FOREST AND STREAM„ 
[July 18, 1896. 
anglers over here deride (and rightly too) them as useless 
and misleading. The platform also at Wimbledon was 
an unfortmiate mistake as upsetting all comparisons with 
previous records. I would be glad, first of all, if you 
wouH tell me how American records are made, whether 
from a platform raised above or level with the water. In 
the second place, whether you have any standard of 
'weight for length.' I notice in the Fishing Gazette a re- 
port of the Chicago Fly-Casting Club's contest in which a 
rule is laid down: 'Rods not to exceed 8^oz. or lift.' 
"Any information you can give me to help to guide us at 
this end, where this casting with trick rods, etc. , has I 
think come to an end, I will be very glad to have." 
Trie records of the National Rod and Reel Association 
were made from a platform raised above the level of the 
water 10 or 12Ln., I should say. Perhaps Mr. Henry P. 
Wells or M, Gonzalo Poey can furnish the exact figures. 
At Central Park, where the tournaments were held, it was 
necessary to have a raised platform; for a strong wind on 
Barlem Mere would get up enough sea to wet the platform, 
raised as it was. If Mr. Hardy has access to Mr. Samuels's 
bouk, "With Fly-Rod and Camera," he can see illustra- 
tions of the platform and the casters in the very act, from 
instantaneous photogi-aphs. 
The rules provided that "No single-handed fly-rod shall 
exceed lift, 6in., and it shall be used with a single hand." 
There was no provision as to weight, but all rods were 
weighed by the judges and formed part of the record. 
There was no allowance of distance made for difference 
in length of lod, but in "light rod contests" an allow- 
ance of lioz was made in favor of rods with a sjlid 
reel seat. 
In what was known as the B. F. Nichols contest in 1882 
all contestants were to use the same rod, which was 10ft. 
long and weighed 6^0 z Mr. Hawes won that year with 
a cast of 71ft. 
In minnow casting for black bass (spinning in England) 
the rods were limited to 10ft, in length. In heavy baas 
casting the rods were limited to 9ft. in length. Single 
gut leaders were required in all fly-casting contests, and 
the stretcher fly in trout casting, and the single fly in sal- 
mon casting "must remain on." Each contestant was al- 
lowed a given time, at first it was fifteen minutes and 
finally ten minutes, in which to cast, and if any accident 
occurred, except a broken rod. no allowance in time was 
made for repairs. One year Reuben Leonard made much 
the largest cast in the salmon casting class of any of his 
competitors, but I noticed that his fly was gone and so 
informed him, and as he had not time to put on a new 
fly and again get his line out, his best cast with a fly on 
his leader was less than that of Mr. Hewitt, who won 
first place. 
As to the fly-casting rules of Western clubs I presume 
Mr. Hoiigh can enlighten us, as I have none at hand 
adopted in recent years. I had read what Mr. Hardy re- 
fers to as a condition of the Chicago Fly-Casting Club's 
contest, but it refers to the "Distance and Accuracy" 
Class. 
A Peculiar Condition. 
There is another clause in the Chicago club's manifesto 
which I cannot understand, and I have assumed that it 
was an error. It reads: "An extra gold medal will be 
awarded to the member beating the world's record of 
103ift., any weight or length of rod." The italics are 
mine, and the conditions, if thev are as I have quoted 
them, absurd in the extreme. Reuben Leonard made the 
"world's record of 102^tt." with a single-handed fly -rod 
limited in length to lift. 6in., and a "rod of any length" 
lets in a 20ft. salmon rod as a starter against a single- 
handed fly-rod. 
I have already given in a previous issue of Fokest and 
Stkeam information about the weight of the rods vised in 
American fly-casting tournaments, and will send Mr. 
Hardy a copy of national rules. In all the fly-casting 
conducted on this side there never was a suspicion of 
"faked" or "trick" rods or lines, As I have stated, rods 
may have been specially made in some instances with more 
powerful action than the ordinary angling rod, but in 
two instances that I now recall I have used winning rods 
and found them little if any different from rods of my 
own that I use for fishing and that were made for fishing 
alone. 
Weight for Length. 
The greenheart rods made by Forrest & Son, of Scotland, 
are weight for length as follows: 10ft,, 9+oz.; lift., ll^oz,; 
13ft., 14oz.; 13ft., 17oz.; 14ft., 33oz.; 15ft., 26oz,; 16ft,, 
32oz.; 17ft., 38oz.; 18£t., 45oz, These I take to be ap- 
proximate figures fur ordinary rods; they are, however, 
Bufiicient to show that the average of English rods are 
heavier than ours. Mr. Henry P. WeUs, who has 
figured the weight of rod woods, gives the following as 
the weight of a cubic foot: Six-strip split-bamboo, 61 96; 
greenheart (Light colored), 60.26, and greenheart (dark 
colored), 68.18, the figures being pounds and hundredths 
of a pound. 
Mr. Wells once gave me some greenheart for a rod that 
was exceptionally light in weight, quite a bit lighter pro- 
portionately than the figure^ given in the table for light- 
colored greenheart, and it made one of the best wood 
rods I ever used. 
Deer's Fat for Lines. 
A writer, reviewing the English tournament, says: 
"Two points worthy of notice were the vast superiority 
of double- tapered lines over level lines, and the value of 
the use of deer fat or mutton fat. Both these points 
should be borne in mind by aU fly-fishers. Modern dry- 
fly men who do not use double-tapered lines should do so, 
and once one realizes how deer's fat assists the fly-fisher 
it will always be used. It not only preserves the fine end 
of the line, but it also enables the angler to pick his line 
off the water with greater ease and accuracy, and after 
all there is as much in this latter as there is in driving a 
flyforA^ ard." I warmly indorse all that is said in favor 
of rubbing the casting line with deer's fat or with mutton 
tallow, for that matter, for though the latter may not 
sound so sportsmanlike, it is quite as good for the purpose 
as deer's fat. 
Some half dozen years ago I wrote an item about the 
use of deer's fat on casting lines, and John Danforth, of 
Camp Caribou, Maine, having sent me about 21bs. of deer 
tallow, I offered to divide it among those who first applied 
for it. The demands for it were so great that I got a sec- 
ond supply and distributed it in tin boxes holding about 
3oz. each. 
The fat is rubbed over so much of the line as is ordi- 
narily used in fishing, and then it is well distributed by 
drawing the line through your fingers. The best enameled 
lines are improved by this treatment as well as undressed 
lines. The fat must be renewed occasionally, but the 
angler will know without teUing when the fat is gone 
from the line. A. N. Cheney. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
Camp " Forest and Stream." 
Camp Forest and Stream, Wisconsin, July 3.— When 
J, B. H and myself each year start out to pitch the taber- 
nacles of Camp Forest and Stream, we always take the 
1:25 P. M. train over the Wisconsin Central road. We 
could take other trains, over that or other roads, but we 
always take that one, because we have gotten into the 
habit of it, and because it takes us to the prettiest place 
out of doors. But there is another and a subtler reason 
for this preference. This 1:25 train lands us at Mukwon- 
ago, Wisconsin, at about 4:30 in the evening. It takes 
about an hour for neighbor Dillenbeck to change his 
little mules to another wagon suitable for carrying our 
menage. Then it takes three-quarters of an hour to buy 
two loaves of bread, and a quart of kerosene and a setting 
of eggs, all of which things we need about our camp. 
Yet another hour is consumed in the drive out to our 
lake. By the time we have shaken hands with every- 
body at Mr. Schwartz's, and gotten a bundle of hay, and 
have driven still further on into the wilderness lying 
about Lulu Lake, the sun is just Sin. above the top of the 
hill on Mr. MuUins's farm across the lake. Therefore, 
each year we find ourselves, upon our approach to our 
chosen camping ground, in the exciting position of 
woodsmen overtaken by night in a wild and unknown 
country and forced to hasten in making camp. This 
novel situation we have found so pleasing that we have 
always taken the 1:25 train. 
But this year we played the drama too realistically. 
Heretofore we have been contented to pretend ourselves 
threatened by rain, and have hurried up the tents and 
spread out the bedding and pulled the nails out of the 
grocery box with military promptitude and precision. It 
never occurred to us that it might rain, really and truly, 
if we kept on making beheve so strongly. This year it was 
cloudy when we viewed our 8in, sun from the top of the 
tall bluff which looks on Lulu Lake, and before we had 
our plunder out of the wagon it was plain to see a storm 
was threatening. It was dark by the time we had up 
the sleeping tient and had kindled the annual fire upon 
the hearthstone of Camp Forest and Stream. The 
dozens of things which one takes on a trip and doesn't 
need were lying around on the grass in the way, not 
having yet found that order and system which are usually 
the product of the second day in camp. We had no time 
to cook more than a few slices of bacon and to boil a 
hasty pot of coffee before bang! came the wind and rain 
together. Our lantern blew over and took fire, making a 
lurid centerpiece in a darkness pierced otherwise only by 
the streaks of lightning. Our tent fly flapped ominously 
and the dishes jingled in a fine tattoo. Fearing an ex- 
plosion in the interior of the lantern (which was a high- 
priced concern with a wooden handle and a fluted 
roof, and no good on earth), I kicked it djwn the 
hill. This left the world to darkness and to us. 
We piled our supper dishes and everything else into 
the middle of the sleeping tent, and finished our first 
meal in the middle of a vast confusion lighted up by 
the rays of a 5-cent tin torch — which I had forgotten to 
throw away — and which proved to be the best camp light 
we had ever had. It blew and blew, and we ate and ate, 
and let it blow; and then we kicked a space clear among 
the boxes and minnow pails, and lay calmly down to 
sleep, and let it rain and rain. On the morning follow- 
ing the sky, new washed, was fresh and clear and smiUng 
as at the joke it had played upon us. We finished the 
building of the city in calmness and deliberation. 
The second of the tents was erected, the one which serves 
as shelter for the tin cans, the rubber boots, the fishing 
rods, and such other duflla as does not feel well under 
one's bed. The banner bearing the fore-front of Forest 
and Stream was stretched tightly upon the tree trunk 
which stands between the two tents, and over this were 
placed the two silken flags of the country — the prettiest 
that ever floated over land or sea. Our table — thanks to 
the wild and unsettled character of the region — we found 
standing unhurt as we had left it the year before, built 
against the trunk of the big oak tree. At the foot of this 
we arranged the articles of daily use, the same mostly 
dependent from nails driven into the tree. The hempen 
water pail — the only one of the kind I ever saw and the 
best thing one ever put into a camp kit — was set at a point 
5 degrees to the left of the northwest leg of the table; the 
frying pans followed at intervals of liiie space; the two 
small camp axes came next, then the camp kettle, then 
the soap and towels, then the dish-rag, then the coffeepot, 
then the 5-cent tin torch. This brought one around the 
tree to the starting place near the northwest leg of the 
table, above which, and consequently below the tin torch, 
sat the pan containing the blue plates, and the speckled 
granite plates, and the four cups, and the six knives and 
forks. Be it understood, we often have visitors at Camp 
Forest and Stream, After we had established these 
things, we cleaned out and waUed up afresh our spring of 
icy sweet water. Then we cast abroad over the hills and 
found us a pond where frogs of excellent quality were 
assembled in convention, to our great joy. After that we 
made us a tidy pile of firewood of twigs and sticks, and 
concluded the labors of the day by planting a wild rose 
tree, in full bloom, at the foot of the Forest and Stream 
banner, the same being the nearest thing to a green bay 
tree we could find to offer in appropriate tribute. Then 
it was evening of our second day in camp before we had 
time to think of the slipping by of the hours. We voted 
that we had never had a prettier camp, and aridfd that 
the lake had never seemed more lovely. J. B E. was 
sure that the makers and controllers of Forest and 
Stream belonged also for the time here in Camp FoRtST 
AND Stream, in the fauest place we had been able to find 
for it in many States. 
But it being evening of our second day, and we being 
discontent to eat bacon alone or to devour at once all of 
the eggs, we bethought us of the fishes that swim in our 
lake. It was the season of the caddis fiy, and we knew 
very well from our experience in earlier years what that 
meant. We had some quasi caddis flies in our fly-books, 
and soon were trying a tiny fly-rod along a bar, just at 
the dusk of evening. In a few minutes we had four fat 
and excellent rock bass, two for supper and two for 
breakfast, and with these four we were content. 
I have earlier spoken of the extreme conservatism dis- 
played by J. B. H. on matters pertaining to the equip- 
ment of the camp, mentioning the fact that last year he 
was reluctant to admit the new-fangled contrivance of 
an aluminum frying pan to the charmed circle of his fire- 
side. This year we had three aluminum frying pans, 
nesting together nicely, all with their handles sawed 
and arranged for one capable of being packed in less 
space. One of these pans we used for frying fish, one for 
eggs and a third we kept for any sudden or extreme 
emergency, as of company in camp. And each and all 
of them we this year put in action upon another new 
camp device, a "stove" over which J. B. H, shook his 
head with the gravest of skepticism when the subject was 
broached to him, 
I have previously mentioned this "stove" as being made 
of a Damascus ^un barrel, but being then uncertain of 
its merits was reticent about further description, I should 
like to claim the honor of the discovery of this stove, but 
no one on the Forest and Stream staff is allowed to pre- 
varicate openly where he is sure to be found out, so can- 
dor compels me to state that I got the idea from another 
paper (Shooting and Fishing), which published it as the 
invention of a Maine man (I think a Mr, White), The 
stove as there outlined consisted of a piece of gas pipe 
driven into the ground, the top plugged and then bored 
to admit the ends of the swinging rings in which the pans 
and kettle rested, just as they rest in the holes in the top 
of a cook stove. The coffee pot rested on a bent wire 
similarly suspended at the top of the upright pipe. The 
idea of this affair seemed to me to be practical, and I 
went to Mr. M. E. Moran, of the gun department of 
Montgomery Ward & Co., and laid the matter before 
him, and between us we improved upon the original, as I 
think. Mr. Moran took a Damascus gun barrel and sawed 
it off about 15in. from the breech. In the smaller end of 
this he fixed a spike made of an old rifle barrel, and the 
larger end he plugged with an iron rod, into which he 
drilled four holes the size of the wire of the rings. He had 
the top of the plug set a little lower than the end of the tube, 
so the holes would not be mashed by hammering the up- 
right barrel down into the ground. The course of the 
wire rings in the Maine stove was straight out from the 
top of the upright, there being a loose plate set on below 
them to keep them from getting too hot, Mr. Moran 
made his stove a little different. The plate was made 
circular, about 4in. in diameter, and was bored so that it 
fitted tightly about 4in. below the top of the .upright, 
where it was pinned firmly in place. The wire of the 
ring went into the hole in the plug in the top of the up- 
right, then bent down sharply until it came to the 
edge of the fixed plate; then it made an angle at right 
angles to the upright, and bent out in the circle which 
supported the pan. The angle or shoulder of the wire 
was thus protected and supported by the circular plate, 
the vessel thus having a much firmer support, while at 
the same time the whole ring could be swung around 
freely, over or from the fire, its foot or shoulder being 
stiffly held up in place. The iron hook supporting the 
coffee pot was treated in exactly the same manner, mak- 
ing boiling coffee, warm coffee or cooler coffee possible by 
simply turning the hook about its pivot, It may easily be 
seen that with this device there was to be no spilled coffee, 
no tipping over of frying pans, no hot faces, burned 
fingers or fll feelings of any sort. Moreover the whole 
outfit was very light, small and compact, taking up no 
room at all compared to the smallest of camp box stoves. 
It seemed to me a good thing, and I thanked the inventor, 
but to J. B, H. it seemed different. He shook his head 
and said two little logs had always made a stove good 
enough for him and his fathers before him. Remember- 
ing his ultimate delight in the aluminum frying pans, I 
urged him just to try this new stove; so we drove down 
the Damascus upright deep into the ground in the center 
of our fireplace, so that only about Sin. of it stood above 
the ground, and so that the rings of the top of the stove 
were only about 4in. clear above the ground. The affair 
stood firm and rigid, and even the eye of skepticism could 
see how steady the pans would be, how small the fire be- 
neath them need be. J. B, H. stood and looked at the 
Damascus stove a moment ere ever he scratched a match 
beneath it. "Well, I'll be blamed!" said be. Evidently 
the occupation of his two little side logs was gone. I 
notice that he still uses these little side logs on each side 
of the fire, but he explains that he does this only to con- 
fine the heat to the bottom of the pans. In effect the 
logs are the side of his stove; the revolving rings are the 
top. Since using this camp rig we have been happy. Our 
tiny fire does not make cooking unpleasant. We do not 
get hot and we do not spill things. We get a meal in 
about one-half the time it formerly required to do so, and 
we cook it much better. Moreover, we find that we can 
put a broiler across one of the rings and broil handsomely 
over the coals. Our coffee boils in a few moments and is 
always "just right," and when we get one article cooked 
it does not get cold, waiting for another to get done. We 
simply set tne plate of bacon and eggs on the broiler on 
one of the rings and swing it to the edge of the fire, 
where it keeps warm while the fish are frying in the 
center of the stage. Cook? Well, I should say we could 
cook. And J. B. H, enjoys the vest-pocket Damascus 
stove and the handleless aluminum frying pans as much 
as anybody now. 
As to the fishing on our little lake, which is only about 
a mile by three-quarters of a mile in size, we can not say 
very much, for this year we have found the fishing so 
disgustingly easy that we have not exploited it very 
thoroughly. I do not think the black bass are so very 
abundant, but we have been too lazy to find out about it, 
and indeed have not tried for them at all. Camp Forest 
AND Stream is an odd mixture of conservatism and radi- 
calism. We hold fast to the old ways, but are always 
experimenting with new ways. This year we took a 
notion to try fly-fishing, and on the very first morning we 
went out we caught twenty rock bass and one black bass 
on the May fly, and for almost the first time in my life I 
saw rock bass, in plain sight, in the middle of the day, 
deliberately rise and swallow down an artificial fly. On 
another time, in the evening, we went out and caught 
five fine rock bass in as many minutes, the best time for 
the fly being just after sunset. The family of Mr. 
Schwartz, our neighbor, have been beneficiaries of our 
fishing. Our table needs but half a dozen fish a day, and 
the rest we take to our neighbors, always confining our 
catch to two dozen fish a day, of which we throw back , 
the small ones, retaining only the fattest and sauciest for 
