March ii, 1899] 
YO.HjiST AND STREAM. 
191 
of these, and with a lazy roll, like a porpoise showing 
his back fin, goes quietly dowii again. When they 
leave the water it. is always with a straight upward leap, 
and they do not turn in the air like a bass, but seem to 
drop back tail first in almost the exact spot they came 
up. In this they are very different from the bass, which 
clears a foot or two of water and goes down head first. 
The pickerel or jack hits the water a vicious flirt with 
his tail as he leaves it, and on a quiet pool it is easy 
to distinguish when you hear the splash what fish has 
tried a little flight. 
. We reach a great rock and a flock of little ones stand- 
ing out across the river and marking the head of a long 
rapid. They are called the Hen and Chickens, and here 
are plenty of bass all about these, and good ones too, 
and we have stumbled on the ground we wanted! They 
are in the shadows and behind the rocks lying in wait 
for what the current may bring past their lair, and we 
get many a pretty run on our way across. But this trip 
is a sort of preliminary canter. We have so long heard 
of Edward's Ferry as one of the best points on the 
river* and we are exploring as well as fishing. The 
place is difficult to reach for a single day's sport, and 
expensive, and is consequently less fished than most 
points, which partly accounts for the fine fishing some- 
times found here. 
We dirft down the riffles to Selden's Island, a long 
narrow, wooded strip on the Virginia side, separat6d 
if the dirty looking shell lying there may not have a 
$2,500 jewel inside. 
The wind rises, the mountains in the west are backed 
by threatening clouds, and promise a thunder shower 
that will spoil the evening fishing; so the boatman, who 
is no more anxious to get a wetting than the angler, 
bends to his oars, and tlie heavy punt goes flying home- 
ward like a canal boat. 
Tht storm is over us when we land, and hurry to the 
house, but though the wind is high and the h'glitning 
IS vivid and incessant, there is no rain for a half hour, 
and our friend comes to shelter just as a fearful crash 
nearby leaves us in doubt whether the fopf is coming 
in or not, and the heavens open. 
It was only a tree a quarter of a mile away, but we 
are content to do up the tackle and call the day done. 
It may not be true of ail places or all fish, but on the 
Potomac a thunderstorm sends the ba.ss to deep water, 
and the fly is useless. It may be that in the holes they 
may be taken with bait when the earth is vibrating with 
the concussion of the rapid firing big guns of the sky, 
but they will not rise to surface lures then, nor for some 
time after. Perhaps the fact that a storm drives the 
flies from the water then, and they know it is useless 
to hunt until it is calm once more, may have some- 
thing to do with their habit, but at any rate it is 
sure to love's labor lost to whip in such a season that 
hope flies away before a thunderstorm. 
In the Pound-Net. 
tiV J'KK.n MArUER. 
Thk net seems to be working full time and is keep- 
ing full. A Fish Commissioner, hi a letter on other 
nuittcrs adds this as a postscript: 
How about the Smelt? 
"Some time ago there was a discu.ssion in Forest and 
Stream as to the advantages and disadvantages of intro- 
ducing the smelt into inland lakes, some claiming 
that it would clean out the trout fry, and olliers that it 
was grand feed for lake trout and otlier fish. Did you 
see it, and what is your opinion of the merits and de- 
merits of the smelt?" 
The discussion referred to was long ago. and is dimly 
remembered, although the arguments are forgotten and 
the arguers are not remembered. Taking the question 
as it is asked, i. e., for an opinion in a general way, with- 
out applying to any particular lake, I would say: The 
smelt seems to have been a salt- water fish originally, but 
one of anadromous habits, like the salmon and shad, 
running into fresh waters to spawn, with this difTer- 
ence: the salmon and shad enter rivers and remain, 
there for weeks, and perhaps months, developing their 
eggs, some remaining a while after depositing them 
m 
r 
SUNRISE FISHING ON THE NEW JERSEY SHORE. 
By R. C. Leonard. Second prize in Class 3, Forest and Stream Amateur Photography Competition. 
from the main land by a chute so narrow the trees make 
a green arch over it in many places, that would sadly in- 
terfere with the fly; but one boat goes down this and 
the other outside. For almost the whole length of this 
island, the river is an ideal spot for a wader. It is only 
2 or 3ft. deep, the bottom is level save for the boulders 
with which it is paved, the current sharp, and we see 
bass every few minutes, which our big, unwieldy boat 
is scaring out. When one has once fished from a light 
skiff or canoe, he never has faith, in any other craft for 
that purpose. But they are impossible for a large and 
heavy man^ who soon finds them dangerous and fright- 
fully tiresome from the cramped position the low nar- 
row seat forces one to assume and keep. But when one 
can use them with comfort, they are without compari- 
son the best ever. 
When we are nearly to_ the lower end of this island 
and another, Gassaway's, is in sight, the boatman sug- 
gests the prudence of returning if we mean to hit the 
dinner at the house. My chum in the other boat had 
started down the chute between the island and the main 
land, only to find that the water was too low for any 
bass, and on coming out at the lower end, was. so de- 
lighted with the prospects of fish in the long reach 
that he determined to spend the afternoon there,' and 
in despair at rowing back to the house for dinner, he 
tied his boat to the bank and footed it up the towpath 
of the canal which skirts the river here. 
After dinner my boatman proposes trying the water 
above, and as that suits our programme, we cover the 
river to the sharp rapid at the foot of Harrison's Island. 
There are some likely spots, but nothing like so at- 
tractive ground as below, nor are there so many bass 
in evidence. 
There are several shallow, sandy reaches, and on the 
soft bottom may be seen furrows 3 or 4ft. long, as if 
made with a cane, and at the end of each a half-buried 
fresh-water mussel. These are objects of curiosity 
since the fresh-water _ pearls of the Western rivers have 
attra'-ted "iich attentiori and one cannot but worider 
Thfe direction of the wind and even its force has less 
cei-tain effects. Bass have been caught with both spoon 
and fly when the surface of a lake was lashed to white 
caps, and the east wind is not fatal to chances, notwith- 
standing the fact that anglers have anathematized it 
since the beginning. 
The "Gentleman Angler," printed in 1726 for A. Bet- 
tesworth (p. 24). saj^s: "If the wind be in the east 
quarter it is stark nought. * * * according to this 
old Distich. The north bad, east worse, west good, but 
the south blows every bait into the fish's mouth." And 
ruider the head of the twelfth impediment: "If the wind 
be in the east, no fish will bite, except by chance, and that 
he is very hungry." But in 1873 a reviewer in "Nature" 
(Vol. 8, p. 220), commenting on Capt. St. John Dick's 
work on angling, says: "Yet there are lakes (notably Loch 
Leven, Kinnrosshire, probably the best trouting lake 
in Britain), in which the fish take best when the wind 
blows from that quarter." And we have found too that 
under the lea of a bushy bank, when either the May 
or perch fly is up, that the fish feed freely with the 
wind in the east, but in most climates and localities it 
may be admitted that the east wind is "good for neither 
man nor beast." Henry Taleott. 
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See in our advertising pages annottticement of Game 
Laws in Bri^f expan?ioii, 
and becoming almost too poor for a crow to eat. The 
smelt enters the harbors in early winter and are caught 
by the ton in New England waters by angling through 
the ice. This is often the case as far down as Boston 
Harbor. They develop their eggs in salt water, work 
along up to the parent stream and await the ripening. 
Although some males may run irp a few nights before 
the spawning begins, there is no general movement until 
the first eggs are to be laid; then the fish ascend to shal- 
low riffles and lay their adhesive eggs on the gravel 
and are back in deep water by daylight. 
This habit prevents the smelt from devouring young- 
brook trout which- do not go to deep water. At Cold 
Spring Harbor, Long Island, there was a stream below 
a high dam which had a run of 500 to 8ooft., part of 
the way over gravelly shallows before it reached the^ 
salt water. There were no smelt in the harbor, and I 
sent men to the south side of the island for three j'igars 
for spawning fish, getting 300 or 400 each year. Out- 
side of the work of Mr. Ricardo, on the Hackensack. 
who spawned the fish in grass-lined perforated boxes 
and let nature do the rest, nothing had been done in 
this line. We worked them in the McDonald jars, and 
had a great deal to learn; but, to shorten the story, we 
began to get eggs from our oMn stream in increasing 
millions, enabling us to stock otatJ waters until I read 
that 48,000,000 smelts were planted from that station last 
spring: truly a good showing from the modest begin- 
ning, which like the hatching of tomcods, met with 
ridicide a few years ago, when I turned out a million 
fry in 1888, and thought it a grand thing. 
The inquiring Commissioner limits his question to 
the smelt as an eater of fish or as food for them. He 
being an inland, fresh water, man, does not appear 
to know that the smelt as food for man, is the greatest 
delicacy which wears scales that comes to the seaboard 
markets from Nova Scotia to Virginia during the winter 
months, and that the little Hackensack smelts, whicli 
Norris thought a distinct species, and which only grow 
to fi length of 6in,, sell in Ne-\v York for 30 to 40 cent* 
