480 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Mat 26, 1894. 



arranged in advance, and the needful precautions taken 

 in securing good guides and tackle. 



I telegraphed home the news of our tarpon from Punta 

 Rassa when we reached there in the evening, and after 

 supper took the yacht and sailed over to see Mr. F. Steens- 

 gaard, the taxidermist at St. James City, and left the 

 tarpon with him, with some birds we had shot, to be 

 skinned and mounted, and then shipped North to us. 



Next day we had some fine small fish fishing in Char- 

 lotte Harbor. My younger son took numerous varieties, 

 and I was content with a 141bs. channel bass, caught with 

 one of Conroy's light three-piece split-bamboo rods and a 

 light silk line. That night we slept on the yacht in the 

 warm southern air, the boys on the lockers and the Doctor 

 and I on the deck, and in the starlight we sailed up 

 through the waters of Matlacha Pass, reaching Punta 

 Gorda at daybreak, in time for a good breakfast at the 

 hotel, and in good time for the train North. 



Finally, good friends, if you have little time and want 

 to have fun and tarpon sure, go straight to Fort Myers on 

 the Caloosahatchee, and if you put up as I did with mine 

 host Kantz at the Myers Inn, you will ha.ve good clean 

 quarters and good food. 



If you have leisure, start fishing at Punta Gorda, enjoy 

 the lovely surroundings there, and wonder at the enter- 

 prise that projected and supports the superb hotel. Fish 

 the Peace River for small fish and tarpon; then go south 

 and stop at Punta Rassa long enough to learn what a good 

 - hostelry friend Schulze keeps there and how kind he and 

 his hospitable wife can be to wandering fishermen, and 

 then, then, THEN, having been gradually prepared for 

 it, go up the Caloosahatchee to Fort Myers and fulfill your 

 destiny and revel in tarpon fishing such as the gods may 

 delight in, but which we poor hard-worked mortals can 

 only sometimes reach , and if you want good guides who 

 never tire, and know it all from the ground floor up, seek 

 the men whom my friend Wickam sent me to — Armeda, 

 Bates and Blom. May you have as happy a time and as 

 successful a trip with them as my boys and I had, and 

 come home with the pleasant memories of sunny skies and 

 blue waters, waving palms, and mangrove shores that we 

 cherish and love to talk over. H. S. D. 



ANGLING NOTES. 



Salmon Rising to the Fly Above Tide. 



Last year about this time, or a little later, I went to 

 Mechanicville with a salmon angler, who is the owner of 

 a portion of a Canadian salmon river, to try the salmon 

 in the Hudson. The salmon did not rise, and in fact, the 

 water was not in good condition, but soon after, this 

 gentleman wrote me from Canada giving the opinion of 

 an old Canadian salmon fisherman that salmon would not 

 rise to the fly above a certain distance from salt water. I 

 quoted this opinion, although it gave salmon angling in 

 the Hudson a very' black eye if it should prove that the 

 theory held true in practice. That the theory or opinion, 

 call it what you will, was wrong, was demonstrated soon 

 after, for salmon did rise to the fly in the very place 

 where it was believed they would not. In spite of this 

 demonstration that salmon would rise to the fly at a 

 greater distance from salt water than was predicted they 

 would, I have been haunted by that opinion of the old 

 salmon fisherman quoted, and wondered if it would prove 

 true of any part of the Hudson commonly looked upon as 

 suitable angling waters, once the stream is provided with 

 fishways. Incidentally Mr. John Mowat said to me, that 

 it was once thought in Canada that salmon fishing with 

 the rod was to be had only in the upper reaches or head- 

 waters of the streams, but now as many if not more 

 salmon were taken a few miles above tidewater. Upon 

 this I asked him to write me more at length, which he 

 has done as follows: 



"I have observed in sportsmen's papers articles ad- 

 vanced by anglers that salmon will not take the fly forty 

 miles above tidal waters; also that when the temperature 

 of the water rises above 70° it makes poor fishing If 

 those who put the temperature at 70° had said 60 ? they 

 would have been nearer the mark. In our northern 

 rivers the water seldom rises to 60°; the nights cool it 

 down more than the mid-day sun heats it. On a cool 

 night in August, in a well-stocked salmon pool, the fish 

 are continuously jumping out of the water, and there 

 can be no doubt the cooler air with its supply of oxygen 

 required by the breeding fish is the cause As to salmon 

 taking the fly above forty miles in fresh water. In verv 

 many of our Northern salmon streams, and in the Labra- 

 dor rivers there are insurmountable falls from three to 

 thirty miles from their mouths; others have chutes 

 and rapids so dangerous that anglers have come to 

 griel, and they cause hesitation on the part of the 

 angler. The Cascapedia and Nepissiquit both have 

 tails on them some thirty or forty miles up. The 

 Restigouche and its confluents have none, and more 

 or less salmon reach the headwaters, some 110 miles 

 every season. The angling limit is fixed 70 miles above 

 tidewater, and commences four miles up. Good scores 

 were made last year at 14 miles up, but better were made 

 at 40 miles up where .Messrs. Weeks and Penfold in SI 

 days bagged 126 fish. At 70 miles up Messrs. Rogers! 



?„Tl e r r a w^ r0 u 0k \ m a week kUled 116 ash. Both myself 

 and Mr Whitcher have killed salmon with the fly 80 miles 

 above this place (Campbellton), on the Kedgwick Rive? 

 (now closed), and 100 miles above the head of tide I 

 remember that when I first came to this country the gen- 

 eral belief was that all salmon ascended the river af far 

 l6 i t0 a « v****™ country called the spawning 

 ^w 8 Vi Wh6 - r6they ^ e taken by whites and Indians 

 In fact, the river was being depleted year after vear and 

 a salmon was not allowed to live in the stream S's X 

 gotso far up in the headwaters a canoe could not reach 



"Twenty years ago this action of taking salmon on the 



h P n a Jfi^° UndS T* 3 m , ade ille ^ al h ? statateZl Xr a 

 hard fight ; it was enforced. To-day every suitable gravel 

 bed from tidal water to source of stream is more orletJ a 

 spawning ground, but that is not all, every one of those 

 grounds has its regular quota of breedin g y fish%o wS 

 their progeny return, and remain, when grown to adulte 

 &us giving an equal distribution'over the whole steeaS 



SnnnAT SU 'k I maybe 4 vin S the fish more credit fm- 

 instinct than they possess, but I don't think I am " 



it any one is possessed of doubts concerning future rod- 

 fishmg in the upper Hudson, when salmoS shall haVe 



Sel SeS e fnf T d r ter8 ' T hat Mr - Mowat n says a shouTd 

 dispel them, for I know of no one who can speak with 



greater authority on this subject of times and places that 

 sahnon will take the fly. Mr. Mowat has spent fifty-five 

 years on Canadian salmon streams as angler, fishculturist 

 and fisheries officer, and his sons have followed in his 

 footsteps, and what he says is entitled to great weight, as 

 he speaks from hard-earned experience, leaving theories 

 and speculations largely to others. 



What he says about salmon returning to the same 

 spawning grounds, antl their progeny likewise, reminds 

 me of what a Scotch writer has said on the subject. At' 

 this moment I cannot recall the name of the writer or the 

 medium that he used, but the substance of what he said 

 is clearly fixed in my memory. 



He had observed spawning salmon and sea trout for a 

 series of years in the same waters, and had satisfied him- 

 self that both species not only returned, unerringly, to the 

 stream in which they were born, but the same fish re- 

 turned again and again to the same spawning ground. 



Salmon Fishing on the Penobscot. 



My friend Mr. Archibald Mitchell, of Norwich, Conn., 

 has just returned from the Penobscot after fishing the 

 Bangor PoOl for three weeks. He killed three salmon of 

 18, 20$ and 231bs. He says that from fifteen to twenty- 

 five anglers fished the pool daily for three weeks, and 

 during the time twenty salmon were killed. Mr. Mitchell 

 will soon start to fish the water which he owns on the 

 ReBtigouche, where the rods will not be as thick as at 

 Bangor. 



Imagine the Hudson provided with fishways that the 

 salmon may reach the upper waters of the river to spawn, 

 and then imagine the miles of holding pools that the river 

 should afford, and reduce the number of anglers to five 

 for each pool (in free water the number of rods to a pool 

 cannot be limited), instead of fifteen to twenty-five as at 

 Bangor, and one will get something of an idea of the 

 wealth that will be a ded to the State of New York by 

 providing the means to make the Hudson a salmon 

 stream. 



Lake Trout Still at the Surface. 



Lake trout were at the surface so late as May 16 in 

 spite of the early wail because the ice went out of Lake 

 George a month earlier than usual just to spoil the sur- 

 face trolling. I have been a persistent lake trout troller 

 for twenty-five years and imagined I knew something 

 about the fish and their habits, but now a market-fisher- 

 man at Lake George tells me that he believes that the 

 trout do what we have been certain that they did not do. 

 that is, come to the surface very early in the morning all 

 during the summer. Be that as it may, I do know that 

 the conditions have changed in Lake George within a few 

 years to make such a theory possible, but that will be 

 told later. Mrs. Albert C. Johnson caught a trout of 

 121bs. in Lake George last week, which i3 about as large 

 as they run as a rule. The largest of the season thus far 

 was taken on the 16th by J. R. Fish, agent of the D. & 

 H. R. R. , with the veteran John Plum for guide. The 

 trout weighed lojlbs. and was 34in. long. I have .seen a 

 lake trout of 191bs. that was only SO^in. long. 



A. N. Cheney. 



The Mohican Club and Non-Resident Members. 



When the Mohican Rod\and Gun Club, of Glens Falls, 

 N. Y., was organized the' promoters had no thought of 

 enrolling other than resident members, as it was believed 

 that the objects of the club would be of a local character. 

 Almost at once, and, in fact, before the club was fairly on 

 its feet, the governing board of the club determined to 

 begin a campaign which it was hoped would result in 

 building fishways in the upper Hudson River to enable 

 the salmon now in the river to reach suitable spawning 

 grounds in the headwaters, where the salmon fry have 

 been planted for twelve years past. A paper upon the 

 subject was read before the club, and an extract in circu- 

 lar form was then distributed through the State, hoping 

 thereby to interest sportsmen generally in the project. 

 Among the early returns from this circular was an appli- 

 cation for membership in the club from one of the best 

 known American salmon fishermen, a man who owns his 

 own salmon fishing, in fee, in Canada, but who wished to 

 take an active interest in the movement to open the Hud- 

 son. This application was followed by others, and last 

 evening the constitution of the club was amended so that 

 non-resident members of the club will be received by the 

 payment of an initiation fee of $2 and annual dues of $3. 

 AH members on the roll on June 1 next will be included 

 in the list of charter members. A. N. Cheney Pres 

 May 15. 



Governor Flower's Brown Trout. 



As A guest of Mr. Frank J. Amsden, of Rochester, Gov- 

 ernor Flower spent an hour on Caledonia Creek, the other 

 day, and caught a 2-pound brown trout, which he averred 

 was the largest trout he had ever taken. 



The Passing of "Joe Minnie." 



Central Lake, Mich., May 19.— The old French guide 

 Elzear Fortm (better known as "Joe Minnie"), died at his 

 home in Elk Rapids last week, after an illness of several 

 months - j Kelpie. 



PUBLISHER'S DEPARTMENT. 



' The Headwaters of the Mississippi," by Capt. Willard Glazier frnm 

 the press of Rand, McNally & Company, contains an to uSui* T 

 count of how the true source of the great river was ascerUined a* 

 h^^^n^?^?,^ 01 * of ali ^orations f?o£ ^ite d^coverr 

 by De Soto. Captain Glazier claims for the origin of the river a mom 

 remote source than Lake Itasca. In 1881 hi discovered I bodv of 

 water lying immediately to the south of the generally accepted I source 

 discharging by a perennial stream, the mouth of "which S ■ en?ire?v 

 concealed from view by a dense growth of vegetatior T andlaflen tre^J 

 This lake has an area of 255 acres, and a circumference ^ between Avp 

 Itasca! 1 ^ &Q aVefage d ^ to0 '^M and taliS Ibo^fLte 



A NEW-SUBSCRIBER OFFER. 



A bona fide new subscriber sending us 85 will receive for that Bum 

 the Forest and Stream one year (price &4) and a set of Zimmerman's 

 amoua "Ducking Scenes" CPrice *6)-a $9 value for $5 



S 8 ^ 3 TJl t °J!f B 8ubscr i ber " l 0,lly - U **" not *o r^euKtlB 

 For |3 a bona fide new subscriber for six months will receive th P 

 Fjrbst and Stream during .that time and a copy of Dr Van Fleet's 

 handsome work, "Bird Portrait, for the Toun*" (tto pr**. of ~M ob 



IS $3). 



tgishptltnre md ^inh §rofei[twn. 



AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY. 



The American Fisheries Society was in session at Phila- 

 delphia on May 16 and 17 in the office of the Fish Protective 

 Association of Pennsylvania. This is also the headquarters 

 of the State Fish Commission, and a very cosy room for those 

 who delight in fishing and the books, pictures and social op- 

 portunities connected with the angler's art. 



Hon. Henry C. Ford, president of the Pennsylvania Fish 

 Commission, and of the Fisheries Society, presided at the 

 meetings, and Mr. E. P. Doyle performed the duties of sec- 

 retary. The attendance was small, scarcely reaching thirt y 

 but the proceedings were full of interest. The Society has 

 been rather unfortunate at its last two annual meetings'in re- 

 spect to outside noises, which made difficulty for both speak- 

 ers and audience. 



In the course of his annual address Mr. Ford referred to 

 the beneficent results of fishculture in Lake Erie and in 

 Pennsylvania streams as illustrated especially in the increase 

 of the whitefish, pike-perch, black bass, shad and brook 

 trout. The triumphs of the advocates of protection in pass- 

 ing restrictive laws have continued in spite of determined 

 organized opposition, because public sentiment is enlisted oti 

 their side. The State of Pennsylvania, he remarked, has 

 done a great work for its waters in planting 119,000,000 of 

 pike-perch, whitefish and trout in the lakes, rivers and 

 brooks. 



Allusion was made to the strong prejudice in certain quar- 

 ters against the carp, chiefly on account of its rooting pro- 

 pensities and its supposed destructiveness to the eggs and 

 young of other fish. It should be remembered, however 

 that many of the hard things said about the carp are not 

 proved, and some of them are false. Thousands of people in 

 the Middle and Southern States, the Mississippi Valley and 

 throughout the West, appreciate the fish and ask to be sup- 

 plied with more of them. The fishermen at Havre de Grace 

 find in New York a ready market for all they can catch and 

 at prices equal to the rates for shad. In Cleveland and Chi- 

 cago the demand is equally steady. At Quincy aud Mere- 

 dosia, 111., the carp has become a favorite fish and furnishes 

 a vast deal of wholesome food as well as a growing source of 

 revenue. Local prejudice should never be allowed to destroy 

 interests with which it has nothing, and can have nothing, in 

 common. Thousands of people will never have the pleasure 

 of landing a salmon, a trout or a black bass, and who shall 

 blame them if they find enjoyment and profit in rearing the 

 carp? 



Mr. Fred Mather read an article on an "Improved Method 

 of Hatching Smelts," in the course of which he described 

 how their adhesive eggs are separated and prevented from 

 adhering in bunches by gently forcing them through wire 

 screens, to remove the foot which causes the adhesion. To 

 kill the fungus which frequently covers the eggs while in 

 process of hatching he uses salt After separating the eggs 

 Mr. Mather hatched them successfully in Jars in the man- 

 ner followed with shad and whitefish. 



A very interesting historical paper by Charles Hallock 

 related to the time "When Shad were a Penny Apiece," the 

 days when the epithet of "shad eater" was a mark of the 

 deepest opprobrium in New England. What a contrast 

 with the banquet enjoyed by the Fisheries Society in Phila- 

 delphia on Thursday evening, where planked shad was the 

 chief luxury of the feast. 



Dr. Bushrod W. James read an address on "The Value of 

 Bering Sea and Alaskan Food and Fishing Interests." 

 Besides the fur seal, which has produced much revenue and 

 not a little contention, Alaska has wealth in the shape of 

 metals, minerals and timber, but more especially in the fish 

 which swarm in its seas, lakes and streams. The halihut 

 the cod and the herring abound; the whitefish, the trouts' 

 salmon, pike and grayling fill its inland waters. Rosy red 

 rock cod and plain, but gamy, "black bass" eagerly snap at 

 the angler's baited hook. Salmon run into the streams in 

 such countless multitudes as to impede navigation and crowd 

 one another out of water— and this is by no means "a fish 

 story." 



The report of Secretary Doyle, read at the forenoon session, 

 carried with it a resolution to appoint a committee on increase 

 of membership. At the opening of the afternoon meeting 

 this resolution was adopted, and a committee consisting of 

 Messrs. E. P. Doyle, Herschel Whitaker and W. L. Powell 

 was appointed. The plan is to invite ail fish protective asso- 

 ciations in the United States to become members of the Fish- 

 eries Society and send delegates to the anuual meetings 

 Other resolutions offered by Mr. Doyle and passed by the 

 Society conveyed thanks to the Fish Protective Association 

 for their hospitality, to Commissioner McDonald for his 

 tender of the Fish Hawk for a trip to the Delaware River shad 

 fisheries, and to the press of Philadelphia for their admirable 

 accounts of the meetings. 



U. S. Fish Commissioner McDonald read the most import- 

 ant paper of the sessions, to show "The Relation of the Com- 

 munity to the Fisheries." In this article the statistical 

 history of the fisheries was related in condensed but compre- 

 .hensive form, and the basis of restrictive legislation was 

 clearly set forth. The broad general principle was estab- 

 lished that in the case of fishes which run up from the sea to 

 spawn in the fresh waters and those which enter brackish 

 water in narrow bays and sounds for the same purpose can- 

 not maintain their members undiminished, even with 

 recourse to artificial propagation, unless their routes of 

 entrance are kept measurably free from certain fixed appar- 

 atus of capture, or, in general, from excessive interference 

 with their movements to the spawning grounds. This article 

 naturally caused free discussion because of its important 

 bearing upon fishery methods. Dr. B.W. James, Mr. Herschel 

 Whitaker, Capt. J. W. Collins, Mr. A. M. Spangler and 

 Dr. T. H. Bean were among those who entered into the dis- 

 cussion. 



Mr. Herschel Whitaker gave an account of the artificial 

 fertilization and hatching of eggs of the small-mouth black 

 bass by one of the employes of the Michigan Commission, 

 April 30, 1894. A ripe female from Thorn Apple River 

 furnished 3,000 eggs which were impregnated by milt from a 

 male kept in one of the ponds. The eggs were first placed 

 on trays and afterward in a jar, They began to hatch on 

 the fourth day and were all out on the fifth. The young 

 were so small as to be nearly invisible, but the yolk sac was 

 disproportionately large. 



Dr. T H. Bean read a translation of Dr. Fatio's report on 

 the "Coregonus Imported from America under the Name of 

 Whitefish" into lakes of Switzerland. Dr. Fatio labors under 

 the mistaken notion that the eggs shipped by the U. S 

 Government were those of Williamson's whitefish or the 

 Menominee whitefish rather than of the large common 

 species of the Great Lakes, but his description of the speci 

 mens reared from American eggs in the Aquarium at 

 Geneva shows clearly enough that they belong to the com • 

 mon form. The description fits equally well some examples 

 of the same age reared at Northville, Mich. 



By invitation of the Fish Protective Association the Fish- 

 eries Society enjoyed a planked shad dinner at Reisser's cafe 

 on Wednesday evening. After the dinner Mr. H. O. Wilbur 

 made an address of welcome, to which Mr. H. C. Ford re- 

 sponded on behalf of the society. These were followed by an 

 interchange of stories, personal reminiscences, pleas for pro- 

 tection and various other sentiments from the following 

 speakers: Marshall McDonald, W. H. Bowman, Herschel 

 Whitaker, T. H. Bean, H. H. Cary, C. F. Chamberlayne, F. 

 F. Christine, Prof, Dolley, J. W. Collins, W. E. Meehan and 

 A. M. Spangler, 



