jTOffi 33, 1898. 1 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



B4S 



anchor was hauled up for the last time and the Al Foster's 

 bow pointed homeward. Fishing being over for the day- 

 it was now in order to compare scores. We found that 

 cm' nearest neighbors had caught a string of a dozen 

 good fish, probably netting as many pounds in weight. 

 We ourselves had caught but six. The fishermen on the 

 upper deck had averaged better and catches of 20 to 80 

 were noted. No one need go home from the banks empty- 

 handed unless he is an unusually poor fisherman or has 

 unusually hard luck. 



In fact, the number and fine quahty of the fish caught 

 at a time when they are biting well is a matter of wonder. 

 On such occasions the decks are strewed with fish and it 

 is often no easy task for the lucky fishermen to get their 

 catches home unaided. Some of them dispose of their 

 surj)lus at figures that more than cover the shght expense 

 of the trip. Despite aU the fike nets, and purse nets and 

 enemies by M^hich they are encompassed, and despite the 

 refuse of the great city which is cast into the neighbor- 

 ing waters of the ocean, these fish are still to be caught 

 in sufficient numbers to satisfy most people, and it is not 

 hard to believe stories which are told of prodigious 

 catches taken on the boats a few decades ago. 



On a good day one wiU see twenty or thirty steamers on 

 the Banks, from the small harbor tugs up to the large 

 excm-sion boats, all crowded and all taking something 

 from the harvest field of the ocean. 



Among the regular excursion boats, whose time sched- 



ANGUNG NOTES. 



Fishways. 



The Troy Times of May 22 said: "As the water recedes 

 it is seen that the fish da.m constructed in the Hudson 

 River at MechanicsvOle several years ago is almost totally 

 wrecked and must be rebuilt. 'The dam cost |5,000." I 

 went to Mechanicville on the 23d and examined the fish- 

 way, for that is what is meant by "fish dam," and found 

 that the structure -was as solid as when built and entirely 

 uninjured in sjjite of the fact that last winter thicker ice 

 formed in the upper Hudson than has been known iu 

 twenty years before, and this ice went down the river 

 past the fishway, leaving it intact. The fishway at Thom- 

 son's Mills, above Mechanicville, did not escape, for dur- 

 ing the S]3ring freshets about •12ft. of its upper end was 

 carried away. This, however, was no fault of the fishway 

 or its builder, for the high water, the highest since 1869, 

 took out part of the bulkhead of the Thomson & Dix mill 

 and the fishway, or part of it, went with it. Mr. John A. 

 Dix has told me that his company will repair the fishway 

 and put it in perfect ox-der when the mill is repaired. 

 The writer in the Times unintentionally hit the exact 

 truth when he called the Mechanicville fishway a ' 'fish 

 dam," for I found it filled with drift— brush, edgings and 

 bits of wood, so that little water discharged at the lower 

 opening or mouth, and it was wholly impassable for 

 any kind of fish. Now is the time that the 



/jN the fishing banks OFF NEW YORK KAB.BOR, 



ules are published in the daily newspapers, may be men- 

 tioned the Schuyler, the Al Foster, Havana and Angler. 

 Of these the Al Foster is the newest and most modern 

 boat; but there are many individual preferences among 

 the fishermen, and each boat has its constituency, and 

 that there is great rivahy among them is needless to men- 

 tion. • 



It was half -past 6 when the Al Foster landed her passen- 

 gers at Pier 7. The day was closing on a scene of univer- 

 sal discomfort and suffering. The people in the street cars 

 and on the street ah. looked so fagged out and exhausted 

 with the heat and burden of the day that it was hard to 

 realize for the nonce our personal comfox-t.j 

 One poor sunstruck horse lay in the street and was the 

 cause of [a blockade of the 

 ferry street car lines. The 

 sun, though Jaknost on the 

 horizon, still shone pitilessly, 

 and the air was close and 

 stifling, 



Yet despite aUjthese adverse 

 cii'cumstances, we could re- 

 call the fresh breeze that 

 fanned and tanned our cheeks 

 while at sea, the sweetness 

 and saltness of the air, and 

 withal the pleasant coolness 

 of the day. New York has many attractions for those 

 inclined, and chief among these is a trip to the Fishing 

 Banks. J. B . BuKNHAM, 



Trout Run Small. 



New York, ,Jime 16. — ^Having just returned from my 

 fishing trip at the Adirondack Preserve Association, Essex 

 county, I also confirm the report as to our fishing, as 

 related by your correspondent, "Special," in your valued 

 paper of June 15, headed "Boston Rods in Maine Waters," 

 i. e. , that the trout this season are running small, and 

 presume the same fact apphes, "that artificial stocking ia 

 needed to keep up the supply." Wilde we have been in 

 the habit of taking fish running from 2 to 3{r and 3flbs. , 

 this season none were taken weighing over 2jlbs. , and the 

 bulk of fish taken would run from ^Ib. to lib. Fish of 

 this size were quite plenty. ' K. 



A NEW-SUBSCRIBER OFFER. 



A bon-afide new subscriber sending us $5 will receive for that sum 

 the FoRKST AXD Stbraw one year (price 54) and a set of Zimmerman's 

 famous "Ducking Scenes" (advertised on another page, price :55)— a 

 $9 value for $5. 



This offer is to new subscribers only. It does not apply to reneioaU, 

 For $3 a bona fide new subscriber for six months will receive the 

 FoRssT im) Stream during that time and a copy of Dr. Van Fleet's 

 handsome work, "Bird Portraits for the Young" (the price of which 



salmon would use this fishway to pass to the 

 upper river if they could get through it. A few hours' 

 work would put this fishway in order and thereafter it 

 would be a simple matler to keep it clear if there was some 

 one to look after it. Mr. Dix will take it upon himself 

 to keep the fishway at his mills in order. The cost of 

 the Mechanicville fishway is incorrectly given in the 

 Times. That and the one above it cost $5,000, or $2,500 for 

 each one. By appointment I met Mr. Robert C. Dowry, 

 of New York city, at Mechanicville, but the water was 

 not in the best condition for fly-fishing, as it was rather 

 high and somewhat thick, and fm-ther. the wind was 

 blowing up stream at a rate that made fly-casting in the 

 teeth of it far from easy Avork. On the previous Satur- 

 day, May 20, a salmon of 301bs. was taken in a shad net 

 at Castleton, just below Albany, and released and swam 

 away, apparently uninjured. On the same day a salmon 

 of 191bs. was taken on a trolling spoon in the river below 

 Albany by a man fishing for other fish. At Mechanic- 

 ville I talked with people who have seen a great many 

 salmon in the river, and everything indicates that the 

 fish are plentiful in the water and only need the oppor- 

 tunity to get up sti-eam to spawn above the miUs and fac- 

 tories to multiply, until with the aid of artificial propaga- 

 tion, the Hudson becomes a veritable salmon river, af-, 

 fording good fishing. I am satisfied that the salmon 

 taken last year below Mechanicville were not taken with 

 the fly, and that the first salmon is yet to be taken in this 

 stream by fair casting with the fly 



World's Fair. 



I have a letter from IVIr. J, J. Armistead, propietor of 

 the Solway Fishery, Dumfries, Scotland, teUing me that 

 he will arrive on the Alaska, due the 18th, on his way to 

 Chicago to attend the AVorld's Fair. Last year Mi-, Armi- 

 stead celebrated the twenty -fifth anniversary of the estab- 

 lishment of his hatchery at Dumfries, it being the oldest 

 concern of the kind in Great Britain, and Mr, Armistead 

 one of the three best and most successful flshculturists. 

 I also have a letter from Mr. Wm. Senior, angling editor 

 of the Field, London, written just as he was about to 

 sail for home on the 27th, saying that he was retm-ning 

 without doing many of the things he hoped to do during 

 his visit to this country and the World's Fair, his time 

 being all too short. At the Congi'ess of the Press Women 

 of the World, held in Chicago, a paper was read by a 

 local newspaper woman with the title "Woman as a,u 

 Authority on Trouting," The author of the paper was 

 not present, but she is known to some of the anghng 

 papers, and particularly a newspaper in the Rangeley 

 Lakes region, as "Fly-Rod," and her name is MissCorneha 

 T, Crosby and her residence is in the Pine Tree State. A 

 newspaper man was ungaUant enough to say, "Good old 

 Izaak Walton would have turned over in his grave and 

 groaued, had he not long ago moldered into dust, whea 



the annoimcement was made tha,t a paper would be read 

 on the subject of 'Woman as an Authority on Trouting.' " 

 Nothing of the sort! Izaak Walton was made of finer 

 clay than the man who wrote that paragraph, and he 

 would have rejoiced, as all good anglers do, that women 

 take suflicient' interest in fisMng to became authorities on 

 the subject. If the male biped man should get too 

 "cocky," the ladies, God bless them! should remind his 

 self-satisfied highness that a woman holds the record for 

 the largest tarpon with rod and reel, and that on two 

 occasions last year the women bea.t the men, at the record, 

 in salmon fishing with the fly in Great Britain. 



A. N. CheKey. 



Wisconsin Trout Waters. 



Wautoma, Wis. — Editor Forest and Stream: The arti- 

 cle in Forest and Stream of May 25 is misleading, 

 Princeton is fourteen or fifteen miles from White River. 

 Berlin is the place to go to, and from thence to Wautoma, 

 Wis. White River runs through the village of Wautoma. 

 Trout have been caught right along in it since April 15, 

 principally with the minnow, but now they take the fly, 

 too. 



Several parties have been here already. Dr. French 

 and party made as nice a catch of extra fiiie trout in the 

 streams adjacent to Wautoma as I ever saw. Eight miles 

 from here, on Willow Creek, I got on a 5-pound rainbow 

 trout, and having tired him out (of course) lost him just 

 as I was trying to land him. He straightened the hook 

 (which was too small) right out and dropped off. 



R, W. H. 



THE AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY. 



Chicago, June 16.— It may or may not have been a mistake 

 for the American Fisheries Society to set their annual meet- 

 ing for Chicago during the World's Fair time. As a matter 

 of personal pleasure to those of the members who found 

 time before or .ifter the meeting to visit the attractions of 

 the Exposition, it was well that the session fell as it did, 

 but for those whose time was short the near presence of the 

 Fair, whose hum and bustle, indeed, was on the ear at every 

 moment of the meeting, made only an aggravation. The 

 Fair overshadows all competition in interest, not only for 

 the individual but for any body of men. It does not help 

 society and organization meetings, but kills them. The 

 Fisheries Society is accustomed to attracting local atten- 

 tion. Here it made not a ripple, and each member, aside 

 from his personal realization of that fact, seemed on his own 

 account most anxious to get oixt into the Fair. 



The meeting, taken by itself, and without this qualifica- 

 tion, was one of interest and profit, the more so from the 

 presence of foreigners interested in kindred woi-k, and the 

 more so also from the lessons of the Fair itself, instanced 

 through its proper officers. 



The sessions were held morning and afternoon, Thursday 

 and Friday, in the large reception room of the Michigan 

 State building, one of the finest in the stately row of State 

 edifices which curves across the upper end of the great 

 transient city, whose fame now is in the ears and eyes of the 

 world. Passing a good stairway and its crown in a wide 

 ante-room adorned in a manner suitable to the State, one 

 enters a spacious ball room, ca^eted, however, and home- 

 like, albeit furnished with a grand pipe organ and a sugges- 

 tive piano. Glass lines two sides of this room, all swinging 

 out lapon wide galleries. Below the galleries passed bands of 

 all nations, appealing or challenging, and from the vast 

 crowds there came up broken murmurs. Members wandered 

 to the windows. Some fell comfortably asleep. The major- 

 ity sat upright, thoughtful and attentive. They all wanted 

 to go out. This then was a pleasant place, but not a good 

 place to hold a semi-scientific meeting. 



Those Present. 



President Herschel Whitaker, of Detroit, was in the chair, 

 Secretary E. P. Doyle, of New York, a.t the desk. Mr. Whit- 

 aker writes shorthand, and kept track of much of the work 

 verhatim for the sake of publication, thus assisting Mi: 

 Doyle, a very able and pleasant secretary. The personnel of 

 the society, as may not be borne in mind by all the readers 

 of Fokest and Stream, is made np of members of the Fish 

 Commissions of different States of the United States, of 

 Canada, of the LTnited States Fish Commission, of prominent 

 practical fishculturists or fish dealers, of noted angling 

 authorities and of scientific men whose work has been con- 

 nected notably with the problems of fishculture. Of these 

 there were present to-day Messrs. A. Booth, of Chicago, a 

 well known fish dealer; N. K. Pairbank, president of the 

 Illinois Commission; L. D. Huntington, iDresident of the N. 

 Y. Commission; W. H, Bowman, Robert Hamilton, Charles 

 Wyeth and A. S. Jolins, also of New York, also Superin- 

 tendent Fred Mather of New York; W. C. Butler, D. Decker 

 and Charles L. Hine of New Jersey; W. L. Powell, L, 

 Shreuber, H. C. Demuth and Geo. Freas of Pennsylvania, also 

 Col. .John Gay, in charge of the Pennsylvania fish exhibit at 

 the Fair; W. F. Page of the Missom-i Commission; Dr. Tarle- 

 ton H. Bean and W. De C. Ravanel of the U. S. Commission, 

 now at the Fair, also F. N. Clark for the U. S. Commission 

 at Michigan Station; Hoyt Post and H. W. Da\fis of Michi- 

 gan Commission, besides President Whitaker; Jas. Nevins, 

 superitendent of the Wisconsin Commission; W. David Tom- 

 lin and R. Ormsby Sweeney of Minnesota Commission; J. E. 

 Gunckel of Ohio; Prof. Jacob Reighard of the U. of M., Ann 

 Arbor, Mich.; W. L. May of the Nebraska Commission; Capt. 

 Jos. W. Collins, Chief of Fisheries, the World's Fair; Dr. J. 

 A. Henshall, in charge of the angling exhibit, World's Fair: 

 H. H. Cary of Georgia Commission; Judge Asa French and 

 Chas. F. Chamberlayne of Massachusetts; E. W. Gould, of 

 Maine Commission; Dr.W. M. Hudson, of Connecticut Com- 

 mission. Foreign countries were represented by Messrs. C. 

 Ravn, Royal Commissioner of Sweden; C. Westergaard, 

 Royal Commissioner of Norway; Nicolas Borodine, Commis- 

 sioner for the Czar of Russia. 



Papers of Interest. 



During the day several papers of interest were read. Dr. 

 Henshall read for the author a valuable paper on the Sunapee 

 trout (saibling), prepared by Prof. J. D. t^uaekenbos, of New 

 York. Mr. Fred Mather read a paper on lobsters. Mr. W, 

 David Tomlin, of Duluth, Minn., presented a paper on the 

 "Specialist in Fishculture." Mi-. Westergaard, Royal Com- 

 missioner of Norway, presented a paper on "The Fisheries of 

 Norway." Prof. Reighard, of Michigan University, sub- 

 mitted two papers, one on the "Handling of Adhesive Eggs," 

 and the second on the "Quantitative Analy.sis of Whitefish 

 Food." The former paper was read at the afternoon ses- 

 sion. 



Mr. W. F, Page, of Missouri, read a paper on the "Breed- 

 ing of Yearling Trout." Mr. Page, speaking of the work at 

 Neosho hatchery, Missouri, favored the raising and planting 

 of yearling trout. The expense in rearing either trout or 

 carp was usually made greater than necessary. On a diet of 

 shorts— mush and liver, gradually increasing the proportion 

 of the mush, they had found they could feed 1,000 trout at a 

 cost of one cent a day. The loss could be kept as low aa 6 per 



