232 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



LSept. 33, 1898. 



'Forest and Stream" at the Fair. 



Distinguished. 

 Chicago, Sept. 9. — ^The Forest and Stream corner is 

 getting to be a distinguished spot. It has as many visit- 

 ors, and far heartier visitors, than any place of its size at 

 the Fair. Being a bit distingue itself, it has distinguished 

 visitors. One day last week it had two governors and a 

 secretary of state, an Italian count and a Russian lieu- 

 tenant, all close together, and all happy, as nearly as 

 could be learned. 



Sport vs. Politics. 



Gov. Wm. A. MacCoiMe, of West Virginia, was pleased 

 to find the breezy spot beneath the big birch sign, and 

 declared himself ready to forsake all for the woods and 

 streams. "There is more in sport than there is in politics," 

 said he, ' 'and I am a better fisherman than I am politician. " 

 If he will remember that his sins may be forgiven. 



Something: of a Liar. 



Gov. Geo. W. Peck, of Wisconsin, came in with his 

 wife and his "Bad Boy." Another repentant politician. 

 Gov. Peck has just joined the Lower Club on Horicon 

 Marsh, and has for a long time been a member of Black 

 Hawk Club, of Koakenong Lake, besides doing much by 

 way of fishing and upland shooting. In consideration of 

 these facts, and of the further fact that he was once., and 

 therefore always, a newspaper man, his past record may 

 be left untouched. 



"I hear you have got a champion liar, or a liar's medal, 

 or something of the sort concealed around in here some- 

 where," said Gov. Peck. "Where's that Kekoskee manV 

 Now, I tell you what I'll do. I'm something of a liar 

 myself, and just as soon as I get through holding recep- 

 tions over in the Wisconsin Building I am going to chal- 

 lenge for that medal. Chicago can't have the World's 

 Fair and that medal too. We will jusc have a little lying 

 match, and see who's the best man." 



If Gov. Peck thinks Forest and Stream isn't dead 

 game, he's mistaken. No bluffs go here. He can get ac- 

 commodated. But the terms of the contest must be 

 altered. The Kekoskee fish story was not a fish lie, but a 

 plain fish truth. As transmitter of that truthful narrative 

 I hereby accept Gov. Peck's challenge, and may Provi- 

 dence protect the right. But he must surpass that truth- 

 ful, story not by any effort of the imagination, but by a 

 plain recountal of actual facts, all of which must be sup- 

 ported by unquestionable evidence. It's dollars to tobacco 

 tags on Kekoskee. 



A Friend of "Forest and Stream." 



Secretary of State A. A. Lesueur, of Jefferson City, iVIo., 

 left his card with the inscription, "A friend of Forest 

 AND Stream." Neither could have a better friend. That 

 both are popular and deservedly so, is susceptible of ejisy 

 proof. Forest and Stream is secretary of the world of 

 gentlemanly sport. 



Came from Europe. 



Count di Frasimetto, 3 Via Palestro, Florence, Italy, 

 wanted to get a better idea of American sport and carried 

 away a copy of the g. p. o. e. with a pleased expression 

 on his countenance. Count di Frasimetto was looking at 

 the pictures before he got out of the colonnade. 



Lieutenant K. L. Chirinskine, Serdobsk, Russia, of the 

 Czar's army, also left his address, and will also duly 

 have the opportunity of seeing what a .good paper tlie 

 greatest paper on earth is. 



end of the Fair, Capt. DuBray going again on the road. 

 Rlr. Tucker wiU meet thousands of friends here. 



Mr. John W. JVIilam, Frankfort, Ky., maker of tlie 

 Frankfort reel, dropped into a chair at Forest and 

 Stream's space, and said with a sigh of relief, "This is the 

 most restful spot I have struck in the Fair." 



Mr. Jos. W. Irwin, proprietor of the Hotel Richelieu, 

 Little Rock, Ark. (in a mighty good sporting country, too), 

 drifted in, and he and Mr. Carney, of Portland, and the 

 writer drifted out together. 



"Harry Hunter," of Highland Park, 111., an occasional 

 correspondent of earlier days, left word that be is with 

 us. 



Mr. Ivers W. Adams, of the American Net and Twine 

 Co., Boston, added to the documentary evidence that 

 Forest and Stream is a good thing. 



Mr. C. C. Jones, of Sandwich, 111., called and said 

 ' 'Forest and Stream is surely the leading paper in the 

 West. The boys all talk about it more than all the others," 

 So everywhere. If there is any man who thinks there is 

 a better sporting paper pubhshed than Forest and Stream, 

 I would like to get his address. He will have bo change 

 his mind. 



Mr. J. B. Battelle, editor of the Business World, Toledo, 

 O. , has came and has went, and I have not saw him. He 

 daresen't to do it again. 



Mr. W. Taylor Birch, of Washington, D. C, left his 

 card, but was not caught m flagrante. 



Mr. Harry A. Laughran, of the Ormsby Hill Gun Club, 

 Pittsburgh,' Pa., shot out before discovery, but we have his 

 entry ticket. 



Mr. St. Marc Merle Mundy, of Louisville, Ky.. stops for 

 a time on his way home from the St. CJair Flats. The 

 last time I saw Mr. Mundy he had sprained his leg in tlie 

 Mississippi mud at New Albany field trials. 



Mr. Wilford Woodruff, of Salt Lake City, Utah, is 87 

 years old, but he is at the Fair and enjoying it. "Well!" 

 said he, thankfully, the first thing as he caine in and sat 

 down. "Well! I have been looking for Forest and 

 Stream." Forest and Stream is looking for more men 

 like Mr. Woodruft', and can't find too many of them. May 

 they all live long and prosper. 



If you look on the Forest and Stream register you will 

 see the name of Thomas D, Noyes, Portsmouth, N. H. 

 Mr. Noyes is not here, but at home, and he has not been 

 here. But he sent a young lady, his niece, and told her 

 to go to the Forest and Streajsi place and register his 

 name for him, and to explain that though he could not 

 come liimself , he wanted his name to be among those of 

 the other friends of the paper. 



Friends! Was ever any paper that had such friends 

 and so many of them? It is the most beautiful and some- 

 times almost the most touching tiling that ever was in the 

 newspaper business. Forest ^vnd Stream succeeds because 

 it is founded on a right theory of the principles of human 

 bodies, and hearts and minds, and because it never is un- 

 worthy of its friends. Never before this season did it 

 ever have the opportunity for personal contacc with so 

 many of its friends, and in so short a time. Too many of 

 them it cannot meet, and of more of them it will tell 

 later. E. Hough. 



909 SECURiTr Building, Cliicago. 



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 



Treated Just as Well. 

 It must not be supposed that these names are offered 

 in any spirit of pride at all, or any other spirit but that 

 of matter of course. The fact that a man has become a 

 governor does not bar him from Forest and Stream, nor 

 is a political career laid up against any one. AU these 

 will be treated just as well as anybody else, A jook can 

 get as good a run for his money at the sign of the Forest 

 and Stream as anybody dse, and the man down on his 

 luck can come in and sit down till he learns how to quit 

 hating himself. 



A Friend of Nessmuk. 



Mr. J. W. Mather, of Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, signs 

 himself "A friend of Nessmuk." Mr. Mather was much 

 with that wildwoods genius, and saw the MS. of his 

 "Woodcraft" before it was published. It was with affec- 

 tion that Mr. Mather, after his published writings, looked 

 Ott the tiny Sairey Gamp, Nessmuk'^s best in memoriam. 



Redheaded. 



Years ago, when we were looking f orwaird to our last 

 limiversity commencement day as the end of all things, 

 when he was in the baseball nine and I was on the foot- 

 ball team, I used to have a redheaded, small and wicked 

 classmate by the name of Arthur Goshorn, who was 

 always at the rear in Latin, and at the front in devil- 

 ment. The fij-st thing Arthur Goshorn did after leaving 

 Qolleg-^ was to go as cook to an outfit out in IMontana, and 

 I recall the letters he wrote of the sport out there, though 

 I never have seen him since. And now comes one and 

 leaves at the Forest and Stream desk this card: "The 

 Winterset News, Winteraet, Iowa; A. E. Goshorn, Prop." 

 A,rthur Goshorn could not get over his redheadedness or 

 his big-heartedness if he lived a thousand year?. He is 

 fast color and good goods, and at this moment I cannot 

 think of any one in the world I would rather have seen. 

 A newspaper man, too. Sweet are the uses of this blessed 

 Forest and Stream corner. 



Good Company. 



lit is a goodly company that ti-oops in here on almost 

 any day, and any one of it is in good company. Especially 

 delightful is the eagerness with which the friends of 

 Forest and Stream hail this visible and tangible sign of 

 its presence in the midst of thingSv The friendship of the 

 readers of a sportsman's paper is something unique in 

 jpurnalism. No other paper has such friends as Forest 

 AND Stream has, such earnest, staunch and true ones, and 

 of this Forest and Streajt would be most unworthy were 

 it anything less than honestly and sincerely proud. All 

 of these friends one cannot see or speak of, but let us see 

 about a few more out of the bunch of cards in hand. 



Mr. S. A. Tucker, of the Parker gim, is now in Chicao'o 

 and will remain in charge of the Parker exhibit till the 



be shown by the attendant. 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 



[From a Staff Correspondent] 

 About Fishing 

 Chicago, 111., Sept. 8. — Our fishing season is about over, 

 not because the fish do not bite, for they are just begin- 

 ning to bite their best, but because the fall does not seem 

 to most men the natural time to fish. Especially to those 

 anglers who love a gun as well as a rod is the faU a time 

 to put away the latter. Yet from now on the lake 

 country of the pine woods, the rivers of Indiana, the 

 lower lakes of Wisconsm, such as Geneva and the Mad- 

 ison lakes, will improve and reach their best in warm 

 October, when the biggest bass of the year are usually 

 taken. 



There is of late a tendency among our anglers to depre- 

 cate extremely large catches of fish, and to lean toward 

 the more skillful and more delicate ways of taking them. 

 The art of the fly-rod grows apace. The first step in the 

 love of this poetic tool is to kill out the desire to catch 

 a great lot of fish. This is to be evidenced when the 

 angler has the courage to leave his bait-rod at home, and 

 to depend solely on his fly-rod and flies. That is a great 

 step, and few there be of the fishers who take it. They 

 take both rods, and if they do not gt-t some fish early in 

 the day on the fly, they lose heart and go after a frog; 

 whereas, if only they ^Vould stick patiently to the fly all 

 day, they would catch at least some bass, and go home 

 far happier. 



It is popularly supposed that there are few bass waters 

 about Chicago where a good catch can be made with the 

 fly. Nothing is more of a mistake. The bass will take 

 the fly on almost any, probably on all, of the waters in 

 common mention hereabout, the Fox, the Kankakee, the 

 Tippecanoe, the White, even the nearby Des Plaines, and 

 even also the lower Wisconsin lakes, which afford most of 

 our big-mouth fishing. Fly-fishing for bass, however, is 

 pleasantest when one can wade, and wading water is not 

 over-abundant. 



A Bit of Wading Water. 



Some time ago I discusted, and have perhaps mentioned, 

 a bit of wadmg water which is worth the while of thefl}^- 

 fisher of Chicago. Not long ago, feeling that I wanted a 

 day out of town, I determined to have a run out to this 

 spot, and not caring much whether I caught any fish or 

 not, I took along no tackle except my lightest fly-rod and 

 a book of flies. 



To reach this spot, you get on the Wisconsin Central Rail- 

 way, at the Grand Central Station, and go north eighty- 

 six miles, passing through a quiet and restful stretch of 

 farming country. You get off at Mukwouago, and heed- 

 ing not the charming of any hack driver who would spirit 

 you away to other lands, you saxmter down the village 



street to the big white mill you saw from the car window 

 as you came in. Above you is the weediest, nastiest look-l 

 ing (and really fishiest) miU pond you ever saw. Below, 

 you, and below the mill dam which makes this pond, is ai 

 broad, shallow creek, the so-called Mukwonago River. 

 This stream is also fuU of long ribbons of weeds. Itsj 

 shores are the banks of rushes and flags wliich cover ai 

 wide marsh. The stream looks uninviting, boggy, miry,; 

 treacherous. Never mind about that. Pull on your 

 waders (hip boots are just a bit too short) and step in.| 

 You will find the bottom to be of hard sand and gravel,- 

 quite belying the marshy look of the shores. You wili( 

 find also, before you go far, that the gravel, and the craw- 

 fish, and the minnows were not there for nothing. Tlie' 

 creek is fairly alive with small-mouth black bass, which! 

 average veiy large. They will not only take the fly, but 

 do it gladly and cheerfully. 



My friends had always told me that it would be impos- 

 sible to kill a bass in that weedy water on a light rod, 

 arguing that one must lift them out of the weeds. !■ 

 wanted to know, you know, whether or not a fellovv 

 reaUy could kill a good big one there on a 4oz. rod. To, 

 cut it short, I could and did, and so can anybody who 

 knows how to wade and use a fly-rod. I caught three 

 bass before I got below the last wire fence, and before I 

 stopped, less than a mile fi-om the mill, I had seven nice 

 ones, every one a fighter. At first I got nothing over a 

 pound, then I took a 2-pounder. Though I knew there 

 were not so many in the creek as on my last trip there, in 

 early July, I still wanted that big one for the little rod. 



It Didn't Get Away. 



The wind was blowing a gale, and I could hardly cast,, 

 but I picked out an open stretch of water near the bank,! 

 and let my fly blow over it, Bifl"! he came, and was over 

 on the other side of the creek in the same breath. I kne>vl 

 1 had my big one then. To my surprise, he did not fouH 

 my line in the weeds (I used only one fly) but found some' 

 way of his own of cutting around near the surface with- 

 out getting tangled up. He was swift as a trout, and 

 went everywhere at once. Of course the click reel was 

 useless, and I worked the slack with my left liand as fast; 

 as I could. Even this would not do, and 1 had to use my 

 legs as well. Following him when he ran away, running 

 away when he broke for me, I kept him on, though he 

 went out five times elegantly. At last he got mad or 

 scared, and went to the bottom. As the weeds of com-se 

 all pointed down stream, I took a wide circle around him,i 

 got below, and hauled him out with the grain of the 

 stream. This puzzled him a lot, and after we had done 

 that a few times he gave it up. This fish weighed Slbs. 

 4oz. , and it took eleven minutes to land him, as well as i 

 could figure it. I have taken a good many bass this 

 season, but remember that fight more clearly than any of 

 them. 



I had been guying Mr. Chas. F. Johnson about the 

 gaudy make-up of his pet fly, the Johnson Fancy, and 

 often asked him if he ever did really catch any bass on it, 

 though he assured me it was really a .good bass fly. 

 I had just one of these flies m my book, and 1 used 

 it. One could ask nothing better, though I tried no 

 other, but quit soon after I lost my fly on another heavy 

 strike, which I half believe was a pickerel. I took in ai« 

 hour or so 7 bass on the fly, and that satisfied me, so I qnit 

 and went home, and have since apologized to Mr. Johnson. 



In an earlier article I believe I have mentioned what 

 fine fly-fishing we had on Phantom Lake, just about a; 

 mile from this same mill. It is now too late for the fly iiii 

 this lake, but one could take bass on the fly in the creek 

 even yet, though the vegetation is pi'etty rank at this 

 time, and the creek bottom softer with the sinking weeds: 

 than it is in early summer. We have always found smalln 

 mouths here. So have the natives, who s'pear and net 

 here unhindered. All I ask in retm'n for publishing my 

 discovery is that no one will ^o in there with a bait- rod.' 

 I want a promise that no one shall use this wading wateiJ 

 for anything but straight fly-fishing. Then we can all 

 have fim there. 



A Well Merited Failure. 



The dam on this little Mukwanago River is not 10ft. 

 high, and a fisliway there would not cost $150, A fishJ 

 way there would let the small-mouths up into the whole, 

 chain of waters above, where not one is now to be found.i 

 Is there any fishway? Oh, no; but the spearing and net-; 

 ting goes on all the time. So does the ice-fishmg in the 

 winter time. No waters are richer than these, and none 

 is more abused. 



Meantime, a local company put up a hotel on Phantom 

 Lake, just out of the village, expending in all over .po,- 

 000 on it. Nearly all the summer it has stood idle and de- 

 serted, eating money for its owners. It is intended to 

 catch the trade of the city anglers and city summer peo- 

 ple. It is a failure, and a veritable failure. No hotel 

 ought to succeed which deliberately robs its guests in 

 their absence, and which makes false pretenses. All win- 

 ter long the village proprietors of this hotel see their 

 future guests robbed by the ice-fishermen, who kill down 

 the bass as fast as they can breed. No fishway on the 

 creek, no restraint on the ice-fishers and a beastly little 

 ten cent steamer to stir uf) the sand over the spawn on the 

 tiny lake, and so kill the last chance the fish have to Uve. 

 That's a pretty prospect for a $80,000 investment, isn't it: 

 It has failed, and it ought to fail, of any financial success. 



And yet every one of the above causes of failure could 

 be removed in one season, and for a cost of less than $200. 

 The ice-fishing could be stopped, the fishway could be put 

 in and the useless steamer removed, and in a couple of 

 years they would have one of the most beautiftil and de- 

 sirable spots about Chicago for the sportsmen or the sum- 

 mer folk. Will these investors have the wisdom to pro- 

 tect their investment? Ji they do not, they wiU only be 

 adding to the old, old story. But I submit to them that 

 they are behind the necessities of these days. 



Sept. 9.— Mr. E. A. Kimball, a gun and tackle dealer of 

 Tacoma, Wash., writes me as foUows: 



"At the beginning of the season I offered a fine bamboo 

 rod to the person catching the largest trout, and have re- 

 ceived a number of fine specimens, but to-day we received 

 the boss, a 'buU trout' caught by E. V. MuUer, of Hoods- 

 port, Wash., in Lake Cushman. It weighed S.Jlbs., andi 

 measm-ed 29iin. long. It was taken on a No. 1 brown- 

 hackle. Will have it mounted. Yours m F. and S." 



This may be a good-sized fish for bait, but it isn't in it 

 with the Forest and Stream's World's Fair trout lent 

 by Mr. La Rue, w^hich is 33in. long and weighs 13 Jibs. 

 909 Security BunaiiNO, Chicago, lU. E. HODGH, 



