836 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
[April 35, 1896. 
of a foot, when Fred came bearing down upon my sport, 
and we soon had sufficient to make a taste for supper for 
ourselves. After that Joe says he will show us where to 
get fish, so that we will not eat minnows like what we had 
for supper; and we smile at thought of anything better 
.than those trout caught, cleaned, fried and eaten all within 
half an hour. 
A war whoop was given to assemble at the bank of the 
small stream, and we go down it to the Nipigon a short 
ways above the laws at our first landing. It is now dusk, 
and in the semi-light the river runs like a mill race, and 
as the lines touch the waters they straighten out to the 
full length. As the strain is steady we know it was not a 
fish bite, so we reel out more line, and soon have three- 
quarters of it out. Slowly we reel up and then let it out 
again, and as it has become dark no idea by sight can be 
had of the location of the line. By touch we ascertain 
from the reel how much line is out and how far down the 
current it has gone, when suddenly a jerk comes to my 
line and my heart is in my mouth. In imagination I can- 
not have anything but a 91b. trout, and I play it carefully. 
Fred, who is in the boat with me, says, "Is it a big 
one? Does he pull hard?" and a lot of other questions; 
but I remain silent, my speech is gone and I am 
only feeling. When I feel the fish tugging at my hook 
real hard 1 make a strike and fasten it. Then begins a 
rush and I am willing to swear it weighs a ton, and is the 
largest trout in the river. I reel in my slack line and soon 
see an object breaking the water a snort distance away, 
and carefully I guide it along to Fred, who sits in the 
stern of the canoe with landing net, makes a dash at it, 
but miscalculates the distance and miBses the fish, but I 
have hooked him deep and strong and soon bring him 
up again, and Fred throws him into the boat. The moon 
gives a few rays of light, but not enough to see by, so I 
strike a match, and shading it from the wind, throw the 
rays upon my catch, my big trout; but the light blinds 
my eyes, and Fred screams and yells until I fear he will 
upset the boat. I sit duoibfouoded at this hilarity, and 
when Fred recovers himself he cries out, "It's a wall- 
eyed pike. Eager to know what I did catch I reach over 
and the scales prove that Fred is correct, and my first 
trout of the Nipigon is a wall-eyed pike or pike-perch. 
The joke is on me, and I get mad at myself for coming 
hundreds of miles only to catch that fish when they can 
be killed nearer home. I want to quit or be pitched 
overboard, but Fred commands with much authority, 
"Keep quiet! Keep still; I've got a bite." So he had. 
A splasn away down the rushing waters of the pool 
stiowed there was trouble down there and that there was 
much activity, so, thinking my time for a laugh had 
come on Fred, I awaited the landingof the fish. Bracing 
myself ready to scream and crow over Fred when his 
wall eyed pike came in, I watched the contest with land- 
ing net in hand. But Fred, anticipating what 1 would 
do, concluded he did not need any help, but reeled up 
his fish until he reached his line, gave it a swing, and into 
the boat came a speckled brook trout of at least 4Albs. 
weight. Forgetting to laugh at his discomforture, we 
both sent out yells of victory to apprise the Judge in the 
Other boat, and he came down to join us and to assist. A 
smaller trout was added by the Judge and that closed the 
night's sport. We crossed and recrossed the stream, 
moved up and moved down, but no good, the fish had 
quit and so must we. 
The order was given to return to camp, and slowly and 
- reluctantly we went to camp, to sleep and yet to dream 
Of what fish the morrow would bring to us. 
The Indians had made us good soft beds made from 
leafy underbrush, and after smoking a pipe of peace we 
wrapped ourselves in blankets and slept the sleep of the 
righteous fisherman, at rest with peace to the world and 
everything else. J. W. Hague. 
Pittsburg, Pa. 
[TO EE CONTINUED.] 
THE CANADIAN ANGLING SEASON. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
\ As it is an Englishman's privilege to growl when things 
go wrong with him and to write a letter to the Times 
when he has a grievance, I don't know what better an 
angler can do when apparently about to be thwarted in 
his design of early spring fishing than write all about it 
to Forest and Stream. My good friends, Hart, of Water- 
bury, Durand, of Newark, and the rest of them, are im- 
patient to know when the spring fishing is going to open 
this year in Canada, and I know that down in Springfield 
and Bridgeport and other anglers' homes there are hun- 
dreds of other trout fishermen who have not yet written 
up to Canada to know how the winter is passing, but who 
nevertheless are very much in earnest in their desire for 
knowledge under this head. Generally by this time of 
the year Quebeckers are able to form some opinion about 
the coming of spring and the opening of the angling sea- 
son. The snow has often entirely disappeared by the 
middle of April, and even if the ice has not left the lakes, 
it is preparing to go, and farmers are getting ready to 
plant their spring crops. But to-day the outlook is most 
discouraging, and I know not what to say to the 
many waiting American anglers who want to know 
how to time their spring fishing trip . to their pre- 
serves. I suppose we shall have spring some time this 
year, but thus far there are not many indications of it 
if I except the recent arrival of the crows and of an odd 
robin or two. Sleighs are still running here, not only in 
the country parts, but also in the city streets; teams are 
crossing the ice bridge over the St. Lawrence, and a fur 
cap ana a fur-lined overcoat were by no means uncom- 
fortable on the way home from the club last night. I 
have put away last year's flies that I took out last month 
to examine, and feel as if it will be almost an eternity 
before I require to look for them again. The warm 
weather may come with quite a rush when it comes at 
all, and unless it does there will be very little May fishing 
this year in northern Canada, and none at all in the 
middle of the month. The snow is very deep in the 
woods, the spring floods are certain to be as heavy as 
ever, and not much fly-fishing can be had until the snow 
water has been carried down to the lakes. Short springs 
are usually hot ones here, and so it is altogether unlikely 
that the opening of the ouananiche season will be much 
delayed, the probability being that trout fishermen who 
come up here for the early spring fishing in Lake Ed- 
ward, or in their own club preserves, and have a fort- 
night to spare for it, will be able to take some ouananiche 
before their return. This iB specially true of the pools at 
the mouth of the Metabetchouan and off the Roberval 
shore, where the angling is good during the last eight or 
ten days of May, and where ordinary salmon flies are 
found to be the best surface lures. And in the Grande 
Desharge it is seldom that there is not good sport by 
June 10 or 15. 
Of all the many localities where fishermen go to fight 
the festive ouananiche I like best the Grande Decharge, 
unless many days' journey be made from civilization up 
some one of the great northern feeders of Lake St. John, 
where mighty cataracts are to be met and portaged 
around. One advantage of the Grande Decharge is its ac- 
cessibility. A large iron steamer, the Mistassini, crosses 
to it every morning from Roberval. Among and around 
the many picturesque islands at the head of the discharge 
and in the waters of Lake St John itself, just above them, 
monster pike are to be taken by trolling, often up to 20 
and even 301bs, in weight. Sometimes a ouananiche 
takes the spoon thus trolled for pike, and I have seen 
them leap out of the water, spoon in mouth, and shake it 
much as a terrier will shake a rat. But for the highest 
kind of the sport the ouananiche must be sought with the 
fly, and for this fishing there is no more favored locality 
than the many scum-covered pools at the foot of the 
various rapids and chartes of la Grande Deoharge, 
I have lately been ransacking my notebooks for descrip- 
tions of some of these pools and of the best unleased trout 
waters in this north country for use in my forthcoming 
book on "The Ouananicbe and its Canadian Environ- 
ment," and may shortly offer you Borne of these sketches 
for the columns of Forest and Stream, whose weekly 
visits, with its fresh, breezy pages, and friend Cheney's 
interesting and instructive "Angling Notes," go so far 
toward compensating many of us for the long time that 
we have to wait for spring in order to go a fishing. 
E. T. D. Chambers. 
Quebkc, Canada, April 14. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
Chicago, 111., April 18. — April and May are two monthB 
of doubt and discontent for the sportsmen of this region. 
A good many fellows don't think it right to go shooting 
in the spring, but they want to go mighty bad just the 
same. They have been chained to business all winter 
and can't go fishing, because it isn't time or isn't legal. 
So they don't know what to do, and end up by being un- 
happy. They have the choice of fishing for bass in 
Illinois, where it is legal, but wrong, or of waiting till 
June 1 before they go fishing for bass across the line in 
Wisconsin, where it is both illegal and wrong in the two 
months mentioned. They can go trout fishing after April 
15, but it is apt to be so cold they can't catch anything, and 
most folk would rather catch something, when you get 
right down to their bedside inner consciousness, not pay- 
ing too much attention to their spoken or published 
utterances. Of course, they could go trap-shooting, but 
some folk don't care for that. About all the earnest 
young sportsman can do is to put his hands in hispockets 
and wait till things get warmer and more legal, revolving 
meantime the remark of Napoleon at Waterloo, ' 'This is 
magnificent, but it ain't business." 
Heavy Flight of Snipe. 
The sudden advent of warm weather brought with it 
the heavy flight of snipe predicted last week. Not for 
several seasons has there been such abundance of jack- 
snipe on the Kankakee marshes as during the last few 
days. Extremely large bags of these birds have been 
made on that part of the grounds lying near Koutts and 
Hanna. At Maksawba Club grounds the birds have ap- 
peared in swarms. Mr. W. P. Mussey usually is posted 
on the shooting at that point, and to-day I stepped in to 
ask him about it, but found he was absent at the club 
after snipe himself. He had telegraphed L. R. Brown 
and R. B. Organ to come on down quick, as th°. shooting 
was fine. Last week the snipe were all over the marsh, 
but the cover was poor and the birds were very wild, so 
the shooting was hard, but by this time the young grass 
is up and the birds are not so new and wild. 
The snipe have appeared all along the series of sloughs 
and marshes west of this city. On the Kiahwaukee 
River, further west in the State, they are on hand to-day. 
At Fox Lake they have been in for over a week, and all 
over the lower edge of Wisconsin they are right now 
dropping in in great numbers on all the little marshes and 
upland warm bogs. One should have no difficulty in get- 
ting all he should want in any one of a dozen different 
localities in Illinois this coming week. The golden 
plover are due now. Upland plover have appeared all 
over northern Illinois and in lower Wisconsin. The ducks 
have gone on north for the most part, though a few blue- 
bills linger on the lower Wisconsin lakes. The ducks are 
pairing very fast and so are the snipe. 
Fishing. 
It is a sort of unwritten law among the better Chicago 
anglers that bats fishing should not begin until the latter 
part of April at least, and I have not heard of any catches 
as yet, though I think the bass would bite now at Momence 
on the Kankakee, or at any of the points on the Fox be- 
tween Aur ra and Elgin. The big-mouth bass are now 
spawning in the lower Wisconsin lakes. The pickerel 
are now far up the streams, and this week the run of 
suckers was on in full force, and the natives were spear- 
ing the usual numbers. The humble sucker is a perennial 
picnic to the farmer man in the spring. He is a trifld il- 
legal when speared, but is good with dandelions or long 
radishes, and the farmer refuses to have him abolished. 
Opening of the Trout Season. 
On the day preceding the opening of the Wisconsin 
trout season this week Mr, H, L. Stanton and Mr. Frank 
Willard, as mentioned last week, went up into Wisconsin 
to wet an early line, and I went along to sort of take care 
of them. We went to our favorite outing place of Wau- 
kesha county, Wis., getting into Mukwonago about dark, 
and thence going over to Billy Tuoby's place on Eagle 
Lake, which we made headquarters on the little trip. 
There are a few small streams in that part of the country 
which Billy knows about, and we went in there to see if 
we could catch a mess of trout, not expecting any great 
sport, as the country is all farming land, settled for half 
a century and tramped over continually by all sorts of 
city and country folk in quest of sport. I cannot recom- 
mend it as a trout fishing region, but as a place to go to 
for an enjoyable outing it is hard to surpass. It seemed 
doubly pleasant to us city dwellers who were getting our 
first sniff of clean country air after the long and awful 
winter of Chicago. A prettier land never lay out of 
doors, and we had full opportunity to see many miles of 
it behind Billy's trotters, for trout and travel are insepar- 
ably connected in that region. We skurried about over a 
wide strip of country, and it was only by dint of Billy's 
thorough familiarity with the locality and his skill as a 
trout fisher that we at length managed to compass our 
ambition, and got together what might by a lively stretch 
of the imagination be called a mess of trout. Of satis- 
factory fishing we had none whatever, but we felt that 
we had done our duty and opened the trout season in due 
and solemn form. 
I know of no one line of human activity wherein a man 
will make as big a fool of himself, and do so as cheerfully 
and repeatedly, as he will in the matter of trout fishing in 
this Wisconsin country. As a rule the trip into the trout 
country is successful about once in twenty times, and the 
discouragements are continuous and multifold, but that 
appears to make no difference. Our streams are fished to 
death, and barring a few up in the pine country are not 
very good trout streams anyhow, but the deep paths along 
them are paved with city dollars dropped in search of the 
most beautiful and alluring fraud that ever aided in the 
downfall of mankind. Every time I go trout fishing I 
vow I never will go again, but I have and I do and I will, 
I suppose, as long as I live. There is nothing one is so 
sure to do as the thing which is against his judgment. 
Yet much as I have traveled over upper Wisconsin in 
search of a trout stream where one could cast a fly and 
catch a few trout, I confess I have never found but half a 
dozen streams where that was possible, have found only 
three of them with trout enough left to afford decent fish- 
ing, and have had only one or two days on either of those 
when the trout were actually rising so that one could take 
a basket in the only truly enjoyable way of catohing 
trout. A good many fine takes of trout are made in Wis- 
consin, but the majority of these are made with bait in 
small streams where the fly cannot be used. Such 
streams as the Brule and allied rivers were once good for 
the fly, but are bo no more. The best of our fiahing for 
trout is in the short rivers which flow into Lake Superior, 
but the best of these are awkward to get at. We have no- 
where in this part of the West such fishing as is enjoyed 
by those who go to Maine, Canada or New Brunswick, 
the natural trout regions. Perhaps I say this in a fit of 
grumpinesa caused by the last unlucky trout trip to the 
country north of here; but even as I write it I remember 
the successful trips also, and one thing is certain, I shall 
keep on going until I find my stream and my trout and 
my day, and so finally get the best of my ancient enemy, 
and that with the honorable weapons allowable in such a 
contest. In which determination Mr. Stanton and Mr. 
Willard concur, the feud being as ancient in their case as 
my own, and the issue at this date much the same. But 
why should we rebel, and why should we vow vows? 
Did not this small and painted hypocrite afford the reason 
and excuse for a fine day out of doors, and for much ham 
and eggs, and for many libations of the purest spring 
water, and for a walk of seven miies after dark one night 
when the frogs were singing by the way and the snipe 
were "booming" up high in the dark, and everything was 
still and sweet and calm? After all about this little vil- 
ain, maybe he has his compensations. 
Habits of Bass. 
Paddling about in a boat along the channel between 
Eagle and Lulu lakes, after we had concluded our cam- 
paign against the trout, we found pleasure in watching 
the fish which had crowded up into the shallow water. 
There were numbers of them, and many very large, which 
latter we took to be dogfish. Billy told us, however, that 
they were not dogfish, but bass. "A dogfish will not run 
very far when he gets into cover of the reeds or grass," 
said he, when we told him of our observations; "but a bass 
will run and keep on running, clear through thft grass, 
when you scare him, until he gets quite out of sight." 
This comment on the surly and impudent methodB of the 
dogfish was new to us, but is no doubt correct. 
"A. black bass, in my mind," continued Billy, "is the 
shyest and the wariest fish there is. About any fish has a 
blind side, but a bass hasn't. A trout is very foxy in some 
ways, but is the biggest fool on earth in a good many 
other ways. You follow a trout and chase him into a hole 
under the bank, and he will stick his head out of sight and 
either think he is safe or else be so scared he won't move, 
so you can pick him right up in your hand. But I'd like 
to see you 'tickle' a black bass that way. The first time 
your fingers touch him he will jump about forty rods." 
Ruffed Grouse Eggs. 
Referring to late inquiry in these columns in regard to 
some ruffed grouse eggs, I have the following letter which 
may afford good advice, if it does not offer satisfaction. 
It comes from Rex Piscator, of Chicago, who says: 
"I notice in our paper that Mr. McAllister, of 'Arkan- 
sas,' wants a 'settin' of ruffed grouse eggs. I can't sup- 
ply him, and don't believe they would do him any good 
if I could. I remember that when I was a little shaver 
my grandfather caught two boys (old enough to know 
better) a few minutes after they had shot a 'hen pheasant' 
during the breeding season. After telling the boys what 
would happen if ever he caught them on the place again, 
the old gentleman searched for and found the nest. He 
took the eggs home and placed them under a setting 
hen, and in due time they all hatched. Like your pin- 
nated grouse, I believe they were born a-running, and 
as far as I know they never stopped; leastwise they dis- 
appeared utterly, so utterly, in fact, that there was a 
well-defined notion in the neighborhood that the whole 
thing was a myth, and that grandfather B, never had any 
pheasant eggs. 
"I don't think it would pay Mr. McAllister for his 
trouble, Batter get some old birds and liberate them." 
But how shall he get the old birds? They do not fre- 
quent fox traps, and a snare hangs them by the neck till 
taey be dead. 
Chicago Bear Country. 
The mountain idea that a horse is good hait for bear 
was well proved in Chicago this week, only in Chicago 
we use a live horse instead of a dead one. In a traveling 
circus outfit which had quarters on Sangamon street a 
bear got loose and killed a Shetland pony belonging to 
the show, proceeding further to eat up most of the pony 
before he could be persuaded to stop. Residents of this 
