March 31, 1896. j 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
239 
result to Ireland the same evening I understood it was 
only 12in. I was beaten by. In the competition with 14ft. 
rods I beat him by over 12ft. Three days before I left 
Ireland I was not aware for certain that the tournament 
would be held on grass, but it was, and my practice was 
little. The following day. before reliable witnesses, on 
dead water, with a CastJe Connell rod of 18ft. I did the 
world's record cast of 146ft. I then inserted a challenge 
to the world in the papers for any amateur, the casting 
to be done on water. There were no replies, but I am 
still open to a match. To a man trained to casting on the 
water it is a totally different thing to perform on grass. 
I practice a great deal on the Shannon, having fished it 
regularly since the opening day. I think you will agree 
with me that to cast on water "is the test for both rod and 
man. My records at present, besides the one mentioned 
with 18ft. rod, are: 16ft. rod, 131ft. Sin., and 14ft. 
rod, 128ft. 3in., the measurements being taken from 
where the caster stood to where the fly dropped on the 
water. In the 18ft. rod-casting I stood about 5in. above 
the water level, and in the other two classes I stood below 
the water level. When does your American tournament 
come off, and what height above the water is the raft on 
which the caster stands? Do you have events for double- 
handed rods, such as 14, 16, 18 or 20ft,? An international 
tournament in New York may induce some of our fly- 
casters to venture over. I expect to compete at the in- 
ternational tournament to be held on May 9 at Wimble- 
don, seven miles from London." 
I regret to say to Mr. Enright that there is no prospect 
of an American fly-casting tournament in the immediate 
future, of course I refer to a tournament of national 
character. The National Rod and Reel Association held 
its last tournament at Central Park in 1889. 
There was nothing in the rules as to the height of the 
platform on which the caster stood. This was under the 
direction of the committee of arrangements, and it was 
about 10in., as I remember it, above the water's surface. 
The National Association rules provided only for single- 
handed rods, not to exceed lift. 6in. in length, and 
salmon rods to be used with two hands, with no limit as 
to length. Up to 1885 there was a rule that no rod should 
exceed 18ft, in length, and that was the maximum length 
when the limit was eliminated. The tendency in this 
country is to use rods shorter than 18ft. in actual fishing. 
An international fly-casting tournament in New York 
that would attract the best British fly-casters to compete 
with our own champions would be an event worth going 
mites to see, and I wish there was a reasonable prospect 
of such a contest being brought about. The international 
tournament to be held in Wimbledon is extensively ad- 
vertised in the late English papers, and the rules are 
given in full. 
State Fish. 
It is more than likely that some who applied to the 
Fisheries, Game and Forest Commission of New York for 
trout and other fish for planting in public waters will be 
disappointed when they find that less than the number 
they asked for have been assigned to them. I say that 
some will be disappointed, because it is quite evident that 
some of the applicants bad no expectaction of getting the 
number of fish with which they filled out the blanks. 
The reaBon why applicants will get less fish than they 
asked for i3 this: The aggregate of the applications for 
the various species of trout amount to 10,864,200 brook 
trout, 1,380,600 brown trout, 155,500 rainbow trout, and 
6,110,000 lake trout, or a total of 18,510,300. The State 
has on hand for distribution 4,315,000 brook trout, 900,000 
brown trout, say 40 000 rainbow trout, and 5,255,000 lake 
trout, or a total of 10,510,000. About 500,000 trout fry of 
various kinds will be retained at the hatching stations 
and raised to yearlings before they are planted. All 
things considered this is a very good showing, but if the 
State has not enough fish to fill applications in full they 
must of necessity be scaled down. At present there are 
not facilities for rearing more yearlings than the number 
I have given above, but when more rearing ponds are 
constructed the number of yearlings will be materially 
increased. The applications for black bass amount to 
1,136,000 fish, probably about 1,100,000 more than the 
State can by any possible chance supply if it could rake 
the waters over without protest to obtain them. 
A few people will be disappointed, possibly because they 
get no fish, but this is because they ask for brook trout to 
plant in pickerel ponds and lake trout to plant in warm, 
shallow water, where they would not live. Pike-perch 
are excellent fish and 13,413,000 have been asked for, but 
the pike-perch hatching operations have not commenced 
yet. 
Aluminum Smelt. 
Fish Commissioner Henry O. Stanley, of Maine, has 
sent me an artificial bait for landlocked salmon. It is 
called the aluminum smelt bait, and is light, strong and 
very attractive, so much so that it must prove to be a kill- 
ing bait for other fish than landlocked salmon. The 
hooks are at the tail of the metal smelt, and for this rea- 
son should be a good black bass and lake trout bait, as 
both fish are quite apt to strike the tail of a bait rather 
than che head. A. N. Cheney. 
The Value of a Size Limit for Trout. 
I SEE by correspondence from Massachusetts, signed 
Hackle, that there is an effort being made to have a stat- 
ute fixing the size of brook trout which may be lawfully 
taken or possessed. 
Having been associated in a similar effort here in Con- 
necticut (which, by the way, was successful), I will offer 
a few points which I believe warrant such a regulation: 
To begin with, I think the 8in. limit too large, for al- 
though it protects more immature fish, I think 6in. a 
more "happy medium." 
The most important and only real reason why Buch a 
law is desirable is to protect immature trout — or at least 
a large number which may not be mature. In nearly all 
our small streamB where trout ascend in the fall to spawn 
the little fish, after becoming large enough to feed, remain 
safe from the old ones, as low water during the summer 
months drives the large trout down into the larger streams 
or deep pools. 
In the shallow upper waters of every trout stream are 
found the small fish, averaging from the fry to 6in. ; they 
remain there secure from large fish and feed on insect 
lavas, which is more abundant among the springs and 
along the edges than down in the large pools. To take 
these little fish is to rob the stream of its future stock and 
secure trout weighing less than loz, 
What a sportsman it must be who empties a basket of 
baby trout, none of which will weigh over loz. ! Surely, 
no sportsman will be guilty. 
A 6in. limit does not protect all immature brook trout, 
but it protects a large number, and if the open season is 
not too long carries many more so near to it that they 
become spawners the following season. If it were not for 
the fact that the different States spend annually consider- 
able money propagating trout, there would be less justice 
for a law, but sportsmen must not think that the State is 
going to hatch trout to be dumped into every little stream 
and then pulled out again as soon as they are large 
enough to take a worm on a very small hook. 
Trout fry are placed in a stream to furnish brood fish 
when old enough, that they may multiply and thus fur- 
nish food and sport. 
My advice to my brother sportsmen in Massachusetts is 
to have the size fixed at 6in. and then see that it is en- 
forced. You will all be catching larger trout and more 
natural increase will be the result. C. W. Hall. 
Hartford, Conn. 
NETTING IN LAKE ONTARIO. 
Editor Forest and Stream: . 
All sportsmen should do what missionary work they 
can to further the amendments approved for recommen- 
dation by the New York State Association for the Protec- 
tion of Fish and Game published in Forest and Stream 
Jan. 18, 1896. If everyone does something toward cor- 
recting an abuse with which he is conversant, he only 
does his duty. 
I consider my share consists in showing up the absur- 
dity of the present law with reference to netting. 
Section 132 of chapter 488 of the laws of 1892 reads as 
follows: 
No fish shall be fished for, caught or killed in any manner or by any 
device except angling, in the waters of Lake Erie, within one-half of a 
mile of the shores thereof , or of any of the islands therein, nor in the 
Cattaraugus Creek, or within five miles of the mouth thereof, or of 
any island therein; nor in Lake Ontario within one mile of the shore 
or of any island therein, nor within three miles of the mouth of the 
Niagara River: the waters of Lake Ontario in the county of Jefferson 
included between Blue (should be Bull) Rock Point, in the town of 
Brownviile, and the town line between the towns of Lyme and Cape 
Vincent, including Chaumont Bay, Griffin (should be Quffln) Bay and 
Three Mile Bay, (and) in the county of Oswego, between the northerly 
line of the town of Mexico and Jefferson county line, are hereby ex- 
empt from the provisions of this act, * * * 
The State Association demands that this act be amended 
so as to prohibit all netting except one mile from shore, 
in Lake Ontario and all of its bays, in the Niagara River 
or within three miles of its mouth, or in Lake Erie within 
one mile from shore, or within three miles of the Horse- 
shoe Reef Lighthouse. 
All anglers should urge the passage of this amendment. 
The bays at the east end of Ontario left open to netters I 
consider the most natural breeding and feeding spots for 
black bass in the State of New York, if not in the country. 
The shores are of shelving broken limestone and boulders, 
free from weeds and shifting sand, and in many places 
about the bay are extensive reefs of the same material. 
Both shore and shoals are alive with crayfish, known to 
be the natural food of the bass. Minnows abound, sailing 
is safe, and all good fishing grounds are within easy row- 
ing distance. In fact, after a varied experience with 
bass fishing in other parts of New York, in Pennsylvania, 
Massachusetts, Vermont and Quebec, I have at last settled 
down on the bays at the east end of Lake Ontario as the 
best. That from year to year the fishing gets poorer is 
not strange, as bass have to run the gauntlet of nets of all 
kinds from the time they enter the bays to spawn to the 
time when they leave for deep water. 
One not conversant with the facts wonders why netting 
is allowed in these bays. For an explanation we must go 
into ancient history. Thirty years ago these waters were 
actually alive with whitefish, ciscos, wall-eyed pike and 
lake trout. The pound-net was imported from Long 
Island Sound, every one that could owned and fished one, 
and the bays bristled with poles like a hop field. Tons 
and tons of food fish were taken and an industry profit- 
ably employing many men and much capital sprung up. 
Alluring profits, however, led too many to embark in the 
enterprise, and in a few years they all but exterminated 
the food fish of that locality. Where once there were a 
score or more of pound-nets and hundreds of men em- 
ployed, there has not been a pound-net set for ten or more 
years, and the few men who still catch food fish with gill- 
nets by dint of hard work do well if they catch enough 
for their own consumption. The excuse for allowing 
netting in these bays therefore no longer exists, based as 
it is upon mere tradition of a long past commercial pros- 
perity. Traditions die hard, however, and it was the in- 
fluence of those remembering the days of former pros- 
perity which forced the exemptions of the netting act of 
1892. 
If the amendment advocated were to work hardship on 
any considerable portion of the honest community of that 
region, I would urge its adoption with reluctance, for 
men who fish for money have rights as well as those who 
fish for sport (and fish), but let me present the true state 
of affairs. 
Less than a dozen residents of that region fish for a 
living, at which they work harder and get less than a 
good farm hand. Perhaps three times as many residents 
fish gill-nets in the fall and catch, perhaps, enough ciscos 
for their own use. 
Here is the point to which I wish to call the attention 
of legislators and reformers. These being the only 
shallow fresh waters in the State where netting is allowed 
the year round, netters from all over the State, and from 
other States, come early and stay late, bring nothing to 
the community and take away all they get. They are 
men who have been driven from home by their habitual 
violation of local game laws, and scent the prey of unpro- 
tected waters and descend in flocks upon them as turkey 
buzzards sniff and pounce on carrion. Their implement 
of destruction is the trap-net and their quarry everything 
that swims. From the time the ice goes out of the bays 
until it forms again these trap-nets line the Bhores and 
cover the shoals where game fish breed and feed. When 
bass are coming in from the lake to spawn they set their 
nets in and almost across the narrow inlet, destroying in 
that way millions of game fish yet unborn. I have the 
word of a dealer in fresh-water fish in New York that his 
firm receives barrels upon barrels of bass from these 
pirates in May before he can expose and sell -them in our 
markets, and he is obliged to send them to Philadelphia j 
where the law is less strict. As these netters have a full 
knowledge of the fact that catching or possessing bass 
before May 30 is illegal they have to take what is offered, 
and the commission merchant knowing the same squeezes 
them down to the uttermost farthing, so that the netters, 
for this early, illegal and indiscriminate slaughter of 
spawn-bearing game fish, get hardly money enough to 
tar a net. 
Thus, to provide a few residents with a scanty living, 
the law allows a horde of aliens, most of them lawbreakers, 
to despoil the most natural game fish resort in the country; 
for, caught while coming in to spawn and beset on all 
sides all summer by trap-nets, hoop-nets, and driven into 
gill nets at night by torches and a splashing mob of 
market fishermen, how long will it be before black bass, 
like ciscos, whitefish and trout, will be a memory. I 
have it on good authority that more than twenty dollars 
have been the proceeds of one night's work on a reef with 
a gill-net, a few torches and men and boats. As they do 
not get much for bass, a night's work like that probably 
represents about 3001bs. of bass, and, as this slaughter 
is repeated almost every still night, it is easy to see why 
it is more common for an angler to lose hook, line and 
sinker on a rope or net than to land enough bass to eat. 
It is easier to Btop all netting than it is a part, hence I 
advocate the passage of the amendment as proposed; 
otherwise no one would seriously object to sturgeon fish- 
ing nor to using gill-nets for ciscos and whitefish after 
Nov. 1, although many bass are caught in the latter when 
set earlier for wall-eyed pike. 
If the waters of those bays are adequately protected 
sportsmen will come there and will leave more money in 
the place in three months than the whole gang of netters 
would make in a year. 
That my arguments may have more weight, allow me 
to say that I am no mere visiting angler, but a property 
owner and taxpayer, and last summer I spent four months 
there, and shall spend at least three months there every 
summer unless my sport is whittled down to sailing and 
catching sunfish. R. W. Amidon. 
THE MASSACHUSETTS ASSOCIATION. 
Boston, Mass., March 14, — Editor Forest and Stream: 
A large number of members of the Massachusetts Fish and 
Game Protective Association enjoyed a very profitable 
meeting at the Copley Square Hotei, Friday evening, 13th 
inst. President Clark and Secretary Kimball keep things 
going at a lively rate and are hustling for the good o f the 
cause at all times. During the last few weeks they with 
J. Russell Reed, Esq., who with ex-President George W. 
Wiggin act as counsel for the association, have attended 
many hearings before the Fish and Game committee, and. 
always in the interest of better laws relating to fish and 
game and their more rigid enforcement. A meeting of 
the board of government was held at 5:30 o'clock, Presi- 
dent Clark in the chair. The resignation of Mr. John 
Fottler, Jr., as librarian was accepted and Dr. E. W. Bra- 
migan was unanimously chosen to fill the vacancy. The 
selection was an admirable one. The doctor is a great 
lover of books, and it is his intention to set apart one of 
his office rooms for the collection owned by the associa- 
tion, properly catalogue and arrange them so that they 
may be easily accessible to the members — a consumma- 
tion most devoutly to be wished. 
At 7 o'clock dinner was announced, Tom Henry's 
orchestra furnishing music. Cigars being reached, Presi- 
dent Clark began the speech making by appropriate ref- 
erence to the recent death of Gov. Greenhalge, a warm 
friend and frequent guest of the association. J. Russell 
Reed, Esq., spoke at some length of the work done before 
the legislative committee on fish and game, with especial 
reference to the law of 1894, which allows dealers to sell 
certain game birds in the winter and spring, and to keep 
them through the entire season provided they are not 
killed contrary to the laws of this State. The association 
desires to have this law amended so that they shall not 
be sold or kept here if they are brought here illegally — 
that is, from States which expressly prohibit their export. 
Mr. Reed showed to the committee that, by the evidence 
of the dealers themselves, a greater part of these game 
birds are brought here from Western States that have laws 
prohibiting their export, and that by keeping such a law 
upon our statute books Massachusetts encourages crim- 
inals in other States to violate existing laws in those local- 
ities. The outcome of the hearing will be awaited with 
considerable interest. President Clark referred to the 
proposed change in the lobster law, a bill having been 
reported allowing the taking of lobsters 9in. in length 
instead of 10+in., as at present, and said that if the bill 
passed it would mean ruin to the lobster fishery inside of 
five years, as a 9in. lobster bore very few eggs compared 
to one of lOin. or longer. It is one of the inconceivable 
things why the men of Dukes county (and none others 
appeared to advocate the bill) should thus deliberately 
endeavor to reduce the supply of lobsters below what it 
now is, and statistics show that the number taken in our 
bays and along the coast has been growing beautifully 
less year by year. The regular business of the monthly 
meeting was then proceeded with, and the following new 
members were elected: John N. Akerman, Dr. George 
McAleer, Ralph B Williams. Arthur B. Holmes, Henry 
L. Kyser, Frank V. Noyes, Dr. S. P. Willard, Wm. R. 
Sears, Richard V. Joyce, T. G. Bremer, Wm. Almy, Wm. 
L. Mercer, Larra W. Sumner, Frank D. Sumner, Wm. 
H. Goodwin, Wm. F. McQuillen, Thomas W. Henry, W. 
A. Wilson, W. P. Richer, Geo. J. Raymond, Charles S 
Clarke, Joshua S. Dunklee, Albert N. Paslin, Wm, H. 
Sweatt, G. A. Macauber, A. D. Thayer. A dozen or fif- 
teen new names were proposed and laid over to the next 
meeting. Arthur J. Selfridge, Esq. , gave a very inter 
esting talk on "Outdoor Life in California," and the meet 
ing was brought to a close. Wm. B. Smart. 
Punta Rassa Tarpon. 
PcntaRassa, Fla., Feb. 28.— Editor Forest and Stream- 
I feel assured that your many readers will be delighted to 
hear that the tarpon season of '96 was opened by Mr. W. 
L, Boyle, of New York, on Feb. 27, and that Punta Rassa 
has the honor to place a soale on herjrecord board. 
Mr. Boyle, who is cruising on the yacht Tarpon, is an 
enthusiastic fisherman. 
Pennsylvania Fish Protective Association. 
Philadelphia, March 14.— A reunion of the members 
will be held at the rooms, 1020 Arch street. Thursday 
evening, March 26, 1896, at 7;30 o'clock. 
