616 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[JtJUE 27, 1896. 
making their headquarters at the camps of Martin Noyes. 
Mr. Proctor haB made many trips to this region, and has 
promised that his friend Mr. Harris will be as well ac- 
quainted as he is with its many good points by the time 
they are ready to return. Hackle. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
Glaciers and Bass. 
Chicago, 111., June 11.— On the morning of the second 
day of our stay at Westville, Ind., Dr. Hollenbeck, the 
well-posted and observant angler earlier referred to, 
kindly volunteered to act as guide to some of the more in- 
teresting spots of the region about. I got into his buggy 
with him and we started for the mill pond, wherein, ac- 
cording to his statement, the Calumet River had its ulti- 
mate source and beginning. We traveled due north 
from "Westville over an excellent road for six miles, go- 
ing gradually up all the while toward the top of the di- 
vide which separates Lake Michigan from the Kankakee 
waters. 
"This wide and apparently level table land along which 
we are passing," said Dr. Hollenbeck, "is the richest land 
of this region, and is worth $100 an acre. You can see' 
the original forest trees standing over much of it, and 
now and then, as you will observe, there will be a patch 
of excellent sugar bush among these. This long and ap- 
parently level valley off to our right is a prairie glade 
which sinks off softly back of us toward the Kankakee, 
and is drained by Hog Creek, which we are leaving back 
of us. On ahead you can see this high valley narrowing, 
in between the timber-covered hills, until it finally 
pinches out right at the summit of the divide. Back of 
us is the long slope of the Kankakee side of the divide, up 
which the railroads have no difficulty in climbing. 
Ahead of us is the Calumet or Chicago side of the divide, 
and though you might not expect it on this apparently 
innocent looking prairie country, it has always been a 
trouble to get a grade on this side of the divide. It is 
very sharp, and even to-day the Lake Shore road has to 
use 'pushers' to get up this grade going East. Back of us, 
as you know, the Kankakee, waters are slow and warm 
and sluggish, but on the north side of this divide, which 
we are now approaching, the streams are short and swift 
and cold, all rising in springs up toward the top of the 
divide. Strange as it may seem to you, the water in 
these Indiana creeks is ice cold, and, as I have said to you, 
Suite capable of supporting trout. In one or two of 
iese streams trout of great size have been raised for 
some time, and I know of other streams not fifty miles 
from here where some of us are putting in trout and with 
good results. The location of these it would not be wise 
for us to disclose. We fence out the native fish, such as 
baas and pike, by stone walls built across the stream, and 
eventually we hope to see the trout well established. We 
have observed nothing yet in the least discouraging, and 
it is the second season of the experiment. 
"We will reach a spot wnence you can see several of 
these little cold creeks making down to the Calumet 
River. That stream, as you know, rises south of the tip 
end of Lake Michigan and flows west and northwest 
around the end of the lake, just outside of the wild ridge 
of sandhills which lies at the foot of the lake. This wild 
sandhill country is the home of the Calumet Heights 
Club, of Chicago, and is to-day and will long remain a 
wilderness at the edge of the great city. No streams 
drain into the Calumet from the sandhill side, of courpe, 
but from this high divide side there are many which flow 
into it, and all are bass waters. We are now on top of the 
long divide from which these streams make down, and in 
the heart of one of the most singular bits of country you 
ever saw. Geologists tell us that the great glacier which 
came down from the North over this country, and scooped 
out Lake Michigan incidentally, stopped at about this 
point. This sharp divide which we are upon is really the 
terminal moraine of that glacier. Between this and the 
lake the sand dunes have formed. Off on the east end of 
our moraine we shall see some streams which break 
through the sand dunes and get into Lake Michigan by a 
course nearly north. Yail's Pond and Organ's Pond are 
ponds made on streams of this sort, and as you will see 
they are further to the east than the Calumet and tribu- 
taries,, which have to go clear around the foot of the lake 
and come in at another corner entirely. 
"Now suppose we go over to the west end of our 
moraine, and take up in order the streams which flow 
down into the Calumet River. You have been telling me 
about your discovery of the mill dam on Salt Creek which 
you thought was near the head of the Calumet River. 
You heard there that the head was away off toward Ches- 
terton, and some said to you that it ran almost to Val- 
paraiso. Your information Was not correct, for though 
there are creeks running up into that country, they are 
not the ultimate source of the Calumet, which lies much 
further east— which indeed lies here, right at our feet 
below this hill, in what is known as Rotzene's Pond on a 
crees not dignified with a name except that of Rotzene's 
Creeks and Ponds. 
"Your creek you called Salt Creek, and so far from 
being the tributary furthest east it is the one furthest 
west of the short streams from the divide. On this side 
or east of Salt Creek, are Coffee Creek and a series of 
others, most of which are best reached via Chesterton, 
and on which are to be found, in this order as you go 
from west to east: Baum's Pond, Long's Pond, Brown's 
Pond, Snider's Pond and Rotzene's Pond, the last being 
the creek furthest east, as you can see from what I have 
n Y. U were P robabl y at Goesett's Pond on Salt 
Creek. All these 'ponds' are mill ponds, and the dams 
which make them still stand for the most part as 
the early settlers built them on these streams. It was 
because the creeks are strong and regular, spring- fed in 
short, and with good location to get a head of water for 
muling purposes. 
"There were bass in the lower portions of all these 
creeks, for they ran up from the Calumet, but the bass 
would not be in these mill ponds to-day if they had not 
been put in there by artificial means. You say that the 
bass were once very large in Gossetf s Pond on Salt Creek. 
Iney are equally large in some of the other ponds we 
, m I1 view ". 0ff on ova left you can see the course 
of the little spring creek where we go to catch our min- 
nows. A mile below this creek is dammed, and this 
makes Snider's Pond. There are no pike or baas in there 
only sunfish and that sort of fish. The bass in Rotzene'B 
Pond are all from planted stock. We also continually 
plant fish in the little lake your friend Phillips told you 
about near the village of Westville. In fact this whole 
fishing country here is artificial in one sense." 
Glacial Lakes. 
"If you will follow our terminal moraine around the 
foot of Lake Michigan, from Salt Creek east, to a point 
beyond Vail's Pond and Organ's Pond, you will hear not 
only of all these ponds I have enumerated, but a great 
many little lakes besides and several _ large lakes. All 
these are glacial lakes, merely ground into the soil by the 
heel of the glacier. You all think the little lake Mr. Phil- 
lips told you of is a 'spring-fed' lake, but it is not. There 
are no springs in it or about it. It is purely landlocked, 
and has no inlet or outlet, just as a dozen others in this 
immediate neighborhood. 1 think the level of all these 
lakes is falling rapidly, notably in the one above men- 
tioned, which we call Clear Lake. Over east of us a little 
way, and just beyond Rotzene's Pond, there is another 
Clear Lake, in the settlement known as Sweden. It is 
also a clear, deep, cold water, very deep — a conical pot- 
hole ground down deep into the earth and filled with wa- 
ter which seems never to have gotten warm yet since the 
days of the great ice. Still further to the northeast is Hud- 
son Lake, on the Lake Shore R. R., a very good fishing wa- 
ter indeed. 
"There are several systems then, as you see, under which 
we may group the fishing waters of this section on top of 
our moraine. Let us begin off the left, or on the Chicago 
side of these. You have already learned of the creeks 
and ponds accessible from Chesterton by short rides, and 
we will say that Brown's Pond is the last to the east of 
these. The B. & O. will take you to Chesterton. To Val- 
paraiso you can get easily by the Panhandle, Nickel Plate 
or Grand Trunk railways, and near by that point you will 
find several of these glacial lakes, these being in their or- 
der from west to east: Flint Lake, Long Lake, Wauhub 
Lake and Skunk Lake. Understand, these are glacial or 
landlocked lakes now, and they lie further back or up 
more to the top of the divide than the mill ponds 
we have been studying. All these lakes are good bass 
waters, though, as you know, they have not been treated 
right in the way they have been fished. We certainly 
need a better state of affairs and hope to have it some 
day, for the better class of the population begin to realize 
that the old destructive ways of fishing will not do for 
to-day." 
Railroads and Bass Systems. 
"To Westville, or near to it, as you know, you can get 
by the Wabash, the Grand Trunk or the B. & O., and 
that brings you to the point where we are standing now, 
though you could reach it by others of the network of 
roads which cross here. There are many fishing waters 
within say a dozen miles of that little town. 
"You can by the Lake Shore road get to La Porte, and 
thus be at the door of yet another lake system of the 
glacial sort, none of these draining into the Calumet or 
Kankakee rivers. The names of these lakes at La Porte, 
from west to east, are in order: West Twin, East Twin, 
Pine, Stone, Clear and Fish-Trap lakes. They are all 
good bass waters, though shamefully netted. One set of 
seiners this spring took in Fish-Trap Lake 3,7001bs. of bass. 
On the Little Kankakee, a stream which drains into the 
Kankakee, there were this Bpring, as I learn from the 
statement of a resident, three nets stretched across the 
stream, which took tons of bass, and in fact let absolutely 
none escape which came up, as they entirely^ crossed the 
river from side to side. There is bass fishing" at La Porte. 
It would be a grand place for Chicago anglers if the 
residents would only stop such hoggishness and give the 
anglers and their money a chance to come into the 
country. 
"Still another system of these bass waters of our neigh- 
borhood heads in at Fish Lake. This is the only one of 
the waters mentioned which drains into the Kankakee. 
Being thus stocked annually, as much as the natives will 
allow at least, by fish from that stream, it is a fine bass 
and pike water. This lake is reached by the Grand 
Trunk road to a point called Swift's, where the big ice- 
houses are. It is probably about as safe as any place 
mentioned for a good catch of bass on such a trip as a 
Chicago angler would be likely to take without any 
regular guide or a very good acquaintance with the 
country. 
"The Kankakee, as you know, is a fine bass stream, 
and so also is the Wabash. Still another system of bass 
waters which should appeal to your Chicago bass fishers 
lies not far from this same singular glacial country. The 
Wabash road will take you to Wolcotville, some little 
distance from this point, up toward the northeast corner 
of the State. Here you get the headwaters of the Wabash 
river and are in the heart of a grand series of bass lakes. 
It would give you a fine trip, some of you Chicago fisher- 
men, to go over in there and look that country up. If 
you will come some time later we will go over there and 
have a good go at the bass, for that is as good territory as 
I know. 
' 'South of us some miles, as you have learned in your 
earlier Indiana trips, are such larger and river-drained 
waters as Maxinkuckee and Cedar lakes, and such bass 
waters as the Tippecanoe, the Yellow River, etc. , etc. 
"Thus, you see, you are here in the heart of one of the 
finest bass regions in the entire West, only from fifty to 
ninety miles from Chicago by rail; just a pleasant evening 
run for a trip of a day or two, such as that usually desired 
by the Chicago fishers, who have not time to runaway off 
for a fishing trip, but yet want to get some bass when they 
do go. And see what a variety of railroads one has to 
chose from. The Grand Trunk, Wabash, B. & O., Erie, 
Panhandle, Nickel Plate, Lake Shore, and indeed all the 
East-bound roads, cross this country in a narrow strip 
along the top of our terminal moraine. For one who en- 
joys a bit of exploring and does not care for a lot of fish 
alone, there is no more inviting locality lying about the 
big city, and after one has learned it well he will find he 
can make as fine catches of bass there as anywhere in the 
country, and take as big bass as any he has ever seen." 
New Chicago Bass Country. 
As I have said earlier in this description, it had been for 
some time my belief that I had seen and fished in all the 
good bass waters within 100 miles of Chicago. I was sur- 
prised and delighted to see how much in error I had been 
all this time. Perhaps many of our friends who regularly 
go elsewhere may care this Beason to take a try at these 
waters, which are very accessible, and which, so far as 
can learn, are not generally well known to the craft in 
this city. I can give my personal testimony to the asser- 
tion that they are likely spots. In general appearance the 
country is much like that of Waukesha county of Wis- 
consin, there being the same short, sharp hills, interspersed 
with the same peculiar deep 4 conical potholes boring down 
into the earth. The region is naturally hardwood truck 
country, the whole crossed with pleasant little streams of 
cold water. 
An Honorable Mill. 
We had paused for some time at the top of the divide 
while Dr. Hollenbeck pointed out to me the topography 
of the country and gave me the substance of the facts 
which I have set out above. We then dropped down from 
the summit into the valley of the Calumet. At our feet 
lay a little stream, broad and swift and shallow, as be- 
comes a spring-fed brook. It lay under and between deep 
foliaged treeB, and prattled merrily, as all Buch little rivers 
do. On our right, within a few yards of the roadway, 
stood a mill, an ancient, hoary, honorable mill, of just 
such sort as we read about in novels or see pictured in the 
thousand formB of art, all harking back to one original, 
which I make no doubt was this same one here on the 
mysterious Calumet, a mill builded by whose hand his- 
tory doth not recount. Across from point to point of the 
narrow and tree-shielded valley stretched a narrow and 
high dam, through which the water dripped and trickled 
coolly, falling down into a black and shady spot hid by 
the trees and vines. Here was such a wheel as our 
fathers might have made, led up to by such a mill race as 
our grandfathers may have cut. And on the hill above 
the mill stood the house of the miller, who I hope is hon- 
est. It goes without saying that this miller had a boat, a 
broad boat, of the sort you always find on mill- ponds, a 
very poor sort of boat for going anywhere, but a good 
boat in its way, redolent of memories of bullheads and of 
angle-worms, and built upon the theory of the place, to 
wit, that time is long and mill ponds permanent, so that 
ail boats thereon come back eventually to the mill, and so 
need not be built for speed or ease of going. 
A Gruesome Trail. 
And what a mill pond! Broad, deep, full of snags and 
stumps, grown up with water plants, but threaded with 
deep pockets and. open bits of channel, it was a happy 
home for bass, and the sight of it was enough to set one 
speculating. Here too we might fish and break no law ; 
so we put a minnow to work — with no success, because 
that is frog water, if ever such lay out of doors, though 
the local anglers believe moat in minnow and spoon. 
But still we were not at the head of the Calumet. 
"Wait," said my companion, "and we shall see the very 
utmost spring of this hidden river," So on we pushed. 
The oars were turned into pushing paddles, and for half 
a mile we toiled, as only anglers would toil, through 
masses of water moss and great beds of lilies and reaches 
of weed-grown water, over which the broad boat had 
fairly to be dragged. It was a gruesome trail, this, 
through the upper reaches of the pond. The channel 
vanished in a great marsh. Our companions, Messrs. 
Henton, Phillips and Charlie Ansley, kept pace with us 
for a time, but gradually passed out of our sight and hear- 
ing across an impenetrable morass, in the middle of which 
was the trickle of water along which we were creeping. 
Sometimes we got a glimpse of the channel below us, 
but it was so overgrown that we got no flotation from it 
and had to push over the top of it on the weeds and 
rushes. 
"Not a dozen men in the entire year ever get into this 
pond," said Dr. Hollenbeck, and I could well believe him. 
We were an hour going half a mile. It reminded me of 
a certain creek in Wisconsin, of which J. B. H. and I 
wot very well, since we spent a day learning the thread 
of the water through the marsh, just as my companion 
and I were here doing. 
The Mysterious Source, 
But at last our work neared its end. "I can see the last 
Of the marsh," said Dr. Hollenbeck, and surely enough 
there was a straight lead of green, showing where the 
water was, or where it could be seen in the early spring 
perhaps, though none could be seen now, and nothing in- 
dicating it except the heavy and dark cover of the "spat- 
terdocks" which grew high above the water. Through 
these we pushed, a foot at a time, until at last we saw 
open water ahead. A moment later we came out into a 
little round, black, ugly, forbidding lakelet, pond or 
spring hole, whatever one choose to call it, set down deep 
at the bottom of a circular valley whose sides were fringed 
with trees. It was perfectly circular, apparently of about 
twenty-five or thirty acres extent, and entirely without 
inlet. Except for the hidden stream up which we had 
come for a course of a mile or so it had no outlet. It lay 
like a black and forbidding gem of some devil's circlet, 
motionless, unresponsive and austere. My first word was, 
"What a bass hole!" My next was, "Let us get out of 
here." I own that I felt a shiver creep up my spine. 
Never in my life have I been in a more forbidding spot. 
It is no wonder that it is not known by many and that it 
is visited by few. He who sees it once has small concern 
to see it again. It is a devil's water, mid-secret in a secret 
land, and no place for gentlemen in search of sport. 
"This is the head of the Calumet," said my friend. 
"There is nothing above this. I don't know what you 
can call this hole. It must have springs in it or around 
it, or else be the coming-up place of the water that seems 
to lie under all this country. It is deep, I don't knowJhow 
deep, but probably 60 or 80ft., maybe more. It is not 
fished by any one to mention. I know of only one party 
being in here this spring, and they caught a fine lot of 
bass, some over 51bs. each. There is no way on earth of 
getting to it except by the way we have come, and I be- 
lieve that in two or three weeks from now it would be 
impossible to get a boat up here at all over the weeds. 
They fairly fill up the stream in the summer time. 
Solitary and Inaccessible. 
"All around this pool, as you see, the marsh makes a 
rim of 50 to 75 or 100yds. in width. It might as well be a 
mile, so far as crossing it is concerned. Not the most ex- 
pert Kankakee pusher on top of earth could get out to us 
from the shore over that bog. I tried it once and want 
no more of it. The ground began to sink down into a 
cone beneath my feet and to tremble for 20yds. about me. 
Trees as thick as my leg, standing upon apparently solid 
ground, began to waver and bend from side to side. 
Ahead of me was still more treacherous bog, and I was 
