Jan. 27, 1894.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



78 



June and September one can hadly expect to catch as 

 many. 



I do not wish to be understood as intending to compare 

 Sebeo Lake to Lake St. John. Sebec Lake is a very small 

 place and the fishing grounds are limited, but the anglers 

 are likewise few, and the expense of the trip small, a con- 

 sideration which unfortunately has some weight with 

 many an honest angler. F. S. Bunker. 



ANGLING NOTES. 



Growth of Planted Land-locked Salmon. 



MY note about planting Lake George, N. Y. with land- 

 locked salmon, in Forest and Stream, Dec. 30 last, has 

 been the cause of a number of queries that have come to 

 me since that issue of this journal. Chiefly I have been 

 asked how old and how big "finger lings" were; how soon 

 after the salmon were planted in Lake George would they 

 be large enough to catch; why landlocked salmon were 

 called ouananiche, and what the word meant; and some 

 other questions that no man on earth can answer unless 

 he can look into the future further than the human eye 

 can see, even with a heap of right smart guessing as an aid. 



The salmon that the U. S. Fish Commissioner called 

 "fingerlings" in the extract quoted from his. letter, will be 

 from ten to thirteen months old depending upon the time 

 that they will be planted and also upon whether their age 

 is reckoned from the time the eggs are taken or from the 

 time they axe hatched. The eggs were taken last autumn 

 and are now being hatched at the salmon breeding stations 

 of the TJ. S. Fish Commission in Maine. When hatched 

 the fry will be reared at the station, until sometime next 

 summer or early fall when they will be brought to Lake 

 George in one of the fish cars belonging to the Commis- 

 sion, and planted in trout streams "tributary to the lake. 

 In size they may be from four to over six inches in length, 

 depending upon the food they may get and the time they 

 are planted. A lot of fingerlings of the same age will not 

 be of the same size, for some grow fatter than others. I 

 planted one lot of fourteen-months-old salar that had 

 been hatched in the same troughs and reared in the same 

 ponds and they ranged in length from about 3Mn. to T£in. 

 as the extremes. 



As to the time that salmon, planted this year in Lake 

 George, will be large enough to catch, I prefer to state 

 what had been done in other waters under somewhat 

 similar conditions in the way of growing them, instead 

 of speculating on my own account as to the future of 

 salmon not yet planted. 



I have mentioned Sunapee Lake, N. H., as water in 

 which landlocked salmon have become established from 

 plantings of fry. A few miles from Sunapee on a differ- 

 ent watershed in the town of New London, is situated 

 Pleasant Lake, a body of water about two miles long, 

 spring fed and from 80 to 100ft. deep. Two years ago 

 last spring trout and salmon fry from the Sunapee Hatch- 

 ery were planted in Pleasant Lake, and last fall the men 

 from the hatchery were sent to Pleasant Lake to see how 

 the fish were growing. They tflok spawn from brook 

 trout Slbs. in weight and found landlocked salmon up to 

 61bs. in weight. Please remember that this growth was 

 accomplished in two and a half years time from the date 

 that the fry were planted. 



Lake Pleasant. 



Dr. Quackenbos wrote me very recently about this lake, 

 and I must quote from the letter: 



"Lake Pleasant is 805ft. above the sea, very deep, clear 

 and cold, so phenomenally adapted to the ouananiche. 

 Large brook trout were native to its cold solitudes, and a 

 knowing few still capture these incarnations of symmetry 

 and celestial dye, but wisely keep their own counsel. 

 Lake Pleasant has the requisite depth of 100ft. , the neces- 

 sary extent of territory, the appropriate cold temperature, 

 inflowing streams abounding in vegetable and animal 

 organisms, and what is most essential, an interested and 

 vigilant body of land owners, who have awakened to the 

 fact that the success of their efforts to stock this charming 

 lake will convert their chateaux into profitable boarding 

 houses and make the picturesque hamlet, heavened among 

 the pines at its foot, the seat of select hotels. 



"Scytheville may have lost her prestige as a manufac- 

 turing village, but a grander future awaits her if Pleas- 

 ant Lake, which is the pride of her people, shall become 

 the home of the landlocked salmon, superlatively the 

 finest game fish in the world. 



"So I predicted two years ago, and I referred to Suna- 

 pee as a precedent. The stocking with black bass brought 

 a large but job-lot contingent to its shores who cared for 

 little else than meat. There was one among them, and 

 you know who he was, who raised the Isis veil and be- 

 held the nature goddess in all the details of her beauty 

 and infinity of her powers, who looked beyond the bass 

 at the bare-bosomed Sunapee herself, who felt her mys- 

 terious personality and who preached her charms to friends 

 until he brought hundreds to her shrine. 



Best Fishes Draw Best Society. 



"I contend that not until the fishes were refined to the 

 extreme — until ouananiche and saibling were introduced 

 — did the most refined element of society seek the 'Shores 

 of Rock.' I contend that they only were capable of loving 

 aright. The ouananiche beckoned them , they came, they 

 felt that unearthly mental calm and heavenly content, 

 they loved and the cultured alone can love — at first sight 

 and forever. 



"But you will sicken of poetry, you want facts. Yet 

 Aristotle says poetry is truer than history, and so it is — 

 it is all soul fact, soul utterance of eternal truth. 



"In Lake Pleasant the ouananiche breakfasts, lunches 

 and dines on smelts, and takes smelts between drinks. 

 In consequence he grows rapidly; no other fish grows so 

 fast with food. We know to 5 and 61bs. in two years 

 and a half from the egg. Twenty such were viewed by 

 Cheney and Sargent as they crawled through the under- 

 brush to a 'hole' in one of the inflowing streams. 



"Ouananiche of such size in companies of twenty after 

 two and one-half years, and ready to reproduce their 

 species. It is the triumph of fishculture, the supernal 

 and dizzy summit of the art's effort. Where can it be 

 equalled? You can equal it in Lake George. In three 

 years you can have the millionaire and the foreign noble- 

 man bidding for your farms at fabulous prices. The love- 

 liest lake in this Western land 'stiff' with the garnest of 

 fishes. But Col. McDonald must be thorough, as no doubt 

 he will be. Close every inflowing brook that is planted, 



and stock thoroughly along its whole length. Keep stock- 

 ing for five years, carefully protect in breeding season 

 and you have done it! We have salmon at Sunapee that 

 weigh 20lbs., big fellows that go right through the nets at 

 spawning time like the charge of an angry rhinoceros, 

 ripping everything to pieces — fish that wreck tackle 

 mercilessly and plunge the coolest heads into buck fever 

 at 120 degrees in three minutes. They are the biggest 

 fighters for their size in water, and he who kills a 10- 

 pounder even, after the conflict cannot help feeling he 

 has not lived in vain. I have arranged with Fraine to 

 mount a 25-pounder I know must be in the lake, and I 

 have a strong presentiment he is coming to my hook, and 

 when he does there will be no buck fever." 



Such enthusiasm is contagious, and even as I write the 

 quotation I feel like mounting a rod, putting on snow- 

 shoes and going out into the fields to have a cast into the 

 snow banks for practice, to be in readiness for the June 

 fishing at Sunapee which I hope to enjoy. Lake Pleasant 

 is closed for two years more (I believe that is the correct 

 time), but when it is open to fishermen it promises to rival 

 the parent lake for landlocked salmon and brook trout. 



Ouananiohe. 

 Ouananiche, the name by which the land-locked sal- 

 mon is known in Canada, and which is growing in favor 

 in the United States, is an Indian word, and I am indebted 

 to Mr. E. T. D. Chambers of Quebec for the following ex- 

 planation of it. In the Montagnai's dialect ouanan means 

 salmon, and itihe is a diminutive; so that ouananiche 

 means "little salmon." I have an idea that English-speak- 

 ing people after hearing the Indians pronounce the word 

 spelled it phonetically, "wananishe," "winninish," "win- 

 innish" (for these spellings are all used), which expresses 

 the pronunciation near enough but does not describe the 

 fish except as it is compared with the sea-run specimens, 

 which grow to over 501bs., for the ouananiche grows to 

 over 251bs. in weight in fresh water, and cannot therefore 

 be considered a very little salmon. 



To Strike or Not to Strike. 

 From salmon planting to salmon fishing is but a step, 

 and to secure a salmon after it rises to the fly it must first 

 of all be securely hooked, and salmon fishermen do not 

 fully agree as to just how it is done. I really think they 

 do agree more nearly than they seem to when one 

 says he strikes and another says he does not, and 

 it is more a difference of opinion of what constitutes 

 a strike. I think that Mr. David Wilson, honorary 

 secretary of the London Fly-Fisher's Club, strikes 

 the happy medium in telling how he does it. He was 

 wading a salmon river and made a long cast toward a 

 rock in mid stream, the fly struck the rock and bounded 

 back into the pool where it was taken by a fish as follows: 

 "The salmon was hooked in Lhe roof of the mouth, well 

 toward the gullet, which would point to the conclusion 

 that it had seized the fly when the line was perfectly 

 slack and swallowed it well down. I did not 'strike' in 

 either case. In fact, I never do strike a salmon except 

 in very slow running water, but always make a practice 

 of winding a fish up short at once, and putting on suffi- 

 cient strain to make sure the hook has gone home." 



Grubs. 



From killing a salmon, to the lure that brings it to gaff, 

 is but another step, albeit a step backward. I have just 

 received from Mr. George Holland of Winchester, Hauts, 

 whom the Badminton Library says is one of the most 

 excellent professional fly tyers in the three kingdoms, 

 samples of "grubs" which he tells me are now being used 

 for salmon in Great Britain. They appear to be the best 

 possible lure for ouananiche, and unless all signs fail they 

 will prove very killing. They are hackles with the hackles 

 for most part tied in in three sections, although some are 

 tied palmer fashion. They are not unlike some Scotch 

 sea trout flies that Mr. Chambers agreed with me last 

 year were excellent ouananiche flies. The grubs shall 

 have a trial when the season opens, and I'll warrant they 

 will give a good account of themselves when the score is 

 rounded up. A. N. Cheney. 



BOSTON NOTES. 



The Boston pickerel fishermen have had one or two very 

 nice days of late, and they have improved them, but with- 

 out very heavy strings as the result. There is a complaint 

 that the ponds within twenty miles of Boston are badly 

 fished out. Friday last was a most beautiful winter day, 

 or rather it was more like a day in April, and many of the 

 pickerel fishermen were out. On some of the Plymouth 

 ponds there were more men and boys than there was room 

 for holes. The Reading ponds were covered with fisher- 

 men. In Andover the ponds were alive with fishermen. 

 On one pond there were twenty fishermen, each with from 

 25 to 100 traps. A friend of the Forest and Stream, who 

 could not go himself, was asked to loan his traps to an- 

 other intimate friend. He owns a beautiful outfit of about 

 100 traps, made to order. He much disliked to loan his 

 outfit; but it is hard to refuse a friend. The traps were 

 taken and used. Time came to take them up and 

 start for home. The water was cold and the lines 

 were beginning to freeze. The team was waiting be- 

 fore the lines were half of them out and nicely 

 wound. Haste seemed to be necessary, and the lines 

 were taken out as rapidly as possible and the traps all 

 gathered into a mass. Well, some of the traps were 

 crushed and broken; the lines were badly kinked and 

 snarled. The friend who borrowed but had not time to 

 return in good order told his friend when returning the 

 mass of kinked and broken tackle, to have it picked out 

 and put in repair and he would pay the bill. "It was ab- 

 solutely not possible to wait and take the lines out as they 

 should have been taken out," he said. Those lines have 

 been straightened out; the traps have been put in repair. 

 Has the friend paid the friend for the damage and trouble? 

 Oh, no! Between friends such a small matter could not 

 be thought of. But why will friends ask to borrow tackle 

 of a friend, when they are well aware that the tackle they 

 would borrow is the pet and pleasure of the owner, and 

 that next to wife and children or brothers and sisters, that 

 very tackle is the dearest thing to the friend's heart? 



The tarpon fishermen are getting ready and some of 

 them have already started for Florida, though but one or 

 two tarpon have yet been taken, according to the latest 

 accounts. Mr. Charles A. Dean is already in Florida 

 ready for a fight with the tarpon. Dr. Mixer, of Boston, 

 is getting ready for a tarpon trip and will be off some 



time this week. W. S. Hills, the blind fisherman, is get- 

 ting reahy for his winter fishing trip to Florida. He is 

 not yet decided as to just what point he will go, but it is 

 to be where there is the best fishing. His health demands 

 the trip, and yet, though totally blind, the fishing is the 

 important item. Mr. Henry C. Litchfield, of Dame, Stod- 

 dard & Kendall, fits out his tackle so that he can arrange 

 it by the sense of touch. Mr. Hills's man George Horton 

 will be with him, and his eyes, where eyes are absolutely 

 necessary, will have to answer for both. Mr. Hills is a 

 lover of the Forest and Stream. He has it read to him 

 with great pleasure. He remarked the other day that he 

 should very much like to see "Special." "Yes," he said, 

 "I would give a good deal to see bim. I would give 

 many thousand dollars to 'see' him!'' Wellj Mr. Hills 

 shall shake hands with him on the very first opportunity; 

 In the meantime, may some great tarpon shake his rod 

 till his hands are tired, but with a final victory that the 

 Forest and Stream shall hear about. 



Mr. Patrick Kelley of Cambridge, with his friend, Dr. 

 Golding starts for Florida this week. The Doctor is a 

 successful veterinary surgeon, and Mr. Kelley is a well 

 known builder of Catholic churches. He was a dear friend 

 of the late Father O'Brien, and their trouting trips have 

 been frequently mentioned in this paper. It is curious to 

 note that both Dr. Golding and Mr. Kelley will go to 

 Florida, each well in his own estimation, but for the 

 other's health. They will both take in the fishing. 



Mr. Walter L. Hill has lately returned from his winter 

 shoot at the camps of the Ragged Island Club, in Curit- 

 tuck Sound, Va. He goes there as the guest of Mr. Wood- 

 ward, former president of the club, if not in that office 

 now. The shooting was good, though not up to a year 

 ago in the ideas of Mr. Hill. The five shooters there to- 

 gether, including Mr. Kimball and Mr. Hart, New York 

 tobacco men, had a most enjoyable time, with beautiful 

 weather a good part of the time. They got canvasbacks 

 and all of the best ducks of the season. The birds were 

 rather shy, for the reason that night shooting is being 

 practiced up in the flats where the birds should be allowed 

 to spend the night in peace. Mr. Hill's affection for the 

 Ragged Island Club is growing stronger and stronger, and 

 he hopes to take Mr. Woodward, with some of the other 

 members, on to Moosehead Lake after trout this season. 

 One day the entertainers told Mr. Hill, when he started 

 out for the blinds in the morning, that he must get up as 

 good an appetite as possible, for the dinner that day was 

 to be a special one. When they came in, sure enough 

 there were canvasback ducks done to a turn, with terrapin 

 dug on the island, and all the delicacies of the season. 

 The dinner was fine and so were the terrapin. But Mr. 

 Hill could not forbear telling the story at table of a Yankee 

 who ate terrapin for the first time at a dinner in Wash- 

 ington some years since. "Yes, the dum sculpin are fine," 

 he remarked in an aside; "but I tell you honestly that I'd 

 rather have a dish of Boston baked beans!'' Special. 



PENNSYLVANIA ASSOCIATION. 



There was a large attendance at the annual meeting of 

 the Pennsylvania Fish Protective Association, held on 

 Saturday evening, Jan. 13, at the rooms, 1,020 Arch 

 street, Philadelphia. At the request of Mr. A. M. Spangler 

 his name was withdrawn as a candidate for the presi- 

 dency and the election resulted as follows: President, H. 

 O. Wilbur; Vice-Presidents, Edwin Haggert, Wm. H. 

 Burkhardt, Dr. Bush rod W. James; Corresponding Secre- 

 tary, J. Penrose Collins; Secretary, Marion G. Sellers; 

 Treasurer, Wm. S. Hergesheimer; Executive Committee, 

 Henry C. Ford, Howard A. Chase, Chas. H. Fitzgerald, 

 J. R. Sypher, Geo. T. Stokes. Henry A. Ingram, Col. John 

 Gay, Wm. P. Thompson and Cyrus S. Detre. 



The following report was made by the special commit- 

 tee delegated to attend the coast fishery conf erence in • 

 New York: 



To the President and Members of the Pennsylvania, Fish Protective 

 Association: 



Gentlemen— The special committee appointed at the last meeting 

 of the Association, to attend a conference called by a number of 

 prominent citizens of the State of New York, for the purpose of con- 

 sidering the subject of the constantly growing scarcity of edible fishes 

 along the Atlantic coast line, respectfully reports, that all of the 

 committee, whose names are appended to this paper were in atten- 

 dance, and nearly all of them participated actively in the proceed- 

 ings. 



Much to the surprise of the committee, the conference, which it was 

 generally understood was to be composed of men opposed to men- 

 haden and pound-net fishing, as practiced for years past and now, 

 had, instead, a majority of representatives of the destructive methods 

 of capturing coast fishes. Those menhadenites and pound-net advo- 

 cates came fully prepared with statistics, truthful or otherwise, and 

 which were made part and parcel of the proceedings. 



By previous understanding and having a majority, they, in a large 

 degree, controlled the conference, restricting debate and voting down 

 propositions of every kind intended to bring about the desired re- 

 forms. 



The discussion was opened by Mr. Detre, a member of the commit- 

 tee, in a vigorous speech denunciatory of pound-net fishing. He was 

 followed in a lengthy paper by Mr. Huntington, president of the New 

 York Board of State Fishery Commissioners, the opponents of reform 

 interjecting papers, prepared expressly for the occasion. Some of 

 these statements were completely refuted by testimony that could 

 not be impeached, but the reformers from the start worked at a dis- 

 advantage, and as might have been expected, the conference was prac- 

 tically a failure. , . ,, , . , .... 



While a full discussion of the subject was desirable and intended, it 

 soon became apparent that the representatives of the interests the 

 conference had been called to restrict within reasonable limits were in 

 the majority, and, understanding their advantage, became not only 

 agressive. but in one instance at least absolutely insulting. 



It was clearly apparent to your committee that with millions of capi- 

 tal invested, with a number of Congressmen and ex-Congressmen 

 pecuniarily interested, and with such organization as guarantees unity 

 of action whenever menhaden or pound-net fishing is assailed, that 

 unless the same unity of action, backed by like determined effort, can 

 be effected by the fish protectionists, the warfare will be a most un- 

 equal one for them. ... ... „ t 



But, discouraging as is the outlook, we should persist in our efforts 

 to abate or at least modify these great evils, having for encourage- 

 ment what seems to be an absolutely assured fact, that the evil will 

 work its own cure; for so marked has become the scarcity of edible 

 coast fishes, that not a great many years will elapse before menhaden 

 Ashing will become unprofitable, unless the steadily increasing scarcity 

 of those fish ceases. 



As to pound-net fishing, it has assumed such vast proportions along 

 the coast, and is so terribly destructive to spawning fish in the spring 

 and to the young of those that escape in the fall, that unless sucti re- 

 strictive legislation can be had as will effectually protect the food 

 fishes, there is no telling how soon the supply of them along the coast 

 will be practically exhausted. 



All of which is respectfully submitted. 



A. M. Spangler, 

 Cyrus R. Detre, 

 Henry C. Ford, 

 Alfred Hand, 

 Bernard L Douredoure, 

 James H. Miller. 



The work of the Association for the year was reviewed 

 in the report of the executive committee, an abstract of 

 which must be deferred to our next issue. 



