April 9, 1898.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
291 
The Black Bass of Lake George. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Tn your issue of March 19, referring to inquiries by 
the State Legislature at Albany regarding the spawning 
habits of black bass in Lake George, where Hallock's 
Sportsman's Gazetteer, published in 1876, was quoted as 
authority, Mr. A, N. Cheney, who signs himself State 
Fishculturist (and therefore spealcing ejf cathedra, as one 
who ought to know, and not as the sci'ibe), says: 
"Mr. tJallock knew nothing about the fish in Lake 
George from personal knowledge, and when his book 
was printed little was .known about black bass by any 
one." 
Now, good sir, not being given to polemics, I will 
beg your kind permission simply to quote a passage in 
rebuttal from my "Fishing Tourist," published by Har- 
per Bros, in 1873, several years earlier, which specifically 
says : 
"Halcyon days have I passed at Lake George. What 
tongue has ever failed to sing the praises of its azure 
mountains and crystal depths? What artist has not trans- 
ferred to canvas bits of its enchanting scenery? — the 
islets Avhich gem the Narrows, the lovely seclusion of 
the Hague, or the sharply cut outlines of Elephant 
Mountain? Has he not even essayed to paint tlie hal- 
lowed stillness of Sabbath Day Point? Is not their 
name legion, and are not their cozy, vine-draped summer 
homes scattered along its romantic shores? Do tbey not 
nestle in its glens and shady nooks? * * * Many arc 
the pounds of fish I have taken from Lake George; many 
the lakes I have raised with my trolling spoon from the 
buoys where old Moses (Harris) chummed his fish. 
Around the 300 islands of the Narrows and the peninsula 
of Tongue Mountain I have trolled for bass with rich 
success, and taken them time and again with my rod 
and an ibis fly from the rocks at the north end of Four- 
teen-Mile Island. And nearly all the trout streams in 
the neighborhood have paid shining tribute to my creel. 
Many a happy hour have I whiled away upon the lawn at 
Bolton, now studying delectable anatomj^ and physiol- 
ogy while the unconscious subjects played croquet, and 
anon reading my favorite book, or Avatching the little 
steamer that plied to and fro. In the quiet of its rural 
seclusion I envy not the artificial attractions of the grand 
•hotel (Fort WiUiam Henry) at Baldwell, with its hops, 
its -billiards, its brass band, its bar, its fast 
horses, its entremets, its flare and its flummery. I 
enjoy only things natural, and it is not without reluc- 
tance that I turn my back upon them when the hour 
for adieu comes; and all the eloquence of the "Colonel's" 
historical apostrophes to Ticonderoga and the Ameri- 
can flag, with a sight of the bleached old ruins them- 
selves, will not utterly banish my feelings of regret." 
The Colonel was a character who always accompanied 
the stage loads of tourists which did the route between 
Fort Edwards and Ticonderoga, and expatiated upon the 
heroism of that fight, in which the redoubtable Ethan 
Allen was conspicuous. Old stagers will remember the 
Colonel. I don't think he was a sure enough Colonel, 
as the Southern folks say, ;-but he could talk war and 
patriotism all the same. . -My great-grandfather and a 
son who was born in 1760 were in that scrimmage and 
captured a Queen Anne musket from a Hessian, which 
is now in Goshen, Mass., where he lies buried, having 
died in 1815. 
JSTow I. am not in these days making history for my- 
seJf, _ though I am jealous of historical truth. I am 
verging on old age, and such laurels as I have worn are 
sere and dry. Mr. Cheney may help himself from my 
pile if he thinks they are any worth, but he 
must concede to my score all points which I 
have earned. Indeed there was a time, during his 
adolescence, when he would cheerfully admit that I was 
born first, and had traveled some. But I have never 
cared to exploit my achievements, as younger men do 
to-day, though it might be pardonable to do so, because 
journeys occupied weeks in my best days which now 
take but hours ; and an author had to be able to spare 
a good deal of money and much leisure time to be able 
to write such a book as the "Fishing Tourist" from his 
personal observation. 
But twenty years before this I had visited Rev. John 
Todd at White Lake, in Sullivan county, in company 
with Joel T. Headly, and seen the notable Audubon 
and the Hermit of Long Lake in his cabin under the 
blufif when the Sabattis family were his only neigh- 
bors. Oh, yes! I know something of Lake George 
and its black bass from personal visits; and I thank my 
stars that my memory remains unimpaired, though my 
tongue may fail to speak of reminiscences and inci- 
dents of travel which may seem to me hardly worth men- 
tioning in these days when the whole world is afield and 
moving. Charles Hallock. 
A Trouting Experience. 
Grand View, Tenn., March 22. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: It is not all of fishing to fish, is a trite saying 
among fishermen, and it is not more trite than true, as 
I have often demonstrated that fact in my early fishing 
days. 
I remember one day's fishing away back in my teens, 
and remember it because the circumstances attending it 
were unusual. We lived near the banks of a large trout 
brook, or creek rather, where were trout in abtindance, 
which we caught with hook and line, mostly in the 
months of May, June and July. I always used lines that 
were made of hair pulled from three- or four-year-old 
colts' tails, and such lines were used in preference to any 
others that I ever found. 
In those days fly-fishing was scarcely known in that 
sparsely settled country. The fishing day above men- 
tioned occurred about the last of September or perhaps 
a few days later. The summer had been one of drought, 
and the stream had nearly run dry in some places; but 
there were occasional spring holes, or pools fed by 
springs, where the trout had gathered in countless num- 
bers, and were considered proof against the most tempt- 
ing baits of the fishermen. I had finished up trout fish- 
ing for the season as usual in July, and for three or four 
weeks past I had well nigh been laid up with a cut foot, 
and was yet stumping around on crutches, but I was 
getting uneasy, and wanted to..get..-intd the woods; 
wanted to go down .the creek. So I told my younger 
brother, a boy ten or eleven years old, to cut some 
white grubs out of an old decayed stump, and we started 
for the nearest pool down the creek, something over 
a mile distant, he carrying my fish pole and bait, while 
I followed after on crutches. We reached the spring 
about 10 A. M. The pool was a sort of set back from the 
creek, about 40yds. by 10 in diameter, and fronT 3 to 
5ft. deep, of clear, cold, spring water, and the clean grav- 
elly bottom seemed to be literally covered with trout. 
The bank was shaded by some large elm and butternut 
trees, and a convenient log lay on the bank, which I 
appropriated at once. I wanted to take a dozen or so 
with hook and line, but remembering past experience 
I didn't feel over confident of success, nor even of get- 
ting a bite. But I had most of the day before me, and 
nothing else to do but to sit on that log and tamper with 
that finny multitude, and for two long hours I fished 
that spring hole from top to bottom, and from end! to 
end, and nary a bite. I cast over on the opposite side, 
cast above and below, and they seemed totally indifferent 
to all my efforts, and I began to feel indifferent also; 
so I dropped the fish pole and lay down on the grassy 
bank, while the boy amused himself by throwing pebble 
stones into the pool. As I remember it, we had sat there 
on the grass a half hour or more, and were getting about 
ready to leave, I picked up my pole and carelessly made 
a cast over into the pool, when my bait was snapped 
up in a moment, and T pulled out a fair-sized trout. I 
made another cast, with the same result. I don't re- 
member just how long I fished after they began to bite 
(probably an hour), I only know that I pulled them out 
as fast as they took the bait, and that they took the bait 
as fast as I could pull them out. The white grub has 
a tough skin, and I would often take a half dozen or 
more fish without rebaiting the hook. Well, I stopped 
fishing because I had got enough, and a little later on 
realized that I had more than enough. The trout sized 
up fr.oni to ^Ibs.; there were no fingerlings among 
them, and I think there were no minnows or chubs in the 
spring hole. Doubtless the larger trout had eaten ujj the 
small fry. ' 
The fish were gathered up and strung on two strips 
of moosc;wood bark, and when the two ends of each 
string were tied together they made as fine strings of 
fish as' I had seldom seen. 
The boy hung one string over his back, which was all 
that he could carry, and 3ie other string — well — should 
there be any one of the craft who believes that to fish 
is all there is of fishing, let him tie a 2olb. string of fish 
over his shoulder, and travel home (a mile and a quarter) 
on crutches. 
As to the cooking of brook trout, I suppose the most 
approved method is frying in butter or lard, or perhaps 
an occasional broil. It certainly is the quickest and 
most convenient way of cooking them, and especially 
so when in camp. Now witliout wishing to detract a 
whit from the prescribed rules of preparing this tooth- 
some fi,sh for the table, I would suggest an occasional 
change bj' a slight difference in the manner of cooking. 
The process is plain and simple, and is about as follows: 
First, take a square cut of thick salt pork, skin off the 
rind and cut the pork into thin slices. Then with a knife 
split the larger trout by cutting inside along the back- 
bone, so they will lie flat. Then take the old-time bake 
kettle (which possibly may be laid aside as a relic of the 
past age) and cover the bottom with some of those slices 
of pork, which is to be covered with a layer of trout, 
then some more thin slices of pork; and with alternate 
layers fill tlie kettle if you have fish enough; but the 
top layer should be covered with slices of the pork. Then 
pour in a half pint of water or more, put on the lid and 
bake two or three hours in a hot oven; raise the lid and 
pour on a pint of melted butter and let- it bake a half 
hour more with a slight decrease in heat; and when the 
whole mixture is brought to the table you have a dish 
that beats sardines or dry codfish clear oitt of sight. 
The bake kettle can be used with success in the fire- 
place or in camp or in any place where live coals can 
be used in plenty. Antler. 
the gaudy flies sparkling like animated gems in the sun- 
beams, while the bright and beautiful trout is watch- 
ing them from below; to hear the twittering of the 
water birds, who, alarmed at your approach, rapidly 
hide themselves beneath the flowers and leaves of the 
waterlily; and as the season advances to find all these 
objects changed for others of the same kind, but better 
and brighter, till the swallow and the trout contend 
as it were for the gaudy lly, and till in pursuing your 
amusement in the calm and balmy evening, you are sere- 
naded by the songs of the cheerful thrush and melodious 
nightingale, performing the offices of paternal love in 
thickets ornamented with the rose and woodbine. 
Sir Humphry DAVir (1778-1829). 
The Pleasures and Advantages of Fishing* 
New Haven. — Editor Forest and Stream: Inclosed is an extract 
from "Days of Fly-Fishing," pubiisjied in 1828 by Sir Humphry 
Davy. Upon reading, it, it seemed to rae to be in line with those 
admirable quotations from the "Compleat Angler" which 
you occasionally publish at the head of your editorial columns. 
If you can find space for this gem of description and for reflection 
in your paper the object of sending it will be accomplished, 
namely, to strengthen furllier that old truism, "It is not all of 
fishing to fish." A. B. H. 
The search after food is an instinct belonging to our 
nature; and from the savage in his rudest and most 
primitive state, who destroys a piece of game or a fish 
with a club or a spear, to man in his most cultivated 
state of society, who employs artifice, machinery, and 
the resources of various other animals to secure his ob- 
ject, the origin of the pleasure is similar, and its ob- 
ject the same; but that kind of it requiring most art may 
be said to characterize man in his highest or intellectual 
state; and the fisher for salmon or trout with the fly 
employs not only machinery to assist his physical powers, 
but applies sagacity to conquer difficulties; and the pleas- 
ure derived from ingenious resources and devices, as 
well as from active pursuit, belongs to this amusement. 
Then as to its philosophical tendency, it is a pursuit 
of moral discipline, requiring patience, forbearance, and 
command of temper. As connected with natural science, 
it may be vaunted as demanding a knowledge of the 
habits of a considerable tribe of created beings — fishes, 
and the animals that they prey upon — and an acquaint- 
ance with the signs and tokens of the weather and its 
changes, the nature of waters and of the atmosphere. As 
to its poetical relations, it carries us into the most wild 
and beautiful scenery of nature, among mountain lakes 
and the clear and lovely streams that gush from the high- 
er ranges of hills, or that make their way through the cav- 
ities of calcareous strata. How delightful in the early 
spring, after the dull and tedious time of winter, when 
the frosts disappear and the sunshine warms the earth 
and the waters, to wander forth by some clear stream, 
to see the leaf bursting from the purple bud, to scent 
the. odors of the bank perfumed by the violet, 
and enameled as it were with the primrose and 
the- daisy; . and on' the surface of" the waters to view 
The Bangor Salmon Pool.. 
Boston, April 4. — ^A special dispatch to the daily 
papers says that the salmon season at the celebrated 
Bangor, Me., pool opened April i. Two fish were taken 
with the fly that day. One, taken by George Willey, of 
Vcazie, weighed iSlbs.; another, by W. W. Fogg, of 
Bangor, weighed gibs. Both fish were sold at $1,25 a 
pound. Tn 1897 the first fish was taken on April 3. Two 
or three Boston salmon fishermen will start for the 
Bangor pool eariy this week if the weather is favorable. 
Mr. H. S. Jones, who will be among the number, says 
that it is of but little use to fish there unless the weather 
is bright and fairly warm; the salmon will not come 
to the hook in water too dark. The pool is likely to be 
covered with boats, rigs of every sort, and tackle widely 
varied from a pole and a cod line to an outfit costing 
$100. An eariy departure of the ice from Sebago Lake, 
ni Maine, is now looked for. A letter from a well-known 
guide to a sportsman here on Saturday says that the 
warm weather in March has 'melted the big body of 
snow that was on the ice, and that it has been honey- 
combed thereby, and is likely to go out any day when 
the wind is right. A big cleft has already appeared 
about midway on one of the shores, and running out 
as far as the eye can reach. Boston landlocked salmon 
fishermen are ready. Some of them expect to be off by 
Wednesday or Thursday of this week. Mr. R. P. Wood'- 
man, who has fished that lake eveiT year for a number 
of years, expects to hook a big salmon by Thursday 
or Friday. One or two sportsmen are already on the 
ground, and will begin fishing as soon as the ice is out 
of the mouths of the inlets. The Boston Sebago Club 
ownmg handsome camps on the shores of that lake, will 
• ^'^ ^ ^"^^ ^9th, which is a legal holiday 
in Massachusetts, thus giving the busy dry goods men 
of that club an additional day that they can be away 
from busmess. 
The little moose, Tom, that did so much to make the 
late Sportsmen's Show famous, is still "in traiisit" to 
Portland, Me. He has stopped off at Boston, and is 
bemg well fed and watered. Just how long this feed- 
ing and watenng Avill be continued is not at all certain, 
ihe big black bear has gone to Norembega Park, at 
Newton; also a pair of elk, a couple of deer, the badger 
and one or two of the prairie dogs. Special. 
A Fishing Privilege Opportunity. 
Hostel of the Good Shepherd, Scranton, Pa.. 
Marcli 22.~Editor Forest and Stream: The Order of 
tlie Good Shepherd is an organization of men in the 
rrotestant Episcopal Church who give their entire life in 
caring for the poor, sick and needv. who also have a 
sma 1 convalescent home for convalescent men and boys 
discharged from hospitals, and who have no homes to 
go to until fidly recovered and able to go back to work 
It has become essential to the success of our work that 
a place out m the country must be secured in order to 
do larger and more efiicient work. A beautiful farm con- 
taining 400 acres of land has been offered to us at the 
ow sum of $3,000. The place consists of 408 acres of 
land, and has a large stream about a mile long with 
three trout ponds well stoclted; one large dam covers 
about sixty acres. The farm is about three miles from 
the railroad depot, on the main line of the D., L. and W 
R. R., four hours' ride from New York city, 2,500ft! 
above the sea, m a situation free from malaria and mos- 
quitoes. My propositions are these: Could some 
of your readers subscribe the $3,000 toward the purchas- 
ing price of the property, on the condition that the 
stream and the ponds would be sacredlv guarded and 
preserved for the subscribers of the fund as long as they 
would- live? There is a large house on the place, con- 
taining thirteen rooms, with steam heat in each room 
and entertainment could always be provided by the 
Brothers for those who should come to fish on the place 
Also fathers and mothers could send their boys for an 
outing and feel perfectly safe that they would "be under 
proper moral and religious influence in the midst of 
the most beautiful and inspiring scenery in eastern Penn- 
sylvania. 
The Order of the Good Shepherd is duly incorporated 
under the laws of the State to hold real estate for the 
purpose set forth in its articles of incorporation. I ask 
your kindly co-operation in our work for suffering hu- 
manity, and if your readers can do anything in regard 
to my proposition I shall feel ever grateful to you. 
B rother Francis. 
Fishing at the Boston Show. 
The man who played fish for Dr. Bishop to reel in 
from the lake in the Boston Exposition was the well- 
known swimmer, Peter McNally. 
Another angling feature not already noted in 
Forest and Stream was the taking of a 2lb. trout from 
the trout pool by Mr. H. W. Martin, with one of his 
automatic reels, and using ordinary sewing thread for a 
line. ■ 
Early Spring in the Adirondacfcs. 
Saranac Inn, N. Y., March 30.— For the first time 
within the memory of the oldest Adirondacker the ice 
has gone out of the lakes and ponds of this region in the 
month of March. Navigation is now open on the upper 
Saranac, one of the last lakes to open. Last year the ice 
broke up April 27. Until this year the earliest date on 
which the ice was known to go out of the lakes was April 
15. — Evening Post. . - ■ . . . . ' • - > . ■ . 
