Ava. 5, 1893.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



99 



did not wait and ask for the bill. In Iowa once, when three 

 of us were prairie chicken shooting, one man at each 

 post pressing the wire fence down and the other driving 

 over it, I have often wondered wha,t in equity we owed 

 for fence. In these parts there are many panels of fence 

 down to my debt, and with the elastic conscience of the 

 city sportsman, all I have so far to say is the fence was 

 too weak (to carry a 180-pound man). 



Now, I am not a growler, but, honestly, I have gunned 

 with sportsmen who would let on that they would rather 

 be shot than take any advantage of the birds. I have 

 started with such but never returned with them, a few 

 honorable exceptions excepted. I am a fisherman also. 

 Fly-fishers nearly invariably use bait and catch the 

 largest fish with it; so while I start with them I rarely 

 return with the Al fly-fisher. They become demoralized 

 and when nothing else is effective use bait. 



Shoiild this be of sufficient importance it may be taken 

 exception to, and as I do not desire controversy, I will 

 say that I am not a country boy. I own no land except in 

 a city. I am not sufficiently poor to be compelled to trap 

 or snare game. I would, if the reverse were the case, 

 upon my own place, and would fight any one who med- 

 dled. While blessed with more of this world's goods than 

 the average country boy, I see no reason why you compel 

 him and his parents to do without the toothsome quail, 

 pheasant, rabbit and trout, which are as sweet to him 

 even when not taken by your standards. Living in a city 

 where the taxes are very high, as I do, how would 1 hke 

 the countryman and his family to step in and further in- 

 crease our taxes, with no corresponding advantages to 

 me? Is not the case parallel? Let us be a httle more kind 

 to those who feed the game. Ask for permission to hunt, 

 and, like men, pay for broken fences and such damages 

 as are committed. For years I have thought that the 

 country boy and farmer, with a good taste and love of 

 sport, have been living under the rule of hogs, by which 

 title sportsmen designate all who do not agree witti them, 

 and just kill sufficient game to keep within the limit 

 which each self-stjded sportsman sets up for himself, out- 

 side of which one is a hog. Having lived over half a cen- 

 tury, having dwelt in handsome civilization, and having 

 camijed out in the Rockies and southern California, Ari- 

 zona and New Mexico for a year, having been hungry and 

 thirsty, and as age creeps on, I hope, growing more chari- 

 table, I would speak for those who, as many of us, like 

 game, but cannot, or, at least, can ill afford, to kill it by a 

 standard which many of us have legislated for. I ques- 

 tion whether our legislation or the farmer's boy is right. 



M. U. Skrat. 



Quite Rightly Dubbed "Cattle." 



Saginaw, East Side, Mich., July 26. Editor Forest and 

 Stream: When the Michigan Game W^arden Bill was 

 first passed a number of the sportsmen here in Saginaw 

 raised a fund by private subscription to put a game 

 warden in the field, as our board of supervisors would not 

 pay for any services of this kind. We employed Henry 

 Connor, who did good work for us as long as we were 

 able to keep him in the field. Since then he has been on 

 the police force, and still retained his interest in game pro- 

 tection matters. He is a thorough sportsman and a pot- 

 hunter that violotes the law is liable to get into trouble if 

 Henry kno ws it. Last night he came to my house with a 

 little box in which were the bills of five freshly killed 

 woodcock. They had been sent him by some law-breaker 

 who gloried in shooting out of season and took this means 

 of rubbing it into the ex-deputy game warden. It is a 

 shame that the guilty party cannot be ferreted out and 

 given a dose of justice. Evidently was not hunting for 

 the market or he would not have cut the bills off from 

 them, neither did he know enough to have them properly 

 cooked or he would not have mutilated them. He was 

 probably one of the kind that took them home and had 

 them boiled, and could not tell by the flavor whether he 

 was eating blackbirds or pork. It is too bad that this kind 

 of cattle exist and thrive on this green earth of ours, but 

 they do just the same. W. B. Mebshon. 



A Miss and a Hit. 



Among the most singtdar shots in the experience of the 

 sportsman was that made by Edward Douthet of Hunt- 

 ington, W. Va. Near the Ches. and Ohio R. R. shoiw is 

 a swampy ground, the resort of snipe in the spring and 

 occasionally ducks. While hunting in this place a snipe 

 rose before him, flying low. He fired and missed it. Im- 

 mediately a number of teals flew out of the weeds and 

 grass. He then heard splashing ahead, and going to the 

 place from which the noise came he saw, to his great 

 astonishment, that he had killed four of the ducks. His 

 sm-prise was a double one, that he killed ducks of whose 

 presence he was not aware, and missed a snipe in plain 

 view; for our friend Douthet is a formidable competitor 

 in the field of any of our wing shots. N. D. Elting. 



Bad, but Funny. 



It happened many years ago, but is worth relating. 

 Some parties living near Highland, on the Hudson, were 

 out sailing in a rowboat one night when they discovered 

 a flock of ducks swimming in the mouth of a small 

 stream that empties into the river. "Ha! a prize." They 

 had settled it in their minds that wild ducks would not 

 fly by the hght of the moon, and they accordingly tested 

 their faith by their good works and killed every web-foot 

 with their oars. The next morning, when doubtless one 

 of the party was debating on the comparative utility of 

 gun and oar as a ' 'persuader" of ducks, he found that his 

 call of "peely, peely," had not its usual effect, for no 

 ducks responded; they laid dead in his own house. 



N, D. Elting. 



Sheathing Paper for Camping. 



Little Falls, N. Y.— "Up North" last week I ran 

 across a new idea in the camping line. One of my custo- 

 mers takes in a roll of heavy sheathing paper, puts up a 

 frame and covers with paper. The idea to me seems 

 good and I would hke, through the Forest and Stream, 

 some of the brethren's ideas and plans for frames for^this, 

 say a portable form, L. S. ' S. 



Cresson Springs on the Pennsylvania Railroad. 



The PennsyJvauia Eailroad announces that all through trains will 

 stop, until I'ui-ther notice, at Oresson. on the Summit of the Allegheny- 

 Mountains. This will afford passengers to and from the World's Fair 

 an opportunity to breali the journey and enjoy a few days at this 

 delightful resort.— ^<.( CI 



Visitors to our Exhibit in the Angling- Pavilion at 

 the World's Fair should not fail to examine the 

 stock of "Forest and Stream" books which will 

 be shown by the attendant. 



ANGLING NOTES. 



Sunapee Lake. 



Returning home after an absence of two weeks at Sun- 

 apee Lake, N. H., I veiy naturally looked over Forest 

 AND Stream to see what had occurred while I had been 

 away, and read Payson's letter in the issue of July 8. One 

 sentence struck me withpecuhar force, under the circum- 

 stances. It is this: "Lake Sunapee, the alleged home of 

 the black bass, and Newfound Lake, where trout are said 

 to abound, are extending less attraction to our fishermen 

 at this tune than they have in years gone by." The par- 

 ticular expression that caught me is that Sunapee is the 

 "alleged home" of the black bass. Possibly I do not un- 

 derstand what constitutes really the home of this fish, but 

 my experience has taught me that this is what Sunapee 

 Lake actually is. It is not hke waters that I have fished 

 in Canada, where one could catch 2001bs. of black bass per 

 day and salt them down by the barrel if so incHned; nor 

 hke Glen Lake, in New York, where I have caught small- 

 mouth black bass of Sjlbs. in weight; nor hke Lake Cham- 

 plain, where I have caught 501bs. , on occasion, before 

 breakfast; nor like some other waters that I might men- 

 tion where I have made large scores of bass, but it is a 

 place where one can go out and by casting a fly take a 

 dozen or two bass that will afford all the sport that a 

 reasonable man should desire. I took with a fly, by cast- 

 ing, eighteen bass one day; they were not large, 2Ubs. 

 being the largest, but they were more than could berised, 

 so I put back all that could not be used at once. A man who 

 fished nearly all one day in one place with live bait, said 

 he caught forty bass. Why he did so I do not know, for he 

 could not use them. I might have equalled this nvuuber, 

 but I had no use for the fish and I never waste fish 

 simply to make a score. I have been about the country 

 quite a bit seeking fish, but I do not know of a pond or 

 lake, large or small, that affords prettier fly-fishing for 

 black bass than Sunapee Lake. I have never made a 

 business of fishing for black bass at Sunapee for the reason 

 given, but I have seen enough bass on the shores and 

 shoals to know that they are very plentiful in the lake, 

 and very much at home. Quoting from the journal of 

 my first visit to Simapee in 1890: "Monday and Tuesday 

 while I was catching trout and hoping to catch a salmon, 

 Mr. Cleveland devoted himself to black bass fishing. One 

 could scarcely go amiss of good fishing grounds for bass 

 of the small-mouth species, the only kind that Simapee 

 contains. Monday he brought to the hotel fourteen bass 

 and returned far more than that number to the water. 

 Tuesday he brought in twenty-three, and again returned 

 many to the water to grow. The bass were not large, the 

 largest being 2|lbs.; but every rocky point and every 

 shoal furnished its quota of bass." This year I found 

 young bass in large numbers along the shores, showing 

 that they are breeding rapidly. Some of the bass that I 

 caught the last of June had not spawned, but on July 1 I 

 saw a brood of young bass just hatched. There has been 

 one trouble with the bass fishing in Sunapee which is now 

 corrected. The bass went down the outlet stream and 

 escaped forever from the lake. A screen is now in 

 position at the outlet which keep the bass in the lake, and 

 the bass fishing must improve, although it is good enough 

 now for splendid sport, and any fair fisherman can catch 

 more than he can use. 



IVIoths. 



Every man who possesses a fly-book containing flies 

 knows that moths are fatal to the well-being of the flies, 

 and one must be constantly on guard to prevent the rav- 

 ages of these pests. The moths, like Bill Arp's pills, work 

 night and day, and if one has three or four fly-books and 

 does not wish to put them in a bank vault behind a time 

 lock, or in some other similar place, where they cannot 

 be easily got at, they require as much cai'e as so many 

 babies in their second year. 



I had a big chest made to hold my rods, with trays flush 

 with the top of the chest for reels, fly-hooks, landing-nets 

 and the thousand and one things that go to make up an 

 angler's outfit. In one of the trays was a wooden box, 

 the cover held down by a brass hook, and in it I kept a 

 lot of spoon hooks. I opened the spoon box one day and 

 fotmd that moths had eaten the feathers of one of the 

 spoons, and had left the skin of a moth larvae on the 

 feather. One feather only was eaten and nothing left of 

 the moth but the skin of the case. Both the cover of the 

 chest and the cover of the spoon box were fitted so closely 

 that I did not think it possible for a moth miller to get 

 even into the chest. I have held that instance up for 

 several years as evidence of what moths can do when 

 they try. I hold it up no longer. One evening this sum- 

 mer Mr. F. F. Gunn, of the faculty of Indiana University 

 when Prof. Jordan was president, came in to see me. 

 Mr. Gunn said he was going out bu-d hunting, not to kiU 

 them but to study them, and that hLs field glasses were 

 not at hand. I offered him mine and went to a closet 

 where tliey M-^ere hanging on a hook by the strap and got 

 them. I remarked that I had not used them for a long 

 time, but presumed they were in order, and at the same 

 time took the glasses from the case, the cover being held 

 down by a strap and buckle. I turned the glasses in my 

 hand and noticed something which in the uncertain hght 

 appeared to be on one of the object glasses, but it was in- 

 side the lense. Unscrewing the object glass a dead moth 

 miller was found inside the tube on the glass. Mr. Gunn 

 and his wife and my wife were watching me as I un- 

 screwed the glass and saw the dead miller as I have de- 

 scribed. If any one wiU teU me how that miller got in- 

 side the tube of a pah- of field glasses I will be greatly 

 obhged. 



Two Kings at IVIechanicville. 

 The Troy Times of July 22 stated briefly that on the 

 morning of that day a bald eagle was seen to fly down to 

 the surface of the water at the salmon pool in Mechanic- 

 viUe, and then moujit slowly as if woimded, and fly to the 

 shore, where it was found that the eagle had taken a 

 saknon from the pool. Mr. T. L. Pratt, of MechanicviUe, 

 vouches to me for the truth of the story, and gives the 



details as follows: "It was not quite as stated in the paper. 

 Tlie eagle seized the salmon at the surface, and twice the 

 fish carried the bird under water, the second time the 

 eagle lost the salmon, but in a moment captured it again. 

 The bird did not rise from the water, but kept ttp a rapid 

 motion with its wings, and fairly towed the fish ashore, 

 and dragged it up about 80ft. on the beach of the first 

 island below the bridge." The salmon weighed about Bibs, 

 and was taken away from the bird by EockweU JeweU. 

 The question in my mind is, was it an eagle? Two kings 

 and three pork-bait fishermen would be hard to beat. 



Since my last letter the following salmon have been 

 killed at MechanicviUe; 



July 22, E. a. Starlss, Mechanicville 1, UUlbs. 



•July 22, D. Bnrk, Mechanicville 1, 14 lbs. 



July 23, J. E. Bunce, Mechanicville 1, ll^lbs. 



The rains of the past few days have raised the water in 

 the Hudson to a pitch which has enabled the salmon to 

 proceed up stream, which they did, passing through the 

 fishway and leaving the pork pool deserted. Large num- 

 bers of salmon were seen at the mouth of the Hoosick 

 River, at Mechanicville, leaping from the water. When 

 the flood came down and the salmon started up the river 

 the wheel pit at the pulp mill just below the fishway was 

 literally filled with rushing, struggling salmon. If the 

 fishway at Thomson's miUs is in order, as I presume it 

 is by this time, the salmon can now go up as far as Fort 

 Edward, where there is a dam that they cannot pass. 

 There are several branch streams of last resort that the 

 fish wfll probably go into and spawn. Unless all signs 

 fail there will be a big run of salmon next year, the result 

 of planting 450,000 fry and 12,000 fingerlings in 1890. 



A friend, a veteran salmon angler, who has killed 

 salmon with the fly in Scotland, Canada and the United 

 States, after reading the account of catching salmon with 

 the pork bait, wrote me: "Had Dr. Johnson been ahve 

 to-day he probably would have amended his famous say- 

 ing to read, 'Angling is a line with a piece of hog at one 

 end and a whole hog at the other.' It is a grand thing 

 to give the people free salmon fishing, at the same time 

 it is a pity that the king of all game fishes should be 

 made to suft'er such an ignominious death." 



A^N. Cheney. 



SALMON ANGLING AT MECHANICVILLE. 



The time has arrived when, to the satisfaction of every 

 one, it has been proven that salmon can be taken in the 

 Hudson on a fly. During the last week many salmon 

 have been taken at this place, and though the catch has 

 fallen off at present, the excitement still keeps up. The 

 register of the Hotel Tallmadge, kept by J. H. CampbeU, 

 formerly chief detective of the city of Troy, shows that 

 many fishermen arrive daily. As this is the first season 

 that salmon have been taken with the rod, the fishermen 

 are not yet acquainted with many pools where they may 

 be taken. The best ones discovered so far are at the 

 mouth of the creek that flows from Round Lake and dis- 

 charges into the Hudson in the middle of this village, and 

 another one directly in the rear of Hotel Tallmadge at 

 lowest part of village. In the river bank in the rear of 

 the hotel are many cold springs which overflow into the 

 river, and in the cold water within twenty feet of the 

 shore are salmon which no man can number. The river 

 banks are lined morning and night with anxious fisher- 

 men with every description of tackle yet discovered. 

 Others secure boats and cast their flies from them with 

 more or less success. Among the lucky ones are the fol- 

 lowing. The list is not complete, but as far as given is 

 correct. Louis Boucher has taken the greatest number, 

 also the largest one, which was taken last Tuesday and . 

 weighed 17^1bs. The same day T. H. Dutcher, of Troy, 

 took one of lOlbs on a Jock-Scott; Dr. Richard Bloss, of 

 Tro)', one, 10+lbs ; Thos. Pratt, of Mechanicville, one, 

 121bs. ; C. O. Barnes, of Mechanicville, one, 81bs. ; Louis 

 Boucher, of Mechanicville, one, 81bs, 



After 8 o'clock in the evening one was hooked by Fred 

 Shears and was not landed till after 9 o'clock, which was 

 found to weigh IS^lbs. On Wednesday John Burke and 

 Oscar Barnes each took one weighing 8^ and 9ilbs. On 

 Friday morning a large salmon was hooked by E, A. 

 Starks of this village, and after playing it for two hours 

 broke loose and was lost. On Saturday Mr. Starks lost 

 another, and hooked and landed another weighing lOlba. 

 Mr. Starks is an experienced fly -fisherman. On Friday 

 Wni. Vandenbrog took one of about lOlbs., also Geo. 

 Satterly one of Qllhs. It is expected that the fishing will 

 be better after a smart shower. Dr. Bloss and family are 

 registered at Hotel Tallmadge, to stay until the season 

 closes. State Game Protector Barber takes a hand in fly- 

 casting from time to time, and sees that the law is 

 observed. While many of these fishermen cast the fly, 

 and will take their fish in no other way, it is not true of 

 all wl3o have taken salmon. The daily papers all over 

 the State have been f tdl of accounts of salmon being taken 

 on pork. The pork dodge is simply bosh and is worked 

 in this manner: On the end of the line is a gang of three 

 large hooks like those used on a spoon, and above them 

 on the same fine are strung from three to five hooks with 

 or without flies, and on one or more are placed a small 

 piece of salt pork. The salmon are so plentiful and so 

 near to the riv-er bank, that these persons fish from the 

 banks, and by casting ont and jerking the hooks in the 

 water many salmon have been hooked, and in all parts of 

 body, one being hooked in the tafl. 



The story has gone abroad that salmon are taken on 

 pork, but I find that the hook which has the pork does 

 not hook the fish. Sportsmen disdain this method and 

 have taken several honestly on flies, either on the Jock- 

 Scott or silver-doctor. Some who claim to be sportsmen, 

 after casting the fly for a while without success, have 

 worked the pork racket with the rest, and not being suc- 

 cessful in that have bought them at from S5 to $8 each, 

 and the next day their names would appear in some daily 

 paper with a full account of the capture. It would hardly 

 be fair to give their names to the public, but there are fish, 

 hogs at Mechanicville who should be served up for salmon 

 bait. The true sportsmen are also known and respected 

 and will always be welcomed to our village. If these 

 practices above mentioned are continued by some of those 

 who claim kinship with old Izaak, but who are a reproach 

 to his name, they wQl be exposed in a manner which will 

 pluck their pinions and cause them to "take a tumble." 



MECHJjncvrLLB, N. Y. JOCK-SCOTT. 



Anglers' Association of the St. Lawrence. 



The tenth annual meeting of the Anglers' Association 

 of the St. Lawrence River was held at the Walton House, 

 Clayton, N, Y,, last Wednesday. 



