July 25, 1896.] 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
60 
which one member of our party— Mr. Ambtose— is part 
owner. I looked to this part of our trip with keenest 
interest, for up to that time I had never visited the 
Rangeley region, Thursday night we went from Errol 
by team over Errol Hill to Lakesidej on Umbago?, so as 
to get the early steamer across the lake to Sunday Cove, 
and thus save a day. 
That ride from Errol over the mountain and in a very 
dark night will be remembered by every member of the 
party for years. But we got there all right, and landlord 
Chandlerj after he was routed up, provided us with good, 
nice beds. The remainder of the night we slept the sleep 
of the jolted. We made the middle dam house a few 
minutes before noon, and at 1 :80 steamed across Richard- 
eon Lake toward the Narrows and our friend's camp, 
which was to be our home for the next few days. 
Everything was new to me, and as vision after vision of 
beauty unfolded itself I became entranced and said to 
myself, "You old muttonhead, how is it that you have 
kept out of this, God's country, so long?" and echo still 
keeps repeating, "Why?" 
Oar friend's camp is beautifully situated. Standing fully 
50ft. above the water, it commands views of the entire 
length of the Narrows, and as itris nearly midway between 
the Upper and Middle Dams all points are easily accee- 
sible. It is paradise without a sei'pent. 
We took a trip to B Pond, with Steve Morse for guide. 
He told U3 the trout would not rise freely to the fly, as it 
was not the season; but we could probably get enough to 
eat, which was all we cared about. During our stay at 
the pond we visited many times the island on which is 
built the Oxford Club house and we often gazed through 
the windows at the well-appointed interior, and Steve 
told us of the jolly times and the great catches due there 
every spring, and he spoke particularly of one member of 
the club, Gov. Rusaell. How inexpressibly sad the thought. 
He has made his last cast, the silken line has parted, the 
reel is silent forever. 
On the afternoon of J uly 8 my old eyes rested upon 
that grandest of all trout pools, the Upper Dam Pool. 
There is poetry and rhyme in every wave and twisting 
eddy of its foam-crested, limpid waters, and there are 
trout too — monarchs, battle-scarred and deep-hued, which, 
have resisted the lures of generations of anglers, And— 
to their shame be it written — there are men who go there 
and finding themselves unable to capture those fish with 
the fly, resort to every means known to the poacher's art 
— with gobs of worms, with live and phantom minnows, 
with fins, with spoons and spinning bait, until, no matter 
which way he turns, the harassed fish is confronted with 
some devilish scheme for his destruction. In the name and 
interest of every angler who believes in fly-fishing pure and 
simple, I register my protest against it. Lat that pool be- 
come the one sacred reservation of the fly-fishermen. It 
will pay in many ways. It will increase the revenue of 
the pool, and, greatest and best of all, it will pay in the 
increased satisfaction a man feels in knowing he has cap- 
tured his fish by the cleanest and most skillful art known 
to the angler. Mr. Chadwick, upon you this matter rests. 
You can stretch over that pool the angler's "bow of 
promise," and in the end all men will thank you for it. 
J. W. B. 
ANGLING NOTES. 
Red IVIay Fly. 
In a recent issue of Forest and Stream I mentioned 
Mr. Edward Marston's experiments with an artificial May 
fly ot regular form, but dyed a bright red. It seems that 
Mr. R B, Marston sent some of the red May flies to Mr. 
Andrew Lang, who writes of experience with them in 
Longman's Magazine for July. He says: "Trout do not 
take bloody Marys. This statement may seem enigmati- 
cal and needs explaining. Sir Herbert Maxwell has an 
heretical opinion that trout do not distinguish color. 
Therefore Mr. R, B. Marston has sent me some scarlet 
May flies which, on the Itchen, he finds that trout refuse. 
* * * Accompanied by another philosopher I care- 
fully dropped the bloody Mary or scarlet May fly into a 
small brook, where trout were taking the natural insect. 
The flies floated, cocked up and quite dry, over plenty of 
feeding trout, which rise eagerly at a well-directed and 
properly colored artificial green Drake, but not a fish 
would move at a bloody Mary, They likf d her no more 
than John Knox liked his namesake. Mox'eover, trout will 
not take the gray Drake when the green alone is on the 
water." (This is exactly my expsriencp, previously men- 
tioned I think in the note makmg reference to Mr, Mar- 
ston's experiment,) "This seems to settle the question; 
but that salmon make minute distinctions of color, as 
between a Popham and a Childers, I do not believe. Sal- 
mon do not rise in that way (as trout do); they sally up 
from the deep to a fly which is only a glittering vibratory 
object." This seems to me to be the best possible test of 
trout being able to distinguish color; for when the May 
flies are rising they rise from the water in clouds, and 
when one fly out of thousands is refused in the general 
rush because it is off color, alt bough of the same form 
and general appearance, it must cause those who advocate 
form as against color to do some deep thinking to explain 
why it is so. The fact that there are times and places 
where trout will rise app irently at any fly offered does 
not convince me that they cannot distinguish color. In 
dry fly-fishing the imitation floats on the surface of the 
water as lifelike a3 the natural fly, and the trout have 
every opportunity to examine it, and perhaps it is not so 
strange tnat under such circumstances trout d stinguish 
the green from the gray Drake, and reject the latter; but 
in my own experience, when the trout refused the gray 
Drake and eagerly accepted the green Drake, I was using 
the wet fly, yet they never made an error; and to the 
human eye, when the two Drakes are wet, and draggled 
and moving through the water, they would look very 
much alike. 
May Fly and Caddis. 
In Mr. Hough's notes last week he speaks of the "sand 
fly, May fly, Cisco fly, shad fly, caddis fly or whatever 
local name may be given to the creature." Later he 
refers to the fly repeatedly as the caddis fly, but when he 
describes it he desc^ribes the May fl/. Tne May fly and 
the caddis are quite unlike. I believe there are some fif- 
teen or more gpacies of the May fly, and I thiuk Prof. 
Lintner, the State entomologist, told me there were 
more tban twenty species of caddis flies. The May fLj is 
he Drake, be it green, gray, brown, iron-blue, amber, 
lack or yellow, and has the upright wings, slender 
ringed body bending upward and terminating in some- 
times two and sometimes three slender stylets which 
gives them the name of "cocktails," but Miy fly, day fly 
or Drake are the more common names. The caddis fly, 
in England belonging to the class of Duns, baa four hairy 
wings and lacks the stylets and upturned body of the 
Drake. This is the little beggar that makes a house of 
bark, stones, etc., in the larval state and is called a cad- 
dis case. The wings of the caddis fly when at rest are 
folded lengthwise of the body and not cocked up like the 
May fly. 
A few days ago my brother told me that during a rise 
of May flies in the evening at Elmira they were obliged 
to shut the doors of the street cars when crossing the 
bridge over the Chemung River, and pedestrians had to 
turn up their coat collars and pull down their hats, and 
even then their garments were coated with the flies. 
When the flies are rising like that is the time to secure 
them for transplanting into waters where the trout are 
bottom feeders and it is desired to make them look up for 
their food, about where an angler would cast his artificial 
fly. There is little, if anything, done in this country to 
educate trout to take their food from the surface of the 
water, but the system of surface feeding is practiced 
abroad. Mr. Halford, the well-known angler and author, 
feeds his yearling trout fl^atuig food in the rearing ponds 
before they are turned into the river to shift for them- 
selves. He says: "If anything could make artificially 
bred and artificially raised trout surface feeders, it should 
be such treatment as this, and unless the whole ed- 
ucation theory is fallacious should produce a new gen- 
eration of more freely rising fish than even the natu- 
rally bred denizens of the river. The major portion 
of the food of the indigenous fish is undoubtedly in the 
form of shrimp, snails, caddis and other larvas, which are 
invariably found among the weeds in mid- water or at the 
bottom." If a water is to be stocked with the May fly the 
flies should be procured from both an early and a late ris- 
ing river, for they adhere to their seasons when trans- 
planted, and the planted water affords a May fly season 
nearly twice as long as either of the original waters from 
which the stock is obtained. Of course in transplanting 
May flies they furnish fish food in the form of flies for 
only a brief season at best, but they furnish food in the 
larval state the balance of the years, so they are most de- 
sirable trout food and they can be transplanted so easily 
that I wonder it is not done more than it is. 
Plfty Mascalonge in One Day. 
A gentleman was telling me about his fishing experi- 
ence when I met him on his railroad car yesterday, and 
as he has fished quite extensively he had much of interest 
to tell me, but one thing he told me was not. pleasant to 
hear. He said that an acquaintance of his was fishing in 
one of the remote Canadian lakes last year (and by the 
way he was the son of one of the Dominion olficials), a 
lake well stocked with mascalonge, and as the fish were 
feeding ravenously the fisherman caught and killed fifty 
odd mascalonge in one day. "He had to go ashore and 
unload his boat before he could continue his fishing, for 
the mascalojige weighed from 10 to over 30 lbs, each." 
The funny thing about it was the conclusion of the story, 
for my friend said: "I suppose they have better laws in 
Canada than we have or he could noi» have made' such a 
score." 
Here is a man who caught say 750lb8. of mascalonge, 
in a lake far from any place where they could be utilized 
as food — and there might have been half a ton of the fish 
for all I know — and because of this inexcusable slaughter 
or butchery another man thinks such a score is owing to 
better laws than we have in New York, To me it would 
appear to have been owing to a lack of law restricting a 
man within the bounds of decency when the opportunity 
offers to kill a lot of fish. The desire to make a score has 
much to answer for in the grand round-up when an ac- ' 
counting must be made for fish and game exterminated. 
The "pot fisher" or the "abominable netter" is a saint 
with harp and halo compared with some alleged sports- 
men turned loose in the backwoods to make a score to 
boast about. 
Good Boiled Esss. 
In Mr. Clevelan(\'8 description of his fight with a foul- 
hooked tarpon (Forest and Stream, July 11) he mentions 
that he had a couple of good boiled eggs for his early 
breakfast, the yolks of which did not break when openpd. 
I neglected to say that a diagram went with that joke, but 
I was so interested in the pen picture of the struggle with 
the fish that I forgot all about the explanation of the 
joke. 
Three of us were spending the summer at Schroon 
Lake. Mr. Cleveland was one, I was another, and the 
late Maj. B. A. Botts. of Houston, was the third. We 
fished rather persistently, as that was what we were there 
for, and for black bass fishing we would get up at dawn, 
get a cup of coffee and a *ouple of eggs, go out on the 
water and return to take breakfast with our families. 
The major was standard time (although Cleveland thought 
he was), and was the first one up, and would then send 
Lewis, his servant, to my cottage to call me and to Cleve- 
land's cottage to call him. Poor Lewis! if all the language 
hurled at him between dark and daylight had been more 
material he would not have survived the sutiimer. Cleve- 
land had an insane idea that an egg was not fresh unless 
the yolk would drop into a glass unbroken, and I have 
heard him lecture on the subject from Canada to West 
Virginia at a score or more of fishing resorts. Cleveland 
could not shave himself, and he would not let L > wis shave 
him oftener than once a year, as he said that was as often 
as his face would stand the operation, and therefore was 
dependent upon a barber that he engaged to come from 
Schroon village on stated occasions, The major and I 
knew that we could start the day in lively fashion by 
coming to the early coffee with clean-shaven faces, and 
we did it frequently. One morning Lewis called me as 
usual, and called the second time to say that breakfast 
was waiting. When I entered the dining-room I got the 
first chapter of the morning lecture before I reached 
my chair, and to my surprise I found a couple of eggs 
opened in a glass at my place. Cleveland said: "As 
you are late, as usual, I have opened your eggs for 
you, simply to save time." In a few moments the waiter 
brought two eggs and put them before Mr. Cleve- 
land, who opaned them, pushed the glass containing 
them toward me with the remark that "Here are two 
more eggs for you like those you are eating," and then he 
read the riot act to the waiter. If the hotel had any fresh 
eggs he wanted them, a,nd at once, but he did not want 
any more heirlooms in the shape of eggs. The situation 
dawned on me then. He had opened the first egg for 
himself, but as the yolks broke in the glass he had passed 
them to my plate. He admitted it all, and I told him I 
liked that kind of egg and took the second glass. The 
third couple of eggs were brought to him, and as he 
opened them he exclaimed: 
"Now, these are fresh eggs!" 
"Let me see what you call fresh eggs." 
He pushed his egg glass toward me and I lifted it, looked 
at the eggs, tilted my nose upward and said, "I am glad 
to know what you call fresh eggs, but your judgment is 
not worth a copper cent." 
That look of disgust on my face settled the matter, and 
he would not eat his fresh eggs and I did, although six 
eggs were about four more than 1 wanted. From that 
day to this he has heard more or less about the fruit of 
the hen, and frequently writes me of his test for fresh 
eggs. 
Trout Fry. 
In the mention that I made of trout fry sent to me by 
Commissioner Thompson (L^'oRKST and Stream, June 37) 
it would apppar that the specimens sent to me had been 
fed on the flesh of minnows peeled from the bones by 
steam procesf. Mr. Thompson tells me that the trout fry 
sent to me never had been fed artificially. At his club 
the trout are admitted to a spawning race, where they 
spawn naturally on the gravel, and the parent fish are 
then driven back into the pond below and the eggs are 
hatched very nearly as in a wild stream. This is because 
the club desires to hatch and rear each year only a certain 
limited number of trout. The fry after hatching are con- 
fined in a rearing box, where the tide contributes rich sea 
food to the young fish, and it is this treatment which 
causes them to grow to exceed any trout fry or finger- 
lings that I have ever seen. The yearlings and two-year- 
olds from the same club would easily pass for much older 
fish. 
Blar Trout and Little Trout. 
The movement-to forbid, by law, trout fishing through 
the ice, in New York State, originated at Lake G?orge 
and applied at first only to lake trout. The lake trout sea- 
son opened, I think, April 1, and usually at that date there 
was ice on the lake, and the fishermen caught little trout 
from fib. to 31bs, in weight through the ice and sold them 
in large numbers. These little fish came from restocking 
the lake, and were caught only through the ice. When 
the ice was gone and trolling commenced, large fish were 
taken with rarely a small one. The season was changed 
by law to open on Lake George May 1, and has so re- 
mained ever since, and after a time the law was made to 
apply to fishing through the ice in any waters of the 
State. 
The stocking of Lake George has continued through the 
efforts of Gen. Robert Lenox Banks, and 500,000 fry are 
planted annually. Formerly buoy-fishing was a favorite 
method of fishing for lake trout, but little was heard of it 
after trolling came in vogue, 
Buoy -fishing is now resorted to by many of the summer 
cottagers and, strange as it may seem, only small trout 
are taken. One gentleman, who has four buoys near his 
cottage, told me recently that be had never caught a trout 
at a buoy that weighed over 31bs,, and that they were 
generally lib. to l^lbs. fish. The men who troll either at 
the surface or at the bottom rarely get these small trout. 
In one day, July 4, one fisherman caught two trotit of 
5Uha. each, and then went to the buoys and caught seven, 
all under lilbs. A. N. Cheney. 
OUR 1896 OUTING AT STAR LAKE. 
Chicago, July 10.— Editor Forest and Stream: Not 
being quite "chained to business," though pretty near it, 
my wife and I have just completed a most enjoyable 
three weeks' outing at Star Lake, Vilas county, 'Wis., 
over 400 miles from here, and most comfortably reached 
via the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Riilway in about 
twelve hours. There are no roads out of Star Lake, ex- 
cept from the south, only trails, and hence one is in the 
old, old forest land, barring the cleared space right at that 
place necessary for the operation of the extensive saw 
mills of Messrs, William Salsich & Co., located there. 
There was much to contribute to one's enjoyment there 
besides the excellent fishing to be found in Plum, Ballard 
and Partridge lakes, reached by making short and easy 
portages from Star. Pium gives an abundance of black 
bass, both small and large mouth, plenty of pike, wall- 
eyes, and an occasional muskellunge, likewise the rest of 
the waters named. In one day in Ballard we took fully 
fifty black bass, large and small mouths, returning about 
twenty, because of under size, to their homes. Except a 
fish was fatally injured, we kept none less than 14in. in 
length. The same day Mrs, W. took a 131b. muskellunge 
on a No. 19 Natchaug line and a 3 0 Pennell- Limerick 
hook on double silk gut, bringing the fish to landing net 
handsomely. The general practice up there is to treat a 
muskellunge when hooked and within reach of the boat 
as though in the act of burglarizing the craft, for he ia 
speedily shot through the head. The question arises, is 
there anything sportsmanlike about such a procedure? 
Hotel Waldheim, located immediately on the banks of 
Star Lake, in a thicket of heavy pines where one gets the 
pine flavors in the air all the time, besides other sweet 
woody scents, is well conducted and the table is good, 
suited to the other surroundings. We had a real good time 
there and record the few facts relating th'^reto as above 
that others may do so too, who like such things and can. 
Ammonoosuo. 
British Columbia Trout. 
The Daily Colonist, of Victoria, B, C. , for June 11 
chronicled: "Mr. J. A. L Waddell, C. E., of Kansas 
City, chief engineer of the Omaha Bridge and Terminal 
Riilway Co., Omaha, in company with E B. McKay, of 
tiie Lxnds & Works oflise, has been on a fishing expedi- 
tion to Cowichan Lake. He states that he had the finest 
trout fishing there he ever enjoyed. On Sunday, Mon- 
day and Tuesday he succeeded in landing ISOlba. of fish, 
many of them weighing 31bs. and over." 
Mr. Waddell writes us: "I caught in three days 1541bs. 
of trout, the largest weighing 4lb3. , and a good many be- 
tween 3 and 4lbs. The average weight was, as nearly as 
may be, Hlbs. for the whole catch. I did not think that 
I was doing sueh extraordinary fishing, but after I got 
through I was told that I had broken the three days' record 
for the la^e. 
