Jtoy 10, 1897.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
27 
show Murphy's trend of thought and give a mental as well 
as a physical picture of the man. I met him in New York 
ahout as often as I visited the city, but fished no more with 
him until the day when Prank Satterthwaite and I found 
iim at Greenwood Lake, curled up in agony in the road 
from an over-indulgence in buttermilk, as has been related. 
Notwithstanding all Frank's attempts to switch off Murph, 
as he called him, I got the story of the building of the first 
complete split-bamboo rod and took notes of it. The man 
who made the first one should be credited with it, especially 
as he did not patent this great improvement. Young anglers 
of to-day may never have thought how recent this invention 
is, nor what an improvement on rod making Dame Juliana 
Berners would have thought it; but let Murphy tell the 
story. 
' Ever since I can remember, the Southern cane poles have 
been shipped up here for fishing purpotes, and they are 
light, cheap and far ahead of anything that can be cut in 
Northern woods when a man starts without a rod. They 
seldom exceed a foot between the leaf joints and are of no 
use to a rod maker, but often one can get quite a good one 
with an even curve and fair action, but unless kept in a 
cellar, or other damp place, it is no good the next season, 
becoming brittle and losing its elasticity. 
"In 1848 Sam Phillippi, a gunsmith at Easton, Pa., got 
hold of some Calcutta bamboo, used and sold some for 
fishing rods in the natural state. This cane was long, 
slim and tapered, with greater distance between the leaf 
joints, which, you know, show elevated rings on the outside 
and have a diaphragm across the hollow. Haven't you cut 
into them and seen this?" 
"Tes, and made fifes from the joints in boyhood days, 
leaving one end with its natural stop." 
"Well, Sam Phillippi wanted a jointed rod, so he fitted 
ferrules and made his tip and second joint of the Calcutta 
bamboo and the butt of some other wood, but he never split 
the cane as we do now. I saw one of his rods which had 
an ash butt, and I tiested the spring of the'rod and liked it. 
I showed the rod to Mr. E. A. Green, of Newark, and he 
got some Calcutta bamboo and made a rod of three pieces 
for his own use, of carefully selected material, and it was an 
extra good rod for its day. Then we talked the matter over. 
Says 1, 'There is a lot of waste material in that rod, and the 
joints in the cane are no good,' and so it came about that I 
split the cane, only into four parts at first, shaved down the 
pulpy inside and glued the pieces together, and had a rod 
that was springy enough to cast a fly and had the backbone 
to fight a salmon." 
"When was this?" 
"It was in 1883. I soon found that four strips left too 
much pulp on the inside, for the strength is all in the enamel, 
and I made rods of six and eight strips. The latter are too 
small to work accurately, but the six-strip was received 
with favor by such anglers as Frank Endicott, Genio C, 
Scott, Robert B. Roosevelt, and others. Two years later I 
made a salmon rod and Mr. Andrew Clerk took it to Scot- 
land, where it attracted much attention. Mr. Clerk gave 
this rod to Genio C. Scott, who took it up to the St. Law- 
rence River and kiUed some big pike and mascalonge with 
it, and wrote it up in the sportsmen's papers of the day, 
which gave the new make of rod great popularity. Then, 
in 1866, 1 made a split-bamboo bait-rod for black bass and 
arranged with the firm of Andrew Clerk & Co. to sell my 
rods, which they did for some years, and then they began 
to make them on a larger scale," 
That is the history of this now famous rod as I heard it 
from the man who first devised it. I am not aware that it 
has ever been published before, althougli I have seen refer- 
ences to the work of Messrs. Green and Murphy. In the 
early days the rods were known as "rent and glued bamboo." 
"Murphy," said I, "what price did these rods bring in 
that early day't" 
"Well, the trout rods sold for |40, and for an 18ft. 
salmon rod I got as high as $125, but it was all hand work, 
careful measurements and tests from start to finish, with 
much labor and material that was rejected. And please re- 
member that every rod was made to order. There was no 
making up a lot, and fitting tips to second joints. If there 
was a fault in a joint a new one had to be made. Though 
prices were high, we earned every dollar we got; but there 
were a few men in those clays who wanted the best that 
could be had, and would pay for it ; if that had not been the 
case, the split-bamboo rod would never have been invented." 
Greenwood Lake contains both species of black bass, and 
at the time we were there, some sixteen or more years ago, 
and perhaps now, the big-mouth was known by the absurd 
name of "Oswego" bass, and only the small-mouth was 
called black bass; and it seems to me that the time has come 
to take the obnoxious name of Oswego bass from the statute 
books of the State of New York. If any other State uses 
this name in its laws, I am not aware of it. For years I 
have contended against the fashion of deprecating the game 
qualities of the big-mouth, and as Murphy and Satter- 
ttiwaite sat fishing with me the question came up concerning 
the respective fighting qualities of the two black basses. 
Satterthwaite said: "Bill, our landlord, and the boatmen 
on this lake say that the small-mouth is the gamest of the 
two, and, by the way, you must have noticed how they have 
corrupted Oswego into 'swago,' and talk about 'black bass 
and swagos,' and they say that the 'swagos' don't fight like 
the black bass. I don't fish a great deal, and have taken 
their words for it, and you are the first man that I have 
heard deny that the big-mouth was an inferior fish." 
"Frank," said I, "years ago when American anglers began 
to think for themselves, and to study their own fishes and 
break away from English angling books, which treated only 
of English fishes, they found they had some fighting fish 
which were unknown across the water, but were plagued 
with a confusion of names. Da Kay, in 1842, made many 
species and several genera of the black basses, iDut later Gill 
reduced them all to two, and then came some anglers' distinc- 
tions. Seth Green, then a newspaper authority on fishes, gave 
to our laws such names as Oiwego bass, California trout, 
mountain trout and German trout, according to the locality 
in which he caught the fish or from which it happened to 
come, and it has taken years to undo this work. My old 
friend, Alexander Mosely, editor of the Rictmiond Whig, 
gave to the big- mouth the epithet of 'vulgarian,' and it was 
thought necessary to denounce one good game fish in order 
to boost another into place." 
"Well, now," said Murphy, "I never gave this matter 
much thought, but I've had good sport with the big-mouth 
bass, and I'll tell you one thing; if they are not quite as full 
of fight — mind me, I don't say they ain't — ^I've found them 
more reliable as risers to the fly. The big-mouth will usually 
take a fly of some kind if presented properly, and if the 
wind, sun and water are not in conspiracy against the fisher- 
man, but the small-mouth will often refuse the fly wlien his 
brother will rise to it." 
This talk was at about 4 P. M., and we were casting with 
different flies in order to see what the bass might prefer in 
the way of tinsel, wool, fur, chenille and feather, when 
Murphy got a rise, and as he struck there was a lively fight 
on. Satterthwaite got excited, and not being an expert ang- 
ler gave Murphy a running lot of advice, to which no atten- 
tion was paid by the man who was fighting the fish. Murphy 
kept the bass out of some weeds, but could not prevent its 
rush under the boat. Fortunately, there was no anchor line 
to foul, and he shifted his rod to the other side, reeled in and 
gave line as he thought best, without regard to Frank's sug- 
gestions, and finally reeled the fish up to the side of the boat, 
which was well down, because three men were on one side 
of the keelson; and just as I put the landing-net into the 
water to lift the game it gave a final leap and landed itself 
in the boat. It was a big-mouth black bass of less than 
31bs. 
"I thought it was a 10-pounder," said Murphy. "I took 
a 71b. bass in this lake once that did not put up half the fight 
that this one did." 
"That carries out my theory, " said I, "that the fighting 
weight of a black bass, no matter what the size of its mouth 
may be, is about 2Ibs. Murphy, you know, as an all-round 
'sport,' that no human pugilist would think of entering the 
ring if he weighed over lOOlbs., and, therefore, deadweight 
is not an indication of staying power. It's only an indication 
of good living and an accumulation of fat." 
"There seems to be some sense in that. Prank," said Mur- 
phy, "but I never thought of comparing the physical condi- 
tion of men with that of fish, as Fred has done, but the point 
is a good one. Yankee Sulhvan said thirty years ago that a 
man of 1601b8. was fit to fight anj^thing on two legs, and 
perhaps a black bass of 21b8. is in his best fighting con- 
dition; that's a new proposition; what do you think Frank?" 
"I think that you have got it about right. Sometimes a 
small bass will make you think he's a big one before he 
comes to the boat, and that S-pounder of mine didn't fight 
very hard ; in fact, I didn't think it was a big one until I 
saw it." 
And so we passed the time in pleasant discourse on the 
merits of the basses until time to reel up and row to Bill's 
hotel. When we parted with Bill we did not weep, but 
Murphy said on the train : "Every time I stop with Bill I 
declare that it will never occur again, but somehow I forget 
his meanness or I forgive it, I don't know which." 
Charles P. Murphy was one of a class of the old-time all- 
round sportsmen, interested in almost everything that is in- 
cluded in that comprehensive and elastic term sport. With 
no outward polish, brought up among the old fire laddies, 
where the only qualities recognized in a man were honesty, 
pluck and muscle, he was an entertaining companion. He 
died at his home in Newark, N. J., in 1883, at the age of 
sixty-five. Fkbd Mather. 
NEW MUSCALLONGE WATERS. 
Chicago, 111., June 25. — Mitar Fmvst and Stream: This 
is to narrate the experiences and detail the fortunes of a fish- 
ing party in search of new waters, hitherto unshadowed by 
the rod of an angler. Jason's quest of the Golden Fleece 
would seem a bagatelle compared to the task of finding 
waters which the great world of American fishermen are un- 
familiar with, yet our little party was successful in that par- 
ticular. At least, we got into a country where the famous 
muscallonge is plentiful, and yet none had ever been taken 
with rod and reel. In fact, the name of the fish was unfa- 
miliar and its habits and appearance unknown to all the 
natives with whom we talked prior to our first catch. And 
yet we found superb muscallonge water, and, with suitable 
weather, would doubtless have enjoyed sport grand enough 
to sate the most greedy hunter of the voracious 'lunge. 
This land of delight is located in northern Minnesota and 
not far from the head waters of the Mississippi River. It 
lies just south of the Leecli Lake Indian reservation, and its 
lakes, of which there is an incredible number, empty north- 
ward into the Father of Waters. Until this year the region 
was practically inaccessible in the summer, and, as no one 
dreamed that muscallonge were to be found, no one at- 
tempted to surmount the difficulties of reaching these lakes, 
when other waters, in easy distance, contained such myriads 
of pike, bass and pickerel. Therefore, the lakes contiguous 
to Woman Lake were neglected, and our party was the first 
to prove the existence of the muscallonge in that section. 
In answer to Grumbler, from whom a commuaication ap- 
peared in your columns some weeks ago, I may say that in 
the Woman Lake country, about fifty miles north of 
Brainerd, there is plenty of water unsurpassed in Wisconsin 
or Minnesota for muscallonge, bass, pike, pickerel and other 
game fish ; and that there are large numbers of deer, par- 
tridges (ruffed grouse) and ducks to be had for the hunting, 
and that moo3e are reported fairly numerous. It must be a 
sportsman's paradise in the fall months when all sport is at 
its best, and surely neither rod nor gun need get rusty for 
lack of use. 
But to our experiences. Originally our entire party had 
intended leaving Chicago June 3, but matters intervened 
that caused six of us to postpone departure until the 6th. 
Messrs. Joseph Downey and L L. Leach, however, would 
not be restrained, and went up on the original date. They 
are both enthusiastic anglers, and would not balk at trifles, 
but as it turned out, they would have done better to wait. 
The remainder, consisting of Messrs, J. W. 0. Haskill, C, 
B. Dick, S. M. Sutherland, C. S. Wilcox, J. P. Sanders and 
the writer left on Sunday night, June 6. At St, Paul, next 
morning, we had breakfast and changed cars for the North- 
era Pacific R. R. to Brainerd. Arriving there at 1 :20 o'clock 
that afternoon, we had dinner, and at 3:30 started on the 
Brainerd & Northern Minnesota R. R. for Pine River Sta- 
tion. A logging train off the track ahead of -us delayed us 
somewhat, and we did not reach Pine River until about j 
o'clock, too late to depart for Kabekoaa Camp that night. 
We found Pine River a typical backwoods railroad station. 
There are two houses in tUe town : one a log cabin, the other 
a hotel, saloon and general store combined. Barclay, the 
owner of the hotel, does quite an extensive teaming business 
for the logging camps in the surrounding country, and, being 
a down Bast Yankee, seems quite prosperous. Around the 
saloon door was gathered a miscellaneous crowd of about a 
dozen lumber cruisers, loggers, Indians and teamsters, nearly 
all drunk or willing to become so. After attending to our 
luggage, and making arrangements for an early morning 
start for Kabekona, we retired to our beds, which we found 
clean and comfortable enough. 
Tuesday morning dawned cloudy, wet and cold, but we 
determined to start anyway, as we had little affection for the 
crowd around Pine River. Six of us got into' the spring 
wagon, and, with Mr. Sanders as driver, followed the bag- 
gage wagon. We found the road for about eighteen miles 
an excellent one, having been an old "tote road" for the 
lumber camps, and had it not been for the cold rain would 
have enjoyed the ride. We passed Lake Ponto, a superb 
bass water of considerable size, about 10 o'clock, and then 
began to get the bad road. We were constantly in sight of 
new lakes, and our fingers itched to grasp a rod. Just after 
reaching Black Water, a large and "muskie-looking" lake, 
we met our first misfortune. The rear spring of our wagon 
broke, and from then on most of us perambulated. By dint 
of tinkering with a piece of wire, the wagon was finally 
mended well enough to get it into camp. A little later, how- 
ever, in crossing a marshy bit of ground, the baggage wagon 
got mired, and that cost more delay. We tramped on phil- 
osophically, however, and, there being no mosquitoes, were 
comparatively happy. We had to make nearly a comijlete 
circuit of Black Water, and got no glimpse of Woman Lake 
until we came upon Kabekona Camp, at about 1 o'clock. 
We found the makings of an ideal camp, but necessarily 
somewhat in embryo yet. The camp is to consist of a main 
building with office, dining-room and kitchen, and ten cot-' 
tages, each 12x14, for sleeping purposes. The main build- 
ing and three cottages were completed and the other cottages 
were in process of erection. There were five completed be- 
fore our departure, and the entire camp is doubtless now in 
first-class condition to receive guests. The main building is 
excellently adapted for its purpose, the office or lounging 
room being large, light, well ventilated and having a great 
stone fireplace for cold weather. The dining-room is large 
and light, and the kitchen well equipped. The cottages are 
alike, and each contains two double iron beds with good 
mattresses and plenty of clean, warm clothing. Washstands, 
mirrors and plenty of drawer room are also conveniences not 
often found at fishing camps. The buildings face due east 
and command an excellent view of Woman Lake, which ia 
quite a large body of water, with fifty miles of shore line. 
The shore at this point is about 15ft, above the lake, and 
therefore dry and cool. 
As soon as possible after our arrival dinner was prepared, 
and we all were a bit hungry. We found that Messrs. 
Downey and Leach, in spite of their early arrival, had only 
been able to go fishing that day, as the boats had only arrived 
the day previous, owing to delays in transportation, so we 
could find nothing definite about muscallonge, and no one 
who absolutely knew of their existence in those waters. We 
all were somewhat blue at this lack of definite information 
regarding the game we were after, but hastened to get out 
on the water and give it a trial. Charley Wilcox and I 
secured a boat and a venerable-looking boatman, who cher- 
ished a belief that muscallonge were just overgrown pickerel. 
That belief by no means tended to allay our suspicions that 
our long journey had been for naught. We put in no time 
on Woman Lake that afternoon, as Stone, our oarsman, 
wanted us to try a couple of smaller lakes in easy rowing 
distance. This we did, and our success in catching pickerel 
and pike was great enough to suit any one who was not long- 
ing for the savage "muskie," I was kept as busy shucking 
pickerel from my spoon as a man husking corn ; and Charley 
was the recipient of like attentions from numerous misguided 
pike — but no 'lunge rewarded our efforts, and as night drew 
on we made our way back to Woman Lake through the 
thoroughfare that connects the chain of lakes, much dis- 
heartened. At the end of the thoroughfare and near the 
shore of Woman Lake we found an Indian camp, aud as we 
stopped for a few moments, a chorus of howls from a lot of 
wolfish-looking curs heralded the approach of a son of the 
forest. He peered out of the bushes at us and made a queer 
figure, clad in an elaborate head-dress and a blanket. By 
this time the boat containing Haskell and Dicks had joined 
us, and as Haskell is conversant with the Chippewa tongue, 
he addressed the Indian in a flirtatious tone, under the im- 
pression that it was a squaw. Stone informed us, however, 
that it was a man, old Smiley, and that he was about seventy 
years old. At that Haskell s cordial expression changed to 
disgust. 
At this juncture a boat appeared coming down the 
thoroughfare, and we soon found it contained Messrs. 
Downey and Leach- They informed us that: they had three 
muscallonge, one weighing 231bs , and nothifag could ijave 
been more welcome news, as we had at last made certain 
that the "lunge" was an inhabitant of those waters. " We 
went back to camp with them and inspected their catch. 
.They had three muscallonge, one of 23, one 18 and one 14- 
pounder, besides some fine pike and numberless pickerel. 
They told us they had released a number of smaller muscal- 
longe. 
At this we were eager for the start next day, and put in 
but little time sleeping. Wednesday dawned in discouraging 
fashion, very cloudy and cold, and directly after breakfast 
rain began to fall. Charlie Wilcox and I were eager, how- 
ever, and started to cross Woman Lake to reach Little Girl. 
The rain, however, came down so heavily and there was 
such a sea on the lake that we put back to camp, after going 
about three miles. The rain did not let up all morning, so 
we put in the time writing and smoking, After dinner the 
rain stopped briefly, and 1 determined to give a trial to Baby 
Lake, where Downey and Leach had captured their fish the 
day previous. Charley would not brave the weather, so I 
went alone with Stone, the oarsman. We ran through the 
thoroughfare into Heron, and thence to Child Lake, then by 
a rapid and crooked creek into McCune Lake, a portage of a 
few yards being necessary on account of rapids. From 
McCune we got into Man Lake, and thence into Baby. 
These lakes are all large and beautiful and, excepting 
McCune, are ideal places tor muscallonge. 
On Baby Lake I came across Downey and Leach, who 
had been there all day. They reported three more 'lunge, 
and told me they had taken them in the south end of the 
lake. A little island, covered with tamarack and surrounded 
by rush-covered bars running out into the lake, looked in- 
viting, and I barely began to skirt it when I felt that vicious 
but welcome rush of a muscallonge on the spoon, and as I 
tautened up on the line I saw him leap wildly from the 
water 60ft. away, a vision of silver and green that made my 
heart bound. A quick command to "Get into deep water, 
quick!" was obeyed, and then began a pretty little fight, 
which ended in about half an hour in the capture of a hand- 
some 17-pounder. 
We trolled the rest of the island without strikes except 
from the ever annoying pickerel, and as it was growing late 
we left Baby Lake and crossed Man Lake on our way home. 
As a mere matter of form I let out my spoon on Man Lake, 
though with no hopes of fish, as we were crossing the mid- 
dle of the lake and going fast. But we crossed a hitherto 
unsuspected bar, and once more I felt that savage rush and 
