328 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[April 23, 1898. 
The Big Back of Spring: Pond Caity. 
Saranac Lake, N. Y., April i.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: Last October T went to First Pond, in the 
Bog River Chain, in Township 2, St. Lawrence county, 
a distance of about two miles from Long Lake Station, 
to prepare a camp for Messrs. Hoopes and Smith, of 
Philadelphia, who had engaged another guide and my- 
self for a fifteen days' hunting trip. On Oct. 4, after 
the camp was built, and before the gentlemen had come 
in, I started out by myself for a still -hunt, my com- 
panion also doing the same. I walked up to Spring 
Pond carry, about three-quarters of a mile from our 
camp, and soon my attention was attracted by the mov- 
ing of bu«hes a short distance in front of me. I raised 
my rifle to be ready to shoot instantly should it prove 
that a deer was there, and stood perfectly motionless on 
the trail. In about a minute I saw a buck's head with 
a most prodigious pair of antlers. The deer was not 
more than six or eight rods from me, and was hooking 
brush. As he moved along at about a right angle from 
me toward the trail his whole body appeared to view, 
and I saw at once that he was a monster buck. He 
stepped into the road and instantly turned his head and 
looked directly at me. As I fired he bounded into the 
air and dropped dead about three rods from the place 
where he stood when I shot. I had no means of weigh- 
ing the buck, but he would easily dress 3oolbs., and was 
the largest deer that I heard of being killed in the Adi- 
rondacks last season. I was back to the camp with the 
deer in just one hour and thirty minutes from the time 
I started out from it on the hunt. 
The property upon which this buck was killed is owned 
by Messrs. William R. and Frederick A. Weed, of Pots- 
dam. It is situated in the southern part of Township 2, 
St. Lawrence county, and contains First, Second, Third 
and Fourth ponds, known as the Bog River Chain; Hor- 
net, Three Pound, Spring, Long, Bradford, Alford, and 
a number of other ponds, while the Bog River runs 
through nearl}-^ the whole tract, which consists of about 
4,400 acres. I do not belicA'c the hunting and fishing to 
be had here is surpassed anywhere in the Adirondacks. 
The speckled trout in the ponds run from J41b. to 3lbs. 
in weight, and once last August, in the latter part of the 
month, while fishing in Spring Pond, one of our party 
caught a speckled trout weighing 5lbs. This, of course, 
was an exception, but large trout are the rule here. 
In regard to the game laws, I would like to say that 
I approve of the action of the Legislature in passing 
an anti-hounding bill, and believe that with no hounding 
of deer in the Adirondacks for five years these animals 
will greatly increase in number, which must necessarily 
prove a benefit to the country and its inhabitants. The 
fact that I killed this deer while still-hunting is suffi- 
cient evidence that large deer can be shot and killed 
without the use of hounds; and as for sport, I never had 
so much pleasure and satisfaction in capturing a deer 
before in my life as I had in stiU-hunting and shooting 
this big buck. E. E. Sumner, Guide. 
Jackson Hole Game. 
Jackson, Wyo., April 7. — I am pleased to report to 
you that all the game in the Jackson Hole country has 
passed the winter successfully, except such as has been 
killed by mountain lions and coyotes, with now and then 
by a person who has no interest in game in any coun- 
try. The elk are now working toward the Yellowstone 
Park, their natural and safe breeding grounds. 
I fail to see in any particular how the annexation of 
the Teton Timber Reserve to the Park will be beneficial 
to the game unless all of Jackson's Hole Valley is in- 
cluded, as there is no game winter range therein where 
game can successfully winter; and if the lower valley 
residents are precluded from ranging cattle on the pro- 
posed Park extension they will necessarily have to use 
the lower ranges of elk for a summer range for cattle, 
thus destroying at one fell swoop the entire band of elk 
now using it. Cattle are fed here for from 100 to 125 
days, and the fields are in main the support of the elk. 
It looks to me as though the promoters of the Park ex- 
tension must insist upon the whole valley going into 
the Park. Sure it is that the upper valley includes some 
fine scenery as well as some dangerous game destroyers, 
which the annexation will probably cover — the one with 
the other. The Third Teton. 
Ringf-Necked Pheasants for New Jersey. 
In his last report to the New Jersey Fish and Game 
Commissioners State Game and Fish Protector Charles 
A. Shriner reports that 250 ring-necked pheasants have 
been disti'ibuted to various points in the State. In the 
distribution the first attention was paid to associations 
of land-owners who control lands where the birds would 
be given a chance to thrive; next in order came' farm- 
ers and other individual land-owners who could offer 
protection for the birds, and then followed individual ap- 
plicants who desired to liberate the birds in suitable 
places. In this way it is hoped that the birds will be 
given a chance and that in the course of a few years they 
will become well established in all parts of New Jersey 
where the absence of pot-hunters will permit of such a 
course. 
New York League Incorporated. 
The New York State Fish, Game and Forest League, 
of Seneca Falls, was incorporated by the Secretary of 
State on April 16 for the protection of the 
fish, game and forests in this State. This is 
a reorganization of the New York State Fisb 
and Game Protective Association^ The incorpor- 
ators are: W. S. Gavitt, of Lyons; R. P. Grant, 
of Clayton; E. G. Gould, of Seneca Falls; O. C. Corn- 
wall, of Alexandria Bay; C. W. Smith, of Syracuse; 
Percy Landsdowne, of Buffalo; C. B. Lapham, of Canan- 
daigua; G. R. Beck, of Auburn; W. E. Wolcott, of 
Utica; J. E. Emerson, of Lockport; Aaron Mather, of 
Honeoye Falls, and L. D. Lunt, of Dunkirk. 
Some one having died, a man of birth and fortune in 
the West Country, celebrated in his life for drawing 
pretty freely with the long-bow, it was remarked that 
the heir had buried him with much pomp, and had or- 
dered for his remains 3, handsome monument; "wi' arj 
epitaph," said John Clerk, in his broadest Border dialect; 
"he must hae an epitaph, an appropriate epitaph, an' 
we'll change the exordium out o' respect. Instead o' the 
usual 'Here lies,' we'll begin his epitaph wi' 'Here con- 
tinues to lie.' " 
Dry Fly-Fishing. 
BY GEORGE A, B. DEWAR (AUTHOR OF "THE BOOK OF 
THE DRY fly"). 
In Three Parts — Part I. 
The originator of dry fly-fishing is unknown. The 
credit of first popularizing it within a limited circle of 
South of England fly-fishermen has been claimed for 
several anglers. Mr. P , who has been fishing for 
trout for getting on now half a century, believes that he 
took trout with the single floating fly somewhere about 
the beginning of the 70s. His view is that to no single 
known individual can be justly assigned the invention, 
the^ patenteeship, as it were, of the dry or floating fly. 
I find that several other fly-fishermen, who have been 
angling iii. the same parts of the country for trout for 
forty or fifty years, share this opinion. Observing the 
rapid spread of dry fly-fishing from one or two Hamp- 
shire chalk streams to waters of all descriptions, and 
in all parts of Great Britain, and even to continental 
waters, I am scarcely surprised to see that Mr. A. N. 
Cheney predicts that the method will be practiced by 
and by in America. The rivers really adapted to the 
A FORT PIERCE TARPON. 
Taken by Mr. F. M. Tylor. 
dry fly are those of a slow or moderate pace, in which 
the water is clear and the fish are of a good size, accus- 
tomed to take natural flies of various sorts at the sur- 
face and in the sub-imago or imago stages of exist- 
ence. If you have such waters in your grand sporting 
land, and if your brook and rainbow trout rise well at 
the fly, I can hardly doubt that the dry fly will presently 
be known in America almost as well as it is in this 
country. 
It is practically out of the question to try to explain 
to fly-fishermen by writing or word of mouth the method 
and the distinctive character of dry fly-fishing without 
bringing in the ordinary or wet fly method. Broadly 
speaking, the wet fly angler fishes the stream, where 
the dry fly angler fishes the rise, by which I mean 
the rise of one particular trout which he has observed 
feeding on natural flies in sub-imago or imago form on 
the surface of the water. The dry fly angler nearly 
always, certainly always where he can, gets well below 
his trout, and casts his fly up to it; he never uses more 
than one fly; he never, if he can possibly help it, lets 
that fly be out of sight; he strikes directly he sees the 
rise or sees th&^ring, never waiting till he feels the fish; 
he does not fish at all unless he finds a trout or grayling 
feeding at the surface. None of these rules are followed 
by the wet fly-fisherman, and this fact will, I think, help 
to show the wide essential difference between the two 
styles, and to give besides, what is more to my present 
purpose, some idea of how the dry fly is used. 
The first thing which the angler has to do, after he 
has reached the water and fitted together his rod, is to 
find a fish on the move, and taking, or obviously ready 
to take, food at the surface. On some rivers one can- 
not but help notice that there is a fairly steady hatch of 
fly and rise of trout throughout the day. Except in 
the burning summer afternoons where no fly to speak of 
hatches, and when the fish seem to prefer either basking 
in the sun or else hiding themselves in the weeds, I have 
observed that these rivers are usually the smaller ones, 
such as tributaries of tributarie.s, with plenty pf fairly 
rapid water? _ _ , 
Having discovered his rising trout the angler pro- 
ceeds to get well behind it, more especially if the trout 
is situated on his own side of the stream. Sometimes 
he sees the fish more or less distinctly; at others only 
the ring which the fish makes in taking the natural fly. 
If only the latter, it is necessary to fix as closely as 
possible upon the exact spot where the rise is taking 
place. When a trout only rises once in or near the 
middle of the stream, and does not remain in sight, it 
is difficult for the angler to keep the exact spot In his 
eye, or mind. On the other hand, when the trout rises 
close in under the bank, or in a particular eddy, small 
pool, or the like, the angler is easily able to mark the 
spot. A single blade of grass, a stationary break in the 
water — if I may use such an apparently conflicting term 
—the overhanging twig of a willow, or some other sim- 
ilar object, will serve the purpose. Yet in order to feel 
perfectly _ sure of exactly where the trout is, the wise 
angler will usually wait to see a second rise before he 
commences operations. A good trout taking natural 
flies at the surface will move only a very little, rarely 
going more than a foot to the right or left of his lair 
to seize an insect floating down stream. Often the trout 
will not stir so far as that, but will prefer to wait and 
suck down only the flies which come over his very nose. 
In this style of angling the more the angler can imitate 
nature the greater will his success be. The natural fly 
floats down stream with, if it be, as it usually is in the 
case of English "dry fly waters," one of the ephemeridse, 
upright wings. It is therefore necessary that the angler 
should make his fly float down with upright, or in dry 
fly parlance, "cocked" wings. To make the fly float 
the angler must prevent it getting water-logged. There- 
fore, after withdrawing the fly from the water after an 
unsuccessful cast, he has to shake the water out of it by 
a backward and forward motion of the rod in the air, 
usually over his shoulder. This process is known as 
drying the fly. 
The actual cast should be so made that the fly will 
fall from 6in. to a foot above the rising fish, or above 
the point where the ring, which tells where the fish is 
waiting for its prey, has been observed. It should then 
be allowed to float down, and if not taken should still 
by no means be removed from the water till it has trav- 
eled a foot or even iSin. below the point where the fish 
is known to be lying. If removed too soon it will very 
likely scare or "set down'* the fish for an hour or more— 
i. e., cause the fish to cease feeding on the natural fly. 
Delicacy of cast is by no means only essential to dry 
fly-fishinp; from time to time for a long while past an- 
gling writers have laid stress upon the necessity of let- 
ting the flies fall "like thistle-down" on the water. But, 
if it is necessary in wet fly-fishing, it is assuredly not less 
so when the dry fly is being used. If the fly fall heavily 
on the water it will soon get drowned, perhaps before 
it has traveled its few necessary inches; and the trout 
will not under those conditions deign to even glance 
at it. Accuracy of cast is, if possible, more absolutely 
necessary than lightness of cast. Let a cunning old 
trout see too much of the gut, or let the fly fall wide of 
the mark at the first cast, and success is always unlikely. 
Therefore the angler should measure the distance nicely, 
and not let his fly alight till he is tolerably sure that he 
will be able to place it in the right spot. Hurry in dry 
fly-fishing is as fatal as it is in deer stalking. It is quite 
true that there often seems not a moment to lose during 
what the angler knows to be a short, sharp rise of fish 
and hatch of natural fly, but Still it is far better to err on 
the side of deliberation than precipitation. The thing 
is never to hurry, and yet never to lose a moment, but 
then that way Heth perfection. 
' New England Fishing:. 
Boston, April 13. — Landlocked salmon fishing at Se- 
bago Lake in Maine has been unusually good since the 
ice went out. Thirty-five salmon were caught there Sat- 
urday and Sunday, and ten or twelve on Monday. One 
of the largest, caught by C. E. Davis, of Portland, 
weighed I2j41bs. One or two good fish have been taken 
by Boston fishermen, and they all unite in praising the 
fishing there. Charles A. Robinson, of South Windham, 
a gentleman thoroughly posted on salmon fishing at Se- 
bago, telephoned John G. Wright, of this city, on Thurs- 
day to look out for a I2}4\h. salmon that was on the way 
to him. This fish goes to just the right place, since Mr. 
Wright has been prevented from making his usual fish- 
ing trip to Sebago this spring by illness. With Mr. 
Robinson he has fished there every spring for a number 
of seasons, and may go later. 
The members of the Sebago Club are off to-day for 
their delightful sporting camps at that lake. The party 
includes Mr. Gookin and friend, Mr. E. Harding; Mr. 
Sias, Mr. Mitten, Judge Bolster, Mr. Paine, Mr. Fitch, 
Mr. Lawson, Mr. Henderson and Mr. Fisher. The gen- 
tlemen are all fond of fishing; several of them are sal- 
mon experts, and some good catches should be recorded, 
though the latest reports suggest that the fishing has 
not been as good for a day or two as on the first days 
after the departure of the ice. 
Some good catches of trout aire noted from Wheeler 
Brook, in and near Byfield. Senator Charlie Bailey and 
C. H. Tarbox fished there a few hours on Saturday, 
with the result of five trout for Tarbox and six for Bailey. 
Two or three of the fish measure loin. in length. This 
is considered very good indeed for brook trout in Massa- 
chusetts. The brook is controlled bj^ the land owners 
around it, and is thoroughly posted. Restocking has 
been done to some extent, and the fine fish taken this 
spring are believed to be the result of restocking and 
protection. ^ • 
Boston, April 18. — Cold weather has kept. the trout 
fishermen at home for two or three days, but later the 
skies are bright, and good catches are looked for on 
Patriots' Day, April 19. The ice did not get out of New- 
found Lake, N. H., till Thursday, according to telegrams, 
and the R. O. Harding party did not start till Saturday. 
They expect good fishing. At this writing the ice is 
still in Winnepesaukee, though expected to leave at any 
moment. Considerable preparations are being made at 
several points on that lake for the entertainment of fish- 
ermen, who troll for lake trout. Lake Auburn, Me., is 
clear of ice, or will be by time this item is read, since 
the coves were clcj^r, according to reports last night, 
t 
