838 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Dec. 22, 1894. 
ANGLING NOTES. 
About Black Bass.. 
In a recent note in this column I mentioned the circum- 
stance of a "bad black bass" caught in the very act of 
eating its own young:, and said: "I cannot yet think it is 
the habit of the black bass to eat their own young if other 
food abounds." 
I have just received the Bulletin of the IT. S. Fish Com- 
mission for 1893, Vol. XIII., which is made up of papers 
read before the World's Fisheries Congress in Chicago, at 
the time of the World's Columbian Exposition, and in it 
I find a very interesting and instructive paper by Mr. Wm . 
F. Page, superintendent of the Neosho, Missouri, station of 
the U. S. Fish Commission, upon "The Propagation of 
Black Bass in Ponds." 
Conclude what we may about the habits of fish in wild 
waters where they are not absolutely under control for 
constant observation at different seasons and under vary- 
ing conditions, the result must consist in a measure of 
speculations, but fish in confinement and under direct 
observation at all times may be studied in a way to obtain 
positive conclusions regarding certain habits, provided 
the confinement does not change their habits. Mr. Page 
has drawn the conclusions narrated in his paper from 
observations of black bass under the last mentioned con- 
ditions, and it is presumably safe to say that what has 
been found true of the habits of black bass in the Neosho 
ponds will apply to the habits of black bass in wild 
waters. 
Premising that the fish under observation were the 
large-mouthed species of black bass I quote as follows 
from the paper: 
"It may be asked, if bass are such excellent parents and 
accomplish the high rate of impregnation which some 
writers ascribe to them, where is the necessity of putting 
more than a few adults in a pond, letting these alone, and 
later harvesting a crop of young? To such a question I 
would answer, that after the dispersal of theschool, unless 
food of an acceptable kind be present in abundance, an 
adult bass does not stop to examine the birthmarks of a 
straggling youngster which may cross his path. There 
can be no question but that the largest part of the young 
so zealously guarded early in the season later furnish food 
for some adult bass, possibly its own progenitor. Again, 
the bass are like the trout, in that every school furnishes 
its example of giants, which make short work of their 
weaker brethren. In the autumn sorting of the spring 
crop, left undisturbed through the summer in the nursery 
pond, three and sometimes four sizes of young bass will 
he found, the largest of which show by their very size that 
they have been guilty of fratricide." 
It has been asked over and over how fast do young 
black bass grow. Mr. Page answers this question in re- 
gard to the young of the big-mouth in his ponds: "The 
average length of six months' bass at Neosho is 3in. , 
thougu I have frequently seen them of the same age 
measuring from 8 to lOin. Whoever has seen a black 
bass choked to death by trying to swallow one of equal 
size, will not doubt that the 8-inch fellow will diminish 
the number of the 3-inch fishes." 
Does Male or Female Guard the Nest? 
A belief exists that the male black bass and not the 
female guards the nest while the eggs are hatching, and 
afterward broods the young. I was about to say that 
this was a general belief, but I remember that those who 
think in this way, when their writings are examined 
closely, are very guarded about making a positive state- 
ment in regard to it. Mr. Mather* observed this habit in 
the male sunfish, and as the sunfish guards its eggs I 
think he assumes that in the case of black bass, also a 
nest-guarder, it was the male fish that acted as guard. 
In 1891 I watched a pair of rock bass on their bed or 
nest and they spawned July 24. After that date I saw 
nothing more of the male fisn, but I watched the female 
daily until Aug. 8, and twice took her from the nest to 
make sure that I was watching the right fish. The male 
was present on July 23 and 24, but I did not see another 
fish of any kind around the nest up to the time the 
young were hatched on Aug. 8. On the two occasions 
when I took the female from the nest I removed her 
some distance before returning her to the water, but 
inside of ten minutes she was back on duty. I reported 
my observations to Mr. Wm. P. Seal, then in charge of 
the aquaria of the U. S. Fish Commission, and in his 
reply he said: 
"In any species of fish the habits of which have not yet 
been observed, we can only reason from analogy, but I. 
know of no fish which protects its eggs with which it is 
not the male that 'rocks the cradle.' With the stickle- 
backs, the darters, the sunfishes so far as I have noticed, 
catfish, the paradise fish, the common toadfish, the blen- 
nies, the little seahorse and pipefishes, it is the male, which 
attends to these affairs, being a complete reversal of the 
usual order regarding reproductive methods. This might 
be accounted for by the greater vitality of the male, and 
the necessary greater exhaustion of the female after 
spawning. * * * It is an interesting subject, and we 
know very little yet. We want great aquaria established 
on correct principles where we can study them." 
At the time that I found the spawning rock bass I was 
looking for beds or schools of young of small-mouthed 
black bass in a very cold lake where the bass spawn late, 
and before and since that time I have endeavored to set- 
tle the matter to my own satisfaction as to which parent 
guarded the nest and young of the black bass (small 
mouth). In one instance, when I learned that pairs of 
black bass were confined at spawning time in small ponds 
in Canada, I tried to find out which of the parents stood 
guard, but it was apparent that the sex had not been ob- 
served up to the time that I wrote, but Mr. Page has 
something to say on that subject: 
' 'The eggs are viscid and attach themselves as soon as 
voided and impregnated to the floor of the nest. Then 
commences a parental devotion worthy of imitation on the 
part of some higher animals. For a time I was under the 
impression that the female deserted the nest and the male 
fish took charge. From closer and more extended obser- 
vation I am now of the opinion that the female is in 
direct charge, while the male acts as an outer sentinel, 
patrolling 8 or 10ft. away. There is nothing smaller than 
a man that a bass won't attack when on duty guarding a 
nest, and there is nothing smaller than a man who attacks 
a bass at this time. Prior to the hatching of the eggs the 
female stands guard directly over the nest, maintaining 
a gentle motion of the fins for the purpose, it is thought, 
of providing a change of water over the eggs. When the 
fry leave the eggs the tactics of the mother fish are 
changed. She no longer stands guard over the nest, but 
circles around the school, whipping back truants and 
driving off intruders." Unless Mr. Page's observation on 
this subject should be controverted by later and more 
extended investigations, I think that it must be admitted 
that it is the female and not the male black bass which 
guards the nest and broods the young, and I imagine 
that what may be true of the large-mouthed bass in this 
respect will prove to be true of the small-mouth. 
Vitality of Black Bass. 
During the past ten years or more I have repeatedly 
urged that black bass should not be introduced into any 
water unless, after due deliberation, it was found beyond 
a perad venture that the fish were suitable for the water, 
and vice versa, for once introduced it would be impossible 
to remove them: but I must confess that I believed that 
. drawing the water off would accomplish this object, and 
very recently I wrote to a correspondent that the only 
way he could get rid of black bass in a small pond was by 
drawing the water entirely off. It seems that even this 
will not do it, and again I quote Mr. Page: "Under fright 
the bass will burrow into the mud and live there an in- 
credible length of time. Some years we used a pond for 
bass one season, and when it was concluded to use it for 
shad the following season, it was drawn off in the autumn 
to harvest the young and thoroughly rid it off bass. Un- 
usual precaution was exercised to remove every fish. The 
pond was left empty for three weeks, exposed to the frosts 
and winds of November, until the mud was dry and 
crossed checked. The pond was then filled, and in De- 
cember 200 tons of ice were cut from it. To make assur- 
ance doubly sure, the pond was again drawn in the fol- 
lowing April and left empty for ten days. The young 
shad were introduced the first week in June. By the 1st 
of August other fish than shad were jumping for flies 
in tne dusk of early morning and evening. One hundred 
and fifty bass, averaging half a pound each, were cap- 
tured from this pond, from which all the bass had been 
so carefully removed. There were no means within the 
limits of reasonable probability for 150 fish to have gotten 
into this pond, except by having burrowed in the mud 
and lived there for several weeks while it was drying." 
It may be said that while such astonishing vitality may 
be displayed by the large-mouth black bass, a fish with 
predilection for the mud and ooze, it could not be true 
of the small-mouth, but I think it is more than a dozen 
years ago that I wrote something akin to Mr. Page's nar- 
rative, only my story was about the small-mouth. Briefly, 
it was this. The father of Pension Commissioner Bentley 
had some small-mouth black bass in a spring. The spring 
dried up, and as the bass disappeared with the drying up 
process it was supposed that the bass had been stolen, but 
upon digging down to find water the bass were found 
burrowed in the mud, which, however, had not become 
dry. All of which means, do not plant black bass unless 
you wish them to stay with you, even after you become 
tired of them. 
How Some Fish are Planted. 
The applications for fish fry made in various States to 
those who have the matter in charge must present some 
amusing reading, if the reader's bump of humor is well 
developed. 
This morning I was asked by an applicant to aid him 
in filling out a blank for black bass, and the number 
of fish asked for (for one lake) was equal to the whole 
number of black bass distributed by the State in all its 
waters in one year. This matter, however, only served 
to remind me of another application. A gentleman told 
me that he had made application* for, and had been prom- 
ised, a lot of landlocked salmon fry. 
Naturally interested in the subjects, I questioned him 
about the water in which he intended to plant them. 
Personally he knew little or nothing about it. He be- 
lieved it was a small pond 20 to 25ft. deep, but he knew 
nothing of the temperature of the water. He knew little 
about tne fish already in the pond, and nothing about the 
opportunities for the salmon to spawn. As to food for 
salmon there were plenty of minnows for them. He did 
not know that salmon were a deep-water fish in summer 
and required deep-water food, nor anything about the 
temperature in which they could live and above which 
point they would die, but he was an earnest man greatly 
interested in stocking the waters with fish and in fish pro- 
tection after the waters were stocked. 
If a census could be taken of all the fish fry lost, and I 
do not refer to any deficiency between the number 
charged and the number delivered, but lost because well- 
meaning men put in fish fry where nature never intended 
they should go, and where they cannot thrive, I imagine 
it would be astonishing to the general public. Fish Com- 
missioners throw such safeguards as they can around the 
fish which they have to distribute, and make every effort 
to know about the waters in which the fry are to be 
planted, but after all they have to trust somewhat to the 
judgment of the applicants and much to the answers 
made to their questions. 
By deficiency between the number of fish fry charged 
and the number delivered, I had in mind such as may 
actually die in transit, but I did see one shipment of a lot 
of lake trout fry, said to be 500,000, and if the others were 
like it the shipment was probably 150,000 to 200,000 short 
of the number charged. This was not because the fry 
died, but because they were not in the cans to start with. 
Hatchery shipments of fish fry are supposed to go over 
rather than under the number charged, and in many in- 
stances I suppose they do, but it makes little difference 
whether they do or not if the water to which they are 
destined is wholly unsuitable for the fish, and they are lost 
in consequence. As a rule applicants for fish see to what 
are called game fishes — salmon, trout and black bass, no 
matter what the conditions of water and food may be. 
Trout may fail in waters that would sustain some excellent 
food fish, such as the bullhead and yellow perch, but gen- 
erally it is the game fishes and not the food fishes which 
are sought, and so fish and water area are both wasted. 
A Game Fight with a Game Fish. 
Mr, C. E. Durkee, who was for many years the superin- 
tendent of the Adirondack Railway running north from 
Saratoga into the Wilderness, told me recently of a 
fight he once had with a trout in the North Woods. We 
met at a friend's house at dinner and the story was told 
after the dinner, and I made not a Bingle note concerning 
it, but I'll warrant that I now relate it as it was told by 
my old friend. 
Mr. Durkee was a guest at Camp Pine Knot, the North 
Woods domain of Mr.W. Durant, and was one day fishing 
for spotted trout in Mohican Lake, which is part of Mr. 
Durant's preserve. Requiring some minnows for bait, Mr. 
Durkee and his guide rowed to the mouth of an inlet 
stream to catch them. Mr. Durkee was using a steel rod, 
and finding that the tip was so pliant that he did not 
hook the minnows with certainty, he removed it and tied 
a piece of line to the second joint of the rod. The rod 
was thus about six or seven feet long and the line about a 
foot shorter, and on it was a minnow hook. For minnows 
the hook was baited with a piece of a dead minnow, A 
sufficient number of minnows being obtained, the guide 
pushed the boat out into the lake near an old treetop, 
while Mr. Durkee still retained his baited minnow hook 
and rod in his hand. 
Idly he threw the small bait into the water and it was 
taken by a large fish, and "there he was." 
Rod and line together were not over 14ft. in length, 
and the minnow hook was tied to fine gut. The fish was 
active, and it required all of Mr. Durkee's skill with the 
rod and the guide's skill at the oars to prevent a smash 
during the first flurry. - The lake is shallow, fortunately, 
and the downward rushes of the fish repeatedly took the 
rod and the angler's arm into the water to his shoulder, 
but the angler tired before the trout, for it w as a trout, 
ond the guide took the rod to rest him. Mr. Durkee 
again resumed the rod, and finally the trout was brought 
up, when the guide succeeded, after several attempts, in 
getting his fingers into his gills, and the fish proved to be 
a lake trout of 16lbs. weight. 
Monster Trout of the St. Maurice Club. 
It is quite fitting that after recording Mr, Durkee's 
catch I should state that I have a letter from Dr. W. H. 
Drummond, of Montreal, in regard to the catch of brook 
trout made in 1894 by members of the St. Maurice Club. 
I give his letter nearly in full: "Reading Forest and 
Stream to-day my eye caught sight of your comment re- 
garding 'St. Maurice trout report for 1894.' That the club 
members caught during the season '6(38 brook trout, 
weighing l,92Ulbs ,' is perfectly true. 
"Lake Wayagamach where headquarters are situated, 
and where practically all the fish are caught, is over fifty 
miles in circumference, and contains 'brook trout,' run- 
ning from 2^1bs. to certainly 6ilbs. 
"I have heard many stories of lumber men catching 
through the ice much larger trout, but personally 6^ is 
the largest I have sepn. Three pounds represent, I should 
say, the average weight, and there is only one point on 
the lake, at or near the dam (outlet), where 1 to 21b. fish 
are caught. Wayagamach is really a wonderful lake." 
Wonderful but half expresses it, and the St. Maurice 
Club, so favored of the gods, should change the name of 
the lake, unless, as I now suspect, that Indian name really 
means "Angler's Paradise." A. N. Cheney. 
The Sunapee Saibling. 
Chareestown, N. H. — Editor Forest and Stream: I 
am glad to note my friend Cheney's cumulative evidence 
as to the utter ignorance respecting saibling in Sunapee 
Lake previous to 1881. It was this ignorance on the part 
of my old friends Powers and Woodbury, both accom- 
plished anglers, who had fished the lake for years, which 
led Dr. Quackenbos and myself to think that it might be 
a hybrid from the native fontinalis and the winninish put 
in m 1877. The discovery of the same fish later in Dan 
Hole Pond, however, crushed that explanation. Now, 
may it not be that the saibling, which are principally fish- 
eaters, have been thriving on the young fry of the winni- 
nish and the fontinalis which have been planted, and thus 
have shown an abnormal increase, while the results from 
the continuous plants have certainly fallen far short of 
expectations? 
1 think Commissioner Hodge first discovered the spawn- 
ing grounds of the saibling in 1885, and it seems strange 
that some one of the thousands who have explored the 
lake within the last hundred years should not have seen 
them before, if they were as plentiful as they now are. 
Commissioner Hodge said he saw "acres of them." 
I am glad to learn from Mr. Cheney that our Fish Com- 
missioners are to move in the matter of restoring the close 
time for trout to May 1, where we fixed it a dozen years 
ago, and to inform him that Vermont has passed a law 
adopting the same date. 
We got such a bill through the House in our last Legis- 
lature, but it was killed in the Senate, who voted "inex- 
pedient to legislate." 
I hope New York may adopt the same date for all 
waters north of the Erie Canal, but believe the date would 
be better for the whole State, except Long Island. The 
15th of April in some years is too early for Pennsylvania. 
There is no doubt that trout will bite in April some 
years, if not all, but the reason is that they are half 
starved and hungry, and I prefer to wait until they are 
fat and lively. Almost all our open seasons for game of 
all kinds begin too soon and last too long, and the exter- 
mination of the game, including fish in the word, is the 
consequence. 
What you say about the New York Fish Commission is 
true and well said. Politics, so called, has in many ways 
been the curse of the State and city of New York. 
Von W. 
To the Retail Fishing Tackle Dealers. 
We beg to announce that we have withdrawn the sale of our Auto- 
matic Reel from the lists of the jobbing trade, and that for the season 
of 1895 we shall deal with the retailers direct. 
We have been compelled to take this action on account of the i- cut 
prices" quoted on our reels by most of the jobbers, who in conse- 
quence created an unprofitable competition among the retailers. 
In order to remedy this condition of affairs we shall sell direct to 
the retailer, but under no circumstances will we fill an order unless 
wo have the retailer's assurance that our goods will be sold at strictly 
list prices. We feel that we, as manufacturers, have the right to pre- 
vent the demoralization of prices on our product, and we hope to 
receive the retail trade's approbation of our protest against trade 
demoralization. 
We remain, with the season's compliments, yours very truly, 
—Adv. . Yawman & Erbe, 
