung-hill," and didn't feel tiiat it was our turn to crow by 

 hoisting "Old Glory," for there, not 30ft. over our blasted 

 American heads, a few yards from the house, flew the 

 Cross of St. George from a new flag-pole, which Dyer 

 must have erected for our especial benefit. 



However, after a day or two he took it down and very 

 courteously asked us to hoist the Stars and Stripes in its 

 stead, and the old flag was fished out and run up to the 

 block; but this time, out of deference to our neighbor, the 

 usual salute and ceremonies were dispensed with. 



Dyer wished us to let it remain up, but after a couple of 

 days I took it down and put it away, lest some of our 

 neighbors, not so imbued with international courtesy as 

 Brother Dyer, might happen around and "kick" and make 

 trouble for us with the nearest magistrate, not half a mUe 

 away — J^Ir. Harris, who was also the postmaster of Day 

 Mills and the big tadpole of the puddle. 



Dyer was a typical and tlioi'ough John Bull, and when 

 the weather was not stormy he had some one of his half 

 dozen or more different English flags flying at the top of 

 the staff to remind him of his allegiance to good Queen 

 Vic. He was an old bachelor, living there alone, with no 

 companionship but some well chosen books, a dozen or 

 more firearms, from an ancient pistol, a p)air of old large 

 caliber Colts, and an old muzzle-loading shotgun, on up to 

 a modern breechloader, a Hotclikiss and a Winchester 

 rifle, the gims standing in a rack against the south wall of 

 the dining room, and all loaded, as Harry averred. Be- 

 sides these, three or four score of trolling spoons and l)aits 

 of all sizes and shapes, and odd conceits, hung aga inst the 

 stairway wall, all made by his own hand when the snow 

 was deep in. the winter and time hung heavily on his 

 hands. His other fishing tackle was, however, of the 

 most primitive kind; a jjole cut in the "bresh" and sea- 

 soned, with a line tied to one end — and either end would 

 have answered about as well as the other — without reel or 

 other appliance, constituting his whole stock in trade. 

 (Before breaking camp we rigged him out ^vith a jointed 

 rod, reel, an oiled silk line and a lot of hooks, and made 

 him happy.) At the west side of the room was a small 

 work bench with an iron vise attached, and back of it, 

 along the window, a tool rack "filled with watchmaker's 

 and a variety of other kinds of tools. Verily, this room was 

 a cm-iosity shop, and well worth an hour's' inspection. 



He was a watchmaker by trade, but had given it up a 

 few years before on account of failing eyesight, and 

 having taken a fancy to this charming little spot on Big 

 Basswood Lake, he bought a ijatch of land and built a 

 house on it with the notion of some day making a sum- 

 mer resort of it, but the C. P. E. R,, when finished, had 

 given the expectant Day Mflls people the go-by by three 

 and a half mfles and Dyer was left high and dry on the 

 plateau overlooking Big Basswood, waiting for something 

 to turn up as it were. 



But the railroad is not too far away, and if some one 

 with a little capital and United States push would go in 

 there and give it a lift the place might be made a most 

 desirable and j)leasant summer spot for quiet-loving 

 people and the brethren, of the rod who are fond of very 

 fine fishing. 



With these few digressions we will proceed with the 

 camp making. Brother Dyer was disposed to be a little 

 pompous at first and had some notions about making a 

 camp and other matters, but we had been at it too long 

 to pay much attention to suggestions, and tilings went 

 serenely our way, as they usuaUy do when in the woods, 

 and by the middle of the afternoon the camp was about 

 finished to our pleasement, and Dyer graciously admitted 

 that we "knew how to do it." 



He said our cook could, as a matter of convenience, use 

 his kitchen and big stove, which was done for several 

 days, but we made up our minds that the tariiT was too 

 high and kicked for a nt-w deal. He wanted srJ a wenk, 

 or ijjil. 50 each, for the use of that stove and "otiier con- 

 veniences," but it smacked so nmch of a case of "bleedin'^ 

 the tenderfeet" that we concluded to move the camp 

 rather than be played for a lot of suckers. However, we 

 found him disposed to be reasonable and fair after a talk, 

 and he left the matter entirely to us, with the result that 

 a bargain was made satisfactory to all concerned and the 

 cook used the stove tUl we broke up. We knew, liow- 

 ever, that the ai-rangement didn't ' 'set well on Kelpie's 

 crop," as he remaxked, "It was the first time he had ever 

 camped in a man's door-yaxd who kept a stove for revenue 

 only." 



But aftei- Dyer got us sized up and we had become I 



accustomed to his peculiarities we found him more com- 

 panionable and ready to accommodate as the days went 

 by. and the camp turned out to be a very pleasant one. 

 I don't write these things as a criticism on brother Dyer's 

 methods, I only write tliem as a hint that a nian may be 

 mistaken in his estimate of a party and a trifle "off" in 

 his ideas of the value of accommodations he may have 

 to sell. 



Not till the camp was in running order did we take 

 time to view om- surroundings and have a look at the 

 lake, although we had stolen a glimpse or two at it from 

 our limited point of observation, which was in the bight 

 of a lovely little bay that allowed only a view across, and 

 up lake a distance of three or four miles to an island, 

 where it took a trend to the left. 



A hundred and fifty yards or more out from the house 

 was a low bare point of rock looking up lake from the en- 

 trance of the little bay, and just back of this, heavy woods 

 began and readied clear around to the camp and beyond, 

 hiding from sight a matter of three miles of the lower end 

 of the lake. Dyer's liouse, and the camp were 150ft. or 

 thereabouts back from the water, 30ft., at a guess, above 

 the level of the bay and near the break of a gently sloping 

 hill, down which led a patli to a strip of sandy beach a 

 few rods long that made a good landing place for the 

 boats, and it was the only sandy spot in more than three 

 miles of shore line on that side of the lake; in fact there 

 are only seven or eight patches of sandy beach to be 

 found arouud the entire circuit of the lake, which Dyer 

 estimates at twelve miles long by two and a half miles 

 wide at the widest point; all the rest rocks, rocks, rock 

 and dirty brown weather-beaten and gray-tinted piles and 

 walls of "granite rising straight out of tlie water nearly all 

 along the south shore line to heights of from 5 to 80ft. 

 and more; and along the west half of the north shore the 

 formation is much similar. Nearly all around this line 

 of broken shore, indented by several deep bays on the 

 south and at the lower end is a growth of lovely woods; 

 cedar, spruce, pine, liemlock, aspens, bii-ch and small 

 bushes, but not a solitary basswood that we could dis- 

 cover; hence, why the name. Big Basswood? 



It is a grand lake, a most beautiful lake, and one might 

 float around on its waters a whole summer and find some- 

 thing new and fresh every day to please the eye. The 

 water is so clear to the bottom at a depth of 20ft. or more, 

 and it must be fed by springs from the bottom, as there 

 are only two feeders, a couple of puny streams flowing in 

 at the head — one, Beaver Creek, the other the outlet of 

 Loon Lake — while its own outlet is, as aforementioned, a 

 very rajDid, wild stream of considerable volume. This 

 stream has, we were told, a fall of about 98ft. in three- 

 quarters of a mile or less, to where it flows into Mud 

 Lake. The greater part of this fall is within a distance 

 of a couple of hundred yards above the mill where the 

 bridge s^jans the stream at the foot of the hill. It comes 

 tumbling and brawling down the hill over a bed of rock, 

 ragged and rough, overhung with trees and bushes on the 

 east side of the wild-looking cleft in the hill through 

 which it finds its way, dodging and scurrying around and 

 over great boulders and shelving rock with a noisy melody, 

 and dropping here and there for temporary rest uito quiet 

 little pools, "where the trout love to hide." 



From the bridge up to the very head where it drops out 

 of the lake over a. little dam that has raised the water in 

 Big Basswood 4 or 5ft. above its natural level, we took at 

 different times about fifty trout of "small caliber," and it 

 was hard work to get even so many, for it had been fished 

 to death by tlie natives, as evidenced by the well-worn 

 path through the woods and ' 'bresh" along the east bank. 

 A few rods below the bridge was another mill— this one a 

 saw mfll— and from there on down to where it flowed 

 into Mud Lake not a sign of trout or other fisli was to be 

 found, although the "village blacksmith" told us that 

 before the mill was built and the stream polluted and 

 ruined with sawdust it was literally alive with them of 

 good size, and great strings were taken out by the neigh- 

 bors round about without a thought of the supply ever 

 running out, as the stream filled up with them from the 

 lake below about as fast as they were yanked out. 



But the sawdust got its work in, and now the water 

 below the mill is utterly barren. 



So it goes, and will keep on going; what with the mills, 

 the count-fisher and the trout-hog the trout have a hard 

 row to hoe, and the wonder is there are so many of them 

 left. 



When the camp was finished we began to think about 

 bait, but we tomid it rather a perplexing question at first. 

 Dyer said there were no minnows to be had in the lake, 

 which was true, for in all our cruising and fishing around 

 it we never caught or saw any minnows, not even a young 

 perch, bluegill or goggle-eye. There are no fish in the 

 lake, so our neighbors told us, except smaU-mouthed bass, 

 brook trout and lake trout— same as the Mackinaw — some 

 of the latter having been taken as high as Solbs. in weight. 

 However, this broad assertion was disproved one day 

 when we found washed up dead on the beach at the camp 

 a curious looking fish about 6in. long, shaped like an eel, 

 dorsal, tail fin and all, but with belly fins and very fine, 

 hard scales, and a4it). dead minnow that Charley pro- 

 nounced a "striped chub." 



But w-e got on the trail of some speckled frogs on the 

 grassy common back of the camp and soon had enough 

 "hived" for a starter in the morning, as the day was too 

 far gone to put the canvas boats together and start out for 

 a study of the water that evening. 



This common proved to be a regular bait mine for us; 

 we hived probably 200 frogs on it during our stay, and 

 while the morning dew was on the raspberry bushes around 

 the border we could pick off a pint or more of grasshop- 

 pers that "hadn't got ther jints limbered up fur jumpin' " 

 as old Sam said, and these were found most exceflent bait 

 for tlie bass. 



Next morning, the 18th, after breakfast, we put the two 

 canvas boats together, the "Ironclad" and the "Ben Har- 

 rison," the latter a steel-ribbed boat made by 0. W. King, 

 of Kalamazoo, Mch., and a very excellent and seaworthy 

 boat, and got ready to go a-fishiii'. While we were "joint- 

 ing up," brother Dyer came out from the liouse witli his 

 ' 'deep-set granulated voice" and a rakish tilt to his feather- 

 mounted hat and nearly paralyzed us with, "Gentlemen, 

 I'd like to inspect your tackle, to see if it is strong enough 

 to handle some of the big fish in this lake," and with a 

 self-satisfied air he proceeded to "heft" the light rods, ex- 

 amined with a critical eye the size of our hues, and at last 

 said, with an incredulous smile and a shake of the head, 

 "Too light, gentlemen, too light; they'll smash 'em into 

 bits. " But they didn't, as he found out after we had fished 



a few days, and long before we broke camp he gracefully 

 admitted that he had learned a good many new wrinkles 

 about tackle and bass fishing. 



He had written that he could furnish us a couple of 

 boats, but when we came to look at them we found them 

 unfit for use. One was a long, narrow, cranky, clinker 

 built affair, made by some one that evidently knew all 

 about making everything except a boat. It was designed 

 for a sailboat. Dyer said, but it wouldn't stand up without 

 a half ton of rocks in it for ballast, and this brought it 

 down till the gunwales were within 3 or 4in. of the water. 

 Without the ballast it would lop over to one side or the 

 other till the gunwale touched the water, and lie there — 

 and we let it lie there. The other had been designed no 

 doubt for a skiff, but the builder must have been a coffin 

 maker and got the two trades mixed up somewhat in his 

 mind, for it looked and handled about as much like a 

 coflin as it did a boat. However, some of the boys used 

 it a time or two as a last resort, but it was a back breaker 

 to pull and none of them hankered after a second trial. 



The cook made us happy by saying liis folks, who lived 

 up near the extreme head of the lake, had two boats, and 

 if any of us would make a trip up there we vvere welcome 

 to the use of one or both of them as long as we were in 

 camp. A day or two after Charley and I went up in the 

 ironclad and brought back one of them, a little light 

 wooden boat, 10ft. 2in. in length, as I remember it, with 

 a 4in. keel from stem to stern, 1 think it was the best 

 boat in rough water that I have ever been in, and the 

 boat question was at rest, for there was no day that we 

 all fished from the boats, and these three were ample for 

 our needs. 



Our first day's fishing did not amount to much, as we 

 spent most of the time prospecting the water and admir- 

 ing the wild scenery along the shore. We took eigh (een.bass 

 altogether, all small-mouths, that ran from 2 Uj S^dbs., 

 and in all our experience we have never t'oLiud harder 

 fighters. 



Old Sam and Harry walked over to the outlet, about 60 

 or 70 rods from the camp, and fished along down the 

 sti-6am to the falls for trout, but it was hard work, and 

 their combined score was only eight trout, hardly enough to 

 change the smell in the fryin' pans, and some of them 

 were little above the limit of 5in. 



We fished the stream several times afterwards, but, 

 never got more than five or six out of it at a time. It had 

 been about fished out, and what were left had become too. 

 smart and shy to be fooled. 



After two or tliree days we got down to bass fishing in 

 earnest, and we cfiught them nearly everywhere, All 

 along the south sliore, up lake as far as an island about 

 three miles above camp, at every rocky point, around 

 another small island at the entrance to a deep, narrow 

 bay — there were three deep bays between camp and tlie 

 big island in the middle of the lake — almost anywhere and 

 everywhere there were bass. Around the big island was 

 great Avater for them, and we rarely fished it, notably 

 along the south shore and upper end, without getting fine 

 sport. They would bite at almost anything offered. We 

 caught them with whole frogB; with the leg of a frog; 

 with a frog's head; and one afternoon I took seven with 

 the skin peeled from a frog's hind leg, wliicli, trailed 

 after the boat, had a whipping, fluttering nn 'tion like a 

 flag in a breeze. They had a mighty "sweet tooth" too 

 for grasshoppers, whether there were a half dozen or more 

 on the hook or only one. 



Fishing from almost any point of rocks along up shore 

 we could see the fish take the bait in the clear water, and 

 after he was hooked, from two to half a dozen and some- 

 times more would be seen chasing around after the be- 

 wildered victim to "see what was agitatin' of him," as 

 Old Sam said. 



A rubber helgramite was "pie" for them, and we took 

 quite a number with the fly. The idea seems to prevail 

 amnng anglers that a bass will not take a fly on the surface 

 of the water, and the Colonel had said he would give $5 

 to see a bass come up and "bark at a fly" like a trout. One 

 afternoon he took three this way; the bass breaking almost 

 on the instant that the fly struck the water. He was 

 highly elated over it, and afterward, his fly-rod had more 

 work to do than the bait-rod. 



He and young Owen took many an hour's comfoi-t oh 

 the point of rock across the little bay in front of the house. 

 This was easily reached from tlie boat landmg by a well 

 worn path around the shore through the wcodsand brush, 

 and there anchored on their camp stools they would sit 

 and smoke, and fish off the ledge in 20 or 30fb, of water, 

 and many a bass come to grief and was scooped up with 

 the landing net and dropped in a puddle of water in a 

 depression in the solid rock a few feet back of them. 

 This rock was a favorite loafing place, and was rarely 

 unoccupied during the day by some of us, especiaDy when 

 the lake was rough. Kingfisher. 



"Forest and Stream" Fishing Postals. 



DixGiiAN's Ferry, Pa., May 20. — Our guests this week: 

 are having splendid success m number and size. Streams- 

 are in most favorable condition, and prospects for the 

 coming week are the very best. 



LiNDSTEOM, Chicago County, Minn., May 30.— Black 

 bass are now being ca-ught in large numbers in Chicago 

 Lake. The females have not begun yet to shed their 

 sj)awn and will not apparently for some days yet. This 

 is a backward season, and that may account for a late 

 spawning, but it is very plain that the season ought not to 

 open until late in June at the earliest. C. J. 



Shohola Falls, Pa., May 20.^Mr. J. D. Walton, Eighth 

 avenue and Fifty-first street, New York, caught 57 trout 

 in one day weighing 151b3. Mr. M. Lamber, Milford, Pa., 

 caught 50" trout weighing 131bs. The prospect for next 

 week is good. G. W. H. 



Charlestown, N. H., May 19. — Another unsuccessful 

 two-mfle "tramp for trout" on Tuesday, IGtli inst. Not a 

 bite, not even a nibble, in one of my old favorite brooks. 

 I wiU indorse "C. D. S." fully. He beat me two yeare 

 ago on my own ranch , though, as a visitor, I gave him 

 the best water. Shall try again when the water gets 

 warmer, but fear "brook fishing" is done for for some 

 years to come in this part of the State. • VON W. 



CuMMiNGTON, Mass., May 16. — The spring has been so 

 cool that the best trout fishing in this section will be 

 several weeks later than usual, veiy little having been 

 done as yet. E, S. H. 



