July f, 1894] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
ii 
NEWS FROM THE FISHING WATERS. 
Clayton. Thousand Islands, N. Y.. June 25.— Mr. and 
Mrs. Wm. Bunker, of New York, whose headquarters for 
two weeks of very successful black bass fishing have been 
the Hubbard House, have left for home. Although Mr. 
Bunker is an enthusiastic and experienced angler and 
spent twelve days fishing to Mrs. Bunker's eleven, to the 
credit of the fair sex the latter's record is the best, viz., 
229 against 188. The following is the total daily record, 
which includes one 3|lbs., one 81bs., four 2Jlbs., twenty- 
five 21bs., and 886 from 14oz. to 2lbs.: June 11, 36: June 
12, 22; June 13, 39; JunH 14, 34; June 15, 45; June 16, 50; 
June 18, 38; June 19, 18; June 20,42; June 21, 20; June22, 
51; June 23, 22; a total of 417 black baas. Steve Leyare, 
one of the most successful guides on the St. Lawrence 
River, rowed. J. G. F. 
Santa Fe, N. M., June 20.— The trout fishing is very 
good in these parts nowadays, and many excellentcatches 
are reported. A party of four went out on the Pecos 
above Glorietta, and in one day pulled out 350 of splendid 
size, the average weight I should judge to be but little, if 
any, under 6oz. H. B. H. 
Newport, Vt., June 23 —The fishing for lake trout still 
continues good. Parties from Nashua and Lowell have 
been at the Owl's Head Hotel for the past week and have 
had fine sport. The largest "laker" caught this week is 
credited to Mr. L. Wellcome; it weighed 24ilbs. Black 
bass fishing has not been quite up to our expectations yet, 
but we look for better results later. A few have been 
taken in the vicinity of Horseneck Island, and the small- 
boy-pole-and-string combination is credited with a "big 
one," caught while fishing for chub off the steamboat 
wharf. We look for more bass later. Rob. 
Forked RiveRj N. J., June 25.— Capt. Frank Penn on 
the 22d caught 17 bluefish and one large drum. Capt. 
Thomas Taylor caught 11 large bluefish averaging 4 to 
51bs. on June 24. Prospect looking good for bluefish and 
weakfish for the season. W. S. Parker. 
Tuckerton, N. J., June 22.— G. O. Jones, of Tuckerton, 
caught 80 weakfish with hook and line. J. W. Lee. 
Mr. C. C. Dorr, of Boston, Mass., a guest of the Hub- 
bard House Iiere, has a total of 295 black bass to his rod 
for the last eight days. Many other anglers have brought 
in good average catches. J. G. F. 
Burkehaven, N. H.— Mr. Jos. G. Chandler has a pho- 
tograph of a string of trout caught May 17, 18U4, during a 
couple of hours' fishing in Lake Sunapee, by Win. Young, 
a summer resident of Burkehaven, which weigh 4f, 3jr, 2f 
and If lbs. respectively. This is not an extraordinary catch , 
but was photographed on account of the regular grada- 
tion of the string in size. 
San Antonio, Texas.— The king of tarpon fishermen in 
San Antonio is Mr. T. H. Micheljohn, who says that July 
will be the time for tarpon, and that he will be on hand 
with his party. Perry Lewis, our State Senator, is also 
an expert after the silver king, who is sure to summer at 
Rockport. Speaking of the coast reminds me that a new 
hotel has been erected at Rockport, and will be conducted 
on a plan that will not fail to please visitors. The man- 
agement keeps boats for the use of the guests free of 
charge, so that one can fish all day and put in the night 
in the delightful grove of live oaks undisturbed save by 
the gentle soothing voice of the spent surf. The Aransas 
Pass Railway, always accommodating to the traveling 
sportsmen, will make a splendid rate, which will insure a 
large aggregation of fishermen on the coast all summer. 
_____ O. C. G. 
A Fishing Club That Struck Oil. 
Cincinnati, O. — Cincinnati posesses what is probably 
the only fishing club which ever made money. Ever 
Bince Father Noah threw out a line from the stern of the 
ark, fishing clubs have been productive of a few fishes and 
many fables, but that a dozen men, with fore and aft 
caps and fish poles, should go a fishing for pleasure and 
come back richer for it is astonishing enough to shock a 
drummer into modesty. It was twenty years ago that a 
number of Cincinnatians, among tbem the late Nicholas 
Longworth, organized the Mercer County Shooting and 
Fishing Club. They had previously ascertained by a pro- 
found study of the map of Ohio, that the largest body of 
water within the State limits was the Mercer county 
reservoir. The more water, the more fish, reasoned the 
projectors, and land bordering the huge pond was pur- 
chased. This purchase was added to until now the club 
owns a mile frontage on the reservoir, 160 acres of shooting 
land and a club house. 
But this was all unproductive investment; the element 
of profit was an unexpected discovery. Oil was found on 
the club's land. The fishermen were business men, and 
profited by their good luck. They now own four oil 
wells and lease four others. As a consequence, the 
shares, which when first taken were only expected to re- 
turn an equivalent in health and relaxation, have now a 
recognized and increasing value. Literally true of the 
club is the remark so often heard on the street: " We are 
not in this for our health only." Will E. Wren. 
Thinks Rodster Lacks Dignity. 
Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y., June 22.— Editor Forest 
and Stream: The discussion over the word "Rodster" is 
amusing. To follow out the plan of word architecture 
upon which it is built I might have been called, and at 
ten years of age when using a bent pin for a hook, . 
Later when sitting on the dock, using a hand line, . 
Then when I cut a pole, , etc. The names can easily 
be filled in; but, while I do not object to others using the 
word "rodster" there is a sound about it that I don't fancy, 
and therefore would not use it in speaking of an angling 
friend, but perhaps it may do service where they fish for 
count. It seems to lack dignity. Fred Mather. 
A Unique Catch With a Fly. 
Ex- Judge F. J. Fitch returned from his two weeks' 
fishing trip on the Neversink, in Sullivan county, on 
Thursday evening last. In answer to our question, 
"What success in fishing?" he replied: "Poor, in conse- 
quence of the cold weather and excessive rains. I caught 
but 121 trout and one red squirrel." Other questions led 
to the statement by him that, while casting his flies at the 
end of about 40ft. of line, he saw a squirrel swimming 
across the stream, and, from the impulse of the moment, 
made a cast for it and drove the hook of the trail-fly 
through one o f its forelegs. As it was impossible to reel in the 
game and take it from the hook without being bitten, he 
was compelled, much to his regret, to drown it. He has 
its tail in corroboration of a queer fish story and evidence 
of his accuracy in fly- casting; He also stated that this 
was the fiftieth consecutive year in which he had fished 
for trout, and that his scores of all those years, beginning 
with July, 1845, showed that he had caught in the 
aggregate 28,478 trout. He added that all, save in the 
first live years, had been caught with a fly. — Prattsville 
(N. Y.) Advocate, June 14. 
Give Your Friend a Chart. 
Sometimes parties visit lakes, streams or game dis- 
tricts not posted as to points of vantage, good stands and 
without guides. Often even they may be given mislead- 
ing or worthless advice by selfish natives or others. A 
few days since, wishing a friend to enjoy a duplicate of 
my sport last year at a bass-stocked lake I have become 
familiar with, and fearing his falling among thieves, I 
made a sketch of the lake, and designated by ranges, 
courses, prominent objects, depths, etc., the most promis- 
ing places for sport. With this my friend was enabled 
to take a fine lot of small-mouths and without delays or 
useless efforts. Yows. 
PUBLISHER'S DEPARTMENT. 
The Dietz ruby lamp for darkroom use is one of the simplest and 
at the same time most perfect lamps that has ever been offered photo- 
graphers. 
"Sporting Resorts on the Line of the Grand Trunk Railway," which 
will be sent on application to the passenger agent, Montreal, is a little 
book containing much interesting information for sportsmen. It 
covers the Muskoka, Victoria, Peterboro and Haliburton Lakes, the 
Georgiau Bay, Androscoggin Lakes, etc., and contains a very good map 
of the Muskoka and Midland lake districts north to Lake Nipissing. 
ttfjislmtliitre unci <$iisli Protection. 
Improved Method of Hatching Smelts. 
[Read before the American Fisheries Society ] 
BY FRED MATHER. 
Outside of my own articles on smelt hatching in the 
fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth Reports of this Society, 
I can find nothing on the subject except an item in the paper 
of the late Prof. H. J. Rice on "Salt as an Agent for the 
Destruction of the Fish Fungus" in the thirteenth Report. 
On page 19 Professor Rice records that in 1877 he was study- 
ing the embryology of the smelt and found the eggs in 
masses in the hatching jars and covered with fungus^ but 
not until 1884 did he have a chance to try the effect of salt on 
killing this saprolegnia. The eggs were upon blades of 
sedge, or water grass, after the manner employed by Mr. 
Charles G. Atkins some years before, which "prevents to a 
great extent, if not entirely, the massing together of the 
eggs, since the rough surface of the blades allow only a 
single layer, at most, to adhere to the surface " Still there 
was much fungus present. The salt killed the fungus and 
"only about five per cent, of the whole number failed to 
hatch." This is a much better percentage than I can show 
to-day, and I do not know of any other fishculturist who has 
hatched this fish within the past five years. Professor Rice 
did not do the hatching but merely studied the development 
of the embryos and took the statements of others regarding 
the percentage, and the latter need salt, also. 
In the fourteenth Report of this Society, for 1885, pages 17 to 
32, will be found my first paper on this subject, with discus- 
sions following it by Hon. Theodore Lyman and Prof. Rice. 
My paper was entitled "Protecting and Hatchingthe Smelt," 
in which I advocated a protective law, which is now being 
asked for from the supervisors of Long Island towns. Skip- 
ping this part of the subject, we will take up that which re- 
lates to the hatching of smelts, omitting many details related 
in -that article, and will quote: "Up to the thirteenth day 
after taking there was little change, and on the twentieth (of 
March, or seven days later) the eggs were put outside the 
hatchery in swift water, as they began to show fungus. March 
26 about one-half were alive, and these were in bunches cov- 
ered by dead eggs and fungus. All the outside eggs were 
dead and I had little hope of saving any." That year we 
allowed the eggs to adhere to grass, sticks and stones, as well 
as to the sides of glass hatching jars, and in that Report of 
1885 I expressed the belief that smelt eggs seemed to require 
a coating of fungus and decayed eggs about them in order to 
be protected from too much oxygen and fresh water to hatch 
well, a statement that I do not believe to-day. We turned 
out 100,000 fry that year in spite of fungus, rotten eggs and 
accompanying foul odors in the water 
Again, in the fifteenth Report of our Society, pages 10 to 16 
will be found another article of mine, headed "Smelt Hatch- 
ing," with discussions by Mr. Frank N. Clark, Mr. Bissell, 
Dr. R. O. Sweeny and myself. My paper merely recorded 
efforts to have the spawn adhere to different substances and 
to vary the flow of water and the amount of light. Some 
eggs were sent to Mr. Clark, cautioning him not to throw 
away any eggs, "no matter how badly they looked on the 
outside, how much fungus there might be there, nor how 
foul an odor might arise from them." Mr. Clark said, page 
13, that he found the eggs as I had stated, and about 15 to 20 
per cent, of them were good. I had said that we could hatch 
40 to 50 per cent, in our jars. Mr. Bissell raised the question 
of light, and said: "If the light affects the eggs of the 
smelt, would not the light affect them in their natural con- 
dition in a small stream?" To-day 1 can only answer this 
very sensible question by saying that sunlight will kill our 
eggs in the jars, and in this year of our Lord, 1894, 1 have 
seen smelt eggs hatch on stones in a rapid streem with not 
over two inches of water over them, and in the. brightest of 
sunshine. This is one of the problems that we have not 
solved. 
In the Report of our Society for 1887, page 11, will be found 
my item on smelt hatching under the title of "Work at Cold 
Spring Harbor." In this it is stated that "out of 4,000,000 
esrgs we hatched and planted 2,000,000 fry, or about 50 per 
cent., which is as good as we have ever done." I added that 
"the little smelt carries a great many eggs for its size, from 
30,000 to 60,000 or perhaps more, and from 100 ripe females of 
good size, probably 5,000,000 could be obtained." In the re- 
ports of the TJ. S. and N. Y. Fishery Commissions the fore- 
going statements have been embodied, the American Fish- 
eries Society getting the first reports because their meetings 
were held earlier in the season than the other reports were 
called for. 
Until last year we stripped the fish and impregnated the 
eggs by hand, but holding our fish in the hatching; troughs 
until ripe we found that many females had spawned in the 
troughs and also that the percentage of impregnation was 
very high and that they hatched well. This year we gath- 
ered all our eggs from the troughs, passed them through 
wire screens to separate them and put them in the jars. At 
intervals of two or three days or whenever the eggs seemed 
inclined to gather in bunches we repeated the operation 
gently forcing the eggs through the screens with the fingers 
and after a few such screenings the "foot" seemed to be de- 
stroyed. This "foot" is a projection on the egg, which is 
shaped like the stem and bottom of a wine glass, and is the 
only point of adhesion which the egg of the smelt has: there 
is no glutinous coating around the egg of the smelt that will 
enable it to adhere at any point, and the frequent breaking 
of the hold of this foot makes it powerless to adhere to other 
eggs or to any object, and leaves the eggs as free and clean 
as those of whitefish or shad, and enables the attendant to 
remove all bad eggs from the top, as is done with other eggs 
hatched in jars. 
Last year I was greatly interested in the paper read by 
Prof. Jacob Reighard of the University of Michigan, "On 
the Handling of Adhesive Eggs," and of his use of corn starch 
to overcome the adhesive tendency in the eggs of pike-perch 
and had thought of testing that method with smelt eggs! 
but they worked so well with a few sittings, that it did not 
seem necessary to try any other method. The eggs remained 
free and clean, with the exception of those in one jar, which 
were taken from the brook, that retained sand on some of 
them that would not permit the dead ones to rise. 
A resume of my work in stocking a barren stream with 
smelts for the New York Fishery Commission will illustrate 
the value of such work in a manner that can only be shown 
when fry of any fish are placed in waters which did not con- 
tain them before. Adjoining the grounds of the Commission 
at Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, is a short stream from 
the overflow of a mill pond. This stream is not over 600ft. 
long between the dam and salt water, at high tide, and is 
about 15ft. wide, with pools and shallows where the water 
ripples over pebbles and is not 2in. deep. This stream I stocked 
with smelts in a small way in 1885, and it is now a fine smelt 
stream. 
In that year, and for several years afterward, we bought 
live smelts from the Connetquot River,* a small stream 
rising in the center of Long Island, north of Yaphank, and 
flowing into Great South Bay near Bellport. We paid ten 
cents each for the fish and would get two or three hundred 
smelts of different sizes and degrees of ripeness. 
In 1890 we only bought 100 fish, as we had an offer of all 
we wanted without cost from Mr. H. Scudder, of Northport, 
only seven miles distant. Next year, or six years after the 
first small planting, we found that the smelts were running 
up our stream in numbers to make it worth while to try to 
get eggs from it, and we did. This was the first proof 
that the little brook had been made a self-sustaining smelt 
stream, although we knew that a few fish had run up it in 
years before. The habit of the smelt to run up streams at 
night, and return to salt water before day, enables it to escape 
observation to a very great extent, unless one is especially on 
the watch for its coming. The eggs are deposited on stones 
in the swift water, and never in the pools, where the flow is 
slower. They are hatched in bright sunshine, which will kill 
our eggs in the jars, und unless it may be a provision of 
nature to check the increase of this prolific fish by killing 
the eggs that chance to get the direct rays of the sun, and to 
have only those which lie on the shady side of stones come 
to life, I cannot understand why the sunlight is fatal in the 
jars. Perhaps we may solve this problem some day, but an 
inspection of the stones in the stream, where millions of eggs 
were laid this year, did not offer a solution to this question, 
which, by the way, never came up until the hatching season 
was about half over. Next year we may observe the effect 
of the sun on the eggs in the stream more carefully; we know 
what it is in the jars. 
Our plantings in this little stream were: 
1885 100,000 fry. 
1886 2,100,000 fry. 
1887 2,000,000 fry. 
+1888 1,000,000 fry. 
1889 4,600,000 fry. 
1890 \ 3,950,000 fry. 
I 500,000 eggs sent away. 
1891 7,400,000 fry. 
18^2 5,631,000 fry and eggs sent away. 
1893 5,722,000 fry. 
1894 22,603,000 fry. 
Total planted 55,606,000 eggs and fry. 
Until this year there was no demand for the fry, because it 
was not understood that the Commission could furnish 
smelts; but the demand increased with the supply, and out- 
side of the 11,083,000 planted in Cold Spring Harhor there 
were two plants on the South Side, three in the tributaries 
of Peconic Bay, one in Westchester county, and seven plants 
at different points on Long Island Sound. These plants were 
all made on special applications to the Commissioners of 
Fisheries, and it pleased them to have them made, because 
it showed appreciation of their work in a field that was 
almost new. 
The value of the smelt may be illustrated when we know 
that forty carloads were shipped to New York from New 
Brunswick this year, besides the supply from Maine, Rhode 
Island and other places. Long Island smelts do not now 
make a great figure in the market reports, but the plants of 
this year, which were of one million fry, in most cases, may 
work a change to the benefit of the fisherman and the consu 
mer in a few years. 
Our figures this year were: 
Eggs taken 31.708,000 
Loss of eggsj 9,105,000 
Fry planted 22,603,000 
The figures show that over 71 per cent, of the eggs taken 
produced fry, and the reports of a few years ago show that 
when we produced 50 per cent., and thought it good, Mr. 
Clark remarked that it was as good as might be done with 
adhesive eggs. 
That we have made rapid strides in the work of smelt 
hatching is shown by the table giving our yearly plantings, 
where it will be found that of the 55,000,000 fry and eggs dis- 
tributed in ten years almost half the number was sent out 
this spring. It should also be borne in mind that this great 
result was obtained from an insignificant stream that never 
contained smelts before— it was stocked by the New York 
State Fishery Commission. 
Cold Spring Harboh, N. Y., May 10. 
+In the reports the printers have usually made this the Connecticut 
River, and this note is to warn them that the above spelling is correct. 
1The March blizzard this year, from 12th to 30th, prevented getting 
eggs. 
JThis loss includes two million eggs lost by the clogging of a tube 
supplying two jars on the night of March 17. 
REPORT YOUR LUCK 
With Rod or Gun 
To FOREST AND STREAM, 
New York City. 
ill l lt i i»;ii ' ) i ) ) m t t i )4 t ) 
