70 
tJuLY 25, 1896. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
Camp "Forest and Stream." 
Camp Forest and Stream, July 10.— Under the inex- 
orable law of cbange, all things must have their origin 
and ending, and so it is with the annual sojourning of 
Camp Forest and Stream. It is our aim, however, al- 
ways to so regulate our actions as to appear as much as 
possible independent of the law of fate, setting ourselves 
as it were outside its action even while we admit its exist- 
ence as a law. Compulsions are for slaves, not for camp- 
ers. We evade all idea of compulsion about closing our 
camp by the way in which we buy our bacon. Any camp 
must come to a close when the bacon runs out. Last year 
we had about four yards of bacon, and it took us almost 
too long to use it up in the natural course of events. This 
year we bought a little over three yards, and accordingly 
our camp will come to its close, naturally, decently and 
independently, about to-morrow or day after; for we are 
now well down toward the further end of bur last piece 
of prime breakfast. The bags holding the coffee and 
sugar are also now capable of being tied rather close 
down toward the bottom, and the canned soups and fruits 
are getting low, and we are upon our last jar of butter, so 
it may be seen that the camp is coming to a peaceful, ra- 
tional and natural end. This fact w^e accept calmly. 
There would be mutiny at the thought of any other kind 
of end to a camp so dear to our hearts. We could not, as 
men and gentlemen, go home with bacon in our box. I 
doubt not, if through some error or by design of some 
evil-minded person we should find ourselves in camp with 
401bs. of bacon instead of less than SOlbs., we should be 
obliged to stay there more than a month, such is our 
devotion to principle. 
There are men who have worked so long and so much 
that they cannot enjoy a vacation, and there are other 
men who never take a vacation except in a halfway fash- 
ion, with one eye upon the telegraph office. All these 
go home with their vacations half baked and underdone. 
In Camp Forest and Stream we always do everything 
there is to be done. Every plan we make is carried out. 
No experiment and no enterprise of pleasure is left un- 
proved. All our side trips are made, all our iish are 
caught, all our voy agings are completed, so that when 
the law of bacon tells us to go home we go as happily as 
we came, knowing that, though the world is full of 
pleasures for another year, we have found what pleasures 
are calendared for this. Thus in regard to those trout 
which I mentioned last week. We went, we saw the 
trout and we conquered them, eleven of them, and of a 
most beautiful sort, such as fit admirably in an aluminum 
, frying pan. We could have taken more, but thought 
that enough to ask of our little stream. On that same 
day, which we devoted to driving about over some new 
country, which we deemed it our duty to explore, we 
found a vast frog pond, filled with great bullfrogs of 
generous development as to the hindlegs. Here we had 
fine sport with a . 33 rifle, and got us a dozen and a half 
of frog legs in a little whUe. There are those who do not 
eat frog legs, but there are also those who do not believe 
in churches or the law. All normal human beings love 
frog legs. If for breakfast they may have, as we did, both 
fried trout and fried frog legs, they may he content. 
Fortune will never harm children upon whom she has 
once smiled so pointedly. 
We have found the bass fishing rather poor this year in 
our lake and the waters near by, ovdng to the advanced 
condition of the season, which is a month earlier this 
year than last. The bass have probably gone into deeper 
water and are not feeding much. J. B. H. takes all tbis 
philosophically, and says that bait- casting tires his wrist 
anyhow, and that he would as lieve fish for something 
demanding lees labor. This he can afford to say, for never 
before in his life has he caught so many fish in two weeks 
as he has this year. The fl^y-fishing for rock bass has been 
80 easy and abundant that we have stopped doing it. Our 
great._piece de resistance has been our newly-discovered 
croppy bar, a little conical reef about 50ft. across, which 
runs up out of 100ft. of water in the middle of the lake. 
Here we have had our main sport of the trip, and have 
caught the finest croppies I ever saw, most of them aver- 
aging over a pound and some nearly reaching 21bs. These 
tish, taken from the deep cold water, are very much bet- 
ter for the table than any black bass ever is, and we have 
enjoyed eating them as well as catching them. Yester- 
day we made our last fishing trip, this being for the pm-- 
pose of making up certain little baskets of fish which each 
year we send down to the city to our friends. We fished 
for only a couple of hours, and caught as handsome a 
string of fish as I ever saw. We had a few for our neigh- 
bor Mr. Schwartz, who has been so kind to us in many ways, 
and moreover have in our cold storage spring all that our 
modest table demands for the rest of our stay. J. B. H. 
says we have fished enough now, and that he does not 
want to go to any more new lakes. So we have taken our 
rods apart, and are now simply living and being happy 
m camp, waiting for the law of bacon to take us home. 
This little bar out in the middle of onr clear, deep lake 
is a secret known only to a few. It was accidentally dis- 
covered by Billy Tuohy (the same courteous and obliging 
sporting landlord who runs the popular Eagle Lake Hotel, 
a few miles below us, on Eagle Lake). Billy has always 
done everything in the world he could for us up in this 
country, on account of J. B. H, , for whom all men have 
regard. He told us about this bar, but we did not find it 
last year. Tbis year we put out a buoy upon it so that 
when we wanted a mess of croppies we could go and get 
them, and stand a chance meantime of picking up an 
eminently respectable bass or pickerel out of the numbers 
which use that spot as a sort of club lounging place, the 
fish elsewhere in the lake being fished down to an inferior 
size. Yesterday, just before we started out to do our fish- 
ing there, we noticed a boat in that part of the lake, con- 
taining some young men from a camp near by, and when 
we rowed out we discovered that these persons had taken 
away our buoy, probably for the sake of the fish line 
which made its anchor rope. Little did those young men 
know that that floating board marked, the best fishing in 
aU the lake, and that in cutting it loose they despoiled 
themselves 1 J. B. H. and I rowed about for over four 
hours, but the wind was high and we could not hold our 
bearings, and we could not find our barl Here was a 
pretty kettle of fish uncaught, and we felt considerable 
chagrin. At length I got out of the boat and wallied the 
intervening miles down to Billy's hotel. Billy couldn't 
come to show us the bar, but made me a chart, and by 
means of this, after over an hour of further search, we 
hit upon the little round shallow place, and our dependent 
anchor caught and held. It was then 4 o'clock in the 
afternoon, and by 6 o'clock we had our string, after wast- 
ing eight hours of time in locating our bar. In the 
middle of our sport, while the rods were all bending and 
the landing net was busy, our young men who had cut 
loose our buoy came by at a little distance, concluding a 
doleful day of unsuccessful trolling. It is quite probable 
that a great light fell upon them then, and that they real- 
ized the import of the floating bit of wood they had 
stolen. After we had ceased our fishing and were pull- 
ing home we saw this boat go out again, this time hunt- 
ing for a buoy. Alas! for their hopes. This time we 
were the aggressors, and we took our buoy home with 
us in our own boat. And they were the very young tnen 
to whom we had charitably given a mess of fish that vei-y 
morning. They are very welcome to our buoy. The 
lake and the bar are there, but I defy them to find the 
bar, search how they please, unless they come to Billy or 
to us and make proper application. I am much pleased 
that these folk are hoist with their own petard. Indeed, 
if this bar were generally known as a fishing place the 
result would be a butchery of the fish, which now are 
evidently very little fished for there. Had we cared to 
do so, I believe J. B, H. and I could have taken 2001bs. 
of fish there in a day, should they bite as furiously as 
they did yesterday. A great many would be quite willing 
to take that many if they could in a day, and as many 
more in the next, and so on until they were gone. I 
counsel Billy to be discreet, 
Billy Tuohy thinks the bass fishing will be slack for a 
while during the hot weather, but believes the waters 
here have as many bass as ever. Reports from Phantom 
Lake and the Mukwonago mill pond say fishing was good 
there last week, and we have invitation to fish a private 
lake which we know to hold large bass, but we have not 
gone over in that direction yet this year, and will prob- 
ably let that remain among the things we are to do next 
year. 
We never had a prettier camp than we have this year, 
nor do I believe that a prettier was ever pitched. Our 
little tents are on top of a high hill overlooking the lake, 
but back of us is a rim of still higher hills, shutting out 
the world. All around us is a beautiful broken farming 
and grazing country. The harvest is now in progress, but 
from our spot, the quietest and most restful one in the 
world, I think, we cannot see a farm or hear a sound 
suggestive of civilization. All around ua is forest, and 
the lake is fringed with trees around its circle, and we see 
nothing but the trees and the lake, and the skies — two 
skies, one above and one in the lake. We have not yet 
found any better country, and were it not thus perfect 
we should not have called this Camp Forest and Stream, 
and would not have come here for the sixch annual 
camp. 
Meantime, a hundred miles or so above us, there are 
many parties out in the pine woods country who are 
having a great deal more of what they call sport. Some- 
times a single rod will kill a barrelful of fish in a day. I 
ask J. B. H. if he would rather go up there and have 
some of that heavier fishing, but he says he does not 
think it would be so much fun as we have here. The 
fishing is more capricious and diflBicult here, but that only 
serves to make it interesting when one is out on this sort 
of a vacation. We could not use more fish than we got 
here, and indeed dare not go out fishing very often. The 
scenery is varied and quietly beautiful, the springs of 
water numerous and cold, and the climate singularly 
healthy. The nights are cool enough for blankets, and 
the days are never very warm. The whole region was 
made for outdoor purposes, and it is no wonder that it 
yearly comes more and more into vogue as the great 
resting place for the city of Chicago as weU as for many 
parts of the Southern States, which annually send up 
many visitors. The wild creatures hold their own re- 
markably well in Waukesha and Walworth counties. 
There are bass and pickerel and trout if you know where 
to find them, and in season there are a few squirrels, and 
a few rabbits, and a few ruffed grouse, and a few prairie 
chickens, and a good many jacksnipe, and a few ducks, 
and a great many bullfrogs. Also there are rock bass 
for all, and croppies — for those who know the bar! 
From all this let it not be supposed that this little para- 
dise will suit all. Indeed, the other day down at Billy 
Tuohy's hotel I overheard a gentleman (to whom I was 
later introduced) remarking that "that Forest and Stream 
man had picked out a mighty poor fishing lake to camp 
on" — h'e not knowing that the Forest and Stoeam man 
was there present. At least, it may be seen that Camp 
Forest and Stream has come to be regarded as one of 
thtj established institutions of the country. When J. B. H. 
and I tramp off over the hills now, four or five miles from 
home, as we often do, for bass, or chubs, or frogs, or just 
for instance, we meet a great many city people from sum- 
mer resort hotels who look over our heads, and a great 
many country people who know us and speak to us pleas- 
antly, in spite of our slightly disreputable look. The resi- 
dents here are for the most part mildly tolerant ,of city 
people, but I fancy they have been more than tolerant of 
J. B. H. and me, and we have many acquaintances scat- 
tered around over a circle sir or eight miles about Camp 
Forest and Stream whom we call our friends. Where, 
then, should we go another year, when the time has come 
to pitch again the two small tents and to stretch between 
them the banner with the name of Forest and Stream? 
We might go to the Rockies and fare worse. In my boy- 
hood I have often sought to pot ducks which I have seen 
swimming in the water, and have observed, after firing 
away both my barrels, many larger and nearer and fatter 
ducks spring out from under the bank at my feet. Vault- 
ing ambition doth often o'erleap itself, but never in Camp 
Forest and Stream, There all things come to pass as 
desired. Each day slips happily by, bearing its own com- 
pleted pleasures, small and not momentous though they 
be. The term begins with pleasure and ends with con- 
tent. The first slice of bacon is cut with zest, and the last 
one with serenity and satisfaction. Thus, though we near 
the end, we do not murmur. Who hath found more than 
this? E. Hough. 
Montana Game and Fish. 
In coming into town from camp to-day, I ran on to 
four fine elk, ten miles south of town. Game is plentiful, 
both small and large. Fishing in Bennett Creek, Line 
Creek, Clark's Fork and Rosebud Lake is superb. 
Wabash. 
COUNTRY VS. TOWN. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I was greatly interested in the editorial in Forest and 
Stream on June 13 and the comments on a day's trout 
fishing trip taken by myself in Connecticut. Especially 
was I interested in your suggestions of the benefits and 
pleasures that could be enjoyed by thousands of home 
anglers but for the exceeding barrenness of the streams. 
There is no doubt that this barrenness is largely due to 
the indifference of those who own or control the land 
through which the streams flow. Few are the farmers 
who manifest any interest in the pleasures of trout fish- 
ing. The trout fishing season is the farmer's busy time, 
when plowing, planting, hoeing and other important 
work have to be attended to. Besides, constant contact 
and intercourse with nature and the free outdoors has 
to a great degree deadened the taste in him for such 
pleasures. 
It is impossible for him to enjoy as does one from the 
town the glories of a beautiful sunrise or sunset. He is 
like the stage driver who was accosted by a fellow driver 
with "Hey, Bill, what in highgo ails you? Look as if ye 
hed bin to a funeral." 
"Oh," answered Bill, with deepening disgust, "ye'd orter 
heerd the 'ohsl' and 'ahs!' of them blamed dudes over one 
of them thar common red and yaller sunsets. It was 
enough to make a boss sick." 
Being unacquainted with those other extremes that 
cause such blessings to stand out in their full worth and 
beauty (of the stuffy oflice or the greasy confinement of 
the factory, with its noise and unwholesome air, he knows 
nothing), his sense of appreciation is naturally dulled to 
the beauty of his surroundings. For recreation he is 
attracted to the artificial glitter of the city. Then, again, 
should he go fishing he is apt to fish for results in weight. 
He figures that lOlbs. of suckers, bullheads or eels will go 
further in his large family than 3 or 4lbs, of trout. He 
fishes for results rather than pastime; a set line, net, club 
or spear is more to his liking than the slower, more artis- 
tic process of taking them with rod and reel. 
By far the greater majority of real anglers live in the 
cities. In many instances their boyhood days have been 
spent on farms. When they seek recreation they eagerly 
return to such sights and. soimds as they knew in their 
younger days, and to fish the streams in an artistic man- 
ner with rod and reel. 
Now it would seem that these are the persons who 
should individually co-operate to make effective the fish 
and game laws and personally see to it that many of these ' 
barren streams are reclaimed. 
Throughout Connecticut and other New England States 
are to be found a large number of idle, deserted farms 
many of them in close proximity to large towns and cities, 
In most cases streams flow through these farms; at on.^ 
time it was not unusual to take large strings of trout, 
now, however, there is scarcely a trout to be found, they 
have literally been fished to death. 
Now, knowing that trout flourished there at one time, 
also that in most of them the conditions for trout are as 
good to-day as ever, I am sure that, under my plan, many 
of these streams could be reclaimed and the supply of 
game improved at the same time. 
My plan is this: The idle farms can be leased or bought 
for a song. Whenever there is one in close proximity to 
a city, let some sportsman secure it by lease or purchase 
and live upon it. There would be no need to engage in 
the farming busiqess; in fact, it would be better not to do 
so; only hire the brush cut and hay put into the barn. 
After having secured a place, then, with the assistance 
of sportsmen friends, see to it that the stream running 
through the land is restocked; see to it that no partridge 
snares are tolerated in the neighborhood ; have an eye 
upon the welfare of any young birds that may be about 
and give the dogs an occasional run in the woods. 
I think I hear some one say, "What an impracticable, 
foolish idea. Why, what would become of my business 
or employment in the city if I should move into the 
country?" Undoubtedly it would be impossible for many 
to do anything of the kind; but then, on the other hand, 
there are many who could live in such a manner, and 
their business in the city need not be neglected one 
minute. 
With the exception of last winter, which was spent in 
the city, my family and myself have spent the past five 
years in this manner, and we derive great enjoyment and 
plenty of health from this way of living. Even as I write 
a quail is calling within a biscuit's toss of me, and tb ere 
is a half-grown family of his kind not far cff. From the 
tree under which I am sitting I have but to glance to the 
southeast over tpn miles of verdured hills and plains; then 
on, over harbor and Sound, the eye sweeps for another 
twenty-five miles to where the sandy cliffs and shores of 
Long Island, like a long, low cloud, meet the horizon, 
just thirty-five miles in a straight line. Think you such 
privileges would be bartered for a confined city existence 
after once being indulged in? Yet there are many lovers 
of rod and gun who could live in this manner and at the 
same time materially assist in solving the great problem 
of fish and game protection. 
While I am seven miles from the great gun factory in 
which I gain my livelihood, still I lose but very little 
time and drive the fourteen miles to and from the city 
nearly every week day winter and summer, and enjoy it. 
The stocking of a stream on a place leased or bought, 
the attention paid to any stray snares that might be about 
and the looking to the welfare of young birds would re- 
quire but little time, and need not interfere with a per- 
son's business at all. It would simply be spending the 
spare moments in brain resting and nerve strengthening 
recreation. Then there is the perfect transmutation from 
the close office, or noise of whirring machinery, to pleas- 
ant rural sounds and scenes each day. But think of the 
glorious springtime, with its scented breath and wealth of 
blossoms, and the well-stocked trout brook flowing near. 
Then again there would be the cool, quiet summer nights 
with the cricket chorus to induce delicious sleep. Then 
the glorious fall, with its wealth of red, purple and golden 
fruit, and the days and half days afield with dog and 
gun. Winter, too, is not witheut its charms, for at that 
time of the year fox-hunting is in order; besides the mu- 
sic of the tinkling bells can be enjoyed while being 
whirled swiftly to and from the city in the sleigh, Of 
course there would be drawbacks, but taken all in all the 
pleasures to be derived from such, an existence far out- 
weigh all the drawbacks, and the assistance to fish and 
game propagation would prove a real public benefit. 
Mr. Charlea Stevenson, a Government inspector of am 
