SBO 
[April 24, 189?, 
had any particular use for pike as a game fisb. Young 
puppies, and snakes, aiad lizards, and kittens, and duck- 
lings may be excellent baits in their way, but as a 
rule an artificial fly is good enough for me, although 
if anyone has a hankering to catch big pike with 
imitation ducklings, I have given the tip as I found 
it. I do not know but I migbt, if I were starving, 
bait a hook with a young mouse to catch a big trout, but it 
would be after everything else had failed. A trout that 
will take a live young mouse will take something else, and 
why not fish with something else, and the same with the 
pike? I have no such feeling about crayfish for bait, but 
my friend Mr. W. D. Cleveland has. We were at Brant 
Lake fishing for black bass, and soon after our respective 
boats had left the landing I heard an argument in the 
boat between him and his guide. It seems that the only 
baits they had provided were crayfish and minnows. Mr. 
Cleveland wished to use crayfish and would not touch 
them himself, nor would the guide, and at once there was 
trouble, and we had to change guides. That is not a paral- 
lel case, however, to the other baits I have mentioned, for 
crayfish are natural baits and the other things I have 
mentioned are unnatural as I look at them. 
An Adirondack Lake in Sprinsr. 
If this were a theater programme it would probably read, 
"Two days are supposed to elapse between the last note 
and this one.'' I wrote "the last of May" very late one 
night and the next day I was going by express train up 
into the Adirondack, region. Now, as I am again writing 
late at night, with all the windows lowered, as a warm rain 
falls outside, I can scarcely realize that only yesterday, 
with a fur coat enveloping me, I was walking on snow 4il. 
deep, and that the beautiful trout lake I visited was cov- 
ered with ice 12in. thick and firm enough to bear a pair of 
horses and a loaded sleigh. When I left the railroad it 
was a fairly warm spring day and dust was flying in clouds. 
The next morning it was, if anything, warmer, and when 
the horses came to the door it did not seem possible that 
a fur overcoat would be comfortable before night, for I had 
been casting with a fly over on that lawn only the even- 
ing before. I'he road was dusty as it led up into the 
mountains, then it became moist and finally muddy. 
Patches of snow appeared behind the rocks and on the 
north sides of the hills, and the mud became deeper and 
water from melting snow was running beside the road 
where there are no brooks in summer. Finally great 
banks of snow were encountered by the side of the road, 
and at last the road was found drifted full of snow and we 
had to go through a fence into a field to get around the 
drift, for the horses could not make their way through it; 
but the road was clear again and the horses drew us up 
higher and higher until the lake was reached and they 
could go no further, for there was snow all around, even in 
the road that led around the lake that indicated plainly 
"No thoroughfare." 
Last fall the trout had spawned in large numbers just at 
the outlet of the lake, and the question was: Would the 
high water and swift current at the outlet send the young 
fish as they hatched down the outlet stream, or could they 
be retained in the lake to show the effects of fish planting 
in the lake? The water was very high, and there was 
snow enough to make it much higher without any assist- 
ance from possible rains. In two hours' time that lake was 
being drawn down, gradually but surely, to something like 
its normal condition, and there was a gentle flow at the 
outlet that would not harm even a young trout just 
hatched, and tempt it to stray away down stream from 
the observation of men who wished simply to see how fast 
it *would grow, and who had no desire to cut short its 
growth by catching it; for there are other trout to catch 
and kill in other lakes. A few trout were seen just at the 
outlet of the lake, where current and sun together had 
worn away the ice, but it is evident that a spawning bed 
will have to be manufactured for the trout ftirther away 
from the outlet. 
Smelts for Trout and Salmon. 
Last season I arranged with Fish Commissioners in New 
England to obtain some eggs of the landlocked smelt this 
spring, to plant the fish and establish them in some of the 
New York lakes, where they will serve as food for trout 
and landlocked salmon, and frorU which they can be trans- 
planted to other New York waters. ' AH experiments show 
that wherever the smelt can be established the salmon will 
thrive, and in that way salmon waters can be determined 
beyondadoubt, judging froni the experiments in New Eng- 
land lakes. 
Commissioner Stanley, of Maine, writes me; "I think I 
can obtain the smelt eggs for you this spring, and I have 
a large number of ponds in Maine that I must stock with 
smelts._ I have also promised e^s to the New Jersey Fish 
Commission and the State of Connecticut. 
"I have made arrangements to have men on the grounds 
with boxes all ready for packing, and if we have the 
usual run of smelts there will be no trouble about getting 
the eggs. At the place tvhere we take them we get eggs 
from two varieties of smelts, one large and the other small. 
The small one is about 4in. long, the large one 10 to 14in. — 
larger than the Salt-water smelt. There is some danger in 
transporting the eggs, especially in warm weather on long 
distances, but we have no trouble in Maine, and; have 
hardly failed in a single instance. 
"Moosehead and the Eangeleys are now full of smelts, 
and all the work done in' six years. Since the smelt ap- 
peared the salmon have improved wonderfully in size 
and condition. They scarcely look hke the same fish, and 
the trout are also better in'the same respects. I think to 
get the best results with the salmon it is very necessary to 
have the smelt. With the smelt, I believe the salmon 
can be raised in any deep-water pond where trout cannot 
live' on account of high temperature. * * There 
are only a few days during which smelt eggs can be ob- 
tained: the last of April and the first week in May— prob- 
ably.' You of course' know how to handle the eggs. You 
put then! in a gentle current at the bottom of a brook 
flowing into a lake it is desired to stock, and near the 
mouth of the brook. They all disappear in a few days, 
so I think they hatch in two or three weeks. If you look, 
sharp you will see the young fish gathered in schools near 
the mouth of the brook, but they are so small that it is 
difficult to see them. In Maioe I And the same smelts 
vary much in_ size. In some lakes they are too small for 
live bait, while in another lake close by they attain a 
growth of 10 to 12in." 
As there is but one species of smelt, the size of the adults 
must be regulated by the quantity of food the fish obtain. 
That spawning smelts of two different sizes are taken, one 
of 4in. and the other up to 10 or 12in., is explained in my 
mind by the possibility that the small fish may be two- 
year-old fish spawning for the first time and the larger fish 
are adult smelts. I say the possibility because last fall I 
picked up smelts on the shore of Sunapee Lake, N. H., 
that had been thrown up on the sand by the high winds. 
There were three sizes of smelts: First, the hatch of the 
previous spring, as near as I can measure them in a bottle 
on my desk, 2^in. long; second, smelts 3iin. long, which 
were hatched the spring of the year before; these fish 
had tmdeveloped spawn and would cast their spawn this 
spring, when they would be two years old and about 4in. 
or a little more in length; third, adult smelts, 8, 9 or lOin. 
long. There were comparatively few of the larger smelts 
thrown up on the beach, as they were stronger than the 
others and could work off" shore in a blow. The New 
Hampshire Commissioners place twigs cut for the purpose 
in the streams where the smelts spawn, and when the eggs 
are deposited naturally and adhere to the twigs the twigs 
and eggs are packed in moss and shipped. At Cold Spring 
Harbor, a station of the Fisheries, Game and Forest Commis- 
sion, salt-water smelts are hatched in the hatchery. The 
adult fish are caught when they run up stream at night to 
spawn (the only time they do run for this ptirpose) and 
are placed in an ordinary trough covered over to exclude 
the light, and there the fish spawn naturally. The iija- 
pregnated eggs are then gathered from the bottom of the 
trough and passed through a fine sieve to separate them, 
as they are held together by a fine thread, so that they 
make a mass without being what ai-e called glutinous 
eggs. After separation, although they may have to be 
passed through the meshes of the sieve more than once, 
and the treatment does them no harm, the eggs are placed 
in a McDonald jar and they hatch in about thirty days. 
In the hatchery the eggs must be secluded; from the sun- 
light or they will die, but in the brooks the eggs are de- 
posited where the sunlight must strike them. 
Mr. Stanley's statement that landlocked salmon can be 
made to thrive in waters with a temperature too high for 
brook trout will be read with more than ordinary interest, 
for at first thought it seems almost revolutionary, but he is 
an authority on the subject and what he says cantiot be 
questioned. 
Smelts seek the coldest water to be found in the New 
Hampshire lakes, where I have paught them colder than 
the water in which trout are found, but they may also bear 
warmer water, as Mr. Stanley intimates. 
Fly-Casting Records, 
It is not well to be hypercritical in matters relating to 
sport, and in what I shall say I do not mean to be; but in 
reviewing the fly-casting tournament in Madison Square 
Garden a writer in a sportsman's publication says: "Another 
necessity is a tank large enough to accommodate a record 
cast. It is perhaps not too much to say that Thomas Mills 
lost his record of 110ft. 9Jin. by reason of the shortness of 
the tank. He cast beyond the flight of steps at the end of 
the tank and into the space occupied by an exhibit of taxi- 
dermy. What happened to the fly when it struck the 
flooring is not known, if it was on then, but it was not on 
the leader when the judges got to it." 
My sympathy is wholly with Mr. Mills, for no one ex- 
cept Mr. Mills himself could have desired more earnestly 
that the cast should have remained a record than the 
writer of this note, but I do not believe that Mr. Mills wilk 
accept this explanation of his failure to score his great 
cast, which would have been a world's record. My idea is 
that it was not the shortness of the tank which operated 
against a record cast so much as it was the lack of room 
behind the caster for the back cast, for the caster stood on 
a movable box on the platform ^hich could have been ad- 
justed to suit the tank in a record cast of 110ft. had there 
been room behind it. But that is not the point I wish to 
make. The writer I have quoted says: "What happened 
to the fly when it struck the flooring is not known, if it 
was on then." I maintain that the fly in that cast did not 
strike the flooring; if it had done so" it would have been 
on when the "judges got to it." Flies are not lost on the 
forward cast, but on the back cast, and I think Mr. Mills 
will admit that his fly was off before he completed 
his forward cast. If the fly had struck the floor- 
ing, attached to the leader, it would have made a, 
record, for the very fact that the fly struck the flooring 
would have constituted the record, no matter what became 
of the fly afterward, for when the fly struck the cast was 
complete. The rule says that "the fly and leader in each 
contest must be intact at the time of record by the judges." 
For the time being the flooring took the place of the water 
in the tank, and usually the judges do not ''get to the fly" 
after it has fallen, for they are there to n,pte where it falls 
before it can be withdrawn for a new cast, wlaich may be 
in an instant of time. Mr. .J. J, Hardy, of England, who 
was two years ago the world's champion, has already writ- 
ten to me for particulars qf the tournaiment, and other 
foreign anglers and fly-cajSters are interested in what was 
done over here, and to my mind what I have quoted gives 
the impression that our tournaments may not be conducted 
as they have been heretofore, if. there is any doubt in the 
minds of the speqtatpr^ what has become of the fly at the 
end of a cast, or whether it was on or not, when it proves 
to be missing at; the. time the judges saunter, up to exr 
amine it. 
The tournaments are, conducted in the same old way, and 
flies, snap off on the_ back cast jifst as they have had a., 
habit of doing ever since there were, flies and back casts. 
If there is any mystery abouti the business it is that more 
flies are not lost at the tournaments when such great casts 
are made. 
The Big Trout ofj the Show. 
One morning during the Exposition the editor of this 
journal asked me to look at a mounted trout in the Loan 
Collection and tell him what it was. I did look at it, but 
I cannot now find the memorandum I made, and am not 
sure as to what the legend over the fish read. It may have 
been "A Brook Trout," "A Big Brook Trout," or something 
of that sort; anyway it gave me to understand that the fish 
was exhibited as a brook trout,, and by brook trout I un- 
derstand a fish to mean a Salvelinm fonUnulis and nothing 
else. Later I told the editor that I could not tell him 
what the fish really was, butit was tto^ a brook trout {fon- 
Unalis), ^nA 1 also told him that I thought I had seen the 
fish before. Of course about having seen it previously I 
was not positive, but I thought if I had seen it before it 
was in a case and marked 13 Jibs. At the last show it was 
not it a case — provided it was the same fish— and it had a' 
fresh coat of paint apparently, and the markings were 
those of the foniinalts— that is, the markings made with 
paint. 
The scales and the teeth were plainly telling the paint 
that it was mistaken, and as nature made the teeth and 
the scales they seemed to have the best of the man who pui 
on the paint in the form of spots, etc., like the fonUnalh. 
I afterward saw a real foniinalis skin mounted in a 
Broadway store, and the owner and I drifted, in 
our conversation, to the big trout in the Loan 
Collection. I told him I thought it was our 
old friend at the first show of ISJlbs., and that 
reminded him that he had seen a trout of about 
that size in Chicago during the World's Fair. It was fresh 
then on the ice in a market, and was called a brook trout 
and so pronounced by a medical man and well-known 
angling writer, until his attention was called to certain 
peculiarities not possessed by the brook trout. Then the 
label was changed to read "Montana Trout." I asked Dr. 
Bean if he would go to the Garden and examine the fish 
and say what he thought about it. He did so, and writes 
me: "You ask me about the big trout skin at the Sports- 
men's Ex;position. I examined it as carefully as I could 
under the circumstances and still believe it to be a Dolly 
Varden {8. mrdma). You know how difficult it is to 
identify mounted trout; I could not find teeth at the root 
of the tongue because that part of the fish was removed^ 
but all the other characteristics of malma are present. The> 
size is above the average of Dolly Varden, except in north- 
ern waters, where it has easy access to marine pastures."' 
I ought to explain that in discussing the fish with Dr. Bean 
before he saw it I suggested that it might be a purptbratm, 
red-throat trout, but he inclined to the belief that it was 
more likely to be a Dolly Varden, with which I am not at 
all familiar. Dr. Bean has seen them a-plenty in the West 
and in Alaska, and for one I accept his statement as the 
correct identification of the fish, and that is all I can say 
about the brook trout which is not a brook trout. 
Gut. 
It is not so many years ago that I intimated veiy plain- 
ly in an article in Forest and Stream that our friends- 
across the sea had the first whack at the gut crop, and con- 
sequently we on this side rarely found in our markets ther 
very highest grade of gut, either as to length or thickness.. 
At the same time, I said the reason for this was that there- 
was no demand over here for the very heavy or the extra long; 
and fine gut. This did not please a gut dealer in England,^ 
and he assured me in this journal that he had furnished 
some very good gut to an American dealer, and printed a 
letter of the American dealer to prove it. As the informa- 
tion conveyed in the two letters had nothing whatever to- 
do with what I had stated, for all our tackle dealers are; 
constantly importing very good gut, I do not know whatr. 
was proven by the two letters in question, as they asserted 
what any one would admit, and did not show that we had 
any of the giit I had specially mentioned. 
At the Fisheries Exhibition at the Royal Aquarium, 
England, there was shown last month some gut at ,i)12,5(> 
per 100 sti-ands, and it would lift a dead weight of ISlbs.- 
Another dealer exhibited some fine gut, the strands being. 
our 4fym. in length, "Equal in quality to that of the finest 
ordinary gut." 
This gut was obtained "by specially cultivating the finest! 
'Grecia' silk worms, and making the gut from the largesfc 
specimens thus obtained." Just as a matter of curiosity I. 
would like to know how much gut is sold in this country 
the strands of which are over 3ft. 4in, long, and how much' 
gut at $12.50 per 100 strands that wUl lift ISibs. deadi 
weight. 
The gut that I particularly wrote about when my Eng- 
lish friend sent over the certificate that he had sold some- 
good gut in this country, cost, so Mr. Cholmondeley-Pen- 
nell said, $25 to |35 per hundred strands at wholesale. 3 
never have seen much of this gut over here, but if there- 
was a demand for it doubtless the gut would be forth- 
coming. 
Walton's Chest. 
It was generally believedi I think, that everything relat- 
ing to the life of Izaak Walton had been printed in one ore 
another of the hundred and more editions of the "Com- 
plete Angler," and that all his belongings that existed had* 
been traced to their resting place; but it remained for the- 
editor of the 12l8t edition of Walton's book to bring out' 
something new, although it was discovered by the artisti. 
who illustrated the book. The 121st edition of Walton' 
was edited by Mr. Richard Le Gallienne, and illustratedi 
by Edmund H, New. The book_ contains an illustration' 
of Walton's marriage chest, which bears the following: 
inscription: 
IZA.AK WALTQN-RACHEL FLOUD. 
JOYNED TOGETHER IS 5a; HOLIE BONDB. OP •WEDLOCKIO Olf TE 27TH 
, DAIE OF. DECBMBRE, A. 16i6 D. 
We oime were two, we two made ODe; 
■Ws no more two, tti'ougli ]ife be one. 
This attracted the attention of that very genial gentle-- 
man and charming writer, Mr. Edward Marston, father' 
of Mr. R. B. Marston, who edited the sumptuous lOOth- 
edition of "Walton." He had heard of the old clock, 
which makes no other claim to have been Izaak- 
Walton's than that it bears somewhere on it the initials ' 
"I. W.," but in the chest, which he as,sumed to be the • 
"trunk of linen" left by Walton in his will to his son' 
Izaak, he fancied a real discovery had been made and' 
wrote to the artist asking about it, and received the follow- 
ing reply: "The finding of Walton's marriage chest was an* 
accident. A cousin of mine was sketching sometime ago ' 
at' Warwick Castle, and the housekeeper took her over the • 
private rooms to see the old furniture, pictures, etc. The 
chest stood in rather a dark passage, but she happened to ■ 
catch the name Walton on it as she passed, and knowing I' 
was illustrating 'The Compleat Angler," she told me of it.- 
Last autumn I wrote to Lord Warwick asking for permis-- 
sion to see the chest, and make a drawing of it ; it seemed ' 
really genuine. He replied that he was unaware that he ' 
had such a chest, but I was quite at liberty to draw it if I" 
could find it." 
Judging from the reproduction, the chest appears to be 
beautifully carved and paneled. The center panel in front 
represents (I judge) Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, 
and the inscriptions I have quoted are above and below 
