FOREST AND STREAM. 
[June 29, 1895 . 
SHENANDOAH BASS FISHING. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Black bass fishing has been exceptionally good this 
season in the Shenandoah River, At Overall, Page 
county, Virginia, in May last, three Washington gentle- 
men took eighty odd bass all in one day from the 
Shenandoah, which averaged nearly two pounds each. 
Live bait was the attraction, and the fishing was done 
from boats. More and larger black bass, all of the 
small-mouth species, are taken every year from this 
particular point than anywhere along the Shenandoah 
River, which is a eucceesion of the "eddy" and swift 
water, good alike for live bait and fly fishing. A walk 
of two miles up the river from Overall affords three 
miles of as fine and comfortable wading as can be found 
anywhere on this continent, and when the bass are in 
humor for taking the fly, a "No. 5" cruel may easily be 
filled in that d ; stance. 
Overall ia merely a flag station on the Norfolk and 
Western R.R., about GO miles from Harper's Ferry, and 
12 miles from Luray, and the same distance from Front 
Royal, where General L< max had the little misunder- 
standing with General Philip Sheridan in 1863. 
Mr. Mandley Triplett, who is the postmaster, keeps 
open house for fishermen during the fishing season and 
for sportsmen during the fall and winter. His terms are 
only one dollar per day, and how he can afford it and 
feed and lodge his guests as well as he does is a mystery. 
He certainly does not make anything out of it. Mr. 
Triplett also has families from Washington, Baltimore 
and other cities, who remain with him for months at a 
time. He makes special arrangements with those re- 
maining one month or longer. Those who would be 
satisfied with plain country fare need not hesitate to 
spend a few weeks with the Tripletts. They have milk, 
cream and butter in plenty, and raise their own vege- 
tables. There is ice in abundance, a luxury not always 
to ba found in country farmhouses. All this for one 
dollar a day ! I had almost forgotten to say that the beds 
are comfortable — both feather and hair. 
The largest small-mouth bass ever taken in the Shenan- 
doah River was caught by Mrs. Triplett, a lady over 60 
years of age, last summer, within 100 yards of the house. 
It weighed a fraction less than 81bs., and was caught on a 
hand-line, small frog for bait. 
As fine partridge (quail), pheasant (ruffed grouse) and 
turkey shooting as can be found in the State may be had 
within easy walking distance of Overall. Deer were for- 
merly quite plentiful, but are now scarce. It was also 
feared that the past cold winter had killed off nearly all 
the "Bob Whites," but your correspondent heard them 
calling from every hill-side while spending a few days at 
Overall a few weeks ago, and fair quail shooting may 
confidently be expected there this season as usual. The 
open season begins Oct. 15th'. 
Sportsmen desiring to visit Overall would do well to 
write beforehand, as so popular a resort is liable to have 
all the rooms occupied at t); is eeason of the year. It is 
hardly necessary to dwell upon the scenery and climate 
of that section of the "Old Dominion" known as the ' 'valley 
of Virginia." Overall, Page county, is in the very heart 
of that matchless region, where your correspondent 
would love to spend every day of his life. He arrived 
there a perfect stranger and departed after a stay of only 
a few days, feeling as though he were a Virginian and 
with a friendly feeling for every man, woman and child 
he met while there. 
Admiral Jouett, U. S. N. (retired), has at Overall the 
most ingeniously contrived fish car. It has compart- 
ments at both ends for line-bait, and room for more than 
one hundred bass. The car is oval in shape, covered with 
fine wire and withal exceedingly light. Bass have been 
kept alive in such a car for weeks at a time. N. P. 
New York, June 20. 
OU AN AN I CHE NOTES. 
Roberval, Can., June 17.— Here I am at Lake St. John 
again m the midst of leaping ouananiche. 1 started from 
JNew lork on a salmon trip, but had to run up to Rober- 
val to try' the ouananiche for just a few days. It is a 
motley assortment of fishermen who are drawn to this 
region by the reputation of the active little salmon. First 
we have the native habitant, who stands on a rocky point 
and yanks his surprised victim up among the boughs of 
the fragrant balsams and larchea overhead. His original 
investment in the way of bait is a piece of pork, with 
which he catches an ouitouche (dace). The ouitouche is 
then cut up into strips and business is soon under way 
Ihe larger ouananiche almost always gets away from the 
habitant, because when he yanks they have a peculiar, 
taculty of yanking back again. And as the large fish are 
about as plentiful as the little ones, it is painful to think 
of the things that the wife and children must listen to at 
evening by the fireside. 
Next in order comes the man who has come all of the 
way into the wilderness wholly unprepared. I met one of 
them on the train en route. He had a heavy bass bait 
pole, and had heard that the ouananiche should be taken 
with the fly; so he had somehow managed to get hold of 
a trout leader with four flies on it. The leader was fraved 
and the flies were very small. One of them was nearly 
broken off at the head, another was looped on the leader 
so that it pointed the wrong way, and the remaining two 
were passable. But this man's spirit was right. He was 
all full of it; and when he left after a three days' stay he 
had caught some fine fish on borrowed flies, and promised 
to spend all of the coming year in learning how to do 
things properly. b 
Another character is the really expert trout fisherman 
who tries trout tactics in fishing for ouananiche; hut the 
ouananiche is a salmon, and I have met very many men 
here who had not yet found that out. 
For any fisherman who studies the habits of fish and 
who outwits them by a superior intelligence Roberval and 
the Grand Decharge are a parad ise. The ouananiche this 
year went out of the lake into the Decharge about June 
10th, and on the 14th they were in the foam. They work 
in the foam all day long when certain millers appear in 
great abundance— during a period of about two weeks 
beginning at the middle of June. Any one can catch 
them then with any sort of fly or bait. During the greater 
part of the season the ouananiche are among the sunken 
rocks at the tail of rapids, or in the return currents, and 
then the skillful fisherman has the greatest sport, but ihe 
majority of the fishermen whom one sees here are very 
inexpert, and they find all manner of fault with the fish- 
ing. As Mr. Ritchie of the Island House says, " If a man 
is going to do anything at a trade he must first learn the 
trade." And I never have seen a disappointed fisherman at 
Roberval if he had learned his trade. When one is tired 
of ouananiche fishing, he can take any quantity of great 
pike and dore in the quieter waters. And there are plenty 
of brook trout in neighboring streams. 
I have fished a great many waters and there are none 
that I visit with greater pleasure than the Grand Decharge, 
excepting possibly the Nipigon, These two streams make 
an interesting comparison. The Upper Saguenay is of 
the same length as the Nipigon — forty miles. Its waters 
are dark from the stain of sphagnum bogs, while the 
Nipigon waters are beautifully clear. The Upper Saguenay 
rises in the spring time nearly thirty feet above its sum- 
mer level, while the Nipigon fluctuates hardly that 
number of inches. The principal game fish in these two 
rivers are of about the same weight, averaging from 
2 to 5fts. each in the daily catch of an expert fisherman. 
In the Upper Saguenay the fish is the ouananiche, a 
salmon, and he is best caught by employing big salmon 
tactics. In the Nipigon the fish is the speckled trout, 
and he is best taken by using little trout tactics. On the 
Saguenay the canoemen are French Canadians; on the 
Nipigon the canoemen are Chippewa Indians. On both 
rivers the geological, botanical and general zoological 
features are fairly alike — excepting for the bold trap 
precipices of the Nipigon, which are replaced by bluffs of 
gneiss and syenite on the Saguenay. On both rivers 
the majority of visiting fishermen are unskilled and un- 
prepared for their work; and on both rivers these fisher- 
men lay it all to the fish, and they are right. The fish 
are really to blame. A very attractive way to reach Ro- 
berval i3 by way of steamer from Quebec to Chicontimi, 
passing up the grand, sullen and inspiring lower Sague- 
nay. The steamer passes rock islands on which sea- 
fowl are breeding, and sandy islands on which seals 
with their young are sporting, but the most striking 
feature of the landscape is furnished by the milk-white 
whales which are almost constantly in sight in Stillwater, 
rolling lazily out of water, and gleaming so white that 
they can be seen miles away. Many of the white whales 
which the steamer approaches at this time of the year are 
seen to have one or two cunning little grayish whale 
babies following astern. Robert T. Morris. 
DECADENCE OF OUR TROUT STREAMS. 
BY J. S. VAN CLEEP, POUGHKEEPSIE, N. T. 
[A paper read before the American Fisheries Society.] 
Some three or four years ago an article was contributed 
by me to Forest and Stream in which the above subject 
was discussed, and while this is not a reproduction of that 
article, it must necessarily contain many of the facts and 
conclusions which were contained in it, and which further 
investigation satisfies me are correct. 
Every angler who has waded and fished our trout streams 
during the past thirty or forty years has observed the gen- 
eral decrease in the water flow, especially during seasons 
of drought, and the decrease does not seem to be local, but 
universal. 
The Legislature of this State has endeavored for some 
years past to arrest this decrease, especially in the North 
Woods; but in spite of legislative action it still goes on 
steadily and uniformly both in the "forest primeval" and 
out of it. 
This legislative action has been based upon the theory 
that the causes of the gradual diminution in the water 
flow are and have been wholly or very largely local, and 
it seems to have been assumed that if the destruction of 
the trees at or near the sources of our streams can be pre- 
vented this decrease will be practically arrested. 
Do the results thus far obtained justify this conclusion? 
or, in other words, are these causes local, and can the pre- 
servation of the trees at the sources of our streams do more 
than retard a result which is inevitable from other and 
more far-reaching causes? 
It has not been my fortune to visit the North Woods or 
Adirondack region, as my fishing trips have been confined 
to the Catskill region and Canada. For over thirty-five 
years, however, I have constantly visited the Catskills, and 
during all that time have been thoroughly familiar with the 
streams of that region, and while my personal knowledge 
of these streams does not extend much beyond thirty-five 
years yet I feel assured that the statement of facts given 
below will be corroborated by many persons who could be 
named, and who have been familiar with these streams 
for over fifty years. 
_ It will be conceded that, all other things being equal, 
like causes will produce like results, and if the North 
Woods and the Catskills are alike in their characteristics, 
then the causes which have produced and are producing 
a decrease in the water flow of one of these regions will 
produce a like result in the other. 
The eastern part of the State of New York is divided 
into two immense water sheds — the northern, with its 
streams emptying into Lake Ontario, the St. Lawrence, 
Lake Champlain and the Mohawk River; and the south- 
ern, with its streams emptying into the Mohawk, Hudson 
and Delaware rivers. 
Both of these regions are mountainous, and the altitude 
of these mountains and the intervening valleys above 
tide water is substantially the same. 
The highest mountain in the northern water shed is 
Mt. Marcy, which is 5,468ft. high, and one of the highest 
in the State of New York is Slide Mountain in the south- 
ern water shed, which is 4,205ft. high. 
The lower water shed, which extends through Scho- 
harie, Greene, Ulster, Sullivan and Delaware counties, con- 
tains fifty-nine mountains which are over 8,000ft. high. 
Of these thirty-seven are of the height of 3,500ft. and 
upward, and of an average height of 3,728ft. 
Included in this immense tract is what is generally 
known as the Southern Catskill range, contained within 
an area of perhaps thirty miles in length and twenty miles 
in breadth. J 
a SSS*^ moun tainsin this range are from 3,571ft. to 
4,^L)5tt. in height, the average height being 3,747 ft. 
These mountains are covered with nothing but hard 
wood, beech, birch, maple and balsam. The axe has 
never touched these trees except to provide an occasional 
catnp for some benighted bear hunter or lost angler, and 
examination shows that these trees are of immense age. 
Ihe hemlock, which formerly abounded in this region 
and has been used so largely for tanning purposes, has 
with but few exceptions been cut entirely, or almost en- 
tirely, from the valleys, which are from 2,'000ft.to 2,500ft* 
below these mountain peaks. It has not abounded nor 
has it been cut anywhere within many miles of the 
sources of the largest of the streams which rise in this 
mountain range. 
In this range the following noted trout streams have 
their source, the largest ones, though running in opposite 
directions, having their sources very close to each other, 
viz.: the Beaverkill, Neversink, Rbndout, Willewemoc, 
Esopus, Dry Brook and Millbrook. 
For the purpose of calling attention to certain facts in 
regard to these streams I will first select the most noted 
of all of them, the Beaverkill, which has its source in the 
very heart of the Southern Catskill range, and runs for 
many miles before it reaches even the smallest clearing. 
There are but few veteran anglers in this State who did 
not visit-the delightful fishing retreat of James Murdock, 
which is situated on this stream some 25 or 30 miles below 
its source, in the 50s, and all will bear testimony not 
only to the abundance of the trout, but also to the abun- 
dance of the water flow. 
At that time this regioa was always visited during the 
latter part of May and the fore part of June with one or 
more severe northeast storms, which were largely or 
wholly local, and so regularly did these storms occur that 
the lumbermen could always rely upon what was gener- 
ally termed by them the "June fresh" for the purpose of 
rafting their lumber from a point some 12 miles below 
Murdock's, at the junction of the Bsaverkill and Willewe- 
moc streams, down to the Delaware River, and thence to 
Trenton or Philadelphia; and they could also always rely 
upon the high water produced by these storms for the 
three or four days required for that purpose. 
In 1859 I encountered one of these storms just after 
reaching Mr. Murdock's bouse. He immediately started 
off his rafts, and my brother anglers and I waited for some 
five days before the waters receded to such an extent that 
we could wade the stream. The next day another storm 
of like severity occurred, and after waiting for some five 
or six days and finding the stream still unfit to wade I re- 
turned home, having had but one day's sport in a trip of 
two weeks. 
About the year 1863 I had a similar experience on the 
Rondout stream. A severe and sudden storm had raised 
the stream, and it was four or five days before the stream 
was fit to wade. 
These are isolated cases, but they are in line with my 
constant experience between thirty and forty years ago. 
It was not low water then, but high water, which was 
most feared by anglers. 
On returning home from these trips, when we had been 
visited by these severe storms, it was found that they had 
not extended to any great extent either to the east or 
west of this mountain region, but teemed to be almost 
entirely local. 
These storms were almost invariably followed by 
strong westerly winds, which usually continued for two 
or three days. 
All this is entirely changed. The storms which pre- 
vailed so frequently thirty or forty years ago seldom 
occur any more, and when they do the streams run down 
almost as rapidly as they rise. In 1891 I was on the 
Rondout stream, when I found that it was nearly bank 
full in the morning from the effects of a storm which 
had prevailed during the previous night, and which was 
followed in the morning by the usual westerly wind. 
The stream ran down so rapidly that in the afternoon I 
found it possible to wade it, and in the afternoon of the 
next day it was too low for good fishing, 
I have had the same experience in the Beaverkill, and 
have found within the last few years that not later than 
the second day after a storm it was in good condition for 
fishing, and on the third day too low for any satisfactory 
sport. 
For the purpose of ascertaining whether the rapid de- 
pletion of the water in these streams commenced at their 
sources or at the point where the land on the banks had 
been cleared, I made a personal examination of the 
Beaverkill some four or five years ago, within a day or 
two after a heavy Btorm, following the stream for several 
miles above Che point where a tree had never been cut, 
and found that the water had run down almost to the 
drought level. 
I have also found by actual comparison that these 
mountain streams have of late years run down quite as 
rapidly as the streams which in other places run tnrough 
lands which have been cleared and drained from source 
to mouth, and I firmly believe that the experience of 
others will thoroughly coincide with my own in this re- 
spect, and if I am correct in my statement of the above 
facts, then I am forced to the conclusion that the cutting 
or destruction of the trees at the headwaters of our 
streams is but one — and a very limited one — of the causes 
of their gradual drying up. 
I suggest the following theory as accounting in part at 
least for the condition above referred to. Years ago the 
lands lying west of this mountain range were very largely 
unbroken, the prairies were covered to a greater or less 
extent with natural grass, and the swamps in the low 
lands were undrained. Under these conditions the winds 
which during that time largely prevailed from the west 
were surcharged with moisture by reason of the gradual 
evaporation from the soil, the lowlands and the swamps, 
and when these winds were ^forced up to a height of 
from 3,000ft. to 4,000ft., the moisture was condensed into 
rain and the mountain tops were saturated with moisture 
which slowly and steadily through springs and rivulets 
kept up the water supply of the streams. During 
the last thirty years the prairies have been almost 
entirely reclaimed from their natural state, the 
lowlands and swamps which furnished a large 
amount of moisture to the atmosphere have been 
•drained, the rain as it falls sinks rapidly into the 
cleared lands is carried off immediately by surface drain- 
age, and as a result the atmosphere as it blows over these 
lands is no longer kept in its normal condition, or supplied 
with moisture from the soil through gradual and natural 
evaporation, but rather yields moisture to the soil to pro- 
duce an equilibrium; and when this atmosphere reaches 
the mountains of this State and is forced up to the alti- 
tude of from 3,000ft. to 4,000ft., the moisture which it con- 
tains is not sufficient to be condensed into rain, but, like 
a dry sponge, it withdraws or soaks up moisture from 
the soil in order that it may be restored to its normol con- 
dition. 
The same is equally true as to the forests which thirty 
or forty years ago abounded in the States lying west of us, 
and which to a greater or less extent have yielded to the 
