Aug. 4, 1894.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
9 - 
The atmosphere comes from waves of golden light, and 
vistas of another world seem to arise as if by enchant- 
ment between he masses of dark foliage and tne advanc- 
ing sun. The hazy hills and lovely dales are in sweet 
repose; the prey-hunting gulls sweep lazily and carelessly 
along, while the white-winged boats in the distance 
linger as if sleeping on a mirrored surface. Everything 
animate is evidently yielding to the flashing lances of the 
fair Phcebus. Even the tawny-hued boatmen, as i* in 
tropic clime, indolently loll and laze, and at last the 
gentle anglers in languor succumb to the golden glow, 
and dreamily luxuriate in far away lotus-land, while the 
ripples sing in delicious lullaby as if they wooed to the 
shimmering surface the lovely mermaids from "the 
branching .jaspers under the sea." The faint and dream- 
ful carol of birds that comes from the somber pines and 
tangled thickets of radiant sboreland, manifestly de- • 
velops that they too have submitted to the gentle influence 
of a glowing morn, "so full of gladness, so full of tender 
blue, of wistful skies and winds that softly sigh." 
The evidence of civilization, and the untiring energy of 
a ' progressive nation that no summer mood permits to 
waver, are upon us as we gracefully sweep into the 
crescent curve of the broad and flowing river, while the 
toil of "the hard-handed men" that are forcing new 
channels for increasing commerce, are impressively ap- 
parent by the blaze of blasts, the puff of steamers, the 
rattle of machinery. ■ No idleness here, no pastime; 
nothingj but steady, steady toil. We are now amid this 
great and gigantic work, tne new locks, the roar of which 
is like muttering thunder, and as we indifferently step 
ashore the lamp of Aladdin is lost, tiie days of pure de- 
light in the pursuit of the spangled and carmined beauties 
are of the past, and linger only as an ideal outing on the 
northern shores of Kitctii-Gami. Alex. Starbuck. 
ANGLING NOTES. 
Rainbow and Steelhead. 
Not long after the rainbow trout (Salmo irideus) was 
brought from the Pacific coast and introduced into Atlan- 
tic coast waters, it was discovered that the fish was a wan- 
derer, and except in occasional instances disappeared 
from the streams in which it was planted in its second 
year. Then Mather, or it may have been Bean, expressed 
the opinion tbat the rainbow trout was the young of tbe 
steelhead salmon, as 8. gairdneri was then called. Per- 
haps Mather was the first to express this belief and that 
Bean confirmed him; anyway, a file of Forest and 
Stream will tell who is entitled to the credit for the belief , 
and I will hunt the thing up if necessary to settle the 
claim of priority; but no one at that time appeared to be 
willing to say, fiat-footed, that the rainbow was the young 
steelhead. Then the steelhead was declared to be a trout, 
not a salmon, and the rainbow issue slumbered. 
Lately the matter broke out afresh on the Pacific coast, 
one faction claiming the steelhead as a salmon, another 
as a trout, and Dr. Jordan was called in as umpire, and 
incidentally he settles (for the present at least) the status 
of the rainbow trout. My brother sends me a copy of Dr. 
Jordan's letter written to a Western angler, and I take 
this extract from it: 
"Tbe so-called steelhead is a well-known fish along the 
coast. It ascends the river to spawn, and then runs out 
to sea again. It is not a salmon and should not be called 
by that name. It is a trout. It was my opinion until 
within about two years that the steelhead and the so- 
called rainbow trout, as represented in the streams of the 
Coast range and the upper Sacramento, were different 
species. I have now become convinced they are the same 
fish, and that the fish which run down to the sea grow to 
be much larger in size and are plainer in color than those 
remaining in the mountain streams. My present opinion 
is, therefore, that the steelhead and rainbow trout are one 
and the same, or at any rate that they all belong to the 
same species, and that the large size and other peculiari- 
ties of the steelhead are simply associated with its life off 
the river mouths and in the sea. The expression.'steel- 
head salmon' should not be used." 
The steelhead is also called salmon trout, and Jordan 
once told me it was the only trout we have that is en- 
titled to have the prefix salmon in its name. This was 
because our lake trout (namayeush) is often called salmon 
trout. One may infer from Jordan's letter that all steel- 
heads do not go to sea, and this explains why some few 
rainbow trout in the East remain in the streams where 
planted. 
Hudson River Salmon. 
Mr. H. S. Bull, of Albany, sent me a clipping from 
the Evening Journal, containing an interview with State 
Game Protector Matthew Kennedy, of Hudson, in which 
he offers the opinion that the salmon in the Hudson are 
decreasing, and, as the heading says, "It is believed that 
the fish will not thrive." 
As I was away on a fishing trip myself I thought I 
would defer writing a criticism of Mr. Kennedy's views 
until my return home, but this afternoon Forest and 
Stream has arrived— the issue of July 21— containing the 
article reprinted from the Journal, and I am forced to 
reply to it sooner than I otherwise should, for I believe 
that Mr. Kennedy's views are not sound. For a better 
understanding of Mr. Kennedy's opinion as expressed in 
the article referred to, it must be understood that he fills 
the dual role of state game protector and professional 
net fisherman, conducting a fishery in the Hudson at Hud- 
son, and so far as I know he fills both positions acceptably 
and well, for he has an excellent record as game protec- 
tor and I know that the shad that he takes in his nets are 
the best that I get on my table. Therefore, in reading 
the article one is impressed with the idea that, so to speak, 
the game protector Dr. Jekyll is making an earnest fight 
against the net fisherman Mr. Hyde, and in one para- 
graph Dr. Jekyll is on top, and in the next Mr. Hyde 
aowns Dr. Jekyll. There is nothing strange about tnis, 
for it is human nature, the same human nature that is 
found ail over the globe. 
Who can tell but what it was a part of the scheme of 
the great plan of the creation that self-interest should 
have a slight bulge on philanthropy, when one was ar- 
rayed against the other in a go-as-you-please tug of war? 
1 did not see the newspaper articles that Mr. Kennedy 
mentions, but without seeing them I will agree with him 
that the salmon are decreasing in the Hudson, but not be- 
cause of the reasons he gives. Mr. Kennedy, either as 
game protector or net fisherman, sbould be better in- 
formed than he appears to be when he conveys the im- 
pression that the salmon are forced to remain in the warm 
water of the Hudson below the Troy dam in June, July 
and August because there is no fishway in the dam by 
which they can get above it. True, as he says, there is no 
fishway now, and when there was one it was of no benefit 
whatever to the fish, for it was constructed one fall and 
was destroyed the next spring. All the salmon that have 
been seen above the Troy dam got there by going over the 
dam during high water or through the sloop lock in the 
dam at low water; except last year when there was a 
break in the dam. Before the break it was estimated that 
there were 150 salmon in one pool at Mechanicville. One 
piece of evidence that salmon had returned to the river 
after the first planting of fry, was finding five salmon in 
the sloop lock, and doubtless the weaker fish have used 
the lock ever since, while the stronger ones have scaled 
the dam. Mr. John A. Manning of Troy, whose office 
windows overlook the dam, tells me that salmon begin to 
jump the dam as early as February. 
As to the plan for successfully propagating salmon by 
planting the fry that the net fishermen may net the adult 
fish, I do not know whether this is meant for humor or 
whether it is Mr. Hyde at his best; hut if I should know 
positively that a farmer was successful in propagating 
chickens by turning them out among the foxes at the 
frailer stage of their existence I would think more about it. 
As suggestions are in order, I will offer an amendment 
to Mr. Kennedy's plan, and it is one that will beat his to 
death, for it reaches, as I believe, the very heart of the 
cause for the decrease of the salmon in the Hudson. My 
plan is this: Pass a law with a penalty of $100 for taking 
or having in possession a salmon taken from the Hudson 
with a net. 
The law now provides that salmon taken in nets shall 
be returned to the water, but it is a dead letter, for North 
River salmon are advertised and sold in New York city, 
and they do not all come from the New Jersey shore 
either. I believe that with a possession clause added to 
the salmon law the decrease of the fish would be suddenly 
checked in the Hudson, and there would be no real ne- 
cessity for breeding salmon for the netters to exhibit in 
the local markets, that the people might be informed that 
there were salmon in the Hudson. In fact, there is a 
large and influential body of men who already know that 
there are salmon in the river, and they have enroled 
themselves in the Mohican Rod and Gun Club chiefly for 
the purpose of providing a way for salmon to get out of 
the warm waters in the lower river without going into 
the nets to accomplish it. The growth of this club upon 
this issue has been most astonishing to its originators and 
I feel sure that its influence will be felt next winter in a 
way to provide what is now lacking to make the Hudson 
a salmon stream, as that term is ordinarily understood, 
and net-fishermen should be content to wait until the 
river is self -supporting (aided by artificial propagation), 
when without doubt a certain amount of netting will be 
permitted by law. There has absolutely nothing devel- 
oped since the first salmon fry were planted in the Hud- 
son to lead those familiar with the subject to believe that 
there is any insurmountable obstacle in the way of 
making the river the home of the salmon. 
Almost the only obstacles in the way at present are the 
lack of fishways to let the fish up to natural spawning 
grounds where the fry have been planted, and the fact 
that the netters in the Hudson below Troy are rapidly 
destroying the breeding fish in direct violation of law. 
On this subject of illegal netting I will quote from a 
letter written to me by Mr. Howard N. Fuller, of Albany, 
under date of July 16. 
Another View .of the Matter. 
Mr. Fuller says: "I have read with deep interest your 
paper in relation to the propagation of salmon in the Hud- 
son. In my opinion, which is founded upon personal 
observation, the true reason for the unsatisfactory result 
of the efforts to stock the waters of the Hudson with that 
desirable fish has not been touched upon. 
"Your contention for more and better fishways is assur- 
edly the proper one, so far as it concerns the overcoming 
of the obstacles to the passage of the salmon between tide 
water and the headwater spawning grounds of the Hud- 
son; but no provision by law has yet been deemed neces- 
sary to give the fish unimpeded course from the sea to the 
Troy dam. If 1,000 salmon attempted to swim from New 
York bay to Troy, how many, in your opinion, would 
succeed? I can tell you, probably not one out of the thou- 
sand. The two great and seemingly inseparable obstacles 
to salmon reaching the spawning beds in the upper river 
are fykes and gill-nets, but fykes are the great devourers 
of salmon. 
"In the early spring the gill-net and seines used for 
catching striped bass in the vicinity of Yonkers, Sing Sing, 
Newburgh, and in fact, everywhere in this vicinity of the 
mouth of the river, annually take out tons upon tons of 
salmon, and the fykes which stretch in an unbroken line 
from the Troy dam south on both sides of the river daily 
during every month of the year, except three, snare all 
the rest. It is absolutely impossible for a salmon to get 
up the river no matter how wary he may be. 
"I took up several fykes near Stuyvesant to satisfy 
myself about the matter, and every fyke had from two to 
five salmon in it, and three fykes set nearest the channel 
had the most. When you consider that at least a thousand 
fykes are in operation at once, you can readily determine 
what they are doing to neutralize the efforts to stock the 
Hudson with salmon. 
"For several years I fought alone for the enactment of 
a bill to entirely prohibit fyke-net fishing in the Hudson, 
and shameful to say not one of the many disciples of old 
Izaak came to my help or support. At last, two years 
ago, I succeeded in having an amendment to the game 
law passed, which prohibited fyke fishing for three 
months, viz: June, July and August, which law is in 
force to-day. That was all I could get, but even that has 
proven to be a good deal, for hand line and rod fishing is 
twenty per cent, better in the Hudson than it has been 
for fifteen years past. 
"Commissions, and individuals and clubs, may expend 
all the effort and money they feel disposed to to replenish 
the fish supply of the Hudson, but it will amount to 
nothing so long as the fyke pirates are permitted to con- 
tinue their nefarious and wanton destruction and deple- 
tion of fish. 
"The chief cause, or I am incompetent to judge, of the 
ill success of the many efforts to afford anglers the divine 
sport of salmon catching in the Hudson is the rapacious 
and relentless fyke, and unless it is completely eradicated 
by law you may try to find a salmon with hook and line 
until doomsday and not find him. 
"There are other and important fishing interests affected 
by the fykes which I have not time to touch upon at 
present. 
"What makes me furious as I think about it, is the fact 
that the Hudson, the only arm of the sea in the State 
which affords means of ingress for sea fish to fresh water 
spawning grounds, and by natural and artificial water 
ways having communication with our large internal and 
border lakes, should not be protected by prohibitive legis- 
lation. I am not well up in this matter, but I believe no 
other State allows fyke fishing in its sea arms." 
Mr. Fuller states the case so plain that I have no com- 
ments to make upon his letter; but I will say that the law 
of 1887 for the protection of salmon from netting in the 
Hudson was mor« severe than the one in the code of game 
laws now in force. Even with the law of 1887, in which 
there was a penalty of $100 for taking salmon in a net, 
over 300 salmon were traced directly to the nets in one 
season, and I believe a possession clause is required to 
stop the practice. 
Salmon Fishing in Canada. 
Mr. John Mowat writes me from New Brunswick under 
date of July 15, as follows: 
"1 want to tell you this has been a year of big scores on 
the Restigouche. Many have retired and still others come 
to fill the vacancies, and as the river keeps in fine order , 
fair sport may be had until the close of the season, Aug. 
15, as the salmon are both large and plentiful, and still 
running in from the sea. Of course the June fish that 
have stayed over in the pools have gone off- their feed, bu 
the fresh ones coming in do fairly well. 
| "So far as I can hear, most of the salmon streams are 
away behind the Restigouche, some of the Cascapedia 
anglers coming here to finish off. 
"Our salmon rise best to the fly from thirty to seventy 
miles above tide water; the upper pool on the river has 
107 fish to its credit now, and will yet have another 100 
before the season closes. When it does close I will send 
you details. We expect the Governor-General next week, 
and I go up the river with him, and an account of the 
trip will be sent to you." 
This letter from the veteran salmon fisherman again 
refutes the statement that salmon do not rise to the fly 
beyond a few miles above tide water; and seventy miles 
above Troy, the head of tide water, is all of the Hudson 
that should be fished by tbe angler, as portions of the 
headwaters must be reserved for the spawning fish. One 
by one the objections to the Hudson as a salmon stream 
are refuted by those in a position to know what they are 
talking about and tell the plain truth, based upon per- 
sonal experience and observation. A. N. Cheney. 
NOTES FROM THE ANGLING WATERS. 
Portland, Ont, — Mr. W. I. Follett of New York, who 
has been staying at Hart's Hotel, Rideau Lake, caught on 
July 17 40 small-mouth black bass in the Lower Rideau. 
There is not a pike, a perch nor a sunfish to bother the 
bass fisherman in these waters. T. J. Hart. 
Forked River, N. J., July 24. — The weakfish have 
arrived in Barnegat Bay. Boats caught plenty yesterday, 
and to-day some have come in with boxes full, and they 
say tbat the parties were pulling fish as fast as they could 
bait hooks. B. E. Eno. 
Schroon Lake, N. Y., July 23. — Mrs. E. Ruppertz, who 
is one of our guests, caught last Wednesday 68 large 
perch in one and one-half hours, and on the following 
day caught 38 perch and a black bass which weighed 
4+lbs. It was a question for a while who was the most 
frightened, the bass or the catcher. So overjoyed was she 
by her success in capturing this beauty, she immediately 
pulled up her anchor and rowed for shore to show her 
prize. Mrs. Ruppertz had never before wet a line. 
O'Connor Bros. 
Barnegat, N. Y., July 27. — There is plenty of good 
fishing and gunning. Two men killed sixty-five yellow- 
leg snipe, and one man thirty-five. All boats caught fish; 
one man in small boat caught 100 lbs. 
JOS. L. HlGGINS. 
Stillwater, Mont., July 24. — The open season on trout 
in Montana is from July 1 to April 30, but owing to ex- 
treme high water the fishing has been very slow until 
the last few days. I was out about four hours last Satur- 
day, the 21st, and caught forty-eight trout, when dressed 
and ready for the skillet they weighed a few ounces over 
421bs. 
Pat Mclnnally (who claims to have learned to fish in 
France) was out fishing to-day in the Stillwater about four 
miles from town and caught 97 trout and 6 grayling, hav- 
ing two trout that weighed 7flbs. when dressed. We will 
have lots of grouse this fall, the open season being from 
Aug. 15 to Nov. 15. Our best fishing here will be from 
the middle of August until Nov. 1 unless you call fishing 
through the ice sport. But it seems too much like mur- 
der to catch trout then, as they have very little show for 
their lives and are very logy, but can be caught in large 
numbers. 
I am going out for a week shortly and will report what 
luck we have on our return. H. A. Notes. 
Bass at St. Clair Flats. 
Detroit, Mich., July 24. — The prize catch of the present 
season at the Flats was made yes'erday by M. P. Gray, of 
Frankfort, Ky., a guest of the Star Is' and House, who 
landed a black bass weighing 61bs. and measuring 21iin. 
He also caught three other large ones, averaging nearly 
31bs., and pulled them all out with a small steel rod. 
Mr. Gray was the Hon of the day when he came into jjort 
with his big string. 
Louisiana Fishing;. 
Morgan City, La., July 25. — Salt-water fishing here is 
qow at its best. With tide and wind right one can load a 
skiff in a few hours_.with trout, redfish, drum, croakers, 
meepshead, pompano*, etc, Our waters teem with grand 
•caille or tarpon, but so far I have been unable to get 
hem to take a bait. While out Bailing a few days since 
me of them leaped clear across my boat (9ft. beam), and 
ame near knocking me overboard. R. S W. 
