Jm.v i6 f 1898.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
4 7 
more came into the waters of Slioal Water Bay, where 
we found a stiff northwester, against which we beat 
for four hours, and our Fourth of July celebration was 
over . Jim Mack. 
Shoal Wateh Bay, Washington. 
The Bass that can Never be Caught. ' 
After supper at camp, on a calm summer eve, 
When each his experience imparts 
In wonderful stories we seem to believe, 
Despite every doubt in our hearts. 
How oft. as the twilight grows dim in the west. 
A swift, unrestrainable thought 
Will flv to the lake, and dive down in its breast 
To the bass that can never be caught. 
We have seen him at morn, we have seen him at noon, 
We have heard rum "cavoorting" at night, 
We have dreamed, whilst the ripples were kissed by the 
moon, )( 
That he had condescended to "bite"; 
But. daylight returning, we've 'wakened to find 
The joys that in Dreamland were wrought 
Leave only a longing remembrance behind 
Of the bass that can never be caught. 
When bright in the east gleams the herald of Day, 
And we hopefully bend to the oar, 
With a swish and a swirl, 'mid a tempest of spray, 
He springs, not five rods from the shore; 
Pass on, wistful fisher, pull nimbly away, 
To locate on some favorite spot. 
He is snug in the lake, and he's in it to stay. 
He's the bass that can never be caught. 
All spell-bound we note his magnificent length 
As close 'neath the surface he glides. 
Or. bouncing aloft in the pride of his strength, 
Flings the foam from his glittering sides. 
Then, "silently sinking, he leaves not a trace 
Whereby his retreat might be sought. 
We will see him again, but what time— or what placer 
He's the bass that can never be caught. 
He has vanished, but where? Ah! my friend, who can 
tell? 
Perchance to some rock-pomt remote. 
Or he may be at rest in some wave-covered dell, 
Or he may be right under your boat; 
But your skill, perseverance and patience are vam, 
For he holds your allurements at naught— 
You may try what you please, but I tell you again, 
He's the bass that can never be caught. 
Yet, here's to his health! Though our tackle he shun. 
Let us fill a fresh pipe for his sake; 
May the mornings that dawn when our fishing is done 
Still greet him the lord of the lake! 
We may talk of our catches, big, medium and small. 
We may smile o'er the rapture they brought, 
But the "dandy," the "daisy," the king of them all. 
Is the bass that can never be caught. 
Ed. Legco 
Hartsd.ale, N. Y 
Bass Peculiarities. 
Barnstable, Mass. — Editor Forest and Stream: If in 
your columns you can explain the peculiarities of a num- 
ber of black bass living in a pond in this vicinity, you 
will greatly oblige a number of fishermen on old Cape 
Cod. j 
There is about one mile from this village a pond or 
lake, covering an area of about twenty to twenty-five 
acres; the water has been analyzed and is said to be 
the second purest in the State; the shores are steep and 
rocky, with the exception of one end, which has a clear, 
white', sandv beach, but quite steep; and one large bay, 
which is shoal and sandy. The pond itself is deep, be- 
ing over 100ft. in many places, and has a depth of 20ft. 
within easy casting distance of the shore for nearly the 
entire length of one side. There is no stream running 
in or out of it, and it is apparently fed by underground 
springs, and there are what are termed spring holes to 
be found in the ice during the winter. This is always the 
last pond to freeze over, and it is usually open until 
other ponds have a covering of from 8 to 6in. of ice. 
This pond was stocked with black bass of the small- 
mouth variety some thirty years ago, and protected for 
seven years. After the expiration of that time fairly 
good fishing was had at times. Some years good catches 
were made "and other years nothing could be taken ex- 
cept very small fish. For the last eight or ten years no 
fish of any consequence have been taken from the pond, 
and it has been fished very little, although plenty' of 
small bass from 3in. in length up to Yilb. can be taken 
at any time. Fifteen years ago one could almost count 
on taking a dozen good fish from 2 to 4lbs. in weight 
in an afternoon, and seven years ago a few fish could 
be taken, but since then little or nothing. At or about 
that time (seven years ago) I was fishing from a boat, 
in about 20ft. of water; the evening being very still, and 
the bottom clear white sand, objects could easily be seen. 
We had taken a small lunch with us, which we ate 
about sunset, and during the meal I crumbled up a slice 
of bread, throwing the pieces over the side of the boat, 
and watched them sink to the bottom; these pieces of 
bread were immediately surrounded by a number of 
large fish, which passed lazily in and out among the 
slowly sinking fragments without offering to devour 
them, nor would they touch our hooks. I have also no- 
ticed large fish following smaller fish to the surface, 
when the latter have been hooked. These incidents, as 
I have said, were all noticed about seven years ago, and 
since then I do not think that a single bass of over 
J^lb. in weight has been taken from the pond, although 
plenty of small fry can be taken at any time; conse- 
quently the pond has been fished A'ery little if any. I 
• have tried the following baits: Shrimp, grasshoppers 
(which were considered the best at one time), crickets, 
frogs, minnows, worms, and have even sent away and 
obtained helgramites. but without success. These fish 
have never risen to the fly, although tried repeatedly. 
The above arc the facts as nearly as I can give them. 
and if not asking too much, would you kindly answer 
the following questions: 
No. 1. — Can you give any explanation of the present 
state of things as described? If there are plenty of small 
fish, why should there not be large ones; and if not, 
what has become of them? No dead fish have ever 
been found about the shores, and the pond has certainly 
not been "fished out." 
No. 2. — Can you suggest any bait or lure by which 
these fish can be taken — supposing, of course, that some 
of the larger ones are still left? 
Now we come to the second condition of things: Two 
years ago a large number of lake trout of good size 
were put in this pond, and as they are a new variety 
in this section, will you kindly give me a little further 
information regarding them? 
No. 3. — Will they (the bass and lake trout) live amica- 
bly together in such a pond? Or, which can be ex- 
pected to survive? 
No. 4. — Should the trout be fished for in the shoal or 
deep parts of the pond? 
No, 5. — Will these trout rise to the fly? 
No. 6.. — What would be the proper bait to use in fish- 
ing for these trout under the circumstances? 
Cape Cod. 
t. If there are small fish there must be large ones to 
produce them. It is probable that they do not care for 
your baits. Such was the case in Lake Giles, in Bloom- 
ingrove Park, Pike county, Pa., the fish were probably 
too well fed to care for baits. 2. No. If they refuse live 
minnows and the other lures you mention, we can sug- 
gest nothing. 3. Yes; the bass love warmer water than 
the lake trout, which will be found in the deepest part in 
summer. 4. In the deeper water. 5. Lake trout will 
rise to the fly for a few days after the ice leaves the lake, 
then they go into such deep water that they cannot see 
it. 6. See description of fishing for lake trout by Fred 
Mather, in last week's issue. 
Wild Fishers I Have Fished With. 
BY FRED MATHER. 
At first there was a notion to make the heading: 
"Things I Have Fished With," but a moment's thought 
showed that the title might be construed to mean worms, 
flies, minnows, spoon hooks and other lures, and that 
would not convey the meaning which was intended. I 
tried several headings and finally settled on the above, 
which is not just what was want(*l, but no better seemed 
to offer. The idea was to say something of the furred, 
feathered and other life which at odd times during half 
a century fished with me, or in my company, without 
previous appointment or even an introduction. That 
description is too long for a heading, and a heading 
should be descriptive of what is to follow. I have failed 
in the heading, but have tried to retrieve the failure in 
the first paragraph. 
The Kingfisher. 
There are about 100 species of kingfishers, of which 99 
belong to the old world, chiefly to its tropical parts and 
to Australia. In North America we have only one 
species, called the "belted kingfisher," and therefore it 
need not be described further than to say that it is 
the female which wears the belt; perhaps in the dark 
ages of the past the original female "bested" her part- 
ner and her descendants have since held the belt un- 
disputed. 
This jolly bird is common everywhere, whether up 
some little trout stream, which the angler has just dis- 
covered, but which the kingfisher knew years before, or 
along the rocks and beaches of old ocean, where it seeks 
its prey among the breakers. There is no bit of fresh 
or salt' water on this continent that the kingfisher does 
not frequent and where its cheery whir, like the song of 
the reel, is not heard. Every youthful angler saw one on 
his first fishing trip, and also learned its name, which 
fortunately is the same from Florida to Alaska. The 
Germans call it the icebird, Eisvogel, and the name seems 
inappropriate, although it often remains all winter along 
the northern coast, near open waters. 
Once I cast a minnow for black bass, and some fish 
struck at it and knocked the bait on top of a lily pad. 
A passing kingfisher saw it, stopped, hovered and dove. 
The bird struck the water hard just as the minnow 
floundered into it, and bore the fish some feet in the 
air until it learned that its prey was fast to something, 
when the bird dropped the fish and alighted on a dead 
limb and scolded away. In fact it always scolds when it 
misses, and I have been in doubt whether it can spring 
its rattle with a fish in its bill. By the marks on this 
minnow the long bill of the bird did not pierce it, but it 
struck the fish about the middle, leaving a mark on 
each side. 
The kingfisher sizes up its prey and does not take a 
fish which it cannot swallow whole. It takes the fish 
head first, after it has seized it crosswise and gone to a 
limb to swallow it. This I have learned by dissection, 
for as a fishculturist I was forced to protect my trout 
fry from a bird which has always been a welcome com- 
panion on angling trips. As an angler I loved the com- 
pany of this cheerful fish, but the business of fishculture 
is another thing. Prince Hal loved the society of "Fat 
Jack" while he was merely the heir apparent; when he 
became king he left the old fellow to die "a-babbling of 
green fields," and I have always hated King Henry V. 
for it. Yet every man has two sides to his character, and 
I have herein shown a sentimental and a business side 
while condemning a monarch for the same thing. Please 
do not confound the miserable Falstaff of "The Merry 
Wives of Windsor" with the real article of Shakespeare's 
King Henry IV. 
The kingfishers nest in holes in the bank, usually un- 
der the protecting roots of trees, and the young seem 
to be able to reject fish bones or to pass them un- 
digested, I don't know which. Nor do I know how the 
young are fed, whether as pigeons are fed or whether the 
old takes a fish to the nest and picks it to pieces for 
the fledgelings. In fact there are many things which 
we may never know of the life history of wild birds, be- 
cause we cannot be allowed to intrude upon theh- 
privacy. «^ 
The Osprey. 
This is a large bird of the great family of falcons, which 
includes the eagles, hawks and kites. Osprey is the cor- 
rect name of the bird, which is called "fish hawk" in 
many parts of our country, and not without reason. It 
ranges almost over the world, and is not confined to 
America. This fact, in combination with the other 
fact that the name "osprey" is more universal than "fish 
hawk," leads me to use the name which is wider known, 
even if not so descriptive. 
Did you ever watch a kingfisher hover at 50ft., dive 
and strike its prey; or an osprey do the same thing to 
a larger fish at three times the distance? If you have 
done this, and have seen these birds take their fish i" 
from 1 to 3ft. of water, you mzy have wondered at it in an 
indolent sort of way, and have gone on fishing. 
Stop here and think! Put your hand a foot above the 
water and try to grab a fish that is just below the sur- 
face and you will fail, Then consider what the king- 
fisher and the osprey do at the heights at which thev 
dive, and make a good living at it, and you will marvel 
how the birds do it with repeated success, while you 
can never catch even a little minnow in your hand. 
The osprey can sail in circles, like all of its class, but 
it often flies in a direct line with head bent down tc 
scan the waters below. When it sees a fish of the desired 
size or kind, it hovers, as the kingfisher does, and then 
like an arrow it dives and rarely misses. Unlike the 
kingfisher, it emerges from the water with the fish in its 
powerful talons, and not in its bill, and then wings its 
way into the woods to feast or to feed its young. 
Once while sitting still watching a woodcock boring, 
an osprey alighted on an oak limb about 20ft. high and 
nearly that distance away. The woodcock was alarmed 
and remained without motion; the osprey pressed the 
fish, which appeared to be a herring or a menhaden, to 
the limb with both claws and tore its flesh with its beak. 
I almost held my breath, fearing to disturb the wood- 
cock, which seemed to have become part of the bog in 
which it had been feeding, but when the osprev left the 
tree there was a quiet eye that followed its flight for 
a while, and the woodcock began boring again. 
Just sixteen years ago there was a pair of osoreys that 
had nested for years in the top of a dead tree that stood 
on the shore of Big Moose Lake, in the Adirondacks. 
There was no permanent camp there then, and when Jack 
Sheppard and I entered the lake in June the old birds 
sailed around us and screamed in a threatening manner 
They had either eggs or young and wanted no neighbor* 
of our kind. We stayed at Jack's camp a week and 
fished; when we left the lake the birds had almost ceased 
to fear us. Down on the Fulton chain there was a nest 
and a sign near the carry, "Don't shoot the hawks." 
for there were heedless fellows who needed such a 
caution; men who saw nothing in the sailing osprey 
but a thing to shoot at and to kill. Verily, all the 
missionaries need not be sent abroad. 
The Bald Eagle. 
Jn schoolboy days I had read how the hard-working 
osprey was robbed of its prey by the bald eagle, which 
soared above the osprey and waited till it was struggling 
with a large fish, when the eagle would descend upon its 
relative and make it drop the fish, which the stronger 
bird would seize before it struck the water. There was 
a picture of the scene, but neither of the birds were then 
on my list of personal acquaintances, and I took no 
further interest in the fish-earning osprey and the rob- 
ber baron who despoiled him until I went to Currituck 
Sound, N. C, to collect fishes for the old aquarium of 
New York city, and by accident to fish with the Grand 
Duke Alexis, of Russia, as recorded in Forest and 
Stream of June 12, 1897. 
My boatman was a typical one,, interested only in 
such things as brought money to his purse, and who 
wondered at the interest which I took in birds and 
fishes, which to him were "no 'count." I had watched 
the gulls, buzzards and other birds, noting their modes 
of flight, when Jim thought I should have been fishing, 
for in addition to his pay he was to have all the fish 
which I did not care to keep alive for the aquarium. 
"Hold on, Jim," I called, "there is one of your fish 
hawks, as you call 'em, hovering over a fish, and I want 
to see it dive and note if it scores a hit or a miss; I'll 
pull in the trolling line and not let it get to the bottom, 
just stop, I can't watch birds and fish at the same 
time." 
Jim rested on his oars, ejected a quid of North Caro- 
lina plug and filled his pipe with some fine cut and light- 
ed it. By this time the osprey had delivered itself as a 
bolt from heaven, and was struggling with what looked 
like a black bass of at least 61bs. weight, probably much 
heavier than the osprey. The bird was laboring hard 
and rising slowly; when about 20ft. above the water Jim 
said: "Now yo' watch dat ah white-head eagle up dah 
in de clouds a-lookin' like a little speck. He see dattah 
hawk take dattah fish, an' he play he got no interes' in 
de game, but jess wait till dattah hawk get hees fish up 
in de yare an' yo' see some fun." 
The osprey winged its way laboriously with about all 
it could carry for some distance without the least sign 
that the eagle, Jim said it was an eagle, took any interest 
in the proceedings. The osprey had inclined toward 
the wooded shore, and when it had wearily attained the 
height of about 100ft. the eagle paused, hovered, ami 
like a stroke of lightning descended on the osprey w'ft 
a scream that would have scared many a fisherman with 
more avoirdupois than an osprey to hold up his hands, 
and when the fish dropped the eagle had its talons in it 
before it reached the water, and the osprey e creamed a 
note of thanks that it had escaped with its life. 
Next day we were fishing up the Sound and rowed 
close to a flock of coots, Fulica, which Jim called "blue- 
peters," and we had an argument regarding their edible 
qualities which ended this way: "Jim," said I, "you 
have no right to an opinion on the edible qualities of this 
bird, because you say you have never eaten one and 
never will eat one. In the West, where they call 'em 
'mud hens,' there is the same prejudice, but they are as 
good as some ducks, try 'em and see for yourself." 
"Nossir, I'd go hungry a long time afore I'd eat a 
blue-peter, but look up in the sky, there's a fellow who 
likes 'em an' he's goin' to get one fo' his dinner." 
There were probably four acres of these coots when we 
