June 29, 1895.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
631 
spent a part of a considerable number of years in the 
woods, and have rarely failed to find deer skeletons in the 
spring fishing season. I am inclined to think that the 
number of deaths from disease and severe weather last 
winter was somewhat greater than usual, although not at 
all alarming. 
Three log jobbers had crews in the lumbering camp3 on 
Moose River during the past year. The jobbers were 
straight men. Our relations with them and methods of 
watching were such as I do not care to detail. It is 
enough to say that all the sportsmen in our club who 
cared to make inquiries ha ve been satisfied that the sport- 
ing in Moose River region has not been seriously damaged 
by the lumbermen. On the contrary, there is reason to 
believe that both the hunting and the fishing will be bet- 
tered by the scientific lumbering which this club has 
specified and secured. I have no doubt that the hide and 
hair seen at Rape's camp were those given by our mem- 
bers to Rape's men to make moccasins, etc. 
Mr. Spears thinks the number of deer in the Adiron- 
dacks is decreasing, and this is probably true, but it is 
also reasonably certain that in the 120,000 acres of the 
League Club there are more deer now than there were 
six years ago. He apparently forms his opinion from the 
fact that his friend in one march across a narrow belt of 
our tract did not see so many deer and trout as he saw 
there several years ago. His friend, not being a club 
member or a club guest, either abstained from poaching 
or else committed a misdemeanor, so that in either event 
his evidence as to the quality of our fishing does not 
carry weight. One swallow does not make a summer; 
nevertheless, my experience the day before yesterday, in 
taking twenty-one fine trout, all with flies, in about three 
hours' fishing in Moose River, is surely better positive evi- 
dense than a report at second hand that a man caught 
nothing in a region where he had no right to be. During 
my walk back to Bisby Lodge on the Combs Brook trail, 
I started (but did not see) two deer. At Combs Lake I saw 
a two-year-old doe. Between that lake and second pond 
I started and saw two more deer, one of them an unusu- 
ally large buck. 
Our club rules protect deer much more strictly than 
does the State law, and there is little doubt that the 
deer in the preserve are increasing both naturally and 
also by being driven in from more poorly protected re- 
gions. The fishing is certainly improving. Our hatchery 
has turned out several hundred thousand trout each year 
— this spring 423,000. In addition to this liberal stocking 
we purchased and put in our different streams and lakes 
last January 25,000 one and two year old trout. Their 
transportation and distribution, by the way, was rather a 
remarkable feat. They were taken in six car loads from 
Caledonia, halting each trip over night at TJtica to For- 
estport, White Lake and Fulton Chain stations. From 
these stations, respectively, they were drawn on runners 
to our lodges at Honnedaga, Bisby and Little Moose. 
From each lodge they were distributed to the different 
waters in pack cans on men's backs, in some instances 
being carried seven miles. An accurate account was kept 
of dead trout and the loss was less than one-half of one 
per cent. The credit for this remarkably successful dis- 
tribution is entirely due to James Annin, now State 
Superintendent of Hatcheries, and to Henry Studor and 
John Commerford. W. H. Boardman. 
Minnesota Moose Captures. 
Adam McKibben, of Joliette, caught two baby moose 
as they were swimming across the Red River last week. 
They are very young, but are thriving on cow's milk. — 
Pioneer Express. 
Mr. J. L. Dunbar, living near Red River, in the vicinity 
of Joliette, but in this county, captured the mother, 
which was nearly as large as a mule. The State game 
warden in some way got wind of it and came up from 
Minneapolis last Friday and seized the animal. The law 
reads: "No moose, elk, caribou or antelope shall be killed 
or had in possession until Jan. 1, 1898." If this law is 
violated the animals then become the property of the 
State and violators may be punished by imprisonment or 
fine. Mr. Dunbar was, like the rest of us, ignorant of the 
new game law, and was therefore, on the first offense, 
allowed to go without punishment. — Halloek (Minn.) En- 
terprise. 
[The law forbidding taking moose before 1898 is not a 
new one; it has been printed in the Game Laws in Brief 
for a year and more. J 
Canvas Boats for Shooting'* 
Since 1889 I have used a canvas boat 12ft. long, 40in. 
wide, with flat bottom, made by one of Forest and 
Stream's faithful advertisers. I have shot from it, 
lying, sitting, kneeling and standing, and do not hesi- 
tate to do so still , whenever I get a chance. It is light 
and responds somewhat to the recoil of a gun, but I never 
thought of its being unsafe. A friend once reached 
around the wrong way to shoot at a flying duck and got 
kicked off the folding stool. The boat rocked a good 
deal and shipped a little water, but it was clearly his 
fault. It will convey five men, but does better with two 
or three. I have floated or rowed up on many an old 
sprig-tail with it. To say I am pleased with the invest- 
ment is to put it mildly. Its only serious fault is that it 
sits high and catches a great deal of wind. Aztec. 
About Crows. 
Mr. M. R. Bortree recites an odd experience with crows 
mentioned to him by his friend Mr. Wesley Gary, of 
Gary's Mills, HI. , last year. Mr. Gary observed three crows 
engaged in a contest with a turkey hen over a brood of 
young turkeys. Two of the crows would attack the 
mother turkey, flying at her head and pecking viciously, 
until they had her fully occupied, when the third crow 
would dash in and kill and carry off the young turkey. 
This happened several times, andMr. Gary was exasperated 
at the losses the crows inflicted on his turkeys. This year 
Mr. E. H. Gary, of Wheaton, 111., has been losing turkey 
eggs, and has found a great deposit of egg shells in a cer- 
tain marsh to which the crows have carried the eggs to 
eat them. From all these things both Mr. Gary and Mr. 
Bortree figure that the crow is a very deadly enemy to 
quail and other game birds, and ought to be suppressed. 
E. Hough. 
SOME MORE ABOUT LEAPING BASS. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
It may seem presumptuous in a poor devil who has 
never owned a whole trout stream on his own property, 
nor any part of one, nor been resident pbysician at any 
sort of springs and whose experience with black bass does 
not extend over the waters from Pennsylvania to Louisi- 
ana, who has never been a fish commissioner even, with 
numerous other reasons to hear from, to differ in opinion 
with one who has reveled in all these comforts and honors; 
but I am going to assert that I have seen a bass jump out 
of the water, while hooked, 5ft. or more, notwithstanding 
Dr. M. G. Ellzey says "the eyesight is the most deceptive 
of our senses." 
This particular bass I have in mind was handled by old 
Ben Renshaw, standing up in a boat in Central Lake, Michi- 
gan, while I was standing up in another boat 30 to 85yds. 
away. The fish left the water straight up, not on a 
curve, nearly in line between us, and when he reached 
the top of his leap was on a line level with our head"*. 
Ben was about 5ft. lOin. in height, while I am a couple 
of inches, shorter. Now. taking the rule regarding the 
velocity of falling bodies, count in the time used in reach- 
ing the highest point of the leap and the time in falling 
back, and it seems to me that it would figure up more 
than a quarter of a second that the bass was in the air. 
This is only one instance in which I have seen bass 
jump nearly if not quite as high, and in three instances 
nave I seen maskinonje jump higher. I am quite positive 
in this, although Dr. Ellzey may say he is quite certain 
I was mistaken. 
The Dr. tells us: "A leaping bass is not generally in the 
air above one-tenth of a second, and I take it to be a 
physical impossibility for anybody to see whether his 
mouth is wide open or not, or whether he shakes his 
head or not. I repeat what I formerly said : I do not 
pretend to doubt that gentlemen believe they have so seen, 
but I am quite certain they are mistaken." 
To use a street gamin phrase, "Come off, doctor, yer 
talkin' through yer hat." 
From where I write I havo just thrown through an 
open window the "heel" of a loaf of bread on to a neigh- 
boring roof about 10 yards away, and I can see some 
_ English sparrows pecking at it, and I can easily see when 
one has its mouth open with a good sized crumb of bread 
in its bill. Why should not I, or anyone else, be able to 
distinguish when a bass has his mouth open, or shakes 
his head at the same distance, -or a few yards further 
away? 
If it is a physical impossibility to see a bass open his 
mouth or shake his head 30, 40, or 50 feet away, I take it 
that it is a physical impossibility to see the bass at all. 
Are we to disbelieve the evidence of our eyes, defective 
though they may in a measure be, and blindly agree that 
we are all mistaken, because Dr. Ellzey is quite certain 
that we are? Must we all retire into our shells and 
acknowledge that we can't see, nor estimate a distance 
within 40ft., and confess that we can't tell the truth 
ahout anything we do happen to see? Because this angler 
of 35 years' experience never saw a ba9S jump 3ft. high 
is evidence enough — for him — that so one else ever did. 
The doctor seems to have the conceit that if we don't see 
as he does, we are not competent to judge: we are all 
mistaken. 
He has ' 'seen a great many bass jump into a boat, but 
none jump over one." I have seen several bas^ jump 
over a boat, and two that I remember failed in their 
calculation of the distance and dropped into the boat. 
Does anybody with "hoss sense" suppose that a bass 
makes the leap from inshore with the especial purpose of 
dropping into the boat? 
Because the Doctor never saw one leap over a boat is, I 
suppose, evidence enough for the rest of us that they must 
necessarily all drop inside, and I reckon I must be mis- 
taken when I say that once, when a comrade and I were 
fishing from a boat in the Little Miami River, near Rem- 
ington, Ohio, a bass made a flying leap from inshore near 
a patch of weeds clear over the boat of 4ft. beam, strik- 
ing the water on the outside 3 or 4ft. from the boat — 
estimated of course — and owing to the unexp°ctedness of 
the performance, and not having a yard stick along, I 
forgot to measure the distance from the water while he 
was at the highest point of his leap, hence I am unable to 
give the exact "curve" he described while in the air, but 
I am reasonably sure, although I may be mistaken, that 
the distance from where he left the water to where he 
went into it again must have been not less than 10ft. on 
a horizontal line. 
My experience with leaping bass when hooked has also 
been, I am sorry to say, somewhat at variance with the 
Doctor's, as at least eight in ten have leaped nearly 
straight out of the water, striking it on the return rarely 
a yard from where they left it, making no "curve" to 
speak of while in the air. 
However, as I have never fished the waters from Penn- 
sylvania to Louisiana, my testimony may not be compe- 
tent — in the Doctor's opinion — and besides, the bass in 
these waters may have different "curves," and "dropV 
and "inshoots," and "outshoots," from the bass with 
which I have had to do, which would put mine to a dis- 
advantage in the matter of a low, graceful curve while 
making a leap. 
It requires small perception to make out that a bass 
can't jump as high in shallow water as he can in deep 
water, for the reason that the depth is not there to give 
him a start upward, same as a man can't stand and jump 
as far as he can with a running start. 
This might have occurred to the Doctor had he stopped 
to think while telling about Mr. Page's bass — a great num- 
ber of them, no doubt, all dropping into the canoe instead 
of going over it, as they doubtless intended to do; they 
had not depth of water enough under them to get a start 
with the proper upward angle for an "outshoot" that 
would carry them over the canoe, so they just dropped 
into it. They were simply mistaken, possibly by reason 
of defective eyesight. 
"Several hundred bass" are a good many to leap clear 
of the water to one rod and not lose half of them while 
in the air, and I am Btrongly moved to say that I am 
"quite certain that the Doctor is mistaken," but I will not 
be so discourteous; I will take his word for it. 
Toward the last he tells us, "Play your fish on the sur- 
face and you will see them leap very often, but very ftw 
will get away." I am moved again to ask, "How are you 
going to play your fish on the surface in 20ft. of water, 
with 20 or 30yds. of line out, unless you have a rod 20 or 
30yds. long and reel up till there are only a few feet of 
line free of the rod tip? 
Dr. Ellzey may be able to do it, but I confess that I 
have not yet learned the knack of it, maybe because my 
rod was always too short to "hold them peremptorily 
near the surface," with line out eight or ten times the 
length of the rod. 
He further tells us, "If you want your fish to stay 
under water play him with a low tip and a light hand 
and he will be nearly certain to accommodate you." 
Shade of gentle Izaak 1 1 am just beginning to find out 
how little I know about bass fishing, and I'm going to 
get rid of all the old notions and traditions that have been 
infesting me for years and start fresh — begin it all over 
again and learn how to handle a bass secundum artem or 
words to that effect. I'm going to get me a pole 30yds. 
long, as near as may be, so I can play 'em on the surface, 
where I can see what they're doing; and if I want them 
to stay under water it will be less trouble maybe to lower 
the tip of a rod of that length than it would one of 7ft. 
or 8ft. 
One more quotation and I'll "submit the case for arbi- 
tration." The Doctor says, near the beginning of his 
article, "As my opinions are founded on very long ex- 
perience and many careful observations, I find no reason 
to modify them." 
It is scarcely to be expected that he will. I don't know 
of any one in the land that is more welcome to his opin- 
ions that Dr. Ellzey, but I claim the privilege of differing 
from many of them, and if I have "played him a little too 
near the surface" in expressing some of my notions about 
matters and things, he can charge it up as one of the 
mistakes of "the most deceptive of our senses" and keep 
right on finding no reason to modify his "opinions." 
Kingfisher. 
Cincinnati, O. 
THOSE MASTIGOUCHE TROUT TANKS. 
Montreal, June 18. — I have lately returned from our 
club lakes, where I spent about a fortnight enjoying the 
fishing. I thought perhaps you might like to hear some- 
thing about our waters. We have had a larger number of 
visitors at the Mastigouche this spring than usual, and on 
the whole the fishing has been better. More large trout 
have been caught than during any past season, some five 
or six of over 4 to 4jlbs. being among the number, be- 
sides quite a lot of two to three-pounders. Several of the 
parties took out some very handsome boxes of fish, which 
I have heard caused quite a stir when exhibited to the 
friends on their return home. 
The first arrival at our camp was Mr. W. L. Maltby, 
vice-president of the club, a keen fisherman and enthusi- 
astic lover of all outdoor sports, and one whose name is 
so well known in connection with the Montreal Amateur 
Athletic Association, of which he was president for sev- 
eral years. He was followed a few days later by a party 
from Syracuse, N. Y,, among whom were Mr. Louis F. 
Powell (who has been a regular visitor for the past eight 
years), Wm. Allen Butler and son, Mr. Hall, Pierce Lar- 
rabee, L. C. Smith with his brother and Dr. Smith, Mr. 
Jones and others from the same city. Mr. Stebbins, of 
Watertown; Mr. Moore and son, Bentley Whitman, of 
Little Falls; L. F. Pike and brother, of New York, Pater- 
son and son, and H. B. Ames and wife, ofgthis city, be- 
sides several others whose nameB I do not recall at this 
moment. 
The weather was generally cool, sometimes cold; and 
until about the 28th we had very few really warm days, 
and the flies were not really troublesome until after that 
date. 
One of the gentlemen from Syracuse, on his way. 
through this city, ordered a couple of strong gal- 
vanized iron boxes made and sent up to camp to 
carry home his fish. The' boxes arrived a few days later, 
addressed to the Mastigouche House. Whether a mis- 
take had been made in giving the dimensions or in the 
making, it was evidently a surprise to the party who 
ordered the boxes when the two big boxes were brought 
to the house and laid side by side on the piazza. As they 
were addressed to the Mastigouche House and there was 
no other name upon them, the landlord asked whom they 
belonged to and what they were for, but no one would 
own them, or acknowledge that they knew anything 
about the matter. A good deal of chaffing was indulged 
in at the expense of the unfortunate owner, and fears 
were expressed that if anyone had so far trespassed upon 
the good will of the Canadian authorities as to attempt 
to carry off into the United States two such huge boxes 
of trout, there would be just cause for another fishery 
arbitration between the two countries. One of the 
boxes is no win Syracuse, and it has leaked out that some 
of the L. C. Smith party went home in it. The other 
box remains at the camp and will be utilized as a cold 
storage room. 
The fly-fishing, up to the time I left, June 2, had 
not been very good, but was improving as the water was 
going down in the lakes. Most of the fishing up to the 
last of May was done by trolling with small spoon, live 
minnow or fly. 
I did not succeed in capturing any of the largest trout, 
but was very well content with landing one of 31bs. and 
one of 2^lbs. , the former with a Parmachene Belle and 
the other with a small light blue fly that is very taking 
in these waters early in spring. It is a local fly, and not 
like any I have seen elsewhere. I returned home on the 
3d after a most enjoyable trip, both as regards the fish- 
ing, and the very pleasant company of sportsmen from 
your side of the line whom I had the pleasure of meet- 
ing, some, for the^ta-at time, but others known for several 
seasons past, and whom I hope to have the pleasure of 
meeting frequently again. Mr. and Mrs. Bruning called 
on me Friday last on their way up to the camp, where 
they expect to remain until early in August. A Mr. and 
Mrs. Plunket, friends of theirs, are also at Mastigouche 
for the summer. I hope to joiu my family there about 
the 1st of September. Hisnry W. Atwater. 
Game Laws in Brief. 
Tub Qame Laws in Brief, new edition, ready Thursday, June 27, has 
new game and fish laws for more than thirty of the States'. It covers 
the entire country, is carefully prepared, anil gives all that suootera 
and anglers require. See advertisement. 
