B 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
iJTOir 8, 189?. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
With the Sasrinaw Crowd after Trout. 
Chicago, III., June 19. — All readers of Forest and 
Stream kuow about the Saginaw crowd and its doings in 
different parts of the country. This unique body of sports- 
men is organized under the name of tlie "Forest and Stream 
Co., Ltd." Ten members own the special car Wm. B. Mer- 
shon, without doubt the best appointed hunting car in the 
country, and when they feel like going on a trip they load 
into this wonderful vehicle all their plunder and stai-t 
whither their fancy liateth. The car accommodates ten 
men with perfect comfort, and has lounging room, dining 
room, bath room, sleeping room, kitchen, closets, and a 
Whole system of shelves and lockers, by which all confusion 
of goods and chattels is avoided. It has ice boxes and storage 
rooms for boats underneath the hody of the car, and inside 
the car are gun Closets and racks, and hooks and nails, and 
all sorts of things which make convenience and comfort. 
The car is somethmg over 60ft. in length without the plat- 
forms, and is so admirably built that it runs like a bicycle 
for smoothness. It is a wonderful vehicle, and it has seen 
sport in many portions of the country. It has been to the 
Oa?capedia, it has been to California two or three times, has 
seen Texas and Dakota, and many other famous shooting 
and fishing regions. It always carries a goodly company of 
jovial souls, and when the Wm. B. Mershon goes into com- 
mission there is going to be a grand good time. Nothing is 
overlooked by this peculiar body of sportsmen, whose like 
in purpose and equipment perhaps does not exist in all the 
land. 
Forest and Stream has told of some of the doings of 
this company in the field, i)ut I think has not made mention 
of their accomplishments upon the stream. Be it known 
that they are each as fond of fishing as of shooting, and as 
expert and diligent in the one pursuit as the other. Deer 
shooting, duck shooting, goose shooting, salmon fishing or 
trout fishing, it all comes handy to the Saginaw crowd. 
The Pere Marquette Club. 
Some of the members of the Saginaw crowd and owners 
of the palace on wheels above briefly noted, belong also to a 
club of anglers known as the Pere Slarquette Club, another 
select and favored organization. While most of the mem- 
bers live at Saginaw, upon the east side of the Michigan 
South Peninsula, the club stream, known as Kinne Creek, is 
something like half a day's run to the west, upon the oppo- 
site side of the peninsula. Here there is a little forlorn, de- 
serted village of the pine woods saw-mill sort, whose empty 
houses tell the story of the exhausted forests. This is 
Wingleton, on the Flint & Pere Marquette Kailroad. Within 
a few minutes' walk of the club house there is a beautiful 
lake, deep, clear, blue and cold, well filled with trout and 
bass. Out of this little lake springs the bright and rapid 
creek, augmented each few hundred yards for several miles 
by icy springs which trickle out from under the sandy, pine- 
clad hills. The club owns this stream throughout its length 
of about four miles to its mouth in the Pere Marquette 
Elver. This is one of the most remarkable trout preserves 
in the West, one of the best of the trout fishing clubs, and 
one of the most admirably planned a,nd arranged. There 
are but seventeen memberships in the club, and only a few 
more will be sold. I do not know of any club in any part 
of the country where so much is owned Jby way of actual 
sport ax irout and comfort in tbe pursuit of them. Tie 
stream is a wonder. It abounds in natural food, and it 
swarms with natural trout. There probably does not run 
out of doors in Michigan or Wisconsin any stream the 
superior of this as a troi^ting water or one showing a greater 
number of trout. 
From Experience. 
I speak thus knowingly of the Saginaw crowd, of the 
special car, and of the Pere Marquette Club from the best 
pounds in the world, those of actual experience. Last week 
my friend Dick Merrill and myself accepted the invitation of 
Jdi. W. B. Mershon to meet him and some of his friends at 
the station of Wingleton, to have a look at the fishing re- 
sources of that portion of the country. I left Chicago at 3 
P, M., reached Milwaukee two hours later over the C, M & 
St.'P., and Dick and I took the 8 :45 evening boat of the Flint 
& Pere Marquette line to Ludington, reaching the latter 
town at about 6 the next morning, after a most comfortable 
voyage. We then took rail to Wingleton, and by 7:40 were 
in the hands of our friends, Mr. Mershon welcoming us to 
the car and introducing us to the other gentlemen, Messrs. 
Watts S. Humphrey and Geo. B. Morley, of Saginaw, and 
W. A. Avery and J. B. Keena, of Detroit. We all took 
breakfast together on the car, and soon were flying up the 
railroad a dozen miles or so, it being tbe plan to fish the Lit- 
tle Manistee River first for a day, and then to come back to 
the club waters at Kinne Creek. 
All arrangements had been made with perfection of detail, 
and I soon saw the reason of Mr! Mershon's wide reputation 
as a successful business man. He is one of the naturally ex 
eeutive sort, a man who is always doing something or getting 
something done, not wondering how it is going to be done. 
You will sometimes see such a man. He is always busy, 
and always looked up to as the one of whom things are ex- 
pected. It seemed perfectly easy for the car to get up into 
the wilderness there somehow, and it seemed very natural 
that a couple of teams and wagons should be there waiting 
for us to get out of the car. It. seemed a matter of course 
that there should be a couple of Bond sectional boats waiting 
to be put together, to add to the pleasure of the trip on the 
river. Everything was done magically smooth. Perhaps 
there may be those who have learned of the difficulty of 
attaining such ideal smoothness on a trouting trip into the 
pine country. 
The Little Manistee. 
Before noon we were in the river, the Little Manistee, and 
a more ideal trout stream never ran out of doors. It would 
be a pleasure to fish that river even if there was not a trout 
in it. Indeed, it required something of persuasion at the 
time to induce the belief that there was a trout in it. We 
met nearly a dozen "bait plunkers," all diligently at work 
fishing with all kinds of bait, but each and all of these 
reported very bad luck. Our own party only averaged about 
a half dozen trout apiece, of course, fishing with the fly, no 
very large fish being taken by anyone. Our friends thought 
that the stream had been fished to death. We made a very 
delightful afternoon of it, none the less. Mr. Mershon, Mr, 
Humphrey and myself fished together, taking one of the 
boats with us. Into the boat we put our coats, rod cases 
and other stuff we did not wish to carry, and we found this 
transportation very welcome. Mr. Humphrey waded on 
down the river ahead of us, and after a time Mr, Mershoh 
and I overtook and passed him. Then we left the boat 
pulled up on the bank, and waded down ahead for some dis- 
tance. After a time Mr. Humphrey overtook us in the boatj 
and passed down to again disembark. In this way, by iising 
the boat in turns as a means of locomotion, we made the 
stream easily, rapidly and with fairness to eafch other's sport. 
This is the nicest way I ever saw of fishing a trout stream, 
and it is, I believe, the invention in those parts of Mr. Mer- 
shon himself. We enjoyed this very much, and found that 
there was no weariness attached to covering five or sbc miles 
of water in this way. 
During the afternoon, while we were not meeting very 
much success with the trout, a little incident occurred to 
break the monotony. Mr. Humphrey had just passed Mr. 
Mershon and myself with the boat, "and just as he swept 
around the bend beyond us we heard him call oUt to attract 
our attention to an animal he saw on the bank. At first he 
thought it was a woodchuck, but then he concluded it vyas 
too big for that, and as it straightened up he saw it was a 
cub bear, a yearling that had come down to drink. At the 
first jumj) it disappeared in the cover, and he saw it no 
more. 
At the end of our water journey, by some magic, our team 
was waiting for us, to take us home in the dusk. And at 
the end of this ride through the forest there greeted us the 
light of the special car of the Saginaw crowd As we 
pulled off our waders and hung them out to dry; stoWed 
away our loose clothing in the lockers, dressed for dinner, 
and sat down to the hot and well cooked meal, it surely 
seemed that this was the onlj^ way on earth to go trout fish- 
ing, and that it was not of the least consequence whether 
the ttout rose or not. 
But to the gentlemen who were in charge of affairs it ap- 
peared that the fishing offered by the Little Manistee at that 
point was not up to the proper poiht. It was decided to 
run back to the club at Kinne Creek. But how to get there 
was the question The Wm. B. Mershon was a bit too 
bulky to push by hand, and unfortunately there was no 
train due to which we could hitch our wagon. We were 
anchored here in the woods for a time against our will. 
The Sable. 
At this juncture came Bonne, the guide, one of the best 
and most practical men that ever went with a party into the 
woods, and he told us thai on the day previous a" man had 
told him of taking fifty-seven trout in the 'Sable River, five 
miles away._ (Tnis is not the Au Sable of fame, but a 
humbler stream upon the opposite side of the State. It 
runs into Lake Michigan) Fault of better, it was made up 
that we should try this Sable and see what was in it. 
We did try it, and we found it just as satisfactory as the 
Little Manistee bad been unsatisfactory. Not one of the 
party had less than thirty trout that day, and of these one or 
more ran up toward the lib notch. Mr. Mershon had forty- 
two, and said that he threw back twice as many of illegal 
length. Dick Merrill had thirty-seven. Mr. Keena had his 
basket nearly full, and Messrs. Morley and Humphrey, who 
fished side by side all day, took each a goodly portion It 
was left for Mr. Avery, however, to put all the rest of us to 
blush, for he made a grand catch of sixty-five fine trout. 
Of these he had one over lib., and many over ilb., his tish 
being much larger in average than those taken by any of us. 
Mr. Avery said that he had not fished over 50 rods of the 
stream ali day. The stream was literHlly alive with troul. 
In the evening when we left, they were rising like mad all 
over the stream in every reach and bend. Mr. Mershon and 
I had taken all we wanted before this time, but while we 
were waiting for the others to come we amused ourselves 
casting for a few minutes ajnong the trout which were break- 
ing in the bend below where our horses were put up. We 
took several more trout here, but put them back in the water 
again. We all agreed that this stream was one of the best 
wild streams we had ever seen. It appears that it has not 
been fished very much since it was last stocked. The Little 
Manistee is a handsomer and easier stream than the Sable, 
but is more fished. The Sable is the opposite of the Little 
Manistee, being a broad, shallow stream, full of logs and 
trees, which make it very hard to fish. A boat could not be 
used on the Sable by any means. The trout were abundant 
under the fallen tree tops and logs, and Mr. Avery 
proved himself a past master when he learned that the best 
way to take them was not to hurry, but to fish up 
stream, going very slowly, and not trying to cover much 
of the water. The bottom in this stream was soft and 
landy, with a few reaches of hard gravel. We found, the 
best "fly was the Montreal, that used by Mr. Avery. John, 
one of the teamsters, took a rod, and before lunch caught fif- 
teen trout near the luncheon camp, using the Montreal fly. 
We saw four or five other men on the stream duiing the day, 
and nearly all of these reported good luck. Our own party 
took out about 260 trout that day, and probably 500 were 
taken on that part of the river in all. The other fishermen 
came from the town of Freesoil, some flve miles away It 
is very likely that the news of this stream was not yet fully 
spread. The market fishers had been operating steadily on 
the Little Manistee, but had not yet gone into the Sable. 
During my day on the stream I fell in with a boy with a long 
cane pole, about 15ft. long. He was using worms, and by 
means of his pole could fish a good way ahead of himself, so 
that he took quite a number of trout. His companion, an 
older man, was also successful, and he gave me the good ad- 
vice not to get in a hurry, but to take the stream very 
slowly. Any trout fisher knows how sterling this advice is. 
If one hurries over a trout stream he gets no idea of its re- 
sources, for trout have a great way of being absent .from 
sight when they like. The loiterer who waits tiU all has 
quieted down may peer over a log and see a score of trout 
where he would have suspected none had he rushed on down 
the stream in hast6 to find a better place a little further oh. 
Happiness is nearly always at our own door if we only look 
for it there. 
Kinne Creek. 
We had now had two pleasant days on the streams of this 
locality and had a nice lot of fish, but Mr. Mershon was 
bound to show us the club stream at Wingleton. By some 
mysterious agency a switch engine happened along our way, 
and by the tihif dinner was begun we were on the siding op- 
posite the club house. Here we were met by Mr. Greo. M. 
Brown, of Saginaw, the Nestor and general grandpapa of 
the Pere Marquette Club. We had, upon the morning of 
our arrival, met for a moment at our car Mr. B. B. Mitchell, 
general freight agent of the Michigan Central Railroad, a 
very ardent angler, with others of his friends who had put 
in a couple of successful days on the creek, but these had 
now all gone, eo that Mr, Brown was alone at the club, ex- 
cept foi* his young son. Mr. Brown showed us eight or ten 
handsome trbiifc, each some lOin. long, which he had takeii 
for ainusement that evening. It seeths that he rarely ever 
catches a very big lot of fish, ijecause he neVer wants to, but 
he can always, on any day, go out and catch all the trout he 
cares for. The trout seem to take a liking to him. There 
is always . such a man as Mr. Brown about a club, who 
there to take care of the general welfare of the fish, but who 
has a fatal gift of the fly when he wants a iness of fish. We 
learned that much of the perfection of the club hatchery 
arrangements, the screens, breeding pens, etc., were built 
upon Mr. iBrown's plans. He is the roadmaster of the F. & 
P. M. road; and all mechanical imprbvenjents come to him 
naturally. In the five years of this club's life, 1892 to 1897, 
there has been perfected one of the most admirable trout 
preserves of the country, and the members vie with eafch 
other in giving all kinds of credit fot this to the grandparfint 
of the club. 
During the evening wfe temporariljr abandoned the car and 
rounded up in front of the big fire-place in the club lebep- 
tion room. Here the surroundings were of high piscatorial 
suggestion. On the wall were outlines of bier fish, taken at 
Kinne Creek -or streams adjacent thereto. There was one 
tracing in blue print of a rainbow trout weighing 8Jlbs.j 
which was taken in Baldwin Creek. This was a most sym- 
metrical fish, and is the record trout for that country, so far 
as is known to-day. It was taken by Van Yalkenberg, a 
keeper and local fisherrnan. Another tracing showed a trout 
taken by Mr. Mershon in the Cascaped i a, weighing 4ilbs. 
This fish, however, though a pure brook trout, was not so 
shapely and handsome a fish as the rainbow above noted. 
As to the fishing of Kinne Creek itself, the stream contains a 
large number of fish running to 2 and Slbs. On one evening 
Mr Mershon took seventeen trout, weighing IS^lbs. Mr. 
Brown once took seven trout, which weighed TJlbs. Mr. 
Morly, in one day's fishing, took eighty-six trout, all over 
Tin. in length. It is a rule of the club that all fishing must 
be done with the fly, and any trout less than 7in. in length 
must be returned. For a time the club placed an Sin. limit 
on the flsh, and that limit could even now be well main- 
tained. The club members take each season about 3,500 
trout, and they annually stock the stream with much more 
than that number, including some 200 or 300 large trout 
from the breeding pens. This supply, with the natural in- 
crease in the stream, keeps Kinne Creek fairly alive with 
trout. There is no stream in that part of the State which 
compares with it. Of course, there was at first much local 
enmity to the club, and on one occasion over SOOlbs. of 
breeding trout were stolen from the pens; but the policy of 
the club has been so broad that to day there is little or no 
trouble with poachers; but, on the contrary, a very friendly 
feeling is entertained for the club by the residents and vis- 
itors of the neighborhood. The club annually distributes 
from its own hatchery, among the adjacent streams, two or 
three times the amount of young trout which it places in its 
own stream, thus doing much to keep up the fishing in the 
country round-about. 
A Great Trout Country. 
We were now in the center of one of the best trouting 
regions of the South Peninsula, and one hardly to be sur- 
passed in the middle West for the extent and variety of its 
fishing resources. For the benefit of anglers of this portion 
of the country I may state that from the town of Baldwin 
alone there are accessible, at distances of two to six miles, 
no less than seven -tine trout streams, in any one of which 
good fishing can be had even to day, subject to the varying 
conditions which govern this changeable sport. Baldwin 
Creek has been a famous stream. Dannahar Creek is another, 
less known, but good. Then there are the south and middle 
forks of the Pere Marquette River, offering many miles of 
good fishing. Sanborn Creek is also accessible from, Bald- 
win, and so are the Little Manistee and its branches, usually 
affording excellent fishing. The Pine River is not far away, 
and it is thought that there may even yet be a grayling or two 
in the Pine. The Sable River I have already mentioned as 
being full of trout. 
The Disappearance of the Grayllnsr. 
It was interesting, but in a way sad, to hear our friends 
speak of the disappearance of the grayling from all the above 
streams, in which it once swarmed. Mr. Mershon, who 
knew every pool in the Little Manistee, told me time and 
again of the wonderful catches of grayling he had made on 
that river. Mr, Brown spoke of the time when he and a 
friend took 168 grayling in one day's fishing. In the old 
days the catches of grayling were measured by the basket, 
the bag or the bucketful. Yet it seems not to have been 
altogether the fishing which destroyed the grayling. It is 
commonly supposed that the trout drove the grayling out of 
the streams to which they were formerly native. 1 expressed 
the wish that I might have seen this country fifty years ago, 
at the time that it was a virgin wilderness; but Mr. Mershon 
told me that had I been there at that time I would have 
found no trout at all in the streams, which were then in- 
habited only by the grayling. The trout is purely an arti- 
ficial product in all these south peninsula streams, and many 
is the regret at the exchange which gave it in place of the 
grayling. Yet Mr. Brown and other old-time fishermen 
think that the grayling would have been destroyed even had 
the trout never come into the streams. Every considerable 
stream in that country is used for logging purposes, and 
during the drive the bottom of the stream is continually torn 
and stirred up. The brook trout is a fall spawner, and it 
deposits its eggs chiefly upon rocky bottom, where they are 
less apt to be disturbed by the shifting of the natural bot- 
tom Upon the contrary, the grayling is a spring spawner 
and leaves its eggs upon sandy bottom. When the spring 
drive of logs comes down a sandy-bottomed stream, such as 
the grayling most loves to frequent, the whole bottom of the 
stream is stirred up and shifted so that the eggs are covered 
and destroyed. 
For a considerable time after the introduction of the trout 
the fishing in these streams was of a varied and interesting 
nature. The rainbow trout has been introduced and has in 
many instances attained great size. It was no unusual thing 
to catch brook and rainbow trout and grayling in one day's 
fishing. The keeper of the Pere , Marquette Club, C. H. 
Bates, at one time caught at one cast of three flies in the 
Pere Marquette River, near the mouth of Kinne Creek, three 
fish, one trout, one grayling, one rainbow trout, weighing in 
all 3|lbs. It has been some time now since any grayling 
have been heard of in the streams of this region. The gen- 
tlemen whom we were with are well acquainted with all the 
main streams of the South Peninsula. They told me that 
the Au Sable River of the east side, that once famous stream 
for grayling, now has but few grayling left but is this sea 
