April i, 1899,] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
g8S 
Do we reflect that seining is prohibited (except in 
some instances as to portions of rivers forming- boun- 
daries between States) in the adjoining States of Indiana, 
Kentucky, Missouri and Iowa? It is likewise prohibited 
in many other States, and a number provide for confisca^ 
tion of illegal seines and nets when found. But in the 
States named, the case as to rivers and lakes and the 
existence of carp and bultalo, as well as cat, bull-pout 
and game fish is similar to that of Illinois. Why is sein- 
ing- allowed here, while it is forbidden about us? 
The State makes a large appf opf iatfoil evef y year for 
the protection of fish, and yet twenty firms on the Illi- 
nois monopolize all the business there. Other States 
prohibit seining because seining is an improvident and 
destructive method of taking fish, The fish in public 
waters are public property. There is the common right 
of fishing to be enjoyed by all and not usurped by a few. 
Seines, as used in Illinois, are engines of destruction — 
of fish, of the small-fry, of the rights of the mass of 
fishermen, of the rights of anglers. 
Our seining laws are everywhere violated — arc unen- 
forced. They are incapable of practicable enforcement. 
Proof is difficult. The smaller fishermen, who see the 
wholesale depletion of our rivers by the "big" seines and 
their own opportunities swept away are manj-- of them 
in bondage to the large fishermen, to whom they mitst 
sell their smaller catches under present methods. There 
cannot be said to have been a legal seine used in the 
whole Illinois River last season. 
In his report (October, i8g8) the Indiana Fish Com- 
missioner states that in his twenty-one months of ofBce 
he and his deputies secured 244 convictions for illegal 
fishing, seized 14,400ft. of illegal seines and turned in 
$2,239.96 in fines. This sum exceeded his salary (the 
large sum of $900) and all money devoted to the en- 
forcement of the laws (Rep. p. 13, 14). In Illinois, where 
are the convictions and what money has been collected 
for fines, not for a year, simply, but say for the last 
five years? We, from answers from fifteen counties along 
the Illinois, could not learn of $100 in fines collected. 
The carp abounding in Indiana waters, and seines, fyke- 
nets, Set-nets and all kinds of nets (except for minnows") 
and even set-lines being prohibited, he recommends that 
seines not exceeding looft. in length by 8ft. in width, 
with not less than 2in. meshes, be allowed (Rep. p. 13). 
Think of it — not yards, but feet! Short seines would 
not be open to the objections of the long seines. They 
could be used by the great number of fishermen, and 
without so great destruction of small-fry. Eut the neces- 
sity for short seines does not exist in Illinois, where 
fyke-nets, manv other nets and set-lines are legal. Such 
nets are not allowed in Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and 
Iowa, where the earn abound. Yet thev forbid the seine. 
Also Arizona, California, Colorado. Dakota, Ohio Ver- 
mont, and several other States make seining and draw- 
ing of nets unlawful (except in some instances as to boun- 
dary rivers and certain named rivers; as to the Great 
lakes and tide waters snecial provisions are of course 
made). Wisconsin and Michigan have stringent laws. 
In 1898 the river was stripped of fish in July and Aug- 
ust, so that from September and on seining was at an end. 
The thousand fishermen on the Illinois had little to take 
in their fyke-nets and by other legitimate means. The 
angler was restricted to perch and small cat. 
What an absurdity to appropriate $10,000 per year for 
propagation of fish for destruction. Our rivers swarm 
with the young of bass and other pame fish, but they are 
destro3red before reasonable growth. 
These are admittedly the facts. Thev say when water is 
high the carp come in from the Mississippi and pass 
above the dams again. Other States about us, having 
rivers like ours, tributary to the Mississippi, and fed 
therefrom, make wanton practices unlawful, 
The long seines at every draw destroy hundreds of 
thousands of small-fry, dragged and frightened into the 
grass, mud and roily waters where they die. Many fish- 
ermen, who have means of knowing, declare that often 
a million of small-fry are killed at one draw. Thousands 
of small fish that would escape easily through the meshes, 
but of imlawful size to take, are frigthened on in ad- 
vance of the large fish thrashing near the seine to escape 
and are taken or left on the shore to die. 
Under present methods the great catch is in the sum- 
mer, when the price of fish is low: through the later 
season up to winter, when prices are hi!?h, there are few 
fish— -thus we have a great economic loss. During all 
this time the numerous .smaller fishermen everywhere are 
out of business or eke out a bare subsistence. Without 
seines, all could be eirmloyed and make money with a 
large output of fish at fair prices. The.oresent vicious 
svstem is partial to a few caoitalists and prejudicial to 
all others. The public propertv is seized bv a few. Our 
commissioners cannot patrol the whole State; they see 
the large seiner^: and the smaller fishermen are disre- 
garded necessarily. 
Statistics are put forth to show 8,ooo,ooolbs. of coarse 
fish, earn and buffalo, taken in a season. These ^^anic sta- 
tistics show a small quantity of bass and game fish. The 
statistics are unreliable. The .statistics are exaggerated as 
to coarse fish and diminished as to the better class of 
fish. There is design in this. The effort is to show the 
bass and gaine fish as gone from our waters — that there- 
fore the seining should continue so that carp and bulTalo 
may^^be sent^to market — to the Eastern markets, includ- 
ing "salmon" canning factories! Large seiiiers have fur- 
nished these "statistics." 
The statement for 1898 shows 43,ooolbs. of black bass 
taken in the State, j^et 30,ooolbs. were taken at one haul 
near Henry. At an earlv haul just above Peoria 2.100 
black bass were taken. The seining continued and thou- 
sands of people in the vicinity of Peoria.' takino- recreation 
.-md seeking a mess of fish, took with hook and line no 
bass last year to mention. 
What is the remedy? Strike at the root of the evil- 
abolish seining. Such a law will be of easy enforcement, 
for proof is easy and before the eves of all interested. 
If it be said that short seines will be of no use in some 
of the large lakes and portions of the large rivers, that is 
as it should be. No need that the whole territory should 
be stripped. Give the fish a little chance; no 'need to 
take them all. Let other fishermen do business in some 
places, at least, and give people seeking recreation a 
show. 
It is said by a seiner that the carp, after spawning, go 
pack down the rivers if water be not too low so that they 
cannot get over the dams; that therefore the seiners 
should be allowed to take them. That is it — let none es- 
cape! While the facts are not with the gentleman, we 
have only to carry the argument a step further to show 
its enormitj'. If all fish are to be taken, put nets across 
the mouth of the Illinois, for instance, and at other points,, 
after the carp have gone up, and pen them in. 
Give fyke-nets and set-nets, etc., a chance — with smaller 
meshes, tliat bull-pouts may also be taken — and make 
fishing profitable for thousands instead of a hundred of 
our citizens. There is no destruction of the small-fry in 
these methods — a well recognized and understood fact. 
These set nets and the like can be seen and examined 
by anybody, and illegal nets found. Provision should be 
made for destruction of illegal nets and good-sized fi^neb 
imposed. Let us be " business" in all this matter. 
Our honorable Fish Commissioners say that "in no 
State in the Union has nature bestowed a more bountiful 
supply of waterways adapted for fish than Illinois." (See 
Fish Propagation and Protection, p. i, by N. H. Cohen.) 
Speaking of black bass and the successful stocking of 
streams in the Eastern and Middle States, the satrie au- 
thority adds: "With our great resources there will be 
no difficulty in producing similar or even greater results, 
as our natural facilities in Illinois are far in advance of 
those of the Ea.stern and Middle States." (P. 13). Yet 
the argument of the few large seiners is that the bass a'-e 
dooincd, and carp and buffalo occupy the waters and 
(few) want to be allowed to take them. 
Some say il-nprovident anglers take bass bdow dafliS iti 
spawning season and thus cause great destruction. If so, 
let the law be made to stop it. But whenever a large 
catch is inade by an angler the story spreads and often 
grows with the story-teller. It would take a greater num- 
ber of these catches than you have ever heard of for any 
one season to cause a destruction equal to that of one of 
many a day's seining in the Illinois. 
Mr, Cohen again remarks: "If these fish (black bais) 
were left undisturbed for the period mentioned, in five 
years the streams would be alive with game fish." (P. 14.) 
So if the pi-esent dead-letter part of our laws, attempt- 
ing to prohibit seining with meshes less than 2in. squai-e, 
were abolished and seining (except for minnows) were 
absolutely prohibited, the people, the fisherrnen and the 
angler would be blest and the commercial output would 
soon exceed its present amount and value. The market 
output is now a few hundred thousand dollars. The 
product should soon be several millions of dollars. 
As Mr. Cohen, in his pamphlet says (P. 2: "Shall they 
(the Illinois waterways adapted for fish) go to waste and 
become barren, or shall they have protection and reach 
the maximum of their prirnitive condition?" 
Any communications may be sent undersigned. 
John KECtv, 
713 Third St., Peoria, 111. 
Kit North as an Angler. 
Charlestown, N. H., March 24— Editor Forest and 
Stream: Your entertaining correspondent, Mr. Henry 
Talbott, falls into an error when he says that Christopher 
North (Prof. John Wilson) was not an angler. He was 
taken in by Wilson's "bamming" (short for bamboozling), 
in which all the writers for Blackwood indulged to a 
great extent, and in which he delighted to represent 
"Christopher" as a senile old man. The first angling lit- 
erature I ever read, when a boy, more than sixty years 
ago, long before I ever saw a copy of Izaak Walton, were 
Wilson's papers in Blackwood, since collected as the 
"Recreations of Christopher North," and the next, was 
Sir Humphrey Davy's "Salmonia," and these tended to 
confirm a natural inclination, which has lasted me through 
life. Later, I read various other angling reminiscences, 
scattered through the "Noctes Ambrosian^," many of 
them given as com.ing from the mouth of the Ettrick 
Shepherd, Hogg, who Wilson delighted to simulate. If 
Mr. Talbott does not know it, let him read the "Memoirs 
of Christopher North," by his daughter, Mrs. Gordon. 
It is one- of the most delightful books of biography I know 
of, and I will quote a few pages from it. I will not dwell 
on his raptures over his fish, described on page 3 of the 
memoir, when he was only three years old, for I have 
several times referred to it in my letters to Forest and 
Stream, but will pop on to page 140; which describes his 
plunging bodily into Loch Awe to save a huge trout, which 
he had hooked on a weak line. Page 141 gives an account 
of his mode of fishing, as ostensibly described by the 
Ettrick Shepherd, in the "Noctes." 
"In he used to gang, out, out, out, and even sae far 
out, frae the point of < promontory, sinking aye farther 
and farther doon, jusi to the waistband o' his breeks, 
then up to the middle button of his waistcoat, then to the 
verra breist, then to the oxters, then to the neck, and then 
to the verra chin o' him, sae that you wannered how he 
could fling the flee; till at last o' a' he would plump 
right out o' sight, till the Highlander on Ben. Cruachan 
thocht him drooned. No he, indeed; sae he takes to the 
sooming, and strikes awa' with ae arms; for the tither 
had baud of the rod; and could ye belive't, though it's as 
true as Scripture, fishing a' the time, that no a moment o" 
cbudy day be lost; ettles* at an' island a quarter o' a 
mile af¥, w' trees, and an old ruin o' a religious house, 
wherein beads used to be counted, and wafers eaten, and 
mass muttered hundreds o' years ago; and getting footin^r 
on the geen sward, or the yellow sand, he but gies himself 
a shoke, and ere the sun looks out o' the cl'ud, has 
hyucket a four-pounder, whom in four minutes (for it's 
a multiplying pim the cre'tur' uses) he lands, gasping 
through the giant gills, and glittering wi' a thousand spots, 
streaks and stars, on the shore I" 
This is, of coui-se, exaggeration; but to sav that the man 
who could write it was not an angler, is like saying that 
Milton was not a poet, nor Daniel Webster an orator. Let 
us quote Mrs. Gordon's more sober language: 
"With him the angler's silent trade was a ruling pas- 
sion, he did not exaggerate to the Shepherd in the 
Noctes' when he said that he had taken 150 trout \n 
one day in Loch Awe, as we see by his letters that even 
larger numbers were taken by him." 
On the next page, in a letter to his wife, he says: 
"What a fishing! in one pool i killed twenty-one trout, 
all o f them about 3lbs. each, and have jugt arrived \n 
*Aims iot^ 
time for dinner at Craig, loaded so that I could hardly 
walk." 
To show that the passion did not fade out, I will again 
quote Mrs. Gordon, on page 446, of "North in 1845," omit- 
ting mention of the long pedestrian excursions in tliw; 
Highlands, of his earlier years: "How now do his feet 
touch the heather? Not as of old. with a bound, but with 
slow and unsteady step, supported on the one hand by 
his stick, while the other carries his rod." * * * "J-l.e 
surely will not venture into the deeps of the water, for 
only one hand is free for a 'cast,' and those large stones, 
now slippery with moss, are dangerous stumbling blocks 
in the way. Besides, he promised his daughters he would 
not wade, but on the contrary walk quietly with them by 
the river's edge, then gliding 'at its own sweet will.' 
Silvery bands of pebbled shore, leading to loamy-colored 
pools, dark as the glow of a southern eye^ how could he 
resist the temptation of near approach ?" 
"In he goes, up to the ankles, then to the knees, tottPi'" 
ing every other step, but never falling. Trout after Croul!: 
he catches, small ones certainly, but plenty of them. Ittto 
his pockets with them, all this time maneuvering in the 
most skillful manner, both stick and rod ; until weary, he' 
is obliged to rest on the bank', b^itting with his feet in 
the water, laughing at his daughter's horror, and obstin- 
ately continuing the sport in spite of all remonstrance. 
At last he gives in and retires. Wonderful to say, he 
did Hot seem to suffer from these imprudent liberties," 
Does this read like a man who was no true angler, or in 
whom the love of the sport had died out? 
Not to be tedious, I will turn to the closing scene, on 
page 456, of Mrs. Gordon's "Memoir" : "Certain it is 
that the 'Mcarns' came among those waking dreams, and 
that he gathered around him, when the spring markings 
brought gay jets of sunshine into the little room where he 
lay, the relics of a youthful passion, which with him 
never grew old. It was an aflecting sight to see him 
busy, nay, quite absorbed with the fishing tackle scattered 
about his bed, propped up with pillows; his noble head, 
yet glorious with its flowing locks, carefully combed by 
attentive hands, and falling on each side of his unfaded 
face. How neatly he picked out each elegantJy arapeu 
fly from its little bunch, drawing it out with trembling 
hand along the white coverlet, and then replacing it in nis 
pocketbook, he would tell ever and anon of the streams 
he used to fish in of old, and of the deeds he had per- 
fortued in his childhood and youth. These preciou.? relics 
of a bygone sport, were wont to be brought out in the 
ear.ly spring. long before sickness confined hiiu "to htw 
room. It had been a habit of many years, but. then the 
'sporting jacket' was donned soon after and angling wa.-^ 
no more a delightful dream, but a reality, 'that took hini 
knee deep or waistband high, through river feeding tor- 
rents, to the glorious music of his running and ringing 
reel.' " Is not this a pathetic picture of an angler's death- 
bed? I could not wish a better one, when my last cast 
is made, and my own lines wound up forever. 
^"oN w. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
Light in Indiana. 
Mr. Arthur M. Davis writes a verj- welcome letter from 
Cartersburg, Ind. It is very comforting to hope that this 
great angling State of Indiana is to have more adequate 
protection, and Mr. Davis' pride is very pardonable. He 
goes on to say : 
"Enclosed you will find a short synopsis of the. fish law 
passed by the late Legislature of this State. I have read' 
your space in Forest and Stream very carefully the past 
few weeks, hoping to find some mention of our efforts to 
secure a decent law for Indiana, but as you have said 
nothing about it, I suppose it has not been brought to 
your notice. At last we have secured a law ihat, with 
proper enforcement, will probably be the means of bring- 
ing the numerous small streams and rivers of the State 
back to their former high standing as bass waters. All 
former laws had practically no provision for their en- 
forcement, but now with a good commissioner and the 
nieans at his disposal for enforcing the laws, we may 
hope to see at least a few of the hoard of trammel netters, 
dynamiters, etc., who have been the means of depleting 
our bass streams, brought to book for their miserable 
ways. Let the Forest and Streamers know that old 
Indiana is at last awakened and will, from now on, be 
found in the company of other States in the protectios^ 
of her game and fish. 
"I have read your articles in Forest and Stream for 
several years, and they have been almost like personal 
letters to me. 
"I am preparing for quite an extended canoe and 
camping trip on White River the coming summer, and 
if I can pick up any items that will be of use to you, would 
be glad to furnish them. WHiite River covers a part of the 
State one seldom sees mentioned in the sportsmen's 
papers, though it abounds in numerous splendid fishing 
streams and some good shooting coimtry," 
One of the best features of the new Indiana law is the 
appointment of a "Commissioner of Fish and Game" to 
hold office four years, though the office carries a salary 
of only $1,200 a year, with the additional rmount of 
$1,200 for traveling and office expenses. Here, of course, 
is the weak point of the law. No man can for any such 
sum. properly cover a fiftieth part of the State of Indiana. 
There are good clauses on pollution of streams, djaiamit- 
ing, seining, etc. I regret to see that seines are licensed 
from July i to Sept. 30. and trot line fishing is allowed 
with fifty hooks on a line. Spearing seems to he pro- 
hibited, and a limit of 24lbs. of bass is set for each day. 
Fishing of all sorts whatever in the months of Maj' and 
June is prohibited, and I advise all Chicago anglers who 
intended to go to Indiana on an early angling trip to paste 
in their hats the memorandum that no legal fishing can 
be done in Indiana until July 2, not even by hook aiui 
line. 
E, Hough. 
1^00 BoycB B011.DING, Chicago, 111, 
The Forest and Stream is put to press each week oh Tuesday. 
Coffespondepee intended for publication should reach us at the 
latest by Monday and as much earljpr as prsct5;qable. 
