June 9, 1894. j 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



491 



have been an easy matter to bury my grains into tbe back 

 of one of the beauties — but to what profit? Those who 

 have brought the tarpon to gaff know well enough what 

 he can do when he gets down to business. So I allowed 

 them to roll and circle at pleasure, and looked with re- 

 newed wonder at their burnished sides and gem-like, 

 translucent backs and admired again and again their 

 great eyes. A fine morsel of cut mullet was cast into the 

 midst of the school time and again without any result 

 other than to cause a slight lunge when the bait came too 

 near the eye of one of the beauties. 



I tried to count the "heads," but found it quite as diffi- 

 cult to count noses among moving tarpon as among young 

 chickens. My count was as low as forty-two on one occa- 

 sion and as high as forty-eight another time. 



This is "full season" for turning turtles, as the first of 

 these salt water hens generally come out on the beach 

 with the May moon. Turtle beef is not only rather tough 

 but has a strong flavor if the fat is not very carefully 

 eliminated from the lean. But the meat makes a superb 

 broth which may be ' 'canned" and left for future refer- 

 ence and which may form the basis of soups good enough 

 to satisfy the demands of even a rigid gourmet. These 

 loggerheads leave their native element at night and climb 

 the sandy beach, and after digging a suitable hole with 

 one of their front flippers they deposit from 75 to 150 

 eggs. These eggs are excellent and more digestible than 

 hen eggs and are consequently sought for eagerly by man 

 and beast, as a natural result of this war against the un- 

 hatched innocents the days of the sea turtle are num- 

 bered. We all like turtle egg turnovers and gems for 

 breakfast, but those of us who are more human than the 

 coons and possums generally leave at least a score of eggs 

 "for luck" in each nest which we discover. 



The natives come down to the Gulf from their inland 

 homes these moonlight nights, and often camp on the 

 "key" near the shore, remaining for several days, When 

 they catch an old hen loggerhead on the beach they 

 '•turn" her; in this condition the turtle is entirely help- 

 less and may be left until morning, when she is butchered 

 and the cracker can return to his home with a fine stock of 

 meat and plenty of eggs. I had the good fortune to turn 

 two turtles last week and got 148 eggs from the nest of 

 the larger of the two. The other hen started back to the 

 Gulf without making any nest and it took a brisk run to 

 head her off, but we ' 'got there" all the same, and when 

 we killed her the next day we got eighty more eggs to 

 add to our stock. 



May in Florida is about as warm as July on the Jersey 

 coast and the thermometer sometimes marks 90° Fah. in 

 the shade, but we have our breezes from the water to tem- 

 per the heat, and, after all, go North more for a change 

 of scene than for a change of climate. None Such. 



WE WENT FISHING. 



Sutton, Que. — I have had it in mind for a long time to 

 write you about a little fishing excursion that a party of 

 five of us had the pleasure of participating in in the 

 spring of '93. We had been planning and talking it over 

 all the winter and early part of the spring, and at last 

 fixed upon a day to try our prowess. At that time trout 

 do not take a fly very much in the mountain streams, and 

 to be perfectly frank none of our party were past masters 

 in the art of fly-casting, although later on we had fairly 

 good luck fly-fishing in the more open streams. 



Just as the sun was showing his round and smiling face 

 above the brow of Old Sutton Mountain, we drove into 

 the pretty little village of Knowlton, a favorite summer 

 resort on the picturesque shore of Brome Lake, a sheet of 

 water noted for its bass and pickerel fishing. We bore off 

 to the right and drove up into the mountains of Bolton, 

 to a little pond known in the vicinity as Coon's Pond, a 

 fine trout haunt, and owned by the Hon. J. B. Baker, 

 who very kindly allows it to bo fished by the public. As 

 we rounded a turn in the road its whole surface lay before 

 us, smooth as glass, except for here and there a ripple 

 caused by the morning breeze, and from which the pre- 

 siding genius of the place, one Mr. Coons, for whom the 

 pond was named, was taking some very fair-sized brook 

 trout with a brown-hackle and alder pole, and as he sat 

 in his boat whipping the ripples on either side of him, his 

 white hair and bent figure sharply outlined against the 

 dark foliage that surrounds the water, he appeared the 

 perfect type of an ancient fisherman. We resolved to 

 have the solitary boat he was fishing from if our persua- 

 sion would induce him to abandon it in our favor. He 

 could not withstand our efforts, the boat was procured, 

 our rods put together, and Parsons and Horas started out 

 to locate and of course capture the very father of all the 

 finny tribes, while the rest of us were content to try our 

 luck and skill from logs and headlands around the shore. 



But luck was against us; the wind went down, the 

 water became smooth and transparent, and the fish would 

 not bite. So we hitched our team and drove back down 

 the mountain and got some very fair fishing in one of the 

 outlets of the pond which we fished to the old Magog 

 road, where we put up our horses and ate our lunch under 

 the shade trees of an adjoining farm house. Our luggage 

 packed, we took the old stage road through the Bolton 

 Pass, one of the finest drives Brome county is so justly 

 celebrated for, and our next stop was made at Salley's or 

 Grass Pond, at a little stream flowing from this pond 

 along the base of Bald Mountain, down through a very 

 wilderness of alders. 



I was fishing a pool two or three rods down the stream 

 in the edge of the thicket, when I heard my companion 

 — a man of mild and unassuming manners — using loud 

 and angry words in a pool just behind me. and thinking 

 he had come in contact with an angry land owner, I went 

 back to see what the difficulty was, and found him fairly 

 wild over the peculiar antics of an Sin. trout, which, 

 owing to the brush, could not be hooked secure enough to 

 land, but would dangle a second j ust out of the water and 

 then drop back, not hurt enough 10 prevent him from bit- 

 ing again. We had a good catch on this part of the 

 stream and soon struck the road again, where one of the 

 boys had left the team, and, it being now after sunset, we 

 drove to the Bolton Springs House and put up for the 

 night, where we had some of our fish for supper. 



After breakfast we found a sportsman who was staying 

 in the vicinity waiting to see us. He reported having 

 fished the Missisquoi River, and had caught a number of 

 trout weighing from 1 to S^lbs. We decided to try it; 

 but we failed to get anything like a satisfactory result. 

 We worked our way gradually toward home, fishing a 

 couple of other brooks on our journey, and arrived home 



highly pleased with our outing, ready to pick up with 

 renewed vigor the thread of business, feeling we had 

 spent two days upon the mountain streams of Brome 

 that would never be forgotten, but would be lived over 

 and over again in fancy and with scarcely less pleasure. 

 We had taken something like 401bs. of brook trout, none 

 of which were over fib. in weight, but the very finest of 

 all fish for table use. 



Since then our party has been broken up, two of the 

 boys are in Colorado, and have during the past season 

 caught salmon from the Fraser River in British Columbia 

 and trout from the mountain streams of Colorado; but 

 they have assured me more than once that never have 

 they had two more pleasant days than the ones I have 

 taken the liberty of describing to my fellow anglers of 

 Forest and Stream. West. 



ANGLING NOTES. 



Frank Buckland. 



A correspondent desires to know if the book upon 

 angling, "by Frank Buckland, of the London Meld," is a 

 standard work to-day; when Mr. Buckland died, and if he 

 was a recognized authority upon angling. 



I think the correspondent has confused the identity and 

 work of two different persons. Francis Trevelyan Buck- 

 land was born Dec. 17, 1826, and died Dec. 19, 1880. He 

 was one of the founders of Land and Water, and its fish- 

 ing and natural history editor up to the t>me of his death. 

 He was inspector of salmon fisheries for England and 

 Wales, but, so far as I know, never wrote a book upon 

 angling. 



Mr. Buckland was a prolific writer upon the fisheries, 

 fishculture and natural history, and was the author of 

 several books, but never ranked as a recognized angling 

 authority. 



Mr. Francis Francis was the angling editor of the London 

 Field, and he did write "A Book on Angling," for that is 

 its title, which has passed through six or seven editions, and 

 is a standard English work to-day, and probably will be 

 for many days to come, except in that branch of the art 

 known as dry fly fishing, which may said to have been 

 developed by Mr. Frederic M. Halford since Mr. Francis' 

 death. Mr. Francis Francis was one of the great anglers 

 of Great Britain, and consequently a recognized authority 

 upon matters pertaining to angling, and the author of 

 several books on the subject other than the one here given 

 by title. 



Fishing In Bay of Quinte. 

 When I learned that the Canadian authorities proposed 

 to prevent American fishermen from fishing in Bay of 

 Quinte, in Canada, I was at a loss for words to express 

 my regret at this action, for in Bay of Quinte I have had 

 some of the best black bass fishing of all my experience iu 

 many waters, and in Hay Bay, a part of Bay of Quinte, is 

 to be found some of the best mascalonge fishing, all of 

 which I fully described in Forest and Stream some years 

 ago. 



Mr. E. T. D. Chambers sends me word, however, that 

 the case is not as bad as at first reported. It seems that 

 the Department of Marine and Fisheries, at Ottawa, has 

 under consideration a plan that will prevent American 

 citizens from fishing in Bay of Quinte and Hay Bay on a 

 commercial basis, while still permitting legitimate sum- 

 mer visitors and anglers to fish with rod and line as a 

 source of sport. So far from being disappointed at this 

 action, American anglers may wish that the Department 

 of Marine and Fisheries might extend their jurisdiction 

 over the border and regulate the fishing in some Ameri- 

 can waters on the same basis. 



Mohican Rod and Gun Club. 



At the May meeting of the Mohican Rod and Gun Club, 

 of Glens Falls, N. Y. , action was taken to incorporate the 

 organization, and then it was resolved to offer a series of 

 rewards for evidences leading to the conviction of vio- 

 lators of the fish laws. The governing board of the olub 

 has fixed upon a reward of $25 for evidence of violations 

 of Sec. 102, which prohibits the use of unlawfnl devices , 

 in taking fish, $25 for evidence of the violation of Sec. 106, 

 which provides that trout under 6in. in length shall not 

 be taken or possessed, and $25 for evidence of violations 

 of Sec. 114, which prohibits the taking of salmon under 

 18in. in length. 



The laws are just and reasonable, as well as necessary 

 for the preservation of the fish mentioned in the sections, 

 and the club will put forth its best efforts to enforce them. 

 Many brook trout spawn before they are 6in. long, and 

 ripe eggs have been taken from trout that were only 4in. 

 long, and if all trout are allowed to spawn once before 

 they are subject to legal capture the brooks will not be- 

 come utterly depopulated. I am morally certain that a 

 great many trout under 6in. are caught and secretly sold 

 to hotel keepers, but the moral certainty must be made a 

 legal certainty. 



It is equally certain that the trout streams are netted 

 for the same purpose. On the first day of the open sea- 

 son this year a hotel exhibited 61bs. of brook trout taken 

 from a near-by stream, and on that day two good anglers 

 were unable to catch more than a single trout in the same 

 stream, using hook and line. They both told me that 

 they saw a number of trout and they were as wild as 

 hawks. Those who profess to believe that minnow nets 

 may be used in trout streams to take bait fish will be 

 taught the contrary, for the law is plain on this subject. 



The region in which the club operates contains the 

 streams used as nurseries for young salmon planted to 

 stock the Hudson River. Quite naturally the streams 

 selected for this purpose are trout streams, and so far as 

 I had the selection, other things being equal, I selected 

 streams that were posted, but even posted streams are 

 fished and the salmon parr are ravenous little beggars and 

 will take fly or worm baited hook with all the dash of 

 their elders. The baby salmon will not grow to 18in. in 

 length in the trout brooks before they go to sea, therefore 

 it is illegal to catch them at any time in the trout streams 

 where ihey have been planted, and they must be pro- 

 tected until they go to sea. Furthermore, with the build- 

 ing of fishways in the Hudson the adult salmon will re- 

 turn to spawn in waters where the club operates and the 

 spawning fish will become its especial charge. 



The different laws will be made plain to all who can 

 read by posters and notices in local newspapers, and the 

 difference between salmon parr or smolts and brook trout 

 will be made equally plain, and the posters will be dis- 

 played along the streams, at schoolhouses and other meet- 

 ing places, after which the law will he enforced if evidence 



can be obtained that it is violated. If it is plain that the 

 law is violated and a reward of $25 is not sufficient to 

 check it, the club will give $100. Good citizens will 

 respect the laws; others must be made to do so, and what- 

 ever the cost, the club proposes to do all that a lot of 

 earnest men can do to make the trout streams a safe nur- 

 sery for young salmon and the headwaters of the Hudson 

 a haven for the adult salmon, once they arrive, where they 

 may spawn unmolested. 



With a Hatchery Superintendent. 



For a number of years the Lake George Association, 

 Gen. Robert Lenox? Banks president, has planted in the 

 lake annually 500,000 lake trout fry procured from the 

 State, and now the lake is a shining example of what may 

 be accomplished by restocking with artificially reared fish. 

 This year the trout fry came from the Adirondack hatch- 

 ery near Upper Saranac Lake, although the eggs were 

 taken in Lake Michigan, and when the last shipment came 

 Superintendent John G. Roberts came with them, and 

 telegraphed me to meet him, which I did, and went to the 

 lake with him. 



The trout fry, about 135,000 in 28 cans, were a very fine 

 lot of strong, healthy fish, with scarcely any dead ones 

 after a journey of ten hours, and the question arose in 

 my mind: Are lake trout fry better for being hatched in 

 the colder water of tbe Adirondack hatchery, where they 

 are hatched in 120 days and conform to the time required 

 in the waters of our Northern lakes, than they are when 

 hatched in the warmer spring water of another hatchery 

 where they require but eighty days to hatch? Certainly 

 I have not seen a more thrifty lot of trout, with fewer 

 cripples, than these trout which were 120 days in hatching. 



On another occasion I had something to say about the 

 condition of trout fry received at Lake George, and a 

 hatchery employe criticised my article and said that he 

 had handled a great many fry and "had yet to find any 

 dead fry in any cans that were not put in the cans in 

 that condition." This is so absurd that it scarcely 

 required comment. My first practical lessons in trout 

 hatching were taken in a hatcheiy over twenty-two years 

 ago, and from that time to this there has been no way 

 discovered of making strong fry out of those born weak- 

 lings, and with the best of care some few fry will die in 

 the cans, as doubtless they would have died had they 

 remained in the troughs. I have often had men look 

 into cans of fry and say there were no dead ones, while 

 I knew there were plenty of thSm. 



After the fry were delivered at Lake George I had an 

 opportunity to sit down and talk with Mr. Roberts. He. 

 told me that he planted 5,000 landlocked salmon fry in 

 Lake Brandon (Little Clear Pond, as it was once known), 

 on the hatchery reservation, a pond of 325 acres, and in 

 1890 and '91 planted 5,000 more fry— 2,500 each year. 

 Now the pond is well stocked with salmon, so that in 

 drawing a net for spawning trout he would get a dozen 

 salmon in each haul, fish weighing from 2£ to 41bs. each. 

 This was of interest in view of the fact that Lake George 

 is to be stocked with landlocked salmon where the food is 

 largely frost fish, and the salmon food in Lake Brandon 

 is also frost flsh— round whitefish. It has been held that 

 to stock any water with salmon successfully, smelt must 

 be provided for them to feed upon, but I am banking on 

 the belief that round whitefish will prove to be as good as 

 smelt, and it is pleasant to have this view of it confirmed 

 in so practical a manner. 



Fishculture furnishes some startling surprises and Mr. 

 Roberts provides an example. About twelve or fifteen 

 years ago Mirror Lake in the Adirondacks was stocked 

 with small-mouthed black bass; it contained brook trout 

 but not lake trout, and eight or nine years ago lake trout 

 were planted. Now the lake trout have eaten the black 

 bass until the bass fishing is nearly destroyed. The trout 

 are frequently taken with the bass inside of them. In 

 Schroon Lake a lake trout was caught that had in its 

 stomach a pike (the fish generally called pickerel in New 

 York) of 2|iba. 



A year or two ago I noted the capture of lake trout in 

 Upper Saranac Lake that contained pike, and yet at that 

 very time there was a movement on foot to introduce 

 black bass in some of the Adirondack lakes into which 

 pike had found their way, that the bass might destroy the 

 pike instead of the lake trout. I opposed this and had 

 the assistance of Forest and Stream in so doing, urging 

 that it would be far better to net out the pike than to put 

 in the black bass. Mr. Fuller of Meacham Lake is doing 

 this successfully to-day, and the law still stands making 

 it illegal, with a penalty of $500, to plant other than 

 species of the salmon family in Adirondack waters. 



Mr. Roberts told me of a brook trout caught this spring 

 in Horseshoe Pond near Saranac Lake by a Mr. Hunter, 

 that weighed 5flbs. and measured Slin. in length. Wesley 

 Wood, a well known Saranac guide, was with Mr. Hunter, 

 who, I believe, lives in New York city. 



I think it is not generally known that an effort is being 

 made to restock Lake Champlain with lake trout. I say 

 restock it, for I have the evidence of a trustworthy living 

 witness that Lake Champlain once contained an abundance 

 of lake trout, though why they should have disappeared 

 so entirely I cannot learn. I know there are plenty of 

 people who say that the lake never had the lake trout, but 

 I am satisfied that they are in error. Mr. Roberts planted 

 250,000 lake trout fry in Champlain in 1891, and 500,000 

 in 1892. 



In speaking of the habits of different fish that he had 

 handled, Mr Roberts tells me that the only fish of his 

 raising that he cannot carry in an open vessel, are land- 

 locked salmon. Fingerling trout of all kinds he can carry 

 in a bucket without a cover, but under like conditions the 

 little landlocked salmon will jump out to the last one, 



A Youthful Champion. 

 The boys are having their innings in these days in 

 catching large fish. The latest candidate for champion 

 honors is Raymond Gleason, 12 years old, who caught a 

 trout of lib. lloz. in Clendon Brook, near Glens Falls, a 

 stream in which the salmon fry for stocking the Hudson 

 River have been planted since 1881. Young Gleason broke 

 rod, line and hook, but saved the fish, to the astonishment 

 of his father when he viewed his wrecked tackle. 



A. N. Cheney. 



An eel died upon being taken out of a well at Groton, 

 Conn., the other day, where it is reputed to have lived for 

 fifty years. According to the story it was placed in the well 

 half a century ago by C. O. Harris, where it had remained 

 ever since. 



