March 9, 1895. 
Forest and stream. 
189 
Massachusetts Game- 
Danvers, Mass.— This has been a most severe winter, 
and I am fearful, a destructive one on our quail. Two 
^ears ago the quail were killed and our Legislature en- 
acted a law prohibiting the killing of them last year. 
On Jan. 1 they were very plenty, with prospect of a 
ood crop for this fall's shooting; but alas! several weeks 
of zero weather, and instances of twenty below, with 
leep crust snows and every sign of their exlermination 
is enough to wake a man feel meary of this country as far 
as game shooting is concerned. Under favorable condi- 
ions, one can, perhaps, find a flock of quail and flush tAvo 
yt three grouse in a hard day's hunt. There is good, nat- 
ural cover about here for game, but of late the game lias 
been trapped by a few worthless characters in Middleton, 
who are too lazy to do anything else. They have families 
Spending on them, and for this reason no arrests have 
teen made. J. W. B. 
Combination Guns* 
Concerning an idea for a combination rifle and shot- 
gun, Mr. I. S. Edge writes us as follows: "It occurred to 
;he writer many years ago that a three-barreled gun 
jould be made in such a way that the rifle would be de- 
tachable, so that a person could have a light, double shot- 
gun, or a three-barrelled gun at a few secon 's notice. 
The double gun could have pipes for the rifle as amuzzle- 
oader has for the ramrod, only the rifle would be pushed 
n from behind. Rifles of diffei-ent calibers could be made 
K3 fit the same gun, so that it would be an accommoda- 
tion gun, suitable for any kind of game from jack-snipe 
Ho bears or moose ' ' 
An Irish Woodcock Bag. 
The followine; remarkable bag of woodcock is recorded 
n the London (England) Field of Feb. 9:— "Lord Ardi- 
laun shot his coverts at Ashford, Co. Galway, recently, 
?,nd 508 woodcock, besides pheasants, snipe, and duck, 
jvere killed in six days. On the 25th, 205 woodcock were 
bagged; on the 6th, 68 woodcock; on the 28th, 130 wood- 
cock; on the 29th, 53 woodcock. Weather fine. Guns, 
he Earl of Bandon, Viscount Monck, Loid Cloncurry, 
Jight Hon. David Plunket, Col. the Hon. Robert Dillon, 
apt. Arthur Hood, Mr. Edgerton Leigh." 
SALMON CHATS.— III. 
I need not say that in our large rivers we have different 
stages of water, salmon run up at all of them. If the run 
is early, and river quite full, the angler can get him often 
with a half-line from the shore or bank as the fish dodges 
along in the discolored water, resting where he wishes in 
the eddy of a rock, around which the water rushes. 
Needless to try for him on a straight shore where the 
current runs heavy and the water is deep. He may be 
there, but has no time to look at your fly. You must 
■seek him on a pebbly shore facing the early sun, and in 
three or four feet of water. At this time a large hook is 
needed, with bright feathers, and a couple of large shot 
on your leader are an improvement, as he is most sure to 
take under water; and in all probability you will never 
see him until gaffed. Never mind, he will fight hard 
enough, and your arm will feel the steady strain before 
you get him, as he will be a heavy fish (ail first run fish 
are). Not likely he will try to cross the river. If he 
does, and you are not prepared to follow him in your 
canoe, and he gets forty or fifty yards of your line out in 
the strong water, you may bid him farewell. Your only 
chance is to keep below your fish, and make him fight 
the current, at the same time he is fighting you. No 
doubt, he will try after a few passes to get below you; 
but don't let him. And here I would caution you in all 
cases to have your canoe close so you can jump in quick, 
if it is necessary. I consider it one of the pleasures of 
angling that you don't know what the next move is to 
be. The expectation of the rise or strike is particularly 
pleasing when your fish does it handsomely; particularly 
so when he rises a few feet below your fly and coming 
at it with his mouth open. Still it is not in my estima- 
tion equal to the fight. Here is where the practical ex- 
perience comes in. Any novice can hook a fish; but the 
landing safely is the point. No salmon, unless foul 
hooked should, if properly handled, on good tackle last 
over fifteen minutes without exhaustion, and be gaffed 
from the canoe, instead of from the bank or shore. But 
you cannot do in high water. This feat also requires ex- 
perience, and I would not advise the novice to try it. 
The next stage of water is, perhaps, two feet lower to- 
ward June 10 or 15; and the rapids have developed; the 
cm-rent is now stronger in them, but there is easier or 
still water between them; and here the fish take a rest, 
after coming through a series of those rapids. Fish are 
steadily on the move, and plentier, and are lying out 
more to the middle of the river. The best sport is to be 
had at this stage of water. The fish are livelier, rise bet- 
ter, aud fight harder. Sometimes he is off like a flash up 
across or down stream, and very likely after running at 
full speed eighty yards, jumps clear of the water perhaps 
falling over your leader. This is a critical moment and 
many a fish parts company with the angler, the hook 
tearing out the hold, sometimes breaking it or the leader. 
This is very apt to occur, should the fish have run up and 
across the current with so much heavy line out. The 
current having such a heavy drag upon it, it is too much 
for the leader and the line cannot respond in time to the 
leap of the fish. All the angler can do in this case is to 
give free line and follow his fish as quick as possible. 
Your men should have their anchor aboard the instant 
the fish strikes for two reasons; first, to be ready for all 
eventualities; secondly, the fish may foul the anchor 
line. Now, never go ashore or leave your boat until you 
find you can lead your fish. But the great point is never 
give him a moment's peace. Always give him butt, that 
means keep your rod well up, and point the butt at the 
fish, not the point. 
If he sulks, go below him at once, and give him all your 
tackle will stand. If your leader will stand a cen-pound 
pull, and a real good one should do so; remember a 
three-pound pull will bring nearly any rod into a perfect 
arch, so don't be afraid, give it to him. The fish is, when 
sulking, as it is called, rubbing his mouth or head on the 
bottom, when you put the proper strain and in the proper 
position, he will soon leave. Sometimes the fish, when 
hooked, will quietly drop to the bottom, and come within 
a few feet of the boat. He has not fully realized what 
is wrong. After a quick, hard run he may do the same 
thing, coming so close to the canoe as to be gaffed. I 
once did this in Patapedia Pool, Lady Patrick McDongald 
having on her first salmon (twenty-six pounds), and it 
was the hardest struggle I ever had with a fish to get 
him into the boat. 
I need not tell you never give your fish an inch of slack 
line, if possible, to prevent it. When you are reeling in 
line rapidly, see that it goes on the reel properly; should 
it foul, away goes your fish on his next run. Another 
point is. when your fish is fighting hard, and you have a 
little the best of the battle getting him closer foot by 
foot, don't you draw him by the reel; if you do, it may 
jam your line. The proper way is to lift your fish with 
the rod, quickly dropping the point, at the same time 
reeling in your line as it slackens. 
The next stage of water is when the river has fallen to 
its normal condition, not the low stage. Fish then lie 
closer to the fall or head of rapids, unless it be too shoal. 
If a depression or hole has been excavated by the ice or 
water, so much the better; sometimes mid- way in a rapid 
provided there may be a break in the current. At this 
stage the fish run by night, as the water is too clear and 
low for day work, so they rest in some favorite spot, 
perhaps in a good ripple where there is ten feet or so of 
water; and he is a lucky fellow who owns such a one. 
Later in July, or it may be August, the river may have 
gone to the low stage. A stranger might now think the 
river was barren, with not a salmon to be seen, unless 
you know just where to look for them. They are lying 
in a few deep pools into which heavy rapids fall. The 
rapids now are much steeper, and fall heavier with more 
broken water. Salmon are changing in color, the 
females getting heavier, males getting poor, their hooks 
growing rapidly, red spots quite prominent. Now, the 
fish has two reasons for staying here. The deep pool is a 
sure retreat in case of danger, and the supply of well 
aerated water coming in the broken water is just what is 
wanted. Hundreds of fish are in those pools. They 
keep continuously leaping out of water, often, within a 
few feet of the boat, and it is only an odd fish, morning 
or evening, that falls to the angler's lot. As the season 
advances on the first rise of water in the latter part of 
September or early in October they leave for the different 
spawning bars, spreading all over the river, each fish (in 
my opinion) getting as near as possible to the ground or 
place where he passed his infancy and spent the first 
twenty months of his schoolboy days. Jko. Mowat. 
New Brunswick. 
FIRE-FISHING FOR BASS. 
New Albany, Miss. — I have read with great interest 
Mr. A. N. Cheney's articles on the coloring and habits of 
the black bass. And ako "Old Sam's article in your 
issue of Feb. 2, on his experience with the bass family. 
As they both tend to confirm me in conclusions I had 
arrived at as to the habits of the bass, especially as to 
night-feeding, I am tempted to relate an experience of 
mine upon the St. Francis River in the sunk lands of Ar- 
kansas, which was at least to my mind, satisfactory proof 
that the black bass do not remain stationary at night, 
but put in their nights as well as a large part of their 
days in their predatory excursions. 
One September found me with a choice party of good 
fellows, all ardent devotees of the rod and gun, camped 
on the bank of the St. Francis River, about twelve miles 
west of Marked Tree, in Arkansas. The river at the 
point upon which our camp was located, widens for a 
distance of eight or ten miles to a width of from a naif to 
a quarter of a mile, and is locally called a lake, through 
which the channel of the river moves in a devious uncer- 
tain way, encumbered with fallen logs and numerous 
sandbars. Over the entire space of this "lake" many 
partially submerged logs are scattered, while upright 
snags and stumps of giant size show where, in the days 
before the great convulsion of nature that gave that ter- 
ritory the name of "the Sunk Lands" occurred, stood a 
mighty forest. Under these logs and around these giant 
snags and stumps is the home of myriads of giant bass, 
while the waters; teem with fish life of a dozen different 
kinds as well — a fisherman's paradise, indeed. 
The moon was nearly full, and the nights were very 
bright and clear. We had been very successful in our 
pursuit of all fish except the bass. This was rendered the 
more tantalizing because in the clearer waters of the 
river out of the current we could see countless numbers 
of them resting in sequestered nooks and under the 
sunken logs, which with few exceptions refused our most 
seductive lures persistently. One night as my friend, 
Mr. Edward C, and I were returning from a sociable visit 
to the Friends Club House, just across the river from our 
camp, our boatman, a denizen of the marshy depths of 
the Sunken Lands, remarked: "This would be a good 
night for the bass to jump." "Jump where?" was our 
inquiry. "Some of them into the boat," was his re- 
sponse. Whereupon we proceeded to add another laurel 
to his brow, as the champion fisherman of the St. Fran- 
cis. But a little later alter having furnished refresh- 
ments to a few hundred apparently insatiable mosquitoes 
which had patiently awaited our return, ignoring our 
sleeping companions, I stepped out of the tent to find our 
Arkansas fisherman sitting contentedly in the boat, en- 
joying the company of his inseparable companion — a 
pipe. Whereupon, struck with a desire to be and do like- 
wise, and being set upon by a few dozen more very hun- 
gry mosquitoes, and having a tantalizing recollection at 
that instant that out upon the cool broad bosom of that 
moonlit lake no mosquito ever ventured, I called con- 
ciliatingly, seductively and withal somewhat anxiously 
to him of the laurel bedecked brow. "Willie," I said, 
"if you would like to go, I will go with you, and we will 
see how the bass will jump to-night." "Bring the lan- 
tern, and get in," was the immediate response. And I 
hastened to ensconse myself in the bow of the skiff with 
the lantern in front shining out over the waters. 
We were proceeding up the lake, keeping within about 
twenty-five yards of the bank. And I had scarcely set- 
tled myself for a comfortable smoke, while Willie was 
paddling smoothly and silently along, when from the 
shoal waters at the mouth of a bayou we were passing, 
there sprang first one, then another, then a dozen, until 
the air seemed alive with bright objects, springing and 
splashing in every direction. Some jumped clear oyer 
the boat, some fell short of it in their frantic leaps, while 
a majority of them jumped immediately in front of the 
boat. Two fine fellows fell squarely into the boat, where, 
as soon as I had recovered somewhat from my surprise 
("sour" as Willie in his pleasant way remarked), I found 
them to be two bass weighing about two or two and a 
half pounds each. We went to camp at once, as I was 
desirous of sharing such an unusual experience with my 
friends. 
Accompanied by Edward F. Campbell and Alva Collins 
of our party we were soon on our way back up the river, 
with two lighted lanterns in the prow, and two bright 
tin plates from our camp chest doing duty as reflectors. 
For several hours we paddled about the bars and the 
mouths of the bayous,* watching the bass leaping from 
the silvery lake, and now and then taking aboard a big 
one, which had through some miscalculation or rendered 
frantic by the lights or the noise of the paddle, paddling 
never so softly, fell into the skiff. One fine fellow I re- 
member fell squarely into Edward's lap, where he was at 
once warmly embraced. Another struck Alva in the 
chest, and rebounding was soon speeding his way to 
deeper and quieter waters. 
When we reached camp we were accompanied by ten 
or a dozen nice bass, none weighing less than two pounds, 
which of their own free will had taken passage with us. 
No cruel spoon, or deceptive phantom minnow had lured 
them to their door. These they had seen and rejected; 
but they fell victims to their fear. 
We had fished over all the deeper water adjoining these 
shoals, time and again, on the two previous days, meet- 
ing with but moderate success with the bass, though 
we could see numbers of big, savage-looking fellows, en- 
sconced in secluded crevices of the big cypress stumps in 
perhaps ten feet of water, or lying under partially sub- 
merged logs evidently in a state of repose with their hun- ' 
ger satiated. We saw none during the day at the places 
where they seemed most abundant at night. 
Willie informed us that the bass always bit better when 
the nights were dark. 
Another thing I noticed was that we took none but 
bass, though, of course, there may have been other species 
jumping. Garfish, grindles, striped bass, pike, jack sal- 
mon, numerous varieties of perch, and catfish were abun- 
dant in these waters, and all but the catfish bit freely 
during the day. ^ 
I do not remember ever having seen it noted before 
that bass are in the habit of jumping at night from a 
light, but I am assured that it is not an uncommon thing 
with the St. Francis fish. But that night's experience 
coupled with the disposition of the bass during the day 
satisfied me that the bass was a nocturnal feeder, and 
that they were not stationary in their habits at night. I 
would like to know if any othjr reader of the Forest and 
Stream ever met with a similar experience 
Kan-a-wha. 
GOLDFISH BAIT FOR BASS. 
■L. 
Editor Forest aud Stream. — I read with interest the 
article in your last number on the query as to whether 
goldfish would make a good bait for blackbass, aud as I 
have experimented in this direction I think you might 
like to present your readers with my experience. 
It was in the month of October or November and bass 
and good bait were getting scarce on Lake Hopatcong, 
when I made up my mind to try how goldfish would do, 
hoping that the novetly might prove sufficiently alluring 
to overcome the growing indifference of the bronze back 
warrior. I bought twieve goldfish 2^-3 inches long, 
and with them and great expectations repaired to the 
lake. The following morning I set out with Mr. David 
Everett as companion and in order to ascertain the rela- 
tive value ot goldfish as against the bait commonly used 
there, the so called herring and the shiner, it was 
agreed that Mr. E. should use the latter and I the former 
all through the day, the mode of fishing being the 
one most commonly practised up here, trolling. 
E. secured the first two fish, but afterwards the catch 
proved about equal, with the result that at the end of a 
whole day's fishing honors were about evenly divided 
between the goldfish and the other bait. In attractive 
qualities, therefore, the goldfish could not .claim supe- 
riority over the ordinary bait, at least not in the clear 
water of that particular lake, the bass evidently not 
regarding them as special tid-bits nor as deserving any 
marked attentions over the silvery sheen of the herring 
or the darker hues of the shiner. 
In one respect, however, the goldfish proved far 
ahead of the other bait, and that was in toughness. 
While the herrings in particular are very tender and 
die soon after being placed on the hook, thus making a 
constant change necessary, the goldfish seemed to be 
endowed with everlasting life. Strikes which invariably 
kill other bait, never seemed to have any effect on them, 
and I had that day one case where I landed the bass with, 
the goldfish actually pouched, and after extracting it 
from the stomach of the bass it was just as lively as 
ever and proved itself good for another fish. Of the 
twelve goldfish that I took out with me I brought back 
two which had never been on the hook, while my com- 
panion had used up at least fifty of the ordinary bait 
fish. 
The experience of that day therefore sums up to the 
effect that in killing powers the goldfish is not superior 
to the ordinary bait, bub it presents great advantages 
on account of its greater hardiness. This same advan- 
tage, however, would befounl to au equal extent in the 
young of any of the carp family to wnich the goldfish 
properly belongs, and which as the common cai-p can 
be had at much less cost. C. Bj 
Birds of Eastern Worth America. 
Messrs. D. Appleton & Co. have in press, and will pub- 
fish in April, "A Hand-book of the Birds of Eastern North 
America," by Frank M, Chapman. It will be fully iihif- 
trated, and is designed to render the identification of 
birds, either in the field or study a3 simple a matter aa 
possible. 
