120 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Aug. 11, 1894. 
CATF1SHING IN THE ST. FRANCIS. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The following letter, vividly realistic of fish and fishing 
in Arkansas, was so interesting to myself that the thought 
came to me that it might prove equally interesting to 
your readers. One can readily perceive that, to be equal 
to the emergencies of .fishing in the Arkansas waters, an 
angler (or rodster if you please) must be of Spartan fiber 
and thoroughly skilled in his art. The writer of the fol- 
lowing letter is an eminent sportsman and angler, hence, 
for the truthfulness of the incidents therein, no further 
mention is necessary. W. 
My Dear W.: 
You promised to take an outing with me this summer 
on the St. Francis. I shall expect you to make that 
promise good. I will write you a month in advance of 
the ripening of the summer crop of bass. 
As is well known to the thoroughly informed, Arkansas 
has more fish to the cubic meter of water than any 
country in the known world. It has been truthfully said 
by a correspondent in Forest and Stream that the catfish 
get upon the fences in Arkansas and mew. 
I have known them to do even more remarkable things 
than this. Last summer while fishing the St. Francis 
above Friend's and Katzenberger's shooting box near Lead 
Fork, I had secreted myself in the flags and was tickling 
the palate of the bass with a gaudy fly known to the guild 
as a Johnson. 
After I had lured to the icebox a dozen or more bass 
with this bunch of feathers and bit of steel, I noticed 
wave after wave approaching the shore, and the bass 
began to scamper as an immense catfish appeared upon 
the scene of action, and swam up to where I was fishing 
with as much sang froid as that of a first season's belle 
when she views the downfall of her rival. 
Well, I thought a lOOlbs. catfish a little larger game 
than I was loaded for with a 6oz. rod and a bass fly, so I 
held my fly some 6ft. over the water, thinking H. M. 
could pass on down stream, when placidly he folded his 
pectoral fins upon his exigastrium, and proceeded delib- 
erately to eye my bass fly; then, doubling himself for a 
mighty effort, he projected himself 4ft. into the air, and 
it was with the greatest difficulty I could prevent his get- 
ting my fly. 
Do you know, that catfish continued those atmospheric 
gyrations and aerial somersaults until great beads of per- 
spiration stood upon his cat-like brow. 
There was another incident connected with this trip 
that will remain photographed upon my memory for a 
lifetime. Thursday, Sept. 21, 1893, was destined to be the 
red-letter day in my fishing calendar. Early in the morn- 
ing, with two well filled minnow pails in tow, armed with 
a fish-spoon, frog-fork, a .38cal. Winchester, my ejector, 
fishing rods, tackle, icebox an^ lunch, we started in the 
early morn for Cross Cypress. Lem Biggs, the most expert 
oarsman on the St. Francis, occupied the stern of the boat 
while I was seated on the forward end of the icebox amid- 
ship. As Biggs poled up the St. Francis the bass were 
holding high carnival, rising to moth and ephemera of 
every description. Said I to Biggs, "I guess it is about 
time to try my musical reel. I bought one lasc season 
while in Italy, and I have never used it." He urged me 
to pat it on by all means, saying that he had never seen 
or heard one of these piscatorial mupical boxes warble, 
and that he was fond of music. We had just seen a 
patriarchal bass break water under a lily-pad, some 50ft. 
away, so attaching the reel to my bait-casting rod, reeling 
on a new line, slipping on float and sinker, and tying on 
a 4-0 Schneck, and impaling a minnow through the 
nether lip and inner canthus of the eye, I laid that min- 
now under that lily-pad with as much dexterity as that 
with which a man's spouse runs her delicate hand in his 
trousers pocket while he is taking a morning nap. 
The great horn spoon! what a swirl. I thought the St. 
Francis had found a subterranean outlet. But my min- 
now was in the wild marauder's maw. So I gave a gentle 
jerk, and the music began. Lighting a Havanna I leaned 
back on the icebox, and for fifteen minutes listened to the 
soft strains of Beethoven, as they raDg out upon the 
morning air. This was repeated again and again as we 
ascended the river, until we reached the mouth of Melan- 
choly Pass, just below Cross Cypress, where the river 
makes detour of a mile or more. The bass had been so 
furious in their attacks upon all manner of bait that our 
icebox had long ago been filled, and Biggs had appropri- 
ated a stout piece of cord, on which he had strung twenty 
or more and tied it around his leg for convenience. 
We were now at the mouth of Melancholy Pass, and a 
deep pool spread out for a hundred yards or more below. 
Here in twenty feet of water lay great schools of lusty 
bass. I told Biggs to anchor the boat at the upper edge 
of the pass alongside the flags, and I would fish the pool 
below. We had not fished long until Biggs observed 
some aquatic monster coming down the pass, when he re- 
marked: "Keep low behind the flags; he will come square 
across the bow of your boat, not six feet away. Take the 
spear, aim low and well forward, and give it to him hard. 
1 think it is an otter, and if it is and you get him I will 
row you the remainder of the week for the pelt." Biggs 
had hardly done speaking, when the monster was imme- 
diately in front and not four feet away. I gave the spear 
•a mighty thrust at his head. With one stroke of his 
mighty tail he lashed the river to foam. The spear had 
missed its mark five feet and had imbedded three twelve- 
inch tines of barbed steel deep under his dorsal fin. He 
started for the great Mississippi a hundred miles below. 
Tlie Russian sash cord that attached the spear to the bow 
of the boat, "ran out like varnished hghtning." The boat 
was turned half around in a moment, and Biggs was left 
to founder in twenty feet of water, with fifty pounds of 
bass tied to one of his legs. I was thrown over back- 
ward in the bottom of the boat, but soon recovered. A 
hundred yards below as we grated over a bar the min- 
now pails left their moorings. Here now was a beautiful 
stretch of water for a mile or so more. Talk about your 
Maud S., Nancy Hanks, Sunol, Arion, Directum or Sal- 
vator; these were only pacemakers to the gait we were 
traveling. A crimson tide followed in our wake. 
I have made pelagic wanderings from St. George's and 
St. Paul's in the Pribilov group to Cape Horn. I have 
driven gaff in everything that wears scales, from a 
pickerel to a right whale; I have seen 6,000ft. of line go 
off the reel to a well directed harpoon; but here was the 
beginning of a chapter in my fishing diary that was 
growing monotonous with remarkable rapidity, 
What was to be the outcome of all this? On, and still 
on, we speed. Now we are passing Friend's and Katzen- 
berger's shooting box. Hatchie Coon Club House looms 
up in the distance. Ah! Now he takes down Favorite 
Chute, across which the beaver have thrown a dam. Now 
we have you in a pocket. But if you keep up this gait 
you will run that corrugated beak of yours 6ft. in the 
mud. 
But on, and still the speed was not abated. The dam 
looms up directly in front. I grasped the gunwale of the 
canoe as a shipwrecked sailor grasps a spar. He gathers 
himself together for one mighty effort; throws himself 
6ft. in mid air, and fish and boat land 40ft. beyond, as 
easily as Carter Harrison was wont to take a 3ft. hurdle. 
I landed 8ft. back with ray feet pointing toward the 
stellar world, which was distinctly visible. Still the pro- 
cession moved on. My rod was taking its bath opposite 
Friend's; my gun was submerged in the pool where I had 
left Biggs; my tackle was strewn for miles up the St. 
Francis. The rifle and I were the only occupants of that 
"limited." I felt for my knife, with which to cut myself 
loose from the predatory demon. Alas! It had been left 
submerged with Biggs. How to turn loose this cyclone 
was tbe absorbing question of my life. The roof of the 
Osceola Ducking Club's house was receding in the dis- 
tance. Below I could hear the puffing of the locomotive 
on the K. C. R. R. at Marked Tree. 
But now he tires. Gathering his mighty forces in one 
supreme effort, he throws himself 6ft. in the air and 
shakes himself as if in the agonies of a wild despair. 
Then as he calmly turns upon his side oblivious to fate, 
his mighty heart breaks, while I take the rifle and speed 
a bullet through his brain. He was 14ft. 5^in. long by 
Chief DeFuniak's steel tape, and tipped the railroad scales 
at Marked Tree 3141bs. and a few ounces, not many. 
Tarqoin. 
MAINE WATERS AND WOODS. 
Speaking of deer in Maine, Mr. Frank Lewis, of Law- 
rence, mentions seeing over twenty deer in one day at 
Passadumcook Lake, a tributary of the Penobscot River. 
He was on his spring fishing trip with friends. They left 
the Bangor & Aroostook Railroad at Nor cross, and thence 
through the woods to the lake. He says that no one can 
have any idea of the number of deer in those woods till 
one has been there. The best feature of all is, according 
to Mr. Lewis, that nobody is illegally shooting there, or 
was earlier in the season. He says that the prevailing 
sentiment is that it is too bad to shoot a deer in June or 
July, when the fawns are young and helpless, besides 
being a foolish waste, for the animals are poor in flesh 
and fit only to be abandoned to decay. 
Mr. John J. McNally, of the Boston Herald, with his 
family, is spending his vacation at Lake Maranocook, 
Winthrop, Me. In the party is also Manager William 
Harris, Mr. Samuel Sterne and Mr. Richard S. Brews of 
Boston. Last Wednesday they went bass fishing, with 
the result of. thirty-two bass for five hours' fishing at 
Craig's Point. The fish were all caught with the fly, 
though the sunken grasshopper and frog bait are very 
successful. They are trying the bass nearly every day 
with considerable success, taking lots of fish 2 and B^lbs. 
The bass fishing has been excellent in Anabessagook and 
Monmouth Pond. Lake Cobosseecontee in the same region 
has afforded excellent sport with both pickerel and bass 
this season. Mr. Samuel Smith of Boston made a couple 
of good hauls from that lake the other day. Hundreds 
of bass rods are being used this season on the Maine lakes 
and ponds, and really a good deal of sport is obtained 
from black bass fishing, though to the trout fisherman 
the sport is rather unsatisfactory. 
There is a story in the Maine papers of "the fasting of a 
trout, which, if true, is worth investigating. The fish, a 
51bs. Belfast trout, was in the aquarium of Mr. F. H. 
Francis, and is reported to have lived eight months with- 
out any food whatever. It simply would not eat, finally 
dying presumably of hunger or starvation. It had 
shrunken to half its former weight. After death the fish 
was dissected for the purpose of discovering the cause of 
its long fast. The intestines were all right, but there 
was not one di*op of biood in the fish, either gills or body. 
The flesh had lost its salmon tint and was dry and white. 
A male trout in the same tank will eat anything. 
Mr. James H. Jones has been away on his vacation. 
With his wife he has visited his home town, Buckfield, 
Me., and has done tlie streams of his boyhood for trout. 
He found the water generally very low and the weather 
hot. In the holes he would generally get about one 
trout each and it was a good day's work to gather in a 
dozen rather small ones. He found a good deal of sport 
in fishing for black bass in the stream that runs by that 
town, or, perhaps, it should be dignified under the name 
of river. The bass have run down from the ponds above, 
which have been stocked for several year's. But perch 
and pickerel fishing was the better sport after all, since 
when the fish were caught they were of some value. 
Pickerel can be caught readily in the waters about that 
town when fishing for perch. They take the bait the 
same as the perch. 
Mr. Wm. H. Coggin went down to Bangor, Me., last 
week, and with a friend from that city drove back to 
Harmon Pond the next morning. They went pickerel 
and white perch fishing. They caught several bass, 
though it requires live bait generally to catch them in 
that pond. A fisherman a few rods away from their boat 
landed a big one, judged to weigh something like 51bs, 
Mr. Coggin is of the opinion that with the right sort of 
line, bait and suitable weather one may get all the perch 
and pickerel he may desire from that pond. Consider- 
able bait and fly-fishing is done there, and it takes live 
bait to excite the cupidity of the well fed fish there. Mr. 
Coggin is talking of a hunting and fishing trip, the last of 
September; leaving the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad 
at Norcross. He hears glorious accounts of that region, 
something like the deer story mentioned above. 
Mr. George H. Cutting writes us from Andover, Me , 
that the prospects for game in that section are unusually 
good. Partridges will be fairly plenty, and a good many- 
wild ducks have bred at the lakes. Deer are most remark- 
ably abundant, and on the first snows it will be an easy 
thing for a hunter of any skill whatever to get one. Mr. 
Cutting got his three deer last year very early; that is, 
with only a couple of days' hunting on the first snows. 
Mr. G. N. Smalley and Harry W. Smalley, of Boston, 
with Mr. and Mrs. Forbes, of Stamford, Conn., and Frank 
Smalley, of So. Framingham, Mass., have been camping 
at Rangeley for some weeks. Mr. G. N. Smalley is there 
for fly-fishing altogether. In fact, he does not care much 
for trolling. It was he, with his friend, C. Z. Basset, of 
Boston, who, two years ago, took the big trout with the 
fly in the trolling season, from the middle of Cupsuptic 
Lake, All the fishermen in that vicinity at the time were 
surprised. But since then trout have been taken from 
the same location, and it proves that there is a reef of 
rocks there, where the trout doubtless come to feed. 
Special 
SOMETHING ABOUTTHE OU AN AN I CHE. 
Within a few years and with wonderful rapidity the im- 
mense wilderness of Canada has come into prominence as 
a veritable paradise for sportsmen. This arises from the 
fact that the results of trips made there are so thoroughly 
successful. Success there rewards the fisherman and 
hunter alike. 
This wilderness extends entirely across Canada from 
east to west, commencing from 100 to 200 miles north of 
the St. Lawrence River and extends away beyond the 
confines of Hudson's and St. James bays. The territory 
embraced is practically limitless, and only awaits the ad- 
vance of tbe sportsman to become opened up and known. 
The fishing waters — lakes, ponds, rivers and streams — 
are as numberless as the sands of the sea, and the portion 
that has ever been fished thus far is infinitely small. 
There are just as good fish in these waters and innumer- 
ably more than ever were caught. 
Every one who has sought the wilds of Canada has his 
favorite place, whether it be the Muskoka Lakes, Georgian 
Bay, Victoria or Peterboro lakes, Temisconata country, 
the Mastigouche, or Lake St. John territory. All have 
their admirers, many of them, and great is the increase 
in number each year. But one fact is to be deduced from 
this: We must seek that country for satisfactory sport. 
No other choice is left. Very few places even approxi- 
mating fair fishing are left on our side of the boundary. 
There are too many fishermen and too few fish. 
The greater part of the trout fishing in Canada is to be 
left to Americans as a general rule, and how great are the 
possibilities in that line. Quantity and size are both to be 
found there, and such quantity and size. 
Those who would have sport almost equalling salmon 
fishing, and when size is considered, equal if not superior; 
and at a minimum of expense, should seek the Lake St, 
John country. Therp, angling for that lusty warrior, the 
ouananiche, will afford all the elements of sport found in 
catching salmon, except as to size. There one is not con- 
fined to trout fishing only, as one must be in all other 
parts of Canada, but can seek both fish or either, as in- 
clination may prompt. 
The fact is becoming patent that the trout is to be held 
secondary to the ouananiche, or land-locked salmon. I 
find that this is the general opinion of those who have 
been fortunate enough to angle for this fish. As an ex- 
ample of the effect this fishing has on those who catch 
them for the first time, I will quote the remark of a friend 
of mine who recently returned from Lake St, John, his 
first visit there. "T never would believe before, but now 
I can understand why a brook trout or a black bass can 
be considered secondary to any other fresh-water fish. 
The ouananiche leads them by long odds in fighting 
qualities." 
To those who have seen a black bass when hooked, 
fight at his best, leap, tug, jerk, rush and spin, and have 
seen the trout do the same in its peculiar, nerve-straining 
way; to such the stories of this wonderful fishing seem to 
be "fish stories," fairy tales, or what you will. But let 
them once feel the weight of a 3*lbs. ouananiche strug- 
gling as only that fish can struggle, at the other end of a 
7oz. rod and 50ft. of line, and they, too, will catch the 
fever. 
I have a friend, an ardent salmon fisher, who is a mem- 
ber of a club owning one of the salmon rivers entering 
the Saguenay. During a number of years past both he 
and other members of the club have occasionally in their 
salmon casting had a strike from a ouananiche. As he 
has frequently remarked to me, "Loud exclamations at 
once make the fact known to others fishing near by, and 
the fortunate one at once prepares for a struggle that he 
is not accustomed to from a salmon of the same or even 
heavier weight. I have taken several in the few years 
past, and I consider them stronger and harder fighters 
than the salmon of approximately the same size." 
He became so enamored of the ouananiche fishing that 
he spent a part of his outing this season at Lake St. John, 
away from his salmon pools. He had splendid success, 
and I understand that he is so taken with this fishing that 
he intends to visit that region again each year. Certainly 
if ouananiche that average only from 3£ to 41bs. can fight 
sufficiently hard to attract an old time salmon fisher from 
his pools they must be fighters indeed, and f oemen worthy 
of any rod. It does not seem to me that any further proof 
is necessary. 
I could enumerate any number of like stories but will 
confine myself to the following extract from a letter re- 
cently sent me by a gentleman while at Lake St. John: 
"I can appreciate now all that you have said and writ- 
ten on 'The Leaping Ouananiche.' Well, I have met that 
'jumping Injun' and I greatly respect his fighting qual- 
ities. Our party of four killed 203 of those fish in two 
days on the Grand Discharge, 87 of the number being my 
share, and one of 3Ubs. being the heaviest fish. But 
when you tackle 3£lbs. of chain lightning in the form of 
an ouananiche you will think that he weighs a ton. I 
greatly respect that fish for his fighting qualities and 
his peculiar tactics. It is exciting sport, and when 
your fish makes from six to ten mighty leaps 
you cannot but get excited. Yesterday while on the 
Ouiatchouaniche River, a spring hole was pointed out 
where you caught 100 trout, but I beat you. Such fishing 
I never experienced before. We (four) took over 800 good 
trout in two days, and after feeding eight Indians and 
four white men, we brought back to the hotel in good 
order, one of those large camp cans full of dressed trout, 
running from Jib. to lib. in weight. Before closing I 
want to say to you on my own part and on behalf of the 
expressed desire of my three friends, that you have not 
exaggerated about 'the leaping ouananiche, and.that we 
thank you for putting us on the track of such a glorious 
outing." 
The fishing is there for the seeker, and will be for a 
generation to come. Ordinary skill will aid in hooking, 
handling and landing ouananiche, but to do it success- 
fully can come from practical experience only, This 
