JtlLT 4, 1896,] 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
9 
that my friend Maraton is mistaken in his desire to send 
away from home to acquire new methods that may win 
in long-distance fly-casting, for they seem to have some 
over there to dispose of. 
One correspondent in his paper says: "I am much de- 
lighted to find * * * that there is a decidedly grow- 
ing feeling that we have had enough showman casting 
with 'faked' rods at angling tournaments. Even the pa- 
tient * * * has at last exhibited symptoms of turn- 
ing, and deep and widespread indeed would be his grati- 
fication if he could but hope that in further contests he 
should see real fishing rods only used by all competitors. " 
Another correspondent commends Mr, Hardy's able let- 
ter, from which I have already quoted, which "lets in a 
flood of light" on the manner of record casting, and adds: 
"I think, sir, the whole thing as it stands is a burlesque, 
and the sooner the casting conditions are altered the bet- 
ter. If extra heavy lines must be used, and thrown out 
with great force to drag so much of their line after them, 
might one not as well try which man could do best at 
throwing a line with a cbopstick, as used on the Yar- 
mouth sands, and call it fly-fishing ?" 
After all is said, I think in a contest between Messrs. 
Enright and Hardy and Hawes and Leonard under simi- 
lar conditions, no matter what they are, the spectators 
would get a race for their money. A. N. OnENET. 
FLY-FISHING 
On the North Shore of Lake Superior. 
[Contimced from page A97.j 
These indications were favorable for a glorious outing, 
and as a south wind was filling the air with fragrance 
and the lake with lovely ripples, we felt confident that 
our lures would not sail and drop and dance without at- 
tracting some golden fins. 
After breakfast Ned busied himself in making an ad- 
dition to his stretcher fly, a red-ibis, by completely sur- 
rounding it with some intensely red worsted yarn. He 
said, in explanation of his crafty work (?), that his red- 
ibis had tempted all the trout he had yet caught, and that 
a little more ruby attached to it would, he thought, 
doubly increase its attractiveness. "Shape with me," he 
continued, "is nothing, and though this looks like a min- 
. iature dusting brush, I'll risk my reputation that it will 
prove a first-class deceit." 
"The trout will assuredly come tumbling after it," I re- 
marked as I examined it, with a lurking smile stealing 
forth. 
"Save your satire till the trial is made." 
"Beg pardon, my language savors not of it." 
"No, but that old cynical smile of yours did." 
"Better a smile than a frown." 
"Even so, but smile honestly, not significantly," 
Ned really had the analysis of that smile down to a fine 
point, and thinking discretion the better part of valor, I 
withdrew from the contest, expecting to even up on the 
failure of his "dusting brush," if it so resulted, and I was 
almost positive it would, The boys now announced that 
the boat was all ready, and so gathering up our tackle we 
tramped down an inclined road that was painfully rocky 
and soon reached the stanch old Mackinac, and then on 
boarding her crossed over to the main shore opposite, a 
distance of about SOOyds. 
The work of enticing commenced at once, and so full of 
hope were we that morning, and so trouty looked the 
rocky bottom, that we expected at every cast to see some 
tigerish trout break water around one or the other of our 
lures, mine being a Montreal and a Parmachenee-belle, 
while Ned's consisted of his grand creation, the "dusting 
brush," and a silver- doctor. After reaching a point which 
turns at a right angle and runs to the Aguawa, Ned had 
a tumultuous response at his red idol of red yarn which so 
completely encompassed it. 
"Ah, ah," says he, when he heard the tinkling melody 
of his silver reel, "what do you think of my red duster 
now?" 
"What I always did, a frightful fraud." 
"Indeed, but it tempts the trout." 
"That was simply accidental, and I'll bet the trout is a 
slovenly piece of painted patchwork." 
"Oh, he is a fright, is he; wait a bit and I'll show you a 
facsimile of the handsomest trout that swims or lurks in 
rocky crest or cranny." 
Wait I did, and when Ned after a gallant fight had his 
trophy boated he showed up with the sun gleaming on 
his ruby side, as matchless a piece of work in red and 
gold as ever swam with spangled bride in crescent pool 
or stemmed a rippling current o'er golden beds of sand. 
"What do you think of my beauty now?" 
"I think he is a zany to be taken in by your abortion of 
a fly." 
"Oh, you are dodging the question. His points of 
beauty, what of them?" 
"I don't think he would ever receive the golden apple 
in a prize show." 
"Hello, there," said Ned, as another infuriated trout 
lashed the water around bis gob of red, and then started 
off with it in his gory jaws as if he had a deep attach- 
ment for it, "don't the sunset scarlet take 'em in? This is 
accident No. 2, 1 presume." 
I was deaf to his piquant chattering and could see 
nothing but my sailing flies and their down dropping in 
the water. 
"I say," he continued, by way of further aggravation, 
"ain't he a lovely cherub? See that leap and now the des- 
perate dashl" 
"Say, Ned, pull in that fish and don't gabble so much. 
You'll frighten away everything that swims." 
And thus the good-natured chaflSng went on imtil 
finally I struck a goodly trout and had a most exciting 
battle with him. 
He was over 3lbs. and had an aflSnity for the Parma- 
chenee-belle, the most attractive fly on the lake. 
We fished awhile longer and then proceeded along the 
ragged shore, where the slopes, the serpentine ledges and 
the bosses of projecting rock interlarded with scanty soil 
display all the colors of the rainbow, and in the distance 
■ may be likened to a painter's palette. The bolder tints 
show up in maroon, purple and chocolate, with broad 
bands of white and gray that give toneful variety to the 
bold beauty of these rocky and incongruous formations. 
Finally reaching a big range of moas-covered rocks that 
ran in small parapets and which admitted of fishing there- 
from, we here went ashore and sought convenient posi- 
tions for casting. Ned selected a projecting point near 
where we landed, while I tramped to the very iQwest ex- 
tremity of the declivitous mass, 
Ned was fortunate enough to hang a 4lb, beauty to his 
streaming and bloody- red yarns, and was therefore much 
delighted at their success. More than ever was he in love 
with his carmined creation, and I finally began to believe 
that he had at last succeeded in making a first-class killer. 
My flies were not doing much in the way of coaxing, and 
I therefore concluded to take a look at them. My Par- 
machenee-belle was in poor condition, being frayed to 
rags, but Montreal had nobly stood the thrnshing it had 
received. My belle I discarded, and on looking over my 
book selected a scarlet-ibis. "This was approximating 
Ned's famous pet, for it was scarlet red, and that was the 
color that he so dearly caressed and of which he had so 
generously ladened bis red-ibis, believing that if a little is 
the thing more would be better, hence his woolen attach- 
ment in the shape of stringy streamers of blood-red dye. 
Having made the change, I stepped forward in position 
and soon had the carmined fly making lurid streaks 
through the balmy air as it sought the waters. The cast 
gave me a fierce rise and a 2-pounder, and then I be- 
gan to think somewhat as Ned did, "Any color so it is 
red." 
We caught no more here, but on taking the boat we 
moved further down the shore. Reaching some jagged 
rocks that were piled in the water in the most eccentric 
confusion, where the shadows on the hillsides made the 
green of the forest seem like large masses of chenille, we 
awoke a couple of trout that came racing after our flies 
like famished tigers. Ned caught one on his red flam- 
beau and the other came to my scarlet-ibis. Both fought 
like Trojan warriors, and both paid the forfeit of their 
insatiable greed to the patient anglers of the upper ele- 
ment. It was whiz and whip, deliver and recover, for 
at least a half an hour aroimd these disintegrated and 
gritty Grumblings of the adamantine shore, but no prince 
of the frescoed tribe arose to the glowing lures. We ad- 
vance till we see the fluttering tents at the mouth of the 
Aguawa, and then we strike another debris of fallen walls 
which had made numberless homes for the rose-colored 
and peach-flushed Adonis of the mountain stream. 
Here we gave ourselves completely up to the pleasures of 
the gentle art till time no longer ran like the few sands 
in a delicate hour glass held by a fragile human hand. 
Enthusiasm, heightened by the fascinating pictures around, 
carried us completely away. We thrashed the waters 
right and left, and rise after rise broke the surface where 
our flies fell with snowflake gentleness. I lost two mag- 
nificent trout after having them ready for the net, and 
Ned not only lost the same number, but missed many a 
response through imdue haste. 
"Oh my, a little slower," advised the tanny Kenosh, 
and then when one of my heavy weights escaped he cried 
out in deep distress, "Why don't you save the fish?" 
Patience, patience, my sun-browned boatman, here 
comes one, and a gallant fighter too; now he leaps, again 
he dashes and then he seeks some watery lair. Defeated 
in this, he starts out with but one purpose, and that to es- 
cape the wiles his unseen adversary has woven about him. 
The little slender wand bends like a weeping willow 
when he strives to tear out the cruel hook, and then again 
it so constantly pulls and guides him that he is expend- 
ing his vigor to no purpose. Ah I he will sever the tire- 
less thread upon a saber-edged rock, but he is again baf- 
fled, and now he hears the call of the execulioner and is 
slowly and surely being drawn to his sad fate. His last 
forlorn hope is in the lovely Naiads and Nereids who 
he thought were yester morn sporting here in the silver 
ripples; but now, alas, they are doubtless out among the 
snowy breakers combing their silken tresses and singing 
their entrancing songs to their proud sovereign Oceanus. 
With a last look at the golden fretted sky, he is impris- 
oned in a network of threads and consigned to another 
element, where he sleeps his life away, with the waters 
chanting his dirge and the wild shore flowers yielding in- 
cense to the blazing sun. 
"That all right, now catch other one that made big 
splash." 
"Is that him?" says Ned, who had just hung another to 
his flery fly, 
"Must be. Is he big?'* 
"Nothing leas than a 3-pounder," 
"Good, good, they now come." 
This was the last trout taken here. 
Alex. Starbuck. 
[to be continued.] 
THE NEW JERSEY COAST. 
AsBUEY Park, N. J., June 26.— The past week has 
brought joy supreme to the heart of the surf fishermen all 
along our coast. Striped bass are very much in evidence 
and are being taken at all the favorite points; particularly 
is this true of the inlets. Our piers are not favorite places 
of resort to the angler of experience this year, owing to 
the formation of sand flats in their immediate vicinity, 
caused by the erection of the jetties on the ocean front! 
Scill there are numerous sloughs all along from which 
good fish are being taken every day. It is extremely 
doubtful if there were ever more basR taken thus early in 
the season. As if more particularly to emphasize the 
never-ending vagaries of fish life, the exact reverse of 
favorable tidal conditions are in order. Heretofore the 
flood tide has been considered as the proper time for bass 
fishing, whereas now from half ebb to dead low water 
give the best results, fully 80 per cent, of the fish being 
taken at that time. 
The best versed among us are all at sea regarding the 
matter. 
"Happy the man who, studying nature's laws, 
Thro' known effects can trace the secret cause." 
Kingfish are with us in abundance and good catches 
are being made. They are now in their best possible con- 
dition, heavy with spawn, and their colorings are beauti 
f ul in the extreme. With all anglers they are a prime 
favorite, being glorious game, and one of the finest of 
table fish when properly prepared. They are now enter- 
ing the rivers and bays, and the angler would better pre- 
pare himself for their advent. They are always to be 
met with in the deepest water, and confine themselves 
apparently to the channels when feeding. They bite 
equally well day or night, and usually are best taken on a 
risuig tide. The novice will find there is much to learn 
to successfully cope with the kingfish, as his quick 
nervous strike requires continual alertness on the part of 
the angler, 
Weakfish are running pretty freely in inland tidal 
•waters; some good catches are being made in the Shrews- 
bury River, while at Barnegat fishing is good and the out- 
look for the future is most promising. 
Bluefish are being taken along the southern portion of 
the coast at all points where pound-nets are not used, as 
that system entirely precludes the possibility of taking 
them in their immediate vicinity. There is perhaps no 
fish shier of nets than the bluefish, besides the nets 
continually gather in all the bait fish, leaving the ad- 
jacent water entirely stripped of fish life. Notwithstand- 
ing the many obstacles in the way the angler has good 
promise that the season will be one of delight as regards 
surf and river fishing. Leonard Hulit. 
SALMON AND THE SINGLE TAX. 
Eestigouohe Salmon Clttb, Matapedia, Quebec.— Editor 
Forest and Stream: A big canoe with an athletic half- 
breed Indian at each end and a money-bags with a rod 
sitting in the middle. Out into the quick water above a 
great pool, in a river much like the Dalaware. The pole 
grates softly on the stony bottom; the Indian mutters 
some gutturals; down goes a heavy anchoring weight and 
the fisherman, standing up with his 14ft. of greenhear 
or epUt-bamboo, begins to cast. The little fly trails below 
the wake of the boat; a long brown back comes suddenly 
and quietly to the top of the ripple. One moment — do no 
strike him like a trout— the reel whirs, down sits the 
fisher with the butt of his rod on his stomach, already 
the anchor is up and the guide paddles toward shjre, 
watching intently to follow the great harmless fish in hi 
useless struggle. He dashes off, taking out the line so 
that the reel shrieks — he jumps; lower the rod tip, else 
he will get a purchase and smash everything. Now he 
tiring, reel up slowly, quicker, now quick! quick! he i 
coming this way. Hold up the rod and make him work 
against the strain and the current. At last the line is 
short— the salmon's belly rolls like a birch log in the dead 
water. Draw him in gently, gently, till the Indian get 
a long, sharp gaff hook under hira; he strikes— he 
25ilb8. of fish meat which cost you $250, 
Such is salmon fishing right at a railroad station, and 
where even a tyro may kill salmon at not less than $5 
per pound, and get exercise, health and amusement into 
the bargain. 
I am only a guest here— not a member, because that 
modest luxury costs $6 500 down and an annual club due 
of about $500; then there are other reasonslbesides. 
Most members stop three weeks each seasan, at a total 
cost of about $1,000 per year apiece. 
An illustration of single-tax principles is to be found 
here. The fishing lease of one river (the Cascapedia) was 
sold a few years ago for $100 per annum. A few of the 
Restigouche Club members have just taken a new lease of 
it from the Government for $6,000 a year. Our enlight- 
ened republic would have sold the land for a song and 
would not have the sense even to tax it afterward. 
Private possession with public ownership works well 
under this aristocratic Government, as it secures the pres- 
ervation of salmon from destruction on the spawning 
beds. 
On the other hand, a large river is "owned" by the pro- 
prietor of the land about it. He is a Boston gentleman, 
and has shrewdly bought up the netting privileges at the 
mouth o' his river — and discontinued the fisheries. 
The result is that his fly-fishing has improved, and the 
food supply and the demand for labor correspondingly 
diminished. 
That is the way to make "lower claaees," 
Bolton Hall. 
Cayuga Lake Fishing. 
Ithaca, N. Y. — No very alluring stories have reached 
me of bass fishing in Cayuga Like. A few weeks at most 
should disclose some first-class sport at variom bass 
grounds along the lake. The popular points for the sport 
may be checked off as L'idlowviile, twelve milt,« north of 
this city, on the east side; Union Springs, Sheldrake, and 
for some distance both north and south ot this latter place. 
Cayuga Lake, embraced by a lovely country, offers very 
many delightful attractions to the devoted angler who re- 
spects the stories which the winds and the waters and a 
varying landscape have to unfold, Leaviner Ithaca by 
boat or railway train, as he may elect, the traveler is con- 
fronted on either shore of the lake by fascinating bits of 
landscape. On the east rise rugged walls of rock packed 
by a dense growth of low-growing timber. The west 
shore, fringed by woodland, reaches out into a, land of 
charming country houses. 
A dozen miles northward and the wooded slopes disap- 
pear from the west shore, and splendid farms abut the 
water's edge. Steep, precipitous walls continue to crowd 
the east shore for a distance of fifteen or more mUes. At 
the very edge of the water twists and writhes and fairly 
doubles upon itself the tracks of the Auburn Branch of 
the Lehigh Valley R. R, Gradually the stern and rocky 
aspect of the east shore disappears, and the gently sloping 
shores roll back into a rich and beautiful farming country. 
Alternating stretches of scenery surprise and enthrall 
the observer from Ithaca at the head to Cayuga village at 
the foot of the lake. A trip up the lake in the early even- 
ing, including an unobscured sunset, will reveal to the 
angler a picture that will glow in his mind for many 
moons to come. 
In addition to the bass fishing, perch, pickerel and mus- 
callonge are to be taken in plenty. 
At the Ithaca end of the.lake, along the east shore, some 
excellent bass fishing was enjoyed last season. There 
seems to be no reason why the present season should not 
prove equally entertaining. M. Chill. 
The Moosllauke Leag^ue. 
Pike Station, N. H., June SO.— I send you under sepa- 
rate cover a copy of the constitution and by-laws of the 
Moosilauke Union Fish and Game League, concerning the 
organization of which I wrote you nearly two years ago. 
This league, I am glad to say, is prospering beyond the 
expectation of its founders. We have a membership of 
nearly 150, and have placed over 200,000 young trout in 
our local streams and ponds this season. We have closed 
for three years over fifty small trout brooks which serve 
as feeders for the larger streams of northern New Hamp- 
shire, and by the appointment of special detectives in dif- 
ferent sections are keeping the law very thoroughly en- 
forced, thereby insurmg fine trout fishing throughout 
Grafton county in the near future. E. B. P. 
