IBS 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
[Feb. 20, 1897. 
;may plead it as an excuse for forgetting the names of 
those ornaments of the profession. No names come up 
now but those of William Kidd, who was no more of a 
pirate than we Avere, and who was unfairly hanged in 
London; and Babe, who, I think, met the same fate on 
Bedloe' Island in New York Harbor, where the Liberty 
statue now stands. Babe was a sure enough pirate, but 
never attained the reputation that Kidd did, who wasn't 
even an amateur pirate. 
Returning to Albany in 1874, 1 wandered up in Beaver 
street to find Billy Shaw. His business had been closed 
out and a man told me that he had died same months be- 
fore. Van Voast died soon after, and Bell contracted a 
fever in Texas, where I sent him to hatch salmon, and 
died on his way North. Of the others I know nothing. 
Billy left a widow, but no children. I can see him now, a 
small man with a thoughtful face, which to those who 
knew him seemed to be concocting some joke. He was 
not a man of keen nor of subtle wit, for it needs some 
learning to polish and perfect such a mind, but he was a 
man with a love of harmless fun and with a coarse humor 
•which can best be illustrated by his getting Bell to sing 
that lugubrious basso song, "The Old Sexton," and m be 
sang the words: 
"He stooci. hy a grave that was newly made,. 
The sexton leaned on liis earth -worn spade," 
Shaw would interpolate a clog step: "Eat-a-tat-a-tat-tat, 
irat-a-tat," and so on throughout that dismal ditty. He was 
inot much more of a sailor than 1 when it is rough, and I 
.can heartily say with Douglas Jerrold: 
"Love the sea? I dote upon it — from the beach." 
FiiED Mather, 
ANGLING NOTES. 
Women A'pglers. 
'On every suitable occasion 1 have for many years advo- 
'cated angling for women, particularly fly-fishin?, and when 
they have placed themselves in competiiion with men, or 
rather when from force of circiimstancee thty have "been so 
placed, I have noticed that Ibey occupy a position close to 
\the front, even if they do not fill iht; first place. I thinK it 
was only last year that I mentioned in Ibis column that a 
;summary of salmon fishing in Ireland showed that the 
largest salmon killed the previous year was killed by a 
woman Readers of this journal will recall the fact that 
the record tarpon killed wiih rod (for I believe Senator 
Quay's fish was not) was killed by a woman. In looking 
over the notes made by John Enright, the world's champion 
fly-caster, of salmon over 401bs. m weight killi d at Castle 
vConnell, Ireland durmg the season of 1896, I flad that the 
largest fish weiahed iUlbs , and that a fish of 441hs., which 
came very near the top, was Jiilled by Mrs. A. C McCorqiio- 
dale. Women as fly-tyers exi-el, and why should tbey not 
excel as fly-fishers? Oae esperit nee always appears before 
my mind's eye whenever I ttink of women as anglers. 
I was at Parmachenee Lake in Mame, when .John Dan- 
forth was proprietor of Camp Caribou, and before the 
property passed into the ' possession of the Parmachenee 
Cluo. My neighbor at the table was a young woman who 
had accompanied her husband to the camp over the carries, 
one of them six and a half miles, and once there had seem- 
ingly nothing to do but read or stroll about the small island, 
nearly covered by the camp buildings and the standing 
trees,' while her husband was at one or another of the 
back camps, where Ihe fishing was belter than in 
the lake about the island. I thought her sympathy with her 
h.usband'8 sport, which led her, as it were, to sacrifice herself 
in her devotion to him, moit charming, and 1 was sure that 
there was a harp and a halo awaiting her as asaintin another 
world, if not in this. My f ..ce was burned after a trip up the 
Magalloway River, and my neighbor prescribe'l cold cream 
and furnished the cream, and I was sure I could see the halo 
growing about ner head,. I felt much sympatny that I could 
not express that ^he should be doomed day after day to be 
confined to that island, watching aloue, with nothmg to do 
hut watch the sky or read a book, while all the men were 
away enjoying the best of fishing. One afternoon I started 
after dinner with my guide to go down to Black Cat Brook, 
which comes into the iiver below th« lake, and I said to my 
neignbor, who had not only prescribed for my burned face, 
but had fuinished me with fly oil when I had none of my 
own, regret exceedingly that you have no inclination to 
fish, for at the sun goes down I think the trout will be feed- 
ing." I am not sure about the precise words in which I 
made a general ass of myscif by oftering her a seat in the 
boat provided she had been fond ol fishing, but she smiled 
hke a saint, and I went off like a st Ifish beast, taking it tor 
granted that she cared nutning about fishing 
There is no occasion for ine to r^fer to my fishing journal 
to find what I caught that afternoon, lor I remember well 
that I caught all the trout that it was proper for me to kill, 
and that one fish weighing 2oz. under Slbs. jumped from the 
water twice after it was hooaed on a Montreal fly. That 
was one of the very few brook trout that I have known to 
jump out of the water after it was hooked. 
Returning to camp about sundown, I was very well satis- 
fied witu myself, and JVlarshall Linnell, the guide, was 
quietly padoling the boat along the shore wnen, as we 
rounded a point and got a view of the lake neai-ly opposite 
the camp, where a brook came in from the east, I was 
astonished to oiscover a woman standing in a boat and cast- 
ing a fly like a past grand m-xster of the art. Marshall must 
have been as surprised as I was, for he ceased paddling and 
in silence we watched the caster. It was my neighbor and 
jshe was alone anl unconscious of spectators, and made a 
most charming picture of independence and skill as she cast 
her flies as gracefully as it is poss^ible to imagine. It was 
not tournament casting, it was fly-fishing in the hrghest 
degree of excellence, and it was catching as well as fisning. 
I would have been glad had there been some back way for 
me to sneak into camp by going around one of the moun- 
tains, where no one couid see me I had actually felt 
sympathy for this woman because she had no inclinatron to 
fish when big trout were to be had for the casting, and 
doubtless showed it in my manner when I had given her an 
invitation with a string to it to go fishing, and here she was 
fisfilng equal to the best of the anglers gathered at the camp, 
and far more gracefully, and she did not require a guide or 
the assistance of any man to paddle her boat urland her fish. 
My self- satibfaction oozed out at my fiugtro' ends and I hope 
that I showed it, and as boldly as 1 could I congratulated 
my fair neigobor upon her skill and went on to camp, I 
can always recall the picture of the fair fly-casier, and the 
lesson that this incident taught me will remain as a warning 
never to take It for granted that a woman cannot fish be- 
cause she does not parade the fact after the manner of men 
who fish. 
Parmachenee-Belle. 
The Parmachenee-helle is one of the best flies ever tied that 
does not pretend to represent an insect of some sort. Mr. H. 
P. Welh has told how he came to design the fly during a 
nooning with that prince of woodsmen, John Danforth, on 
one of the Maine lakes near Parmachenee (not Parmacheene, 
as it is so often spelled), and that it is perhaps as much like 
the belly fin of a trout as anything else. 
I have found the fly good tor trout and black bass, and a 
standard fly in many waters Last year I found that the fly 
was cot sidered one of the very best for trout in the waters of 
the Triton Club 
Last season the steelhead trout were for the first time 
planted in the waters of New York State, having been 
brought from the Pacific coast and hatched by the Fisheries, 
Game and Forest Commission. The fry of the steelheads 
were planted on Long Island and in Lake George, and the 
qu stioa is often asked if the steelheads are a game fish and 
if they will take the fly. 
A Canadian salooou fisherman, who has caught the stgeU 
head in British Columbia, says they take the fly readily, and 
on the hook are as game as a salmon in a Cmadian river. 
A correspondent of Land and Water, wri ing from Britich 
iColumbia, s'jys: "I do not thick the trout in the rivers of 
interior British Columbia feed very much, if at all, on small 
fry. I have never noticed them striking at them as do the 
trout in England, and out of several hundreds which I have 
seen opened I have never observed anything like a small fish 
inside them. They appear to be full of larvae and salmon 
roe. Neither have I seen a trout over about lib in weight 
rise to a natural fly; and I think the big ones only take the 
artificial fly, like Jack-Scott and Parmachenee-belle, pre- 
sented to them as salmon do in the old country, viz., out of 
curiosity. The Parmachenee-belle, by the way, is a very 
killing fly in Briash Columbia waters, although it would 
scarcely attract the trout in E glatd." 
If the steelheads ha^e a fondness for the Parmachenee- 
beJle they will fiad the lure ready for them when they have 
grown to catchable size. 
Sunken Files for BIr Trout. 
One expression in the article I have quoted brought back 
to me a matter I had almost forgotten. This is the expres- 
sion: "Neitner have 1 seen a trout over about lib. in weight 
rise to a natural fly." 
Before I went to Maine Mi'. Wells told me that he had 
never known of a big trout taking a fly on the surface. I 
think he said a trout over 21bs. m weight. To catch the big 
trout the fly must be allowed to sink 1 or 3in., and then 
drawn beneath the surface. I practiced this slvle of fishing 
at Parmachenee and at Rangeiey almost entirely, for I was 
sine Mr Wells had investigated the matter thoroughly, as it 
is his custom to go to the root of any subj et, and natui ally all 
the large trout I caught were caught in this way; but from 
the time I did my last fishing in Maine I cannot recall that 1 
deliberately^made a practice ot fishing w^ith a sunken fly. In 
Canada, where large trout grow, I never thought of sinking 
the flies (in Maine i used but one fly), but fished them on the 
surface, and the fishing wasguod enough. If it is my good 
fortune to fish on the Triton Club tract next September I 
will try and remember to try one good-sized fiy and sink it 
below the surface to see if it will take larger trout than when 
the fly is drawn on the surface. 
Brown Trout. 
A correspondent, Mr. E. W. Raymond, writes: "Will you 
give us, through FoiiEST and Stream, information in regard 
to German lake truut? Do they require about the same feed 
and temperature of water as our native lake trout, and to 
what size do they generally grow? with any other informa- 
tion in regard to them." 
There is no fish that I know of called the German lake 
trout The first eggs received in this country of the com- 
mon brook trout of Europe came from Germany, and the 
fish, now quite common in this country, are sometimes 
called the German, or German brown trout. Brown trout is 
the name commonly applied to the fish in England, although 
they are called yellow trout in Scotland. In Germany they 
are called brook trout. If this is the fish, and without fur- 
ther information I must assume that it is, they require prac- 
tically the same food as our native brook trout, but moie of 
it, as they grow faster and to a greater size. They will bear 
a slightly higher temperaiure than our native brook trout 
and it is not good policy to plant the brown trout in small 
streams with our native trout. The European fish grows to 
a weight of over 201bs. and in this country uas been called a 
cannibal; but this is also true of our native brook trout 
under the same conditions that make the brown trout a can- 
nibal. Mr. Marston — and there can be no firmer advocate of 
the brown trout — "Walton's trout" — says: "To attempt to 
stock American streams with brown trout which are akeady 
stocked with native brook trout seems to be unnecessary, if 
not unwise. * * * In England the finest trout are found 
in the slo.w streams watering the richest parts of the coun- 
try, streams flowing through old-fashioned villages and 
quaint country towns. The better cultivated the land and 
water is, tne better the trout will thrive. * * * Given 
fairly pure running water and our trout do well anywhere if 
they have a good supply of food " 
This I consider tne best information that can be given in 
regard to the brown trout. Too often the mistake has been 
made of planting the brown trout in smalt mountain trout 
streams. They are a fish of rapid growth and require an 
abundance of food, if planted m large, slow flowing 
streams, or in lakes from which the native trout has been 
fished out and the conditions have changed to make it un- 
wise to restock them, the brown trout will doubtless prove 
satisfactory. 
Texas Tarpon FlshinR. 
Some months ago I quoted in this journal from some let- 
ters written by my rriend, Mr. William D. Cleveland, of 
Houston, Tex , concerning tarpon fishing in Texas waters, 
and FoBEST akd Stream reproduced a photograph of Mr. 
Cleveland and a tarpon which he caught foul-hooked after a 
long struggle. At the close of one of the letters I suggested 
that the Texas method differed apparently from the one em- 
ployed in Florida, for Mr Cleveland referred to a float on 
his line, and intimated that he might wi h profit to ail con- 
cerned explain his method of fishing in Texas. 
i have just received a letter fi:om Mr. Cleveland, in which 
he says: "My buainess has kept me so constantly occupied 
the past season that I have had no time to write even about 
tarpon fishing. I have had a number of outings after tarpon 
since writing you, and have caught several, and wish i now 
had time to give you a full description of one big fellow of 
about 1561b8. that I got hold of. His antics were far beyond 
those of any other tarpon that I have hooked, and after he 
had run under my boat two or three times and jumped over 
my head as many times more, I concluded that it was wiser 
to stand up in the boat, so if he struck me it would be in the 
legs and not in the head. I had rowing for me a Mexican 
whose complexion was some wn at darker than my own, and 
when the fish first jumped over the boat between me and 
him he turned as white as a sheet, and I actually 
sympathiz' d with the fellow as he sat shivering with fear, 
almost unable to handle the oars as he was directed. This 
fish jumped clean out of the water on to the bank and rolled 
back twice I lost him at last by his running around some 
bridge timbers and breaking the line. I did not know how 
they did fish for tarpon until a friend sent me a St Lours 
paper with an account of Piorida tarpon fishing in it They 
do not fish for tarpin in Florida as we do here, for I never 
before heard of fishing on the bottom with dead bait, such 
as is mentioned in the article Besides, I do not think it 
would give as much sport as trolling or still-fishing with live 
bait, i use a regular tarpon rod and reel such as I have 
described to you. Just above the leader in still fishing I 
attach a cork which keeps the live mullet near the surface of 
the water, and when the tarpon takes it, it is with such a 
splash and with such force that it makes the blood tingle 
from the tip end of the toe nails to the lip end of the fioger 
nails and the tip end of each particular hair. Besides it is 
so startling that one never entirely recovers during the whole 
fight of the fl^h. It is the same way in trolling, tbe bait is 
near the surface and you have toe same experience. I 
believe one would have more success fishing the way they 
do in Florida (that is, they would land more fish because 
they would more certainly hook them securely than in 
the method we employ), but I would rather catch a dozen 
tarpon on my hook, play them for half an hour and lose 
them, than to have the trouble aod work of landing ooe, 
because after half an hour or so it becomes very hard work 
and the sport is pretty well over." 
Black Bass Through the Ice. 
My friend Dr. J no. D. Quackenbos sends me a newspaper 
clipping, with what is apparently a tehgrapb item, dated 
Exeter, N. H., announcing that Wen. E. Rjbinson while 
fidhing through the ice at Little Pond, Kingston, N. H., 
caught a small-mouth black bass of 4ilbs. in weight. The 
item gives further information as follows: 
"So far as recorded, this is the first black bass ever caught 
through the ice in winter, and scientists have declared that 
the bass hibernates, burying iu the mud and there remaining 
dormmt until spring 
"Dr. Henshall in his treatise declares that he has yet to 
learn of a black bass ever caught through the ice, except in 
the early spring when tbe ice was breaking up. 
"Dr. 'D C Estes, a Minnesota authority, and G C. Scott 
declare to the same eli ct, and a Smithsonian Institution re- 
port says black bass are never caught in winter." 
The person who pruned that item could not have been a 
constant reader of Fobest and Stream, or he or she would 
have known that, in spite of the authorities quoted, a 
great many small mouth black bass have been caught 
through the ice. It is true that b'ack bass congregate 
in the fall as cold weather approaches, and pass the 
winter in a partially dormant condition, but not neces- 
sarily in the mud. They have betn kmwn to bury 
themselves in the mud, but as a rule, ir the cond lion? obtain, 
they gather in bunches among boulders or broken rocks 
in deep water. They have been found in a hollow log in the 
water, but it does not follow that they always resort to hol- 
low logs. Fishermen who know where the bass congregate 
on the deep shoals can and have caught them through the 
ice, as 1 related m this column a year or so ago, and it is for 
this reason that the Fisheries, Game and Forest Commission- 
ers have recommended a close season for this fish to end on 
Oct. 15. 
The bass can be caught if the baited hook is placed 
before their noses even when they are hibernating, as it is 
called ; but they afford no sport. Only last tali, iu one of the 
New Tork lakes, the largest catch of black bdss of the season 
was made after the bass Jiad gone into winter quarters, and 
it was so the fall btfore. and it was r.bout that time that the 
large string of big bass was c ught through the ice, as I re- 
lated. I have never caught black bass through the ice, for I 
never fished for them at such a time; but i did once fish for 
them just before the ice formed. It was with M.r. Cleveland, 
whose letter I quoted in the preceding note. For several 
years we had been to Brant Lake, in northern New York, 
for black bass ; but one year we spent the summer in West 
Virginia and in the fall went to Maine, and finally to Lake 
Champlain; so that it was late in October and quite cold 
when ne said he would like to go to Brant befoie he turned 
back to Texas. We both realized that it was far too late for 
good bass fishing, but the journey was a pleasant one, with 
the fall foliage one mass "of brilliant color, such as is not 
given to a Texan as a home attraction, and we packed our 
fishing tackle and started. 
When we reached the "bass pavilion" of Uncle Ben Hays 
the fishermen had long before deserted it, and tha fishing 
was over for the season. 
We fished the waters, with which we were perfectly famil- 
iar, a whole day without getting a single bass bite, and the 
next day I began sounding the lake to find a mass of sunken 
rocks and thus half a day was spent, but we found what we 
were searching for, and in the afternoon began to fish. 
Baiting our hooks with minnows, we lowered them into the 
crevices of the rocks or between the big boulders, and finally 
we got faint nibbles, and that was all we did get; but such 
nibbling and mouthing of minnows I never knew before that 
day by any kind of a fish Besides minnows we had for bait 
larvae of the darning-needle, which had been sent to a fisher- 
man at the hotel, and arriving atter his departure Uncle Ben 
had kept them in wet "eel grass" and turned them oyer to us 
after we arrived. Baiting our hooks with the "what is it," 
as the larva was called, the same nibbling was practiced 
down among the rocks by the bass until one wearied of it. 
It was nibble and strike, nibble and strike, nibble, nibble, 
nibble! Once in a while we would hook a bass, and when 
this happened the fighting, game black bass would come to 
the landing net with just as much play as a dead and salted 
codfish. There is nothing about this kind of fishing which 
even remotely resembles sport; it is meat hunting pure and 
simple, and if a man is starving and can get food in no other 
way he wuuld be foohsh not to avail himself of feeling for 
bass in the rocks with a hook. It is burning the candle at 
both ends with a vengeance to catch bjack oass through the 
month of June when they are spawning and brooding their 
