Jan. 1, 1898. J 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
11 
Fishing Around Washington. 
Cockpit Pool. 
Thirty miles soutli of Washington the line of the 
Washington Southern to Quantico, a branch of the 
Pennsylvania Railway, crosses Powell's Creek, an inlet 
of the Potomac not much over a mile in length, affected 
by the tides, into which drains a little run almost dry in 
seasons of drought. On the south side of the mouth of 
the creek is the old Cherry Hill Farm, many years ago 
owned by Capt. Dunnington and now by his heirs. ' It 
was once a plantation of considerable importance, but is 
not now cultivated, and the name is all that is left to 
remind the visitor of its once celebrated orchard. 
When the railroad was projected to Quantico, Capt. 
Dunnington, whose land was a little abrupt where the 
road cut through it, purchased from the adjoining farm 
the site of the present station and siding, and gave it to 
the railroad, and the name, by which it is still known, to 
the station — Cherry Hill. 
A little to the south of this station a point makes far 
out into the Potomac, called Cockpit, on the charts as 
well as locally, though in days gone by the north cove 
oflf the point was always known as Rose Bay, and a few 
old rivermen remember the side hill which forms the 
second bank when it was a mass of roses. This was in 
i860 and before. It is a wilderness now, of great trees 
and underbrush, and looks far more like the primeval 
forest than a ruined rose garden. 
The river ofif Cockpit is an excellent seining ground, 
though the shore has not been rented for a year or two. 
Forty years ago planters from long distances in the 
interior drove here regularly to get their season's supply 
of herring for their families and slaves, and the shore 
privileges were very A'aluable and rented for thousands 
of dollars. 
Late in the season it is a famous point for rockfish, 
and will no doubt in the future, as it has in the past, 
furnish employment, revenue and food for fishers plenty. 
The base of the point is wide, low and swampy, and 
in some years great snipe shooting may he had here, 
and nearly always a woodcock or two. A mile to the 
south of this the railroad bed, crossing the mouth of a 
little run, dams the stream and makes a pool some fifty 
rods long and half as broad, with a narrow, bushy, in- 
accessible swamp in the background. The culvert outlet 
through the roadbed is so high that only spring tides 
from the river can enter. 
This pond, known as Cockpit Pool, has been for sev- 
eral years full of the Lucius reticularis, the green pike or 
pickerel of the Eastern waters, and throughout the South 
called the jack. 
These fish come up out of the river on the high tides 
in the spring, in the spawning season through the high 
culvert, and, imprisoned here, breed and feed in the 
holes in the swamp and ijse the pool for a playground. 
They were discovered by the trainmen, who saw them 
disturbed by the rumbling of the passing trains, which, 
jarring the spongy bottom, always sets the jack to wildly 
jumping. Of course, it was not long after that some 
enterprising angler had taken a good string and was 
bragging of his catch, and the pool has since had many 
visitors. 
The writer's introduction to this hyena of the water 
was at this place in 1894, and we have frequently since 
taken as many as it was convenient to carry to the sta- 
tion, a mile and a quarter away. Distances are measured 
with an india rubber tape-line after a day's fishing, and 
weighted with the paraphernalia of bait fishers, which we 
have always been here since nothing was to be ex- 
pected but the pickerel, and we only learned to take them 
with a fly toward the close of last season. 
At the south end of the pool, where sand from the 
adjoining hill is washed down, the sunfish or tobacco 
box, as they are called here, are pretty numerous, and 
large, and though the swamp discolors the water to the 
shade of porter, these are remarkably highly colored, 
their rainbow tints being far brighter than those taken 
from the river. 
The mouth of the culvert, discharging its brown flow 
into the river, like all fresh runs, is a favorite feeding 
place for small perch and minnows, and the water mocca- 
sins feed and breed and winter about and under the 
culvert, and of a sunny morning in the spring dozens 
may be seen sunning themselves on the great stones of 
the riprap work which protects the roadbed. On the 
occasion of our last visit it is no exaggeration to say 
that within a radius of ten feet forty were in sight at 
once. There were ten less in the colony that night. This 
fish-eater id the natural enemy of all fair fishermen. 
Three hundred yards to the north of the pool a fair 
spring trickles from the sandbank alongside the track. 
This road running south to Richmond is a great high- 
way for tramps, and all day long stragglers, tattered and 
torn, sometimes barefoot, stop by to rest and watch the 
proceedings, thankful for a bite or smoke, or even a fresh- 
caught jack with which to join some brother knight of 
the road and go snacks for the next meal. 
One sat on a tie end, on this last trip, and told of 
his love for fly-fishing, and of his many days of enjoy- 
ment of this sport on Northern streams, where the trout 
hide, when he was seeing better days; but as he 
mourned he had "got on the road somehow and some- 
how couldn't get off." The bare suggestion that the 
. hobo is an evoluted fly-fisher was a shock, but for lack 
of corroborating circumstances he was set down as 
simply a horrible example of too much old-fashioned 
bait, and the fly discharged of any further responsibility 
in the matter. However, there is no denying there is 
something of the vagrant in all our natures, and the 
man who takes to the woods for his pleasures is apt to 
get a little closer to these wounded deer than the "fat and 
greasy citizen," as he has been called, who turns his back 
upon the misfortunes of his neighbor. 
The view from the high roadbed is very fine from this 
point, covering a grand sweep of the Potomac from 
Indian Head for ten miles south, with always a bay 
steamer in sight, or the white wings of some sailboat, 
flitting by with wind and tide or tacking atid creeping 
against them. 
With a small fly, on a No. 10 or 12 hook, any number 
of small perch, s^ellow and white, may be taken on the 
river side of the roadbed, when the water is anything 
better than molasses. These perch make excellent bait 
for the pickerel, so that under ordinary circumstances 
and -conditions of the river it is unnecessary to carry 
bait to this place. . 
The pickerel is well armed as to moiith, but his swal- 
low is tender enough to make the spiny dorsals of the 
perch less palatable than the minnow, and old pickerel 
fishers advise trimming the dorsals with a pair of scissors, 
and there is no question it makes a difference in the 
readiness with which thej' respond, 
But it seems cruel, even if there is no sensitiveness 
in the fins, as is sometimes claimed, and the fly-fisher 
is quite ready to throw bouquets at himself for his im- 
proved method, that does not require a resort to such 
questionable practices. 
Fishing for jack is different from taking any other fish 
with bait. He seems to seize the minnow by the tail 
and make for cover, possibly to escape his companions, 
who would probably rob him if they could. Stories are 
told of two pickerel with a snake stretched between them 
like two chicks with a worm. After a few minutes the 
fish can be felt jigging the line as if getting a killing 
hold on the body of the minnow. After another rest he 
quietly turns the minnow and swallows it, head first. All 
this takes time, and just how much scarcely two writers 
agree upon, and after reading them all one is more unde- 
cided than before. 
David Foster, in the Scienlific Angler, in 1882, said 
"A minute or two shotild be allowed him to gorge it." 
Thomas Best, in 1802, said "Wait five minutes for the 
pike to pouch' the minnow before striking." Charles 
Bowlker, in 1774, about "half a quarter of an hour." 
Fisher, in 1835, "eight or ten minutes." Little, in 1881, 
said ten minutes. Rev. James Martin, in 1854, thought 
about a quarter of an hour. The Anglers' Magasim, in 
1796, said a half hour, and suggested laying the rod down 
while one might smoke a pipe full of tobacco. In 
Blakey's "Hints on Angling," 1846, the pike's feeding 
and capture is told metrically like this : 
"At last he stops, and sinking deep, 
Seems for ten minutes fast asleep, 
In sweet indulgence lost; 
I'll wake liini soon, as you will see, 
And let him know that verily, 
He's dining- at his cost." 
One of the record catches made at this pool was by 
Mr. Hart, a first-rate fisherman, who is inclined to be 
methodical, and having watched a pike gorge a minnow 
in a tank at the World's Fair, found that it took him on 
that occasion just seven minutes. He now pulls out his 
watch when he gets a strike, and at the end of the sev- 
enth minute raises his fish. It is pretty safe to guess that 
if he has not gorged it by that time he never will. Of 
course he did not get them every time, but he secured 
more than any one else that day. Another day here the 
best catch was with the spoon, but this is more uncertain 
since, fishing as one must from the slope of the railway 
embankment, one is always in sight, aiid this keeps the 
fish too deep to rise well to the surface for spoon or 
fly, and, besides, the bank rises behind so abruptly as to 
sadly interfere with the casting of a spoon — \novs,q with a 
fljS and even to some extent with throwing a minnow. 
To add to the embarrassment, a network of telegraph 
wires on leaning poles come down so low as to occa- 
sionally hang up the tackle. To see a cork, sinker and 
wriggling minnow woven in and out, and wrapped 
around a half dozen telegraph wires, is a very interesting- 
sight to everybody but the luckless owner, who usually 
audibly wishes the wires were "not so high." 
Henry Talbott. 
ANGLING NOTES. 
"Hatching Black Bass." 
Under this head a New York newspaper publishes an 
article with a Grand Rapids, Mich., date line that will 
surprise fish breeders who have been in the business any 
considerable length of time. That we have short memo- 
ries was illustrated in my presence within the month 
when in a public place ten men were asked the name of 
a defeated candidate for Governor of this State, who had 
been defeated within twelve months previous. Not one 
could recall the name. 
This black bass article is another illustration of a 
short memory on the part of the writer. It appeared in 
a Sunday newspaper only two weeks ago, and reads in 
part as follows: 
"The State of Michigan has just completed the stock- 
ing of the new bass ponds at Mill Creek, and now begins 
some of the most important work ever attempted in the 
way of artificial propagation of fish in the United States. 
The artificial raising of bass has been attempted many 
times in various States, but it has remained for Michi- 
gan to make a success of it and show that it can be done. 
* * * In spite of all experiments and scientific work, 
it has never been possible to replenish by artificial 
means the great inroads made by the thousands of fish- 
ermen upon the supply of black bass in the inland lakes 
and streams, and tmless something was done the stock 
must sooner or later become very scarce." 
The article goes on to say that one of the Commis- 
sioners has solved the problem; that when he went on 
the board he was informed that black bass could not be 
hatched artificially. He then bought books on bass and 
studied the habits of the fish, and examined the reports 
of the experiments, and finally met a Commissioner 
from another State, "who was also convinced that bass 
could be hatched artificially." Then he discovered that 
it is the male bass that "sets on the eggs," and finally 
he put in practice what the newspaper writer has the 
grace to call a "modified method of artificial propaga- 
tion." 
Now it is not' in the least probable that the Commis- 
sioner named in the article authorized any such statements 
regarding his alleged discovery, or has made any such 
claims as he is credited with in the newspaper article. 
The method described is not that of hatching black bass 
artificially, nor is it a new discovery. It is quite possible 
that it was new to the newspaper writer, and in his en- 
thusiasm his zeal ran away from the facts. 
Black bass have not been hatched artificially, and in 
making this broad statement I am fully aware that a 
few eggs have been taken in the States of Michigan and 
Missouri, and to obtain the milt from the male bass it 
has been necessary to kill him, so that the operation can- 
Tiot be called hatching the eggs artificially. Even in the 
experiments ^referred to it has been a most diihcult 
matter to obtain the few eggs from the female black 
bass. The method related in detail in the Grand Rapids 
article is to put the adult bass in a pond, and when they 
have paired and spawned and the young are hatched 
the parent bass are removed and the fry are allowed to 
remain and are fed until the time comes for their dis- 
tribution. This is not a new discovery, for it was prac- 
ticed fifteen years ago; at least it was made public in 
1882 by Major Isaac Arnold, Jr., United States Army, 
who did exactly the same thing at the Indianapolis, 
Tnd., Arsenal that is now exploited as new in 1897. 
Upon referring to Major Arnold's various communi- 
cations in the Bulletin of the U. S. Fish Commission 
for 1882, I find that he maintained his black bass rearing 
ponds for three years previous to that date, or from 
1879. He placed the matttre bass in his ponds and when 
the young were hatched he removed the old fish and left 
the young in an inclosure of their own. More than 
once T have read Major Arnold's record of his experi- 
ments, but upon reading them again to-day I find that I 
had forgotten all about one of his observations, which 
is this: "The male presses the ova from the female by 
a series of bites or pressure along her belly with his 
mouth, the female lying on her side during the opera- 
tion. The male ejects the milt upon or over the roe 
from time to time, and the spawning process lasts for 
two or three days." (On one occasion the late John 
M!owat asked me what I believed to be the use of the 
hook on the jaw of the male salmon, and I replied that 
I thought it was for use at spawning time in the manner 
described by Major Arnold in the case of the black bass.) 
In July of 1882 the U. S. Fish Commission sent a mes- 
senger to Major Arnold's black bass rearing ponds and 
obtained 5,000 fry of that year's hatching, 300 yearlings 
and a few two-year-old bass, and transported them to 
the Central Station in Washington and afterward to 
North Carolina, where they were planted, the entire 
journey being accomplished with slight loss to the fish. 
Some ten years ago, I should say, Mr. Samuel Wilmot, 
then Superintendent of Fisheries in Canada, wrote me 
of rearing black bass in a similar manner, the difference 
being that each pond contained but one pair of bass. 
Since that time this method has been practiced exten- 
sively by the U. S- Fish Commission, by the Tuxedo 
Club, and elsewhere for all that I know; anyway, it is 
not a new discovery, and it is not hatching black bass 
artificially, for the adult fi,sh deposit their own eggs, im- 
pregnate them and hatch them naturally, and man after- 
ward rears such of them as survive cannibalism, to 
which young bass just hatched are very prone. The 
newspaper writer in Grand Rapids has forgotten these 
facts that I have touched upon, if he ever knew them, and 
he will thank me for refreshing his memory, that sint- 
ple justice may be done to Major Isaac Arnold. 
Vacuum Dressed Lines. 
The notes that I am writing to-night appear to have 
a flavor of ancient history about the most of them, 
occasioned perhaps by the storm outside, which turns 
one's thoughts backward rather than forward; anyway 
I will charge it to the storm and the retrospective wind 
howling around the corner of the house. Something 
like twenty years ago — this paper was then published in 
Park Row, I remember — I wrote an article in Forest 
AND Stream about dressing fish lines. Mr. Hallock 
suggested it to me to try various oils and dressings on 
both silk and linen lines, and I did so, with the result 
that most of the experiments were dismal failures. Mr. 
Walter Brackett, the Boston artist and salmon fisher- 
man, then gave me samples of lines that he had dressed, 
and I was discouraged, for I had never seen anything 
like them, nor have I since until very lately. I got all 
sorts of lines with all sorts of dressings, each one claim- 
ing to be the best, but not until I possessed silk salmon 
and trout lines dressed in a vacuum did I obtain the best. 
The first that I heard of vacuum-dressed fish lines was 
in connection with Mr. Frederic M. Halford, and the 
best lines I have seen are dressed by tlie "Halford pro- 
cess," though I cannot say that he was the first to sug- 
gest this method of dressing, but assume that he was. 
The lines are soft, and have the appearance of being 
made of rubber and seem to be almost transparent. I 
have used them but one season, but that is enough to 
convince me that there are no lines that can equal them 
for fly-fishing. They are double-tapered, and they are 
expensive, costing a guinea for 35yds ; but they can be 
backed with a cheaper line, and when one end is worn 
out and the tapered poi^tion used up the line may be- 
reversed on the back line. There are several grades of 
vacuum-dressed lines, for I have seen them as cheap as 
$2 for 40yds. of level line. 
This brings me to the point of this note: how vacuum 
tines are dressed. Mr. Geo. M. Kelson has written an 
article in Land and Water on the subject. The line and 
the dressing, which must be linseed oil specially boiled 
for the purpose, are placed in a receiver and the air ex- 
hausted by an air pump, which permits the dressing to 
penetrate to the very core of the line. Mr. Kelson tells 
us that lines were first dressed with a single cylinder air 
pump, but this did not sufficiently exhaust the air, and a 
pump with double cylinders is now used. The line to 
be dressed must be coiled in the receiver without a twist 
in it, for he says that dressed with a twist in it and dried 
the twist remains. With the line packed in the receiver 
the oil is made hot and poured over it until it is covered. 
The receiver is then placed on the brass table of the air 
pump and a glass vessel inverted over it, the rim of 
the latter coated with candle fat to insure perfect contact 
and the pump is put in operation: "Bubbles will quickly 
appear on the surface of the liquid, and when they reach 
within YAn, of the top of the tumbler" (which I have 
called receiver) "suspend operations. Left in that state 
