270 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oct. r, 1898. 
the pleasure of introducing them to the fishing here. 
We went up the river about four miles, where the val- 
ley narrows. When we came to compare fishing tackle, 
I saw a Castle Connor rod for the first time. It was 
bought by Mr. Bromley near Castle Connor, Ireland, 
and it caused me to make a bad break and become 
very much embarrassed. A Castle Connor rod does not 
jam in the joints. What I thought I saw was a one- 
piece rod, broken in the middle, and clumsily tied with 
a wax end. My intention was good to take out some 
silk thread and. splice the rod decently, when the owner 
very gently explained that it was a Castle Connor rod 
and that was the way it was made. It looked to me to 
be a pretty decent fishing pole which had been broken 
before it was sold. 
The Englishmen had hundreds of trout flies, many of 
which were midgets, and some flies which I called bass 
flies, and they called salmon flies. Then I learned that 
the lordly salmon and the husky bass rise to the same 
lure. 
We camped under some trees and started fishing. We 
met at lunch time with sixteen bass, which we cooked 
at a rousing big fire and had something to eat. We 
caught nine after dinner, making twenty-five for the 
day, with some big ones. I do not remember how the 
catch was apportioned. • Both the Englishmen were 
good fishers, but did not understand the quick impetu- 
ous bass: they would make a good cast, but would not 
retrieve the line for several minutes. I fished with bait 
with fly-fishing on the side, in the way I enjoy most. 
Persons living in the town of Marlinton have the 
finest of rivers to bathe and fish in, and the finest woods 
to hunt in and ramble through. We have nearly 200 
people here, and the woods come down close to town. 
The mountains are piled all around us, and we look up 
to the top of Elk Mountain, one of the highest points in 
the Eastern States. Nature has spread out all this 
wealth at our doors, but some of my companions in 
adversity revile me and call me Tug when I go fish- 
ing, or walking, or hunting in the after part of the day 
instead of joining their councils and shaving a fine plank 
with my pocket knife. 
I appeal to the sympathies of the reader and ask him 
to say whether, if he were living in Marlinton, he 
would go fishing or loaf. So far my score this season is 
242 trout and 311 bass, and every one a sensation. Of 
course, I do not count the little ones put back. They 
are the stars in the fisherman's crown. 
I think every man should cultivate a taste for out- 
door life. It prolongs life and it makes us stronger to 
bear the pain of living. I want to justify my course, and 
take every occasion to do so. As long as we. as a 
nation, go in for the things the Forest and Stream 
encourages, we will be unconquerable. When we sit 
on our ancestors' graves and have a good time instead of 
taking pleasures afield, we will go to pieces like China. 
For mental and physical health go fishing. I have a 
stock quotation, "Better to roam the fields for health 
unsought than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught." 
Andrew Price. 
Marlinton, W. Va. 
Turtles on the Beach. 
Seabreeze, a popular resort, winter and summer, on 
the east Florida coast, opposite Daytona, has a broad 
beach, perfectly straight, except where broken by Mos- 
quito Inlet, ten miles south. The beach makes an ideal 
bicycle course, on which wheelmen, bug-like by day, a 
firmament at night, constantly ride. From Mav to 
August they hunt turtle eggs at night. The turtles are 
enormous. A heavy specimen weighs several hundred 
pounds, and is larger than a washtub. Their strength 
equals their size; we have seen one of them carry a large 
man on its back several rods with ease. One would 
hardly suppose that creatures so large had been hatched 
from eggs smaller than those of barnyard fowls. The 
eggs when fresh are delicious. If the law does not 
intervene they will be hunted as long as human beings 
care for moonlight spins and good eating. 
The turtles usually come ashore to lay when the moon 
is full. The trail they make at such "times is like the 
tracks of two broad corrugated wheels set about 3oin. 
apart. This leads to the dry sand above high tide, where 
a nest with tweLe or fifteen dozen eggs in it is in- 
geniously concealed. The imitation of surroundings is 
carried out in detail. The beach above tide mark is 
hard beneath the first few inches of dry sand. The 
turtle reproduces this over her nest by filling in from 
a second hole, then packing by spinning upon the earth 
thrown in, and afterward leveling with loose sand. To 
complete the deception, she decorates the surface above 
her nest with bits of grass and weeds. The second hole 
is then filled up carelessly, as if to attract attention. 
Jackdaws, crows, raccoons, foxes, bears, human be- 
ings (the worst type of hunters are the bicvele riders') 
all know that the egg of the turtle is a luscious morsel 
and never cease hunting for it. It is difficult to see 
how a nest ever escapes being found. So much rivalry. 
■ of course, causes many bitter disappointments. I re- 
member talking turtle one time with some friends from 
up the beach. Their cottage was near a sanitarium of 
"Mental Science." It was an unsafe neighborhood up 
there. I thought. But they did not imbibe any mislead- 
ing notions except a sublime faith in their "ability to 
find eggs if they only hunted long enough. Their en- 
thusiasm was remarkable. They might have surrendered 
with honor to their constant bad luck. One night after 
hunting the beach for miles and returning to join a 
group of disappointed riders near home, some one pro- 
posed willing a turtle to come out of the surf. Everyone 
felt that their faculties could be trained on that kind of 
thing without much effort, so all sat around on the 
driftwood and willed. The moonshine shimmered on 
the seething sea, the surf sang a song, a softly lulling 
lullaby, the mosquitoes bit, the wind parched, but those 
people just sat on their logs and threw thoughts ocean- 
ward. It was grand. And the turtle came out. All 
fell off the logs then to scramble up the bluff and 
hide in the sea oats. Some of the hunters forgot to 
will in climbing the club, or lagged on "come out of 
the sea," when others were ahead on "come up the 
beach," and the- turtle hesitated. This aroused concen- 
trated effort and she was made to come up the heach as 
if led with cables Up and up she came, slowly but 
surely, till she was immediately under her tormentors, 
and then she made a nest. 
When the affair reached a stage where hearts throb- 
bed, pulses sang and souls soared in delirium, two out- 
siders appeared, and in spite -of hat waving and wild 
shrieks from those on the bluff, started the turtle off to . 
sea about as fast as she could waddle. There were 
explanations after she had left that did not entirely 
clear the atmosphere. If the watchers' attention had 
not been concentrated they would have seen the inter- 
lopers in time to will the latter into the Atlantic. "Men- 
tal Science," I think, hardly received a fair test. 
A few evenings after I heard this story our next 
door neighbor stopped in. Go egg hunting! No, never, 
not he, if he lived a hundred years on that coast. He 
had lost too much sleep. A comfortable bed was more 
to his taste. There were not enough turtles on earth 
to supply the demand. All the men, women and chil- 
dren about were after them. When he and a friend 
found a turtle laying the previous week, every chick 
and child in that part of the country dropped off the 
bluff to say something. There were no eggs. The 
turtle scuttled off to sea — to lay in Africa, he hoped. 
Another man on the coast one summer failed to 
bring eggs home after finding a nest. He was taking 
them from the nest as they were laid, and piling them 
about, when he looked over his shoulde • and saw an 
enormous bear 10yds. away dancing on its hindfeet to 
the music of the surf. Man and bear left quickly in op- 
posite directions without the eggs. They say the hunter 
had been very attentive to a pretty boarder all summer, 
and after that they spent their evenings out front dis- 
cussing what the bear might have done to him. 
I was determined to find a nest of eggs, if possible, be- 
fore the season was over, and went time and again until 
I was successful. I earned the eggs the trip I found 
them. There was a dance at the hotel, so I was alone 
on the beach. The riding was so soft and the moon- 
light so dim that I hardly used my wheel. After digging 
my finger nails to the quick at the first trail- I discov- 
ered, scarcely a mile from home, and finding no eggs, I 
plodded ahead on a beach that seemed to be without end. 
Surely the lighthouse I faced was leaving me rapidly. 
Overcome by fatigue at times, I fell over my wheel and 
lay in the sand awhile, wondering whether it was worth 
getting up to face a situation with so much discomfort 
it it. Once I climbed the sand bluff to a deserted 
shanty with a view of sleeping there, but when I saw 
the hordes of crabs scuttling about the premises the 
place seemed too horrible. Later I found a short, nar- 
row board on the beach that made a comfortable bed 
for a person in my st?.te. The net morning I dug twelve 
dozen eggs at the first trail found. What omelets they 
made. H. R. Steiger. 
De Land, Florida. 
Some Odds and Ends. 
St. Louis, Sept. 25. — Some weeks ago Mr. Mather 
in one of his interesting articles said' that the white bass 
of Lake Michigan had practically disappeared as a 
game fish. This is a mistake. These fish are still 
abundant in the waters adjacent to the eastern shore of 
Lake Michigan. In Black Lake, near Holland, and at 
the mouth of the Grand River, at Grand Haven, many 
of these fish are still being taken with rod and line. 
At Holland they are captured by the thousands during 
the month of May, when they appear to come in from 
the big lake. They are mostly caught at night, and 
hundreds of boats go to the harbor entrance where, 
by the light of a lantern, the fish are taken. Later on 
the fish seem to scatter over the lake, and are caught 
but a few at a place. I have recently been at both the 
places mentioned above, and know that the white bass 
is yet an important factor to the angler; he is a game 
fish every inch of him, and if he broke out of the water 
like the black bass, anglers would travel a thousand 
miles to catch him. 
. A little experience at Black Lake demonstrates how 
fearless fish are when they cannot see the angler. My 
nephew has a boat house and through the floor he has 
a small opening into the w r ater, through which he can 
hang his minnow bucket. While at this place during 
August, I hung my minnow bucket over night through 
this opening, and when we went to the boat house in 
the morning I threw a dead minnow out of the bucket 
into the water; immediately a large black bass, which 
seemed to stay under the boat house, came up and 
seized the minnow. In an instant I had the hook baited 
with a minnow and dropped it into the water, which 
was about 2ft. deep. The bass again came up, sucked 
the minnow into his mouth and spit it out before I 
had a chance to "yank" him. I waited a moment, and 
this time he took it into his mouth, when I gave a big 
pull, and, of course, his head struck the flooring and 
the hook was broken. I put on another hook and 
bait, and the old fellow again came up and pursued the 
same tactics; with my usual good luck the fish again 
struck the floor, and the snell broke, letting him down 
into the water. I tried him again, but he did not ap- 
pear to t:d<e any more interest in the proceedings. 
Next morning my partner and myself went to the 
boat house and thought we would see if Mr. Bass was 
still hanging round. My partner this time said he 
would show me how to catch fish. He dropped in a 
live bait through the hole and immediately the bass 
made his appearance, sucked the minnow in and spit 
it out, the second time taking it in for keeps. Jim. for 
that was my partner's name, gave a yank, and the snell 
broke off. Putting on another hook and bait, he again 
dropped it in, and in spite of his instructions as to how 
he would catch the bass he jerked him up out of the 
water, when the line broke and he fell back in again and 
this, time he disappeared. The next .morning a big 
wind was blowing, and the water was too rough under 
the boat house for further experiment. Here was four 
times that the fish had been jerked against the board 
and he did not seem to be frightened. At the same 
hole by holding a minnow on the surface a small rock 
bass came up to take him, and we twice lifted him out 
with a net and put "him back into the water. He did not 
seem to be a bit frightened. Of course, the boat house 
was dark, which accounts for these actions; if the fish 
had seen us they would have scuttled away. 
While fishing on the Grand River I lost three uiiiV= 
nows in succession, and, of course, suspected there 
must be some monster who was thus stealing my bait; 
finally I struck a fish and a small bass popped up out 
of the water like a cork out of a champagne bottle. At 
the same time the little rascal spit out three minnows 
which he had stolen from my hook. 
The same day I caught a small bass, about -J41b. in 
weight, which had a No. 1 sproat hook, with snell, 
fastened to his throat. No doubt some angler had 
sworn by the great gods that a sib. bass had broken 
his snell from his line. 
Just before I left Grand Haven a large muskalonge 
weighing in the neighborhood of 25lbs. was killed sev- 
eral miles up the river by a man with a boat hook. 
It seems the muskalonge had endeavored to swallow a 
large catfish whose spines had been set. and the fish 
could neither get him up or swallow him; he conse- 
quently became exhausted, and was wallowing in the 
water when the boatman killed him. 
This has been the poorest season for fishing in this 
section of the country for many years. Heavy rains 
during the summer have kept the rivers high and muddy 
so that at many of the clubs there has practically been 
no fishing, only during the last few weeks. While 
it has been unpleasant to the angler, it has been a 
good thing in allowing the fish to grow and escape 
from the men who want them. Unless we have unusual- 
ly heavy rains fishing from now until the 1st of Janu- 
ary in southern Missouri and northern Arkansas will 
no doubt be first-class. Aberdeen. 
Ottawa Bass. 
Editor Forest and Stream .- 
While glancing over the advertising columns of your 
paper in the latter part of July, the advertisement "Bass 
— best fishing in the world — send for booklet, Hotel 
Cecil, Ottawa, Canada," caught my eye. I wrote for a 
copy of the booklet, and thinking the outcome might 
interest your readers, I will give it. After some cor- 
respondence, I found myself, bag and baggage at the 
Grand Central Depot one Sunday evening, and at 11:20 
A. M. Monday we pulled into Ottawa. I was agreeably 
pleased to learn that the proprietor of the Cecil, Mr. 
Genslinger, was to start on a fishing trip that after- 
noon, and he invited me to accompany him. I was 
greatly pleased at this unexpected turn of affairs. I had 
counted on a lonely fishing trip — having no friends in 
those parts. 
At 5 P. M. we boarded the train on the Gatineau Rail- 
road. The road runs along the river bank, and superb 
views arc obtainable from both sides of the cars. 
A short distance out my attention was attracted to the 
number of logs floating down the river. The lumber- 
men of this district fell the trees, cut them to a certain 
length, stamp them with a number and drop them into 
the water and allow them to drift to the mills in or about 
Ottawa. As this body of water is not open to navigation 
the utilizing of the water as a sluiceway must be a 
great saving of time and money to the dealers. 
Further on the country took on a genuine rural air. 
1 was led to believe that it was part of a rich farming 
section; judging by the climate and soil I should say 
this would be a good spot for some of our bright young 
■ueti to branch out as farmers. 
About 7:45 we arrived at the little town of Gracefield 
and were driven to the hotel. The hour of 4:30 A. M. 
found us seated on a buckboard. The air was cool and 
bracing, but as my companion had taken the precaution 
to bring along coats, we were prepared to sip the ozone 
to our hearts' content. A rattle of wheels and we were 
off. In a short time we were in the absolute depth of 
the mountain forest; from each side came the songs of 
the birds as they flitted from branch to branch, and the 
stately mountain looked on as though in silent approval. 
As we drove along it seemed to me that this should be 
the paradise of the lover of the forests, with its pano- 
rama of mountain, river and stream. To the artist of 
the new school, who is tired of the bombastic, manu- 
factured and labored methods of the old school, I would 
recommend a journey here. As on we rode a stream or 
outlet would occasionally appear to add to the beauty 
and picturesqueness of the scene, but above all would 
loom the beautiful, "quiet mountains, indeed it was a 
wilderness of wooded mountain, and as we approached 
our destination an occasional clearing was seen where 
the hand of man had laid his axe on the huge old kings 
of the forest, and swept them away to do service in 
different capacities in the towns and cities far away. As 
we alighted from the wagon the beautiful crimson ball 
of fire in the heavens came out in all its glory, and 
our surroundings took on new life and nature's hap- 
piness was communicated to our spirits. In all my 
wanderings in the woods of the States I do not recall 
an awakening of the woods like this. 
After breakfast arrangements were made with a boat- 
man to row us up the beautiful sheet of water called 
Blue Sea Lake, from its prevailing even shade. Though 
T have been a great admirer of minnows for bass, my 
companion had persuaded me that live frogs were the 
proper bait, so in a basket we had twelve dozen from 
about iin. to sj^in, in length. 
Luck seemed against us for. about an hour, when I 
struck, and a splendid black bass jumped out of the 
water three boat lengths away. A typical game fighter, 
he leaped a foot out of the water, then made a downward 
sweep; and so went rushing and fighting till I landed 
him in the net — a 4j41b, beauty. Fifteen minutes later I 
landed a 2-pounder. Luck seemed to change then, for 
my companion landed three within the next half-hour, 
one 3 and two 4lbs. A half-hour passed without a 
bite, then I took two more, after such a game fight with 
one magnificent bass that in the struggle my rod was 
broken just as he landed in the net. It was then about 
11:30; and with seven black bass to our credit we put 
ashore for lunch at a quaint old log house, or a typical 
woodsman's shanty, where we were furnished with a 
bountiful meal from the larder of the housewife. 
Twelve o'clock found us seated in an elegant cedar 
boat belonging to my companion, with a new boatman 
at the oars, following the meanderings of a beautiful 
mountain lake. With deft strokes the oarsman took 
us to the most inviting places; without looking he. 
seemed to know just where lay the fish. After we had 
struck and almost landed four ^MtigS who had gotten 
