Sept. io, 1898.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
211 
Game comes to this reservoir that thrills the hearts 
of boys to think about. Bears have lapped its water, 
and deer seek to avoid the flies in it. Last year one of 
the heaviest deer killed about Northwood mingled its 
blood with the brown swamp water. It attracted the 
boys because it is wild and lonely, and seems to hold up 
a prize of big game. Even a panther might be seen. The 
letter runs: 
"You needn't be kicking so because I ain't writing no 
letters to you. You know what I'm up to when at home, 
and how paper sticks when a fellow tries to write in hot 
weather. Me and Will Hamblin went up to the reser- 
voir Saturday and came back to-day. I rode up to his 
house on my bike and carried my pack, and then we 
hoofed it up past the Pardy Place and follered that old 
trail over the hill to Dennet's Camp, and we stopped 
at Michael's Camp, where Elmer made a little lean-to 
last spring when he went fishing. We had lots of fun, 
and things got awfully funny onct, and you'd orter have 
seen us. 
"You know what a putterin' fellow Will is. Always 
wiggling and putting things that's crooked straight, and 
straight things crooked. He turned the camp out and 
fetched in some balsam boughs, and we fixed a bed soft 
enough to lie on, and made a fire, with a smudge to drive 
the skeeters away. He had to go get a big pile of wood, 
big enough to last a week. Then we went up to the 
reservoir to watch. I was up where the creek comes 
in, and he sat down by the dam. 
''Six skeeters would climb down my back, and two 
would crawl up my trousers. Some would get up my 
sleeve, and mostly they'd get on my face, while punkies 
came in where they weren't. Will had all the tar, and so 
I couldn't do nothing but itch and swear. A mink came 
up the stream and ketched a trout 'bout 7in. long and 
ete it head first. Then he scratched his head with his 
left hind leg. and chuckled himself under the chin and 
kinda curled his whiskers. Reg'lar dude, that beast. 
The skeeters didn't bite so hard when he was there. He 
went under a log, and I looked for something else. 
"Rick, crick, swish, crash, rick, crash, rick, crash! 
Gee, I thought, 'Here comes one sure,' and I shivered 
and grabbed my rifle tight. 'Swish, swish, sh-h-h, crash 
— chureee, ree, ree, churra!' darned old red squirrel 
getting berries. And I waited some more. Then sun 
went down yeller behind the green trees; makes a fellow 
crawl when it's like that. And I could feel the woods 
getting darker and shadowy, and awfully still — just that 
creek sucking under a log, ugh! 
"Will was going to holler when he got ready to go to 
camp. I felt the back of my neck begin to twitch, as if 
something were just going to grab it with claws. It got 
darker by jumps, with little shadders of light coming 
along once in a while, and a feller had to look twice to 
see once, and you couldn't tell if it was a black stump 
or a holler between the trees across the creek. And 
just then one of them great big long-legged, lean-necked, 
yeller-eyed, toe-in blue cranes came flapping out of the 
sky and lights sudden not thirty feet from me with a 
yell. Lordy! Lordy! I could only half see and only 
' half understand. I riz right up stiff and aching, and then 
I sat right down again weak and limp as a dead wet 
rabbit. 
"Will hollered in a minute after, and I Avas half-way 
to him in no time. We went down to camp and built a 
fire, and sat around and talked. He'd seen a pritty duck 
with a green head, and heard the crane holler. Sounded 
pritty loud where he was, and my shot too. 
"I woke up once that night, and the moon was shin- 
ing kinda faint, and there was an owl taking medicine 
and gagging after it outside somewheres. We was up 
at before daylight and ete a lunch, and went up to the 
reservoir for nn hour or so, but didn't see nothing but a 
kingfisher. And I found the crane what had scared me 
where it had drifted against a bush. My bullet had 
soaked it through both wing bones. I wanted to eat 
him, but Will wouldn't. 
"We went up behind the camp after we had breakfast 
and circled over the ridges up there; saw a lot of deer 
tracks and found a fresh bed, but didn't see anything. I 
saw a flock of partridges, and killed four with the target 
pistol before the ijits knew what was up. We had 'em 
for dinner that night, and burned the feathers and things 
in the fire. 
"We hadn't seen anything, and didn't much expect to 
in the morning because we were going to start night after 
we got through watching the reservoir. We got to sleep 
pretty late that night, and slept pretty well till pretty 
near morning, and then Will got cold and got up to 
fix the fire. He'd just stirred the fire, so's the sparks 
flickered up, and something kinda big and kinda black 
circled round between him and me and went toward the 
woods grunting. He threw a hunk of wood at me, and 
I woke up, and we didn't sleep any more that night 
When it came daylight we found that it was a bear, and 
his tracks was all round the camp. Gee! I wish I could 
have got my sight on him when he was between me and 
the fire. He didn't pass more than 6ft. from me when 
he went away. 
"We went up and watched at the reservoir after we'd 
ete some partridge meat, and then started for home. 
We are going up again some day. 
"Fred Jones and Will Miller are up in the woods on 
timber jobs, but they're going hunting later in the sea- 
son of course. Fred says he reckons he'll fetch blood 
some of these days out of something, and if he don't he'll 
know the reason of it." 
The rest of the letter is gossip about the boys— how- 
Joe Curltail saw seven deer on his way to Finche's 
Camp with supplies; how several deer have loafed around 
Northwood all summer, and that the plentifulness of deer 
is due directly to the suppression of hounding. 
Raymond S. Spears. 
New York City. 
Gogebic Bass* 
Gogebic, Mich., Aug. 31.— Bass fishing is holding up 
the daily catches showing no falling off in Gogebic's 
famous stock. Many anglers are here from all parts of 
the country. K. B. W. 
The Forest and Stream is put to press each week on Tuesday. 
Correspondence intended for publication should reach us at the 
latest by Monday, and as much earlier as practicable. 
Some Preliminary ObservationstCon- 
cerning the Artificial Culture 
of the Grayling. 
BY DR, JAMES A. HENSHALL, U. S. FISH COMMISSION. 
Read before the American Fisheries Society, July 21, 1S98. 
The grayling of Montana exists only in the tributaries 
ot the Missouri River, above the falls, but principally in 
the three forks of that river— the Jefferson, Madison and 
Gallatin rivers and their tributaries. 
In 1805 Lewis and Clark found the grayling near the head- 
waters of the Jefferson, and in the history of their won- 
derful expedition spoke of it as follows: "Toward even- 
ing we formed a drag of bushes, and in about two hours 
caught 528 good fish, most of them large trout. Among 
them we observed for the. first time ten or twelve trout of 
a white or silvery color, except on the back and head, 
where they are of a^bluish cast; in appearance and shape 
they resemble exactly the speckled trout, except that 
they are not so large, though the scales are much larger- 
the flavor is equally good." 
This fish was not subsequently identified from this 
description, though any one acquainted with the locality 
and the fishes of the headwaters of the Jefferson could not 
£ 0 , ubt f ° r a moment that the grayling was meant. Dr 
Elliott Coues, in his edition of the "History of the Lewis 
and Clark Expedition," thinks the description applies to 
the bluebacked salmon (0. nerka) of the Pacific coast- 
though he says this genus is not known to exist in At- 
lantic waters. 
In a recent communication to Forest and Stream 
I have advised the adoption of the name Thymallus lewisi 
for the grayling on the strength of Lewis' description, 
and to relegate to synonomy Cuvier's name of Thymallus 
ontanensis, based on a specimen the locality of" which 
is unknown, though it was wrongly attributed, as I be- 
lieve, to Lake Ontario. 
Seth Green and Fred Mather claim to have hatched 
the grayling artificially from eggs procured in Michigan 
in 1874. Seth Green has a brief notice in his "Fish 
Hatching and Fish Catching" of the hatching of about 
100 eggs, but says nothing, except in a general way 
of feeding and rearing the fry. I have an impression that 
Mr. Mather has reported his operations at greater length, 
but I do not remember just when and where his account 
was published. 
The first real effort iu this direction was inaugu- 
rated last spring by the U. S. Fish Commission, at a sub- 
station connected with the Bozeman, Mont., station and 
situated on the inlet (Elk Creek) of Red Rock Lake, the 
headwaters of the Jefferson River. The auxiliary station 
was in charge of Mr. A. J. Sprague, who was detailed 
irom the Leadville station, and worked under my di- 
rection. 
Mr. Sprague took some 3,000,000 grayling eggs, 1 000 - 
000 of which were hatched and planted in Elk Creek- 
50,000 eyed eggs were shipped to the Manchester, la.' 
station; 50,000 to the Leadville, Colo., station, and 10,000 
to the U. S. Fish Commission exhibit at the Omaha 
exposition, all of which, by extra precautions in packing, 
arrived at their destination in good condition. About 
.1,500,000 were shipped to the Bozeman station, but many 
were lost owing to a lack of ice for packing the eyed eggs 
Some green eggs were shipped as an experiment, and 
though seemingly in good condition on arrival at Boze- 
man they all died soon afterward. 
These eggs were shipped over a wagon road some sixty 
miles in a common farm wagon, without springs and 
called by courtesy "a stage," from Red Rock to Monida 
Mont.; thence by railroad. The drive of sixty miles 
is made in one day by relays of horses, and as the 
drivers are required to "make time" the eggs were sub- 
jected to much jolting. 
The problem of transportation of eyed grayling eggs, 
however, has been satisfactorily determined. As the 
period of incubation is so short, it is absolutely neces- 
sary that the temperature be kept between 40 0 and 
45 ■ This can be accomplished by packing ice and dry 
moss beneath, around and on top of the stack of trays 
m the egg case. A good plan also is to place an extra 
ice hopper in an inverted position over the usual hopper- 
this answers the double purpose of keeping the moss 
dryer and also allows more ice to be used on top. It 
is of the utmost importance that the eggs should not 
be subjected to the least pressure during transportation 
There should be very little, if any, moss placed over 
the eggs or between the egg trays. Any pressure on the 
eggs causes fungus to develop, and is fatal to the life 
of the embryo. 
About 500,000 eggs were hatched at the Bozeman sta- 
tion, and at least 50 per cent, of the fry are alive and 
most of them are feeding. 
In stripping the female grayling the eggs are a little 
harder to start, but are then extruded more freely than 
in the case of the trout. About 3,000 eggs is the average 
for a fish of 12m 111 length. The eggs are white and as 
clear as a crystal; they are smaller than the native trout 
Cb. mykiss) eggs, but after impregnation and the absorp- 
tion of water will average i-7in. in diameter, while the 
native trout eggs are i-6in., and the brook trout (V 
fonhnahs) eggs are l-5in. in diameter. 
Soon after fertilization the eggs become glutinous and 
adnesrye, forming bunches or masses of various sizes 
when fungus rapidly develops and kills the egg Tin's 
renders the work of picking laborious, but imperative. 
1 he embryo develops rapidly and is in constant motion 
often causing the egg to roll over on the tray. The °rav- 
hng eggs are lighter than trout eggs, almost semi-buoy- 
ant, and from our experience would be better hatched 
under a pressure of water from below. In an improvised 
jar they did well, and the bunching and development of 
fungus did not occur. Perhaps the method followed with 
pike-perch eggs in using starch or muck might cause 
the eggs to separate, and the bunching to be prevented 
Next season I propose to experiment with fine quick- 
sand, so called, which is abundant about Red Rock Lake- 
it is more like fine marl, as fine as wheat flour. 
The embryo begins to show life and motion before 
the eye spots are visible. The eye spots are small o-ilt 
specks with a minute black pupil, and appear in from 
three to five days. The period of incubation, is from. 
ten to twelve days, at a temperature of about 50°. The 
fry are hatched with a very small yolk sac, about half the 
size of the egg, and which is absorbed in about a week, 
when the fry immediately becomes a free-swimming ani- 
mal about y 2 \n. in length, and is quite slender and deli- 
cate. They do not begin to feed so readily as trout, and 
require constant coaxing, as often as every half-hour, 
with liver as finely divided as possible, being in fact 
bloody water. The best method of feeding and rearing 
is yet to be determined. Those hatched and planted in 
Elk Creek did well, being double the size at the same 
age of those -hatched at Bozeman station, which proves 
that we must follow as closely as possible the natural 
conditions of breeding. 44 
The grayling does best in sandy and gravelly streams, 
with swift and pure water. It is a much superior fish for 
the table than any of the trouts, and in game qualities 
is their equal. As the species is rapidly disappearing, it 
seems to be important that so good and beautiful a "fish 
should be preserved by artificial propagation, and no 
reasonable efforts should be spared to determine the 
conditions best suited to its successful culture. 
Confession of a "Fish Hog." 
A farmer's boy, who put a score of eggs under a 
hen, explained that he did so to see the old hen spread 
herself. Man is but a higher animal after all, and when 
fishing rudimentary bristles of the "fish hog" will 
sometimes make an effort to work through the skin 
on his spine. 
I was fishing one day on Lake Ida, near Alexandria, 
Minn., a station on the Great Northern Railroad. I 
had repeatedly fished this lake, it being, in my opinion, 
the best lake in Minnesota for small-mouthed bass fish- 
ing, Large-mouthed bass abound everywhere in the 
lakes of this State, but the small-mouths are compara- 
tively a rara avis. 
On the. day in question I had enjoyed moderate and 
satisfactory fishing, my live string at the side of the 
boat being sufficiently long to satisfy any reasonable 
angler with half a dozen expectant, fish-loving neigh- 
bors at home. 
The day was almost drawing to a close, the sun gradu- 
ally working its way toward the western horizon, when 
a gentle summer shower fell, lasting for half an hour. 
In clearing up the woods and fields presented a glow- 
ing, glistening picture as the setting sun turned every 
rain drop on grass and trees into glistening globules 
of reflected light. 
I was wrapt up in the scenery of water, woods and 
fields, when my oarsman with an exclamation called 
my attention to the fins of numbers of large bass cut- 
ting the water around the boat as they moved lazily 
to and fro. They evidently came up simply to look at 
the sun and satisfy themselves that the rain had ceased 
for the day, as without warning the fins disappeared, the 
fish descending toward the bottom, about 10ft. down. 
I make it a practice to take with me in the boat two 
completely rigged rods, one of which I carefully stow 
along the gunwale of the boat. While the large-mouthed 
bass in this lake abound, and are easily seduced 
by casting with a frog or minnow, my custom 
has been to still-fish with live bait for the 
small-mouthed fish who hug the sandy or rocky 
bottoms, and in my experience rarely, if ever, take 
a fly in these waters. On this trip my rig consisted of 
two 7oz. split bamboo trout rods, a small shot being- 
used to sink my frog or minnow to the bottom. 
In one of Black's novels, wherein fishing for salmon 
with two rods is vividly described, the guide holds one 
fish-laden rod until the angler has killed the fish in 
hand, and then hands the rod to the angler to kill the 
second fish. The opportunity was here to make a like 
experiment, and over the stern of the boat I quickly 
dropped my minnows. 
Presto, the tip of one rod steadily bent until its point 
entered the water. A turn of the wrist and the rod 
straightens as the silvery small-mouth leaps into the 
air to return to the water and fight for his life. He 
has not made more than his second run before rod No 
2 dips its tip into the water. Cautiously directing my fish 
into a sidelong run, I stoop for the second rod strike 
my fish, and hastily handing the rod back to the 
guide, instruct him to handle the fish lightly and gently 
taking care to keep him out of my way as I resume the 
playing of my first fish, which I at once begin to do 
It's a gamy fight, made up of quick rushes, soundings 
long runs and sundry leaps in the air, but the hook is 
well set, and presently the fish, yielding to the bend 
of the rod, comes slowly toward the long-handled land- 
ing net, wielded by the watchful guide, who with his 
left hand offers me the second rod, which I take the 
very moment I feel the tension of the rod relieved by 
the landing net, after first drawing a yard or two of 
line off the reel, and resting the rod in position with 
the tip over the stern of the boat. 
As I take the rod from the guide and stir up my fish 
with a little extra tension, the landed fish is unhooked 
a fresh bait put upon the hook, and the same thrown 
into the water by the guide, to gently settle near the 
bottom. The bass in hand, true to his kind, plays a tune 
upon my reel and curves my rod in orthodox style but 
before I have him half killed the idle rod shows signs 
of life, the tip slowly points toward the bottom until 
it disappears beneath the water, when, seizing a favor- 
able moment, I stoop and strike and again quickly hand 
the rod back to the guide, whose outstretched hand is 
ready for it. 
And so it goes for an hour or more, when the fish 
to a bite° ^ unanimdusl y as when they commenced 
While it lasted it was what might be termed bv 
some great fishing, but to my idea such a solid day's 
fishing would be worse than breaking stones on the 
road, as far as hard work was concerned There ccr 
tainly would be no sport in such continuous angline but 
for an experience simply I doubt not but most anglers 
would like it "just once." While it lasted it 4 r 
riht w a eli eX Th ng fi ' , a? the fi8h Wer ? ° f Sood size and 
fought well. The fishing was so uninterrupted that the 
guide had no opportunity to put the fish thus caueht 
Z OI Lw C f r fi n f'- hls . hands b ^ng full all the time. 
M hour s such fishing is a solace to a man who re- 
