92 
FOREST AND STftEAM 
Lenora made straight for the house, while the children 
scattered in different directions into the woods. When 
:she arrived at the door she found that nobody was there 
to hear her call. Instead of fainting away as most girls 
would, she went to her brother's room and took his 
rifle and ran back to find the children, When she got 
into the woods she. could hear them crying at some dis- 
tance away. While making toward them she again en- 
countered the animal and a well-directed rifle ball stopped 
the beast, which was making rapidly toward the girl, on 
its hind feet, erect. She then threw down the rifle and 
crowded through the bushes till she found all of the 
children, and saw that they were unhurt. The men in the 
fields heard the screaming and the rifle shots, and came 
to the scene. They found the young woman almost in a 
dead faint, with the children crying about her. She 
directed them to where the rifle was fired, which they 
soon found, also the bear, dead from the effects of the 
young lady's well-directed shot. The cubs are reported 
not to have been found yet, but the hide of the old bear 
will help to buy the young woman — only nineteen— a 
bicycle. . .. 
Special. 
Tuna and Tarpon, 
San Antonio, Tex., July 21. — Editor Forest and 
Stream:.- I see in your issue of July 2 an interesting com- 
munication from Mr. Chas. Frederick Holder, describing 
his play in landing with rod and reel a tuna of i83lbs. 
at Catalina, California. 
I claim some experience in angling for the "silver 
king" and other large fish, having landed this summer 
already, with rod and reel, twenty-eight tarpon, from 
the waters of Aransas Pass on the Texas coast, aiid am 
therefore much interested in some of the statements 
made by Mr. Holder, and without any disposition to be 
hypercritical with reference to "fish stories" as a rule. I 
am inclined to doubt the accuracy of some of these. In 
an experience of a number of years* I have never been 
able to find a 21 -strand line which would tow a yaw! boat 
with two men in it against the oars of the boatman ; and 
if Mr. Holder has secured such a line I -should like to 
know , its make and where I can procure one. I have 
used the Conroy and the Hall (considered among the - 
best), and in fact many other lines in the market, "and 
none of them will tow an ordinary skiff against the oars' 
of the boatman with a ibolb. tarpon at the other end, yet 
Mr. Holder states that his 21-strand line towed his yawl 
boat against the oars of his boatman for six or more 
miles — sometimes against a heavy sea. I have no doubt 
the tuna is a magnificent game fish, and that it is difficult 
to land one weighing i83lbs., and that the angler who 
does so on a 21-thread line is quite expert in never per- 
mitting the fish to get a pull on his line strong enough to 
tow his boat. 
I am not disposed to credit the statement that the 
tuna is superior sport to the tarpon. It does not leap 
in the air after being hooked, and the dead pull of any 
fish in the water must fail to excite the same pleasur- 
able sensations as the first furious rushes and wild leaps 
of a tarpon on the Gulf coast, and I am doubtful if as 
great skill and cool judgment be required to hold the 
tension upon the tackle necessary to ultimately kill the 
tuna in the water as is requisite to the handling of the 
"silver king." 
All fish with the propeller tail, like the tuna and others 
of the mackerel family, are strong, fast swimmers, and. 
good fighters, but my experience with them is that they 
soon grow tired and are afterward easily brought to 
gaff. 
The statement that the tu na can fight for three or four 
hours and then be as fresh as when hooked seems in- 
credible; if such were the- character of the tarpon, no fish 
over 5ft. long would ever be landed with rod and reel. 
After a three or four hour fight the angler must be 
weary, and if the fish by that time were not considerably 
exhausted I feel sure he could not be landed. 
I write this to you with no purpose of entering into a 
controversy with Mr. Holder, and would send direct, to 
him for the desired information if I had his address, 
A. W, Houston. 
Canadian Angling Notes. 
Some very excellent sport has been had lately by- 
ouananiche fishermen at Lake St. John, especially in the 
Grand Decharge. Among other fortunate anglers at 
this point may be mentioned the Count of Turin, and 
Captain Levita, of the Royal Artillery, Halifax. .One 
American fisherman and his wife, in little over a week 
at the end of last month, killed over 300 of these fish, and 
a well-known Quebecer took over seventy last Sunday 
week, but returned most of them to the water. Larger 
fish are probably to be taken noAV in the Peribonca, the 
Mistassini, the Ashuapmouchouan and Lac a Jien and 
Tschotogama. The young fish .in the hatchery at Rober- 
val are doing well, and Mr. L. N. Joncas, Superintend- 
dent of Fisheries and Game for the Province of Quebec, 
who has inspected them, reports them as exceedingly 
healthy. The splendid ouananiche pools in the Grande 
Decharge, hitherto the property of- Mr. W. A. Griffiths, 
have been purchased by Mr. B. A. Scott, of Roberval, for 
$5,000. 
On most of the salmon rivers the sport has been very 
indifferent this year, though a few anglers, including 
Mr. Adams, of the American Net and Twine Company, 
report good luck in the Gaspe district. Mr. Cabot,- of 
Boston, has just gone home after enjoying good sport 
on the Grand River, of Gaspe, and his- partner, Mr. 
Joncas, of Quebec, with a party of friends,, will fish it 
during this coming week. Mr. J. Fattier, Jr., of Boston, 
is on the St. Johns River, Mr. Frank Ross has enjoyed 
fair sport on the Magdalen, accompanied by his son, F. 
Ross, Jr. and Mr. Campbell Howard, of Jdontreal. 
Some of the Restigouche .fishermen have done fairly well, 
and others have had no sport: at -all. . A- Montreal angler 
took only three fish in ^three ..weeks' . fishing, and a 
Quebecer. who returned- from the, famous stream : quite 
recently .had but one trout to his credit, and ho salmon 
at all. - -_Mr ; . C.-.B. Barnes, of Boston, and- some of r the 
members of the Restigouche Salmon Club, made good 
catches, however./ ,.i\s a rule,, the. water lowered- rapidly ih 
most of the streams- this year, and became top clear for 
succesvsful fishing. Oh tile St. Marguerite the Season 
opened fairly welt, and Mr. Elton, of Waterbuty, took 
Seven large fish in six days. It soon fell off, however, 
and taken .all in all the fishing here wa.s .quite poor, and 
most of fhe fish caught bore, marks of having recently 
escaped from the nets-. The Trinity, which was fished by 
Mr. Morton Pato'n and friends, yielded between forty 
and fifty fish. , . Tha Moisie did jemarkably well. The 
catch averaged oyer forty fish per rod, and that of Mr, 
Edson Fitch averaged 2ilbs, per fish. 
Messrs'. R. R. McCormick and W. F. McCormick have 
had good sport in the vicinity of Lake Edward, and also 
on the Tourilli tract. In the waters of the last-mentioned 
locality they found an abundance of trout, but on this 
last trip none were taken over 2^4lbs. Yellow perch 
are being freely taken now in the shallows of Lake Ed- 
ward, and as the month of August, approaches the large 
trout in this lake may be expected to take bait again. 
The fly-fishing in the adjacent lakes, which yielded so 
well in the spring, has been neglected for the last three 
or four weeks, on account of the plague of flies in the 
woods, which was never worse than this year. It is now, 
fortunately, abating. 
Messrs. McCormick are about to leave here for Lake 
ChiboUgamon, which discharges into the Nottaway 
ftiver. This splendid body of water is within a few days' 
journey of grand Lake Mistassini. The. intrepid anglers 
will probably be five to six weeks on the trip. They 
will go up by the Ashuapmouchouan and Chigobiche 
rivers, and descend by the chief branch of the Ashuap- 
mouchouan. They expect. to meet with good sport, for 
an Indian who has been tip to the lake has brought back 
the skin of a speckled trout over 3oin. in length; They 
take four canoes and eight guide,*;, 
" E. T. D. Chambers, 
A Fishing Camp Plunder. 
Editor. Forest and Stream: . .. . . .. .. 
I $ent yott. to-day. a couple of pictures I made of my 
camping outfit. I had been camping for the month of 
October' down near the mouth -".of Fox River near 
Wedron, III, and when I was about to put away nly 
plunder for another year. I thought perhaps . a picture 
of the outfit might be pleasant, to look at until .it Was 
time to get it out again; so \ moved everything oUt of 
one of my rooms and in one corner I hung the fly of my 
nui'i-i.ic, . ■ 
Photo by Mr. Chas: Hayward. 
tent, and covered that with my minnow seine, and threw 
my tent and the rest of the plunder in front of it. The 
picture pleased me so well that I took two smaller 
plates and made a sterescopic view of it. I send you one 
of each. There is nothing extravagant about the pic- 
ture, but I think it is a pretty fair outfit for this section 
of the country, 
In my month's camp out oh Fox* River I had pretty 
fair luck with the black bass; my best day was eleven 
that weighed 3ilbs,, the largest being 3341bs-, all on 
flies. I never, in my experience, caught a string of an 
average so even. I expect to spend about six weeks in 
northern Minnesota next fall, and if I have any experi- 
ence worthy of mention will let you know. 
. Chas. Hayward. 
Round Mountain Lake* 
Eustis, Maine, July 12. — The season here is one of 
the best ever known. The trout never rose better. Dr. 
Eastman, from New York, and his friends are bringing 
in fine catches every day, and the average weight is more 
than usual for this time of year. Mayor Dodge, of 
Worcester, with his wife and party of gentlemen, have 
had fine sport on stream and lake, and have taken - 
some fine views, and also Dr. Denton, of New York, who 
is quite successful as an amateur. The weather has been 
fine for a few days:, a little cooler than is usual for July. 
I have been here for several years, and never saw a more 
delightful spot or had better sport with rod and line 
than this season. _ - - -." — ■ Medicus. 
Growth of Black Bass. 
Some light-on the qhNrepeated qoestfon as to how fast 
bass usually grow may be afforded by' the fact that in the 
spring of 1880 I received through the Fish Commission 
seven cans containing;, about fifty each of small-mouth 
bass for -stocking the waters of Sand Lake, Mich, 'The 
little fellows varied from 2 to 4m. in length at that time. 
In the summer of 1894 several specimens" were- take'n- 
with' hook' and lme,- the-'largest weighing 4lbs. ; making 
a gain oknear-ly rib; pef year. -The lake was" the natural 
home of black bass'~of' the large-mouth' variety, '• pickerel' 
and pet'e-h— all" -minnow eaters. 
jAMgS H. Brayman, 
[JULY 30, it 
■■ r ,-, - — j i !__ — - -; - t — — — ■ — r — ■ 
How Things Used to Bi* 
Is it not a. fact that the rMn who now sits in a reserved 
seat at the circus or occupies a chair on the grand stand 
at a baseball match feels that he sees less and derives not 
the enjoyment he did when, as a boy, he peeped under the 
canvas or squinted through knot holes in the fence. Thz 
elephants look smaller and the batsmen don't slug the 
ball half as hard as they did thirty years ago. When 
you got up before daylight and with home-made pole 
and can of worms you slashed around in the water all 
day, stopping your hunger with a piece of dry bread and 
oily cheese, you somehow enjoyed the fishing ; irlofe and 
you caught larger fish than you do to-day. You spend 
a day on a trout lake seated in a comfortably arm- 
chaired boat, propelled by a gtlide second to none. Your 
tackle is of the best and most modern ih every _wav. 
Your rod is like a Watch Spring, and as true as the finest 
of tempered steel. But somehow or other the struggling 
trout, despite the fact that he bends the tip across the 
butt, gives you no such nervous thrills as did the brook 
trout on the end of your alder pole in your boyhood 
days. 
Your guide knows the likely spots so well that before 
you have been fishing an hour you find yourself freeing 
the fish from your landing net and dropping them with 
a flourish of the hand again into their native element. 
You didn't dp that when you were a boy. No. You 
Worked hard for your trout, and when you got them you 
saved them, and when yOU made your count dt the end 
of the day, if you had one ot two ffiofe than yollng Jones, 
your rival, yoU felt happy.. Yoli threW iiO trout back 
into, tile bropk .those days; ttiey were tat -too precious, 
You get under a shady, moss-covered, wooden giant 
on the beach and puffing away at your cigar watch the 
guide fry your trout, and at the proper moment see 
him draw from the box of ice stowed away in the bow 
of the boat your ice-cold bottled beer. But it doesn't 
somehow or other taste half so good as the bread and 
cheese and cold spring water of your boyhood days. 
Tempora mutantur et nbs mutamur in litis. 
The troUt may be larger, of. coUrse, than those in. the 
old farm brooks, but proportionately they do not nght 
as they iised to years ago. They give Up mote quickly, 
yott think, and have not the sand in them of the troUt of 
your youth. 
They sUrely have degenerated as far as spots and 
coloring are concerned, fot they are hbt heat as gor- 
geous as. those from your old-time brooks. Where is 
the fault? Is it really as you suppose as to the size of 
the fish and their prowess, or are you in the same position 
as the college graduate, returning ten years after to his 
alma mater, and wondering how the colleges dare now to 
turn out such kids as graduates! Or is it a case of 
visiting your old village after thirty years of absence, and 
finding things which yott left vety large and imposing 
now diminutive and cohtmbiipiute; The cliUrch steeple' 
of unknown height iioVv proves to be of ordinary meet- 
ing house dimensions; The bail field of magnifiemt 
distances dwindles down to a village common of such 
limited proportions that. you wonder how you played 
ball and failed daily to wreck the window lights of the 
surrounding dwellings. Is it because you have been to 
the great cities and have seen greater sky-piercing 
steeples that the village belfry look* SO small and lowly? 
Or is it because your ideas have SO broadened in maturer 
years that you UoW see things as they are, uncoupled 
with the elusive adjunct of imagination? 
We think it is the' latter. The flush of youth, with all 
its attendant pleasures of excitement and imagination, 
has lent enchantment to all the actions and surroundings 
of childhood and boyhood. 
Every trout was a whale, and every spring hole of 
4 or 5ft. in depth a sea of unknown size. The knights 
of the olden fables fighting fiery dragons in the enchanted 
woods of wonderland were in reality not to be compared 
with the active-minded, healthy youth abroad for the 
first time in the stream-bisected woods, creeping and 
crawling through the underbrush with worm-baited line 
carefully wound round quivering pole as he thrusts it 
through the tangled opening and carefully lets drop his 
worm in the dark and shaded water, where the moss- 
covered rock shelves out into the stream. The king of 
the brook taking the wriggling worm, a lively royal 
follows between boy and trout, that, if properly describ- 
ed, would put to shame the old chroniclers of the feats 
at arms of Saladin, Godfrey, Tancred and Robert Cceur 
de Lion. 
And when the quivering, gasping, conquered trout is 
at last stretched upon the moss-clad bank, his coloring 
standing out like so many garnets, opals and sapphires 
from his silver-frosted sides, the excited hero of a boy 
fisherman stands over him with perspiring brow and 
shaking hand as no mail-clad knight of old in fortunate 
tourney watched his, unhorsed adversary as he lay out- 
stretched and helpless on the jousting sands. Could we 
wipe out the intervening years between manhood and 
youth and bring into our sports and outings the zest, 
enthusiasm and imagination of youth, things then would 
be encircled in a halo of pleasure where to-day they at. 
best appear blase and commonplace. It is the ennui of 
life that is upon us, only that and nothing more. 
Charles Cristadoro. 
St, Paul, Minn.__ . 
t 
Chicago Fly-Casting Club, 
Chicago, July 23. — Editor Forest and Stream- The 
weekly contest to-day resulted in the following record: • 
Long Distance and Accuracy and Bait 
Distance and Acc'y, and Del'.cy, • Casting, 
Fly, Feet. Per Cent. Per Cent. Per Cent. 
L. H. BeUows 114 86 1-3 94 86 
L. I. Blackman 75 1-3 84 2-5 
B. W. Goo.dsell 109 94 2-3 94 2-3 95 1-5 
H. G. Hascal Ill 90 ' ' 93-1-2 95 4-5 
E. R. Letterman ...... 49 . . . . 96 4-5 
C. A. Lippincott S5 92 1-5 
C. G. Ludlow 105 S3 92 1-3 - 69 4-5 
G. A. Murrell .' . • ' 68 _,..'. 88 1-2" 97 2-5 
F N Peet 113 ' 85 2-3 94 1-2 88 1-5 
G. W. S'rrell - .v. -- 57 - , . - 
Holders 1 of Medals: Long Di§tonee Ely— 1, H. BeL 
lows. Distance and Accuracy— B.W. Gbodsell. Accu- 
racy and Delicacy— B~;W. Goodseil. Bait Casting— G. 
A. MWrell. " " ; • " ' . 
- , G, A. Murrell, Sec'y. 
