118 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
|Peb. 8, 1886. 
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"That reminds me." 
A GREAT SHOT. 
It was on a California ranch in early spring time. 
John, the cook, aged about 17 years, had offered to slay 
several thousand of the myriads of blackbirds which were 
swarming around the ranch, if Brown, the boss, would 
furnish powder and shot. The birds were so numerous 
that the wheat had to be covered as soon as possible after 
sowing; if this was not done the ground would be cleaned 
as free of the seed in a very short time as if it had never 
been seeded. Under tbese conditions Brown was not slow 
in furnishing the necessary ammunition. 
The next morning, after the breakfast dishes were 
cleared up, John made his appearance in the field, armed 
with the old muzzle-loading double-barrel shotgun. After 
stowing away a liberal amount of ammunition in the old 
fun, he took deliberate aim at a place where the black- 
irds seemed to be most numerous on the newly seeded 
ground. With a tremendous report the old gun belched 
forth its deadly charge. When John had recovered from 
the recoil of the gun and the smoke had cleared up, 
he was surprised and delighted at tbe havoc he had 
caused in the swarm of birds. Perhaps forty or fifty lay 
dead on the ground and others dropped every few yards 
as the birds flew toward a clump of trees about 150yds. 
distant. 
Loading the barrel which had been discharged, John 
proceeded toward the trees, intent on securing another 
shot, but as he drew nearer he was surprised to see the 
birds still dropping to the ground. When within about 
30yds. of the trees he stopped, undecided as to whether 
he had better fire again or not, for it seemed as though 
he must have wounded all of the birds, so continuously 
were they falling. As the birds did not Beem to be 
alarmed by his presence, he concluded to count the dead 
ones and find out how many he had killed with one load. 
Cautiously making his way under the trees he commenced 
counting and the birds kept falling. After counting 
about 200 dead birds, and seeing that they were still 
falling, he commenced to feel a little suspicious and noticed 
that the birds were acting in a very unusual manner up 
in the tree. 
"Hal ha! ha!" yelled Brown, who had been taking it 
all in at a short distance unseen by John. Laughing until 
he could scarcely walk, Brown approached and John, who 
was sure something was wrong.demanded an explanation. 
"Well," said Brown, "I had just sown about a peck of 
poisoned wheat when you came out and the poison com- 
menced taking effect just after you fired." The boys all 
call him "Blackbird John." John C. Briggs. 
SHAD, SNIPE AND HYACINTHS. 
Shad fishing has already begun in the Neuse and New 
rivers, and stake nets are out, though the fish do not run 
lively as yet. In a week or so fishing will begin on Albe- 
marle Sound, where the business is the heaviest. Dr. W. 
E. Capehart, who is one of the leading candidates for U. 
S. Fish Commissioner, to fill the place of Col. Macdonald, 
deceased, is one of several operators of steam fisheries and 
large seines. The length of his big seine, with its rigging, 
is~6,700yds. ! In it he has taken the immense number of 
200,000 herring, 4,800 shad, and 37,0001bs. of rock (striped 
bass) at one haul. The net reaches 1,900yds. out from 
the beach. He has 50 to 100 men salting in barrels and 
packing in ice for Northern markets. Herrings are chiefly 
salted; the others shipped fresh. 
Colored men are doing some profitable hand-line fishing 
now. They use bitter-heads, or roach, for bait, and fish 
in deep water, where black bass, locally known as Welsh- 
men, and pickerel (or jack) collect in schools. Last week 
three men caught $40 worth in one day, and they didn't 
get big pay either, Anderson Slade took in $18.75, Bob 
Crawford $10.35, and Buff Wilson $10. They sold to the 
shippers. Some striped bass are caught occasionally in 
tjhe same way now. 
As the season advances angling improves, and by the 
end of February a great variety of salt and fresh water 
fish are shown. The salt-water fish come from below, 
around Beaufort and Morehead. Between Feb. 24 and 29 
the ninth annual New Berne Fish and Oyster Fair will be 
held here. On these occasions the display of wild game 
is something delectable to sportsmen, while as many as 
p^ghty varieties of fish have been on view at once, besides 
nineteen kinds of oysters, not to mention other species of 
shellfish, terrapin and crustaceans. 
I have just come in from a two hours' row on the Neuse 
and Trent rivers with a couple of ladies. As I grow older 
I become fonder of their society, though I have to pull 
harder. We visited Moore & Brady's oyster cannery (a 
Baltimore concern), the fish market slip, the new iron 
drawbridge of the A. & N. C. Railroad over the Trent, 
and made a reconnoissance of Lawson's Creek, which 
worms through a two-mile snipe marsh just beyond the 
city limits. The water was almost a dead calm, with the 
temperature near 60°. (The average noon temperature so 
far for the month of January has been about 50°, with 
only four gray days.) On Saturday a party of us went 
yachting, with a nice ladies' breeze from the southward 
and westward, and the air grateful and balmy. Most of 
the party were from the North, and this midwinter ex- 
perience was new to them. Indeed, January is the favor- 
ite month for yachting at New Berne, the weather being 
usually calm, whereas in summer the wind is apt to be 
too fresh for sailing. 
Now, lest those who read my frequent notes in Forest 
and Stream should think me unduly enamored of this 
New Berne climate, I think I can explain its immunity 
from storms and its habitually docile moods in blustering 
seasons by saying that the town seems to lie in an atmos- 
pheric eddy. When storms which form in the tropics pass 
up the Atlantic coast we are just on the edge of the whirl, 
and when they come down from the northward and east- 
ward we feel only its minimum force. I have ample 
data to clinch this theory. Why it is so I prefer the 
meteorologists should demonstrate. Weather forecasts, 
however correct for any given region at large, do not 
apply here. Winter here is short at the longest. I think 
we have a typical winter this year, though February and 
the complications of Venus and Mars may change the ex- 
pression. We have now violets, hyacinths, Japan quince, 
f ostoria, orange-jasmine and some other flowers blooming 
in southern exposures; the maple buds are red on the 
trees, and peas and potatoes are going into the ground. 
Next month we shall have radishes and asparagus, 
weather favoring. 
Eight swans were brought into market this morning 
and some fine bunches of quail. Only a few brant have 
come up from below. Wild geese are for the most part 
lean and tough. Last week E. F. Stilley shot the largest 
wildcat on local record just across the Neuse Eiver, 
opposite town. Sportsmen can get game by going where 
it is, but it will occupy two days or three, out and back; 
shelter and comfort guaranteed. E. P. Jepson and wife 
(with E. G. Dun & Co ) and G. W. Smythe and wife, all 
of East Orange; J. M. Hewlett and wife, of Hempstead, 
L. I,, and E. H. Goodnough and wife, of New York, are 
among the latest arrivals. Shooting is open here until 
March, though it should end by the middle of February. 
Jacksnipe are here. They come with the shad. 
"Charles T. Hallock. 
New Bkrne, N. C, Jan. 37. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
Jugging for Cats. 
Mr. Jos. Irwin, the well-known sportsman of Little 
Eock, Ark. , calls to attention a newspaper clipping re- 
counting the doings of his old father, an old-time fisher 
known all over the State of Missouri as "Uncle Joe." Mr. 
Irwin, Sr., still lives and is a famous angler still. 
Speaking of one of his trips when he went "jugging" for 
catfish in the Big Muddy he says: 
"I made one phenomenal catch On a trip made during 
the sixties, and on my arrival at home had the fish hanled 
through the streets on a dray and weighed and viewed 
by more than 500 people there who are alive and remem- 
ber the fact. On that trip there were twenty in the 
party. I caught forty fine fellows that weighed nearly 
l,6001bs., but had an experience with one that was as 
exciting as it was unusual and it afforded no end of sport 
for all of the party. The fish was the largest one I ever 
caught and weighed 1591bs. He took the hook shortly 
after we got out into the stream from Leavenworth and 
he took that jug under water for more than 100yds. Then 
he came up, but went under again and continued that 
performance for more than five miles, giving us a chase 
that was grand and exciting even for one who had fol- 
lowed the jugs for years, as I had. At length he was tired 
out, and by shoving and crowding him about w e managed 
to run him out on the sand bar and land him and capture 
the monster." 
The Longest Fight with a Fish. 
But I have a fish story which will cause envy in the 
bosom of Uncle Joe and other anglers, who must admit 
that the record is broken in one way. A muscallonge 
brought to boat only after sixteen hours of fighting — that 
certainly is something of a story. This comes to me from 
O. W. Sayner, of Plum Lake, Wis., who says the fish was 
caught by John Coleman, of Chicago, who was at Plum 
Lake on a visit with his brother Chas. Coleman, of Eock- 
ford, 111., and Mr. E. C. Glover, of 167 Dearborn street, 
Chicago. Mr. Sayner describes the occurrence which I 
offer in his own words: 
"Mr. Coleman took along his light steel rod, also a 
minnow bucket containing a few large minnows (some 
about 1ft. long). He had a good large snell hook on his 
line, to which he attached one of the minnows and let it 
follow the boat on about 30ft. of line. He had proceeded 
up the lake about a mile, with his rod resting in one of 
these patent pole holders, when slap! the tip end of the 
rod struck the water. Mr. Coleman took in his oars and 
took the rod in his hands, and just as he did so the fish 
gave a lunge clear from the water, and this was the be- 
ginning of the longest fight, I think, between man and 
fish on record. 
"He played the fish fifteen or twenty minutes and got 
it near the boat, when he happened to think that he had 
no gaff hook or gun of any kind in the boat, and the fish 
was too large to think of lifting him over the side of the 
boat, especially with no oarsman to manage the boat. At 
last he decided to run him ashore. There was an island 
about a quarter of a mile away, with a sloping beach, so 
he made for the island. To have his rod handy he just 
put it under him and sat upon it so he could row. He 
never thought about his patent pole holder. He had to 
bend to the oars, in fact, he kept pulling harder and 
harder until he pulled a stroke that just raised him from 
the seat a trifle. Just at this instant the muskee gave a 
jerk, and away went rod, reel, fine and all! 
"Mr. Coleman had a good laugh and came to the house. 
He said he had out about 50ft, of line when the rod 
jumped overboard, so I advised him to take some drag 
nooks I had made a few days before and try and pick up 
the line. He thought the water was too deep, and there 
was no telling where the fish had the pole by that time, 
judging from the way it left the boat. 
"When the others came back that evening they talked 
the matter over, with the result that by 7 o'clock next 
morning they were ready to start to drag for the line. 
The second time they let down the hooks they caught the 
line in 50ft. of water. The fish came to the surface be- 
fore the rod, but by a little fine work they succeeded in 
getting hold of the line, and after pulling in nearly 100 ft. 
of line and letting the fish have it, up came the rod. As 
luck would have it, when he put the line on his reel he 
had tied the end fast to the reel. They had to fight the 
fish all over again, for through the night he had got all 
rested up, and being on the hook so long he had got good 
and mad. He fought worse than the day before, and 
pulled so hard that Charles Coleman could not make 
much headway rowing the boat. They fought till 9:30 
A. M., during which time they towed him a mile and a 
half, when they got him near enough to shoot. He 
weighed 15iibs." E. Hough. 
909 Security Building, Chicago. 
The Forest and Stream is put to press each week on Tuesday 
Correspondence intended for publication should reach us at th^ 
ate*t by Mew lay and an. much, earlier as practicable 
Those Kansas Fishermen at Saynor's. 
Leavenworth, Kan., Jan. 31.— In the interest of jus- 
tice, honor, patriotism and comity, we demand a, hearing 
in the columns of the Forest and Stream. We have 
been maligned, vilified, humiliated and degraded. We 
were pained beyond expression and . wounded most 
fatally, in your issue of Dec, 28, by a most diabolical and 
outrageous libel upon some of the very best citizens of 
Kansas, the acknowledged creme of its metropolis. This 
occurred in a letter from the ever versatile E. Hough, 
who retailed the garrulous gossip of one Joe, the guide, 
as follows: 
"He told me of a party of gentlemen fishermen from 
Kansas who put up at Saynor's place the summer pre- 
vious. They sold their fish and marketed over l,0001bs. 
(so Saynor told me also), but they kicked because they 
did n ot pay expenses ! There was an amateur photographer 
in that same Kansas party who sold Saynor pictures of 
his house at $1 a picture. It would seem that the Kansans 
put up rather a hard game for Mr. Saynor to lay up money 
on." 
Now the nude facts are, that the fishing party referred 
to was composed of some of the brainiest, wealthiest and 
most reputable residents of Leavenworth. They had 
theretofore made several trips to the resort and intend to 
make more. They did not "sell" a single fish (and they 
resent the very scaly insinuation), but packed all of them 
in ice and shipped them to the National Hotel at Leaven- 
worth, where the muscallonge were served at a magnifi- 
cent dinner given by the gentlemen on their return to a 
distinguished party, embracing the best people of both 
sexes hereabouts. The club always winds up each fishing 
excursion with a banquet of a similar character. 
As to the "amateur photographer" mentioned, he was 
Mr. Horace Stevenson, the leading photographic artist of 
Leavenworth — a professional — who was taken along pro- 
fessionally, not as a fisherman, and paid for his time and 
services. If, as alleged, he did any work for Mr. Saynor, 
it was a strictly business transaction between them, and 
the Leavenworth fishermen knew nothing of the dicker. 
They had no interest in Mr. Stevenson's professional con- 
tracts or engagements. T. W, Scarp, 
Fish Warden of Kansas and the First President of the 
Club. 
Pickerel Fishing on Overflowed Land. 
Boston, Mass.— The Parker Eiver, in Byfield, is con- 
sidered by the local fishermen a good river for pickerel 
in the summer time, but they have just begun to find it 
good for winter fishing. On a short distance of river are 
several dams, and these dams overflow considerable 
stretches of meadow lands, more especially in the winter. 
The other day Mr. Claude Tarbox and Eepresentative 
C. O. Bailey started out with the idea of trying the river 
once more for pickerel. It is not particularly easy to 
locate the real river current when the meadows are over- 
flown and all is covered with snow and ice. But they 
cut the holes and put in their lines as near to the deep 
part, for the river, as they could hit. But the fish did 
not bite well. In one case they had cut a hole that hap- 
pened to be over the meadow, and the water was not 
more than a couple of feet deep. Just for an experiment 
Tarbox put a line with a baited hook into this hole. 
Hardly had the hook had time to sink when it was sav- 
agely seized by a big fish. He was safely brought out on 
to the ice — a magnificent specimen weighing over 21bs. 
Here was a hint, and when others were caught from the 
same hole the men began to cut holes on the overflowed 
meadows and put in their lines. The music had begun, 
and for several hours it was about all the boys wanted to- 
do to tend the flags. They caught big pickerel in a foot 
of water. Hereafter they will fish the overflowed mead- 
ows when the conditions are favorable. Special. 
Florida Fishing and Shooting. 
Gulp Hammock House, Levy County, Fla.— Your 
favored request to hand. Sportsmen are having great 
sport with rod and gun. Mr. J. H. Price and wife, from 
England, have been here since the 16th of November. He 
says this is the best place he ever struck for all-round 
sport. Mr. Price is well known as a thorough sportsman 
in many countries. Mr. W. Singleton, from Philadelphia, 
has been here eight days, and his average is over 100 fish 
per day — viz,, black bass, sea trout, sheepshead, channel 
bass, etc., etc. There are others camping out three miles 
below the house, who are having fine sport. One gentle- 
man caught ninety-six sea trout in about two hours (darky 
baiting and taking off fish). 
My hunter brought in five turkeys yesterday; weight, 
from 10 to 151bs. each. Turkeys are plentiful this year. 
Last April and May were very dry months, which was 
very favorable for their young. 
Two gentlemen are going down the river to try the tar- 
pon. I will report their luck. It's not often I can leave' 
the house, but stole away on Monday evening for about 
two hours and caught eleven black bass running from 2 ! 
to 81bs. They are taking the Spinner in good form and 
are veiy lively. 
Darky just in with three fine turkeys; can't take them; 
have them spoiling now. Capt. C. B. Wingate. 
Canal from Eel Bay to Lake of the Islands. 
Philadelphia, Jan. 31.— Editor Forest and Stream: I 
have sent to the Committee on Fish and Game of the New 
York Senate a communication requesting a small appro- 
priation for the purpose of making survey of a canal from 
Eel Bay to the Lake of the Islands, Thousand Islands, St. 
Lawrence Eiver. A glance at the map of the locality, 
aided by a knowledge of the situation, will show the great 
advantage of the canal, both as a means of communica- 
tion with the lake from the upper end, together with the 
improvement of the fishing in the lake by reason of the 
current that will be thrown into it. In the event of the 
Canadian authorities withdrawing the privilege of free 
fishing among their islands, whatever leads to improve 
our side of the river will be decidedly advantageous. One 
familiar with the river I think will appreciate the situa- 
tion. I have no interest in the matter other than that I 
am a Bummer resident on the river, and I think it will be 
a good thing and will benefit us all. 
E. M. Hartley. 
