March 23, 1895. 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
229 
in placing their hooks below the sinker, at least my per- 
sonal experience in smelt fishing has taught me that move 
fish will be hooked by using a leader with the sinker at 
the extreme end and the hooks placed above it. The 
sinker keeps the line taut, and the smelt biting so gently 
that it is difficult to distinguish the bite, more readily 
communicates the sensation of a bite than when the 
hooks are flying loose below a heavy sinker. There is no 
effort made to conceal the hook under the bait in ice fish- 
ing, the strip of smelt hangs like a wet rag from the bend 
of the hook, and too, the hooks are so large that it seems 
strange that the smaller smelts are hooked at all. 
I found that the smelts caught at Port Henry had an at- 
tachment which was entirely new to me, in the form of 
a sucker. The sucker was very like a worm, a little 
thicker than an ordinary knitting needle, dark gray, 
somewhat mottled in color, and they seemed to be jointed 
in the body. They were from one to two inches in 
length, and the sucker which occupied one end of the 
body looked like the end of a tin horn reduced in size. 
These suckers could be seen about the holes in the ice 
after the fishermen had removed them from the smelts, 
wriggling about on the ice or in the icy water. They 
made no mark on tk« smelt, not did they do them any ap- 
parent hai'm, and they were entirely new to me. 
THE NEW GAME CODE. ;V 
I have not had an opportunity to read the new hsh 
and game bill introduced into the New York Senate by 
Senator Donaldson in its entirety, but I find that Section 
140 still provides that it shall be lawful at any time to fish 
for perch, suckers, bull heads and pickerel with nets and 
fykes, and spear such fish through the ice in the streams 
and lakes and ponds of Warren county. Quite unex- 
pectedly, I had an hour's talk with Senator Donaldson 
about the bill and other matters relating to it, and his 
eight years' service on the fish and game committees in 
the New York Legislature has taught him that the special 
laws for special waters are fatal to good game legislation. 
His idea is that we should have a fish and game law as 
nearly uniform m its provisions as to seasons, as the di- 
versified conditions of a big State will permit of. But 
once such a bill is drawn and printed, amendment after 
amendment is offered and generally passed, that practi- 
cally nullifies the whole bill. The black bass season is 
still made to open on May 30. Senator Donaldson does 
not pretend to say that this is right to open the fishing on 
the first of June when the fish spawn all through the 
month of June, "but the fishing interests on the St. Law- 
rence and Lake Ontario demand it, and this, coupled with 
the demands of fishermen in other parts of the State who 
wish to fish on Decoration Day make it impossible to pass 
a law that actually protects the bass during their spawn- 
ing season. Up to this time the supervisors have been 
able to pass laws for their respective counties, giving bass 
protection until the first of July each, but the new bill 
takes the power from the supervisors. It is true that the 
supervisors passed some foolish laws and exceeded their 
powers, but they really meant to give fish and game ad- 
ditional protection. 
So far as black bass are concerned, it would be a good 
idea for the State to refuse absolutely to furnish bass to 
restock waters that have been been fished out by fishing 
when the fish are on their spawning beds, and where the 
sentiment is in fa w or of this sort of fishing. 1 would 
suggest to the framers of the Donaldson game and fish bill 
that if the powers of the boards of supervisors are to be 
taken from them, so that waters planted by the State 
cannot "be protected from all fishing for a time in order to 
give the planted fish an opportunity to establish them- 
selves, that the fish commissioners of the State be 
granted power to close for a period waters that they de- 
sire to stock or restock. 
This power the commissioners in New Hampshire now 
have. Section 10 of chapter 180 of the New Hampshire 
law reads: "If any person shall take or kill any variety 
of fish which have been or may be introduced by the Fish 
Commissioners, their agents, or any person authorized by 
them, in any of the waters of this State, within five years 
from their introduction into such waters, he shall be 
fined ten dollars for each fish taken or killed, or be im- 
prisoned not more than ninety days, or both. 1 ' 
It does not follow that all waters planted with fish are 
to be closed for five years; trout waters that are stocked 
or planted year afte*r year do not need to be closed, for 
the planting simply aids nature, but should the commis- 
sioners desire to introduce and establish a new species of 
fish in certain waters, they must designate the waters 
"by an order in writing, published in some newspaper 
printed in the county, and posted in two or more public 
places as near the waters as may be in each town in 
which any part of the waters are located, at least one 
week before the order shall be in force." 
This is a matter that I am particularly interested in 
just at this time. The United States Fish Commissioner 
has 'commenced to stock New York waters with land- 
locked salmon on a large scale, all the fish planted being 
fingerling, and planted in trout streams tributary to lakes 
of large size. The supervisors in the counties where the 
salmon were planted have passed laws closing the brooks 
where the plants were made for a term of years, closed 
them to all fishing. If the powers of the supervisors are 
reduced, the young salmon -will be at the mercy of every 
poacher until such time as they run down into the lakes, 
and when they return to spawn, unless the fish commis- 
sioners are given power to protect them as I have sug- 
gested. 
One. more suggestion and I am through with the code of 
game laws for the present, at least. Why there should 
be a law against taking "trout of any kind" in one sec- 
tion, aud in the next section provide a different season 
for taking "salmon trout sometimes known as lake 
trout," I fail to understand. If the law should read 
"lake trout sometimes miscalled salmon trout" I would 
understand why "salmon" was used in connection with 
trout. We have no salmon trout in the State and never 
had, and on one occasion the Fish Commissioners re- 
solved that salmon trout was a misnomer: but, calling 
the fish by its proper name, a lake trout is a trout of some 
kind, and the old law led to many misunderstandings and 
contentions, and the new law will not cause them to 
cease if the present language is adhered to. 
A lake trout is just as much a trout as is a brook trout, 
and therefore why not designate the kinds of trout that 
are intended when the language refers to trout of any 
kind, or say trout of any kind except lake trout, so there 
will be no question about the meaning of the law. 
THE PLY FISHERS' ANNUAL, 
The Fly Fishers' Club Annual for 1895 reproduces a 
photograph of a room in the club, and a very inviting 
room it is. The walls are covered with pictures and cases 
of mounted fish, and over the fire-place the cases are piled 
one upon another. One can imagine that the album on a 
table in the foreground contains some of the photographs 
of club members which the honorary secretary says he 
would be glad to receive; all members are not yet repre- 
sented in the club alburn. A. rod standing in the corner 
of the fire-place, a poor place for a rod, by the way, if it 
is to remain any length of time near the fire, on end, is 
without doubt a salmon rod, perhaps with a record that 
the members will talk about over their pip a s and cigars. 
The comfortable arm chairs, the writing table anl all 
make the picture the representation of a place that every 
fisherman when a beholder will desire to have a place. 
A. N. Cheney. 
NEW ENGLAND ANGLING NOTES. 
Ice fishing has been carried to a disagreeable excess on 
Foster's pond in Wilmington, if we may judge from the 
complaints of sportsmen and residents in that vicinity. 
It seems that the operatives in the mills at Ballardvale 
have been fishing this pond whenever they have had a 
day off. They go on to the pond, where a great number 
of holes have been cut nearly all winter. They put out 
hundreds of set-lines and take every pickerel that will bite 
— whether small or large, it matters not. They not only 
fish through the day, but they leave their lines, someone 
watching them who lives near the pond, and who is 
friendly to the fishermen. In this way they took over 100 
pickerel there on Saturday, March 9. Gentlemen residing 
in the vicinity who love to fish these ponds for pickerel in 
the summer, object to this ice-fishing with set- lines. They 
fear that the fishing wall be ruined for everybody. They are 
well pleased with half a dozen fish from half a day's fish- 
ing, and are willing to return all small ones. There does 
not seem to be any law in Massachusetts to prevent fishing 
with set-lines, though there is a law that might be made 
to answer, but it must first ha^e been accepted by the 
town. f-: m 
Capt. Fred. C. Barker was in Boston for a couple of days 
last week. He was on his way back to Rangeley, from 
a trip to Forida. He did not find Mr. John Danforth, 
his former hunting companion, though he went to Florida 
as much to see him as anybody. Mr. Danforth has his 
hotel boat out with sportsmen, and Capt. Barker got by 
the boat's hailing ground before he was aware of it, and 
there was not time to turn back, Capt. Fred, goes back 
to Lake Mooselucmaguntic well satisfied with Maine fish- 
ing and hunting grounds. He expects a good number of 
sportsmen at his camps this summer. But the ice is re- 
markably thick, and he looks for a late opening of the 
trouting season. 
The Ingle wood Club is alive and flourishing, though it 
has not been making a great; deal of sound the past 
winter. The number of sportsmen and club members who 
will visit these New Brunswick waters this spring is 
likely to be large. Considerable stocking of the club 
waters is to be done this season. The government 
hatcheries will furnish a lot of salmon fry, and it will be 
liberated in the club waters. A fish way has been put in 
order, so that the salmon can have access to the salt water, 
and good results are expected. The club voted last fall 
to plant wild rice about the lakes and ponds in their pre- 
serve in order that wild duck shooting might be improved. 
Mr. Harry B. Moore, of this city, was appointed a com- 
mittee of one to obtain the rice, and he has done so, after 
considerable searching for the seed. Part of it will be 
sown on the snow, and a part of it after the snow has 
gone. 
A late report from the fish hatchery of the Megantic 
Club says that the eggs are getting on finely, with no loss 
from the tremendously cold weather in February. Care- 
ful attention prevented loss from freezing. It will be 
remembered that the club has 50,000 brook trout eggs and 
10,000 salmon eggs in process of hatching. From fish 
taken in its own waters, the club has 30,000 brook trout 
eggs, and 10,000 salmon eggs from the Maine hatcheries 
at Auburn, when he visited the preserves late in Feb- 
ruary. At last reports the eggs were rapidly "eyeing 
out," and doubtless are hatched by this time. 
At the tackle stores of Messrs. Appleton & Bassett may 
be seen something curious in the way of young trout- 
Some time ago the firm obtained some trout eggs from 
the veteran trout culturist, Mr. Gilbert, and these have 
been hatching in one of the back windows of the store. 
The eggs are all hatched now, with remarkably little loss, 
considering that no running water has been had. Some 
of the little trout are about rid of the sack, and are begin- 
ning to dart, trout-like, when alarmed. Others are not so 
far along. Tnese little trout will doubtless constitute 
a part of the usual open season display of the firm. Mr. 
Bassett remarks that if the trout live and thrive, he shall 
take them down to Rangeley on his spring fishing trip, 
and better luck not favoring him, he can acid them to his 
score. Special. 
MOXIE POND. 
IN TWO PARTS.— PART I. 1 
Between the intervale farms of the upper Kennebec, 
and the settlements on the head waters of the Pisca- 
taaues, there stretches down from the great forest of 
northern Maine a mighty arm of timberland, nearly fifty 
miles long and covering the greater part of twenty town- 
ships. Lying at it does out of the beaten course of sum- 
mer travel to the Rangely and Dead River regions on the 
one hand, and the Moosehead Lake on the other, this 
tract is little known to the tourist, and is visited by com- 
paratively few sportsmen in summer or fall, And yet it 
is, I think, safe to say that there is no other section in 
the State of Maine so easily accessible, which offers so 
many inducements to the trout fisherman or the hunter 
of big game. The country is rough and wild in the ex- 
treme. It is broken by a confusion of high hills and 
rugged mountains, between which lie hundreds of lakes, 
ponds, bays and streams, many of which have never been 
fished except by the trapper or lumberman. Deer are very 
plentiful, and moose and caribou not extremely rare. 
Partly from a wish to escape for a few days from the 
trials of an exacting profession, partly from a love of life 
in the open air, especially when combined with good 
trout fishing, and partly to see a new country, I started 
on the thirteenth day of last June, in company with a 
tried friend and companion, for a trip across this, to me, 
tin known land. 
A drive of seventeen miles brought us to the last house 
on the border of the wilderness, in the plantation of May- 
field. There lives Charles Hilton, in summer a farmer, 
in winter a hunter and trapper; a man acquainted with 
the woods and lakes for many miles around. When he 
had learned our intentions he expressed grave doubts as 
to the feasibility of our plan — to go through to the Forks 
r the Kennebec, by way of the Austin and Moxie ponds, 
and allowed that he wouli not take that tramp at that 
time of year for ten dollars a day. But, as we did not 
require his services, his objections to the trip did not 
deter us in the least. 
Having made arrangements to have our tea,m taken 
around to the Forks, we got what information Hilton was 
able to give as to the route and started on an ancient 
"tote road" for the big Austin Pond. The distance to the 
pond had been variously stated to me by different peo- 
ple, the. estimates ranging from five to eight miles ; but 
all argued that we should be glad when we got there, 
and we were. Tne day was hot and sultry. The black 
flies aud mosquitoes were abundant, and our packs were 
heavy, for the duration of our trip was an unknown 
quantity, and we had provided against all contingencies. 
Three long miles brought us to the south branch of 
the Austin stream, and here we halted for dinner. Un 
slinging our packs and jointing our rods, we took our 
way down the stream to a "deep hole" which Hilton had 
mentioned casually, as a place where one might catch a 
"hundred or two" trout, and I think very likely we. 
might, for it was a magnificent pool, deep and dark, 
shadowed by great spruce and cedar trees, while at its 
head, the little stream, tumbled in noisily, floating 
bubbles far out over the still water. It was an ideal 
spot. At. each cast one or more trout rose, in their eager- 
ness often missing their mark, and jumping clear over the 
leader. After amusing ourselves for a few moments, we 
took half a dozen quarter-pounders, and returned to the 
"tote road." By this time we had developed the tradi- 
tional camp appetites, and we hastened to prepare our 
mid-day meal. When the fdemands of the stomach had 
been satisfied we proceeded leisurely on our way, making 
frequent halts beside the little spring brooks which were 
very abundant along our route. Indeed, so often did we 
pause to rest or to admire the great maple and birch trees 
which formed the principal part of this primeval forest, 
that it was six o'clock when we reached Hilton's camp, 
a little way from the shore of the Big Austin Pond. 
Leaving our pack at this camp, we proceeded imme- 
diately to the pond where we found a rude boat which 
Hilton had placed there for use during the fall hunting 
season. With this boat we went to the outlet of the 
pond, where were the ruins of an old dam, built for 
lumbering purposes many years ago. Here we easily 
caught enough trout for our supper and breakfast, and 
then we returned to the camp. A hearty supper and a 
good night's rest prepared us for the pleasures of the fol- 
lowing day. 
The first thing we did in the morning was to collect 
our things and move them to the shore of the pond, pre- 
paring to sleep there under a rude bark shanty we had 
discovered, rather than at the camp, which is unpleas- 
antly situated in a swampy place, out of sight of the 
water. 
After breakfast we decided to fish the Austin stream, 
which is the outlet of the Big Austin Pond, and this de- 
cision gave us, as it turns out, an experience the like of 
which we had neither of us before. Possibly this 
stream may have been fished before; it is even possible 
that it may have been fished before with the artificial fly, 
but for all practical purposes, it is a trout stream of the 
primeval wilderness. Never shall I forget that day. The 
murmuring waters; the waving shadows of the great 
trees; the mos^-covered pine logs stranded on the banks 
from the east "drive" thirty years ago; the leaping 
trout, rising to every cast — these sights and'sounds will 
always abide with me ;and come fresh before my mind 
when I think of the Austin stream. I shall not soon see 
such stream fishing again. In two hours we took and re- 
turned to the water 160 trout, ranging from a sixth to a 
quarter of a pound in weight, and averaging, as we 
tnought, a quarter of a pound apiece. Then we caught 
six more to eat, and these six made us two good meals. 
On this stream, at this time, I think a fairly skillful 
angler could in less than a day catch more trout than he 
could carry. But one may tire even of such sport as this, 
and so before we became tirad of it, about noon, re- 
turned to our camping place and prepared our dinner. 
After eating, we tried to sleep a little, but sleep was im- 
possible. The heat was intense; not a breath of air 
rustled the foliage or rippled the fair surface of the lake. 
Even the birds had ceased to sing, and there seemed to be 
no sounds to break the stillness, except the hum of the 
innumerable mosquitoes and other insects The black flies 
descended upon us in unincumbered millions. They stuck 
and struggled in our Nessmuck tar mixture. They 
crawled into our eyes and ears. They invaded the un- 
tannpd regions below our clothing. To escape the flies we 
took to our boat, but the burning heat of the sun and its 
reflection from the water was not much more tolerable 
than the plague of insects we sought to avoid. I say 
sought, for they were with us still in unpleasantly large 
numbers, although the air was not so completely sat- 
urated with them as on the shore. Presently, however, 
a breath of air came from tbe northwest, then another 
cooler whiff. Great piles of white thunder caps hove up 
abo Tr e the tree-clad hills in the west. Soon the sun was 
hilden. and distant thunder, becoming nearer, mut- 
tered and rolled and echoed and reechoed from the 
mountains round about. But the shower did not reach 
us, although we could distinctly hear the roar of the rain 
falling upon the leaves a nrle or so away. After the 
shower had passed, a light cool breeze continued. There 
were no black flies upon the water, and the conditions for 
fishing seemed favorable. Around a large island near the 
centre of the pond, seemed a likely spot for a little fly- 
fishing, and there we tried them, making long casts in 
shore; but there was no response. Then we tried trolling, 
but neither spinner nor spoon hook nor phantom minnow 
proved successful. Finally, we went ashore and caught 
a'few of the "shiners" with which the shallow water in 
» 
