April 29, 1899.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
33S 
breeders, which will furnish eggs sufficient for about 
50,000 fry. The Commission prepared to use the $S,000. 
a year, hitherto used for the different species of bass, in 
the establishment of culture ponds, and afterwards the 
same sum annually for their maintenance. Several sites 
were offered by land owners at a nominal sum for this 
station, but unfortunately the plans in this direction were 
checked by the Legislature feeling itself obliged to cut 
the appropriation by $10,000. This act rendered it hope- 
less to establish an independent site and go into the prop- 
agation of the fishes named on the large scale contem- 
plated. The loss of the fry at the Allentown station has, 
however, opened a way, perhaps, out of the difficulty to 
a small extent. A plan has been formulated for submis- 
sion,, but as it has not yet been formally brought before 
the board, I do not feel it would be proper for me to 
more than to indicate that there are such plans for a par- 
tial solution of the difficulty. 
Another work the Commission is considering, which, 
when it is completed and carried out, will doubtless have 
a strong influence in aiding the cause of fish protection 
and in extending the knowledge of fish life throughout 
the State. This is the propagation' of goldfish for object- 
lesson teaching in the public schools. The superinten- 
dents of education in several localities have signified their 
approval of the plan proposed, and the work will be 
commenced to a limited extent next fall. Requisitions 
have already been made for the greater part of the esti- 
mated supply, and if the experiment is successful, as 
there seems everj^ reason to believe it will be, the Com- 
mission will make arrangements to supply every school- 
house in the State where the fish will be useful. 
At the beginning of the present session of the Legisla- 
ture the Fish Commission presented a bill for the better 
protection of fish. With two exceptions the bill embod- 
ied, it is believed, the sentiment of every friend of the 
increase of the food fish and game fish supply. Feeling, 
however, that it would be impossible, in view of former 
opposition on the part of certain elements among the 
fishermen along the Susquehanna River, to pass the bill 
without some concession, a conference was held with 
them, and as a result two sections were regretfully in- 
serted to permit the use of certain devices surrounded 
by proper restrictions. These restrictions were agreed to 
by representatives of the elements mentioned. But faith 
has not been kept. An alleged representative in the 
House of Representatives introduced a bill to permit the 
use of fish baskets, fyke nets and set lines in the waters 
of this commonwealth almost without any restrictions, and 
caused the Fish Commission's bill to be amended to 
conform to this measure. The Fish Commission feels 
that' it would be better that the whole bill should be de- 
feated than that this amendment should become a law, 
and it has so instructed its friends in the House of Rep- 
resentatives. There is also another amendment made to 
which I think it is mj'- duty to call your attention. It is 
that -the trout season shall close on June 15 instead of 
July 15. It would be much better if the season should 
be made to close Aug. i and open May i than that the 
amendment now made should prevail. It is, however, 
a measure which the Fish Protective Association should 
make a harder fight against than the Fish Commission, 
because if the Fish Commission acts it will be used as a 
lever against it to strengthen the absurd cry in the Leg- 
islature that the Commission is working in the interests 
of the sportsmen and not in the interest of the fish. They 
will certainly point out with specious force that the 
shortening of the season is in the interests of the fishcul- 
ture; This is not true, of course, except so far as it is a 
fact that if there were no trout caught at all there would 
soon be full streams. The amendment if it passes will 
certainly do much to ruin the small summer resorts in 
the mountains. 
"Forest Protection."— Responded to by Dr. J. T. Roth- 
rock, Commisioner of Forestry, in a stirring and instruc- 
tive address. 
"The Water We Drink— The Water We Fish In.— We 
would have them free form pollution." Responded to by 
Dr. Benjamin Lee, of the State Board of Health. 
"Game Protection." — Hon. J. H. Worden, Game Com- 
missioner. 
Entertaining addresses were also made by Hon. James 
McAnlis, Wampum, Pa. ; Chas. F.- Bartlett and . others 
upon the protective features of fishcultural effort in Penn- 
sylvania and the other States represented, followed with a 
liberal supply of fish stories. The reunion closed with the 
singing of "Auld Lang Syne." 
The committee in charge of arrangements was com- 
posed of Wm. H. Burkhardt, Chairman; Edwin Hagert, 
Edw. A. Selliez, Henry A. Ingram, Wm. S. Herges- 
heimer, Wm. P. Thompson and Joseph B. Van Dusen, Jr. 
Among those present were Messrs. H. O. Wilbur, S. E. 
Landis, Walter Powell, W. S. P. Shields, Bernard L. 
Douredoure, George T. Gwilliam, W. P. Ogelsby, W. 
H. Ocker, W. C. O'Neil, Howard A. Chase, M. G. Sel- 
lers, Wm. R. Nicholson, T. P. Monroe. Robt. W. Fitzell. 
Marcus D. Cornwall, Dr. John R. York, George W. 
Shaw, E. T. Davis, Charles Wetherill, J. P. Collins and 
representatives from many local fish and game protective 
associations in Pennsylvania. 
M. G. Sellers, Sec'y. 
Castingf Records at Baltimore* 
The lecords made at the tournament of the Maryland 
Sportsmen's Exposition at Baltimore April 19 and 20 
were as follows: 
Fly-casting, fixed distance and accuracy: W. C. God- 
dard, 90 per cent.; Thos. Whistler, 85; H. J. Talbot, 
832-3; C. N. King, 752-3. Accuracy, bait-casting: Jos. 
H. Hunter. 68^ft.; Thos. Whistler, 65^; H. J. Talbot, 
40; W. C. Goddard, w. Dry fly-casting for delicacy and 
accuracy: W. E. Goddard, 93* per cent.; Thos. Whistler, 
92^: W. J. Talbot, 92; W. C. King, 862-3. Bait-casting 
for distance and accuracy: A. F. Dusel, 72ft. 9in., icore 
97 per cent.; Jos. H. Hunter, 64ft. 8in., average, score 04. 
accuracy: W. E. Goddard, 93^ per cent.; Thos. Whistler. 
148ft. icin., average, i68ft.. maximum; Hunter, 64ft. av- 
erage, 162 longest. Long-distance flj'-casting: Goddard, 
90ft.; Dresel, 6q; Whistler, 67. 
The Brief is inimitable, and tfierefpre perfect.. It is, a complete 
Retrospect* 
There's a spot far away that I think on to-day," 
That I gaze on with memory's eye, 
Where the firs, ever green, half encircle the scene; 
Where the pine spreads his arms to the sky. 
There's a bold mountain-side, where the echoes replied 
To my boyhood's shrill laughter and shout, 
And a path 'neath the ridge, winding down to a bridge. 
O'er the brook where I caught my first trout. 
Hastening on, from the hills come two clear, glassy rills, 
Fresh and free from their crag-covered home. 
And in darkness and day merry music they play 
In their ripples and bubbles and foam. 
From each ledge, lichen-crowned, all impatient they bound. 
In their moss-fringed channels they run, 
To a rock-basin deep, where the naiads might sleep, ^ 
There they blend their bright beings in one. > 
But a moment of rest, o'er the verge it has pressed; 
On a gray granite terrace it shines; , 
Now it burrows its way amid boulders and clay 
In a garden of cedars and pines. 
'Neath an elm lying prone, by the tempest o'erlhrown, 
Through a stretch where the cherry trees bloom; 
Then, a rush o'er a rock and a plunge and a shock — 
It is down in the gorge and the gloom. 
Now in wilder delight, dancing frothy and white, 
■ O'er the glen's rugged steps hear it go! 
Where the ferns at its side drink the sweets of its tide; 
Where the birch and the tamarack grow. 
'Mid the spray-sprinkled bowers, where pale forest flowers 
Smile up, 'twixt the trees, at the syn. 
How it chafes, how it churns, how it tumbles and turns 
In the joy of its journey begun! ^ 
Ever downward it leaps, ever onward it sweeps. 
And it knows neither doubt nor dismay; 
Over rocks, under roots curl its crystalline chutes. 
For it may not be barred on its way. 
Through the pools deep and wide hear it gurgle and glide, 
Where the trout loves to lie 'neath the shade 
Of the wet, turfy bank, where the grasses grow rank, 
In the caves that the current has made. 
There, tranquil at last, all its turbulence past, 
It has found a fair couch for repose; 
Through the meadow lands green, lily'd borders between, 
To a murmuring measure it flows. 
There it mirrors the day on its serpentine way, 
Marked by many a broad-branching tree, 
To the river below, dark and placid and slow, 
That will bear it away to the sea. 
How the years have rolled on! Half a lifetime has gone 
Since last on its margin I trod, 
But Time journeys in vain. I'm a boy once again 
With my first little basket and rod. 
Yes, forgetful of years, with their smiles and their tears, 
I can feel the same thrill as of old; 
I can see the quick flash, I can see the bright splash 
When the lithe, Speckled beauties -"take hold." 
In the voices of birds there are mystical words. 
There's a song in the stream at my feet. 
Where each water-washed stone lends its silvery tone 
To the symphony, soothingly sweet. 
And the elves of the breeze, far aloft in the trees, 
- Tune the sun-lighted leaves as they pass; 
While no gem-studded throne that a monarch might own 
Could vie with the dew on the grass. 
Oh, how oft in my dreams, on my vision it beams 
With a radiance too bright for my pen! 
And enraptured I list, in the morn's yellow mist. 
When I hear that wild voice in the glen. 
Though my footsteps have ranged, though the seasons have 
changed. 
Though the vrintry wind whistles without. 
Time and space are a blank; there I stand on the bank 
Of the brook where I caught my first trout. 
Hartsdale, N. Y. Ed. Leggo. 
New England Waters. 
Boston, April 22. — Few men have been better known in 
Maine rod and line sporting circles than Mr. Rodney B. 
Woodman, who died at his home in Boston last Satur- 
day night. Boi'n in Meredith, New Hampshire, fifty -four 
years ago, he early acquired a love of the woods and 
waters. Later in life, when he became a business man in 
the metropolis, none of this old love left him. Every 
season he made his early trips to Sebago and other Maine 
salmon waters, and was always one of the most success- 
ful. Time after time the Forest and Stre.a.m has had 
accounts of his successes. Later in the season his trips 
for black bass and pickerel were most remarkable. He 
has fished nearly all of the bass waters in Maine; often 
with remarkable success. Short fishing trips throughout 
the season were much in favor with him, and doubtless 
one of the greatest disappointments he ever had to bear 
was when he found, a short time ago, that his health would 
not permit him to make his early trips this year. Al- 
ways genial and self-denying, it was a pleasure to fish with 
him. He loved to talk fish and fishing, and his ideas were 
always practical and excellent. He delighted in telling 
stories and relating fishing adventures, and very fre- 
quently the Forest and Stream has had his anecdotes; 
perhaps losing something of their wit — their pathos, it may 
be — ^through being told second hand. 
Mr. N. B. Dana, one of the best known ticket sellers to 
where Boston sportsmen hie, never goes a-fishing. Oh 
No ! He scarcely fishes at all ! He simply goes out driv- 
ing, and is careful to drive on a pleasant afternoon along 
some of the trout brooks in Sharon or elsewhere. He 
knows where they are. Then his little rod is in the car- 
riage, and a few angleworms are in his pocket. He does 
not fish much, but jumps out of the carriage — the horse 
will stand all right — and whips a worm into the water. 
A trout jumps at the lure and is caught. Then, perhaps, 
another and another. He does not fish really in earnest, 
but somehow some pretty good strings go home with him 
in the carriage. 
At this writing all the Maine lakes and ponds are 
locked in ice. Sebago is yet solid; fifteen davs later than 
last year. C- A. Robinson writes, from South Windham, 
that the ice cannot clear before May i, and possibly not 
before May 5. Sunapee Lake, in the southerly part of 
New Hampshire, is not yet clear, though more than two 
weeks behind last year. O. W. Cutting writes, from 
Andover, Me., having just got word from Richardson 
Lake, that there is yet a vast amount of snow in the 
woods in that region. He thinks that the ice cannot 
leave the Rangeleys before the last of May. George New- 
ton, who has guided for many years on Richardson Lake, 
has sent word out that the woods are still snowbound, 
with 2ft. of soft snow and slush on the lake. He went 
in April 8 on snowshoes. A year ago the same lake was 
clear of ice April 3, and the snow about all gone in 
the woods. His idea is that the Rangeleys cannot be 
clear before May 20, and probably later. I have not yet 
learned of any salmon being taken in the Bangor pool, 
though the Penobscot is clear of ice above Bangor. 
April 24. — The latest reports from Sebago Lake, Me., 
say that the ice is out of the mouth of the Songo River, 
and this is one of the first indications that the ice is 
soon to clear. L. Dana Chapman has word from a 
well-known guide on the Naples side that the ice is likely 
to be all out in a few days. Already the clearing of that 
lake is fourteen days later than last year, however. A 
number of Boston fishermen are looking anxiously for 
the ice to leave Sebago ready to try the salmon fishing 
The latest reports from Bangor say that there is 4ft. 
of water pouring over the big dam at Bangor, and still 
a great body of snow in the woods. The water is so 
high that nothing can be done in the big salmon pool 
below the dam. There are no authentic accounts of sal- 
mon taken there yet, though one of the Maine papers 
suggests the capture of one last week. Dispatches not- 
ing the beginning of the fishing are to be forwarded to a 
number of Boston sportsmen interested, and none have 
yet been received. A Mr, Allen, who fishes the Bangor 
pool every season, was here the other day, and he sug- 
gests that there can be no good salmon fishing till the 
great volume of snow water subsides. Several Boston 
fishermen fully intended to try the brooks in New Hamp- 
shire on the 19th, Patriots' Day here, and were early on 
the ground. In the vicinity of Nashua and Manchester 
they could do nothing. Their excuse on getting back to 
Boston was that they did not have picks and other tools 
with which to clear the brooks of floating ice. 
The lateness of the fishing season is discouraging to th i 
railroads, hotel and transportation men.. They claim that 
they are losing at least two weeks of the best of the sea- 
son. The reasonable angler is not much displeased, 
however, since he is aware that the supply of fish is 
neither great nor inexhaustible at any -point, and any- 
thing which gives two or three weeks more respite to tho 
stock should be reckoned a real benefit. When the 
ice does leave his short vacation can be put in with zest, 
and the feeling that the rabble has not already run the 
ground all over. 
A Portland dispatch says: Ice out of Sebago- Fishing 
begun. Special. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
Spring Goods, 
My friend, Mr. Mershon, of Saginaw, asks me to cor- 
rect an error I lately made by a slip of the typewriter. 
He remarks, "Under the head of 'More Spring Trade' 
you say, 'The members of the Kinne Creek Trout Club, or 
more properly, the Flint & Pere Marquette Club.' I want 
to correct this. It is the Flint & Pere Marquette Rail- 
road, but the Pere Marquette Fishing Club." This fact 
I knew, and should have stated correctly. The club re- 
ceives its name from the saintly conduct of its members. 
I am glad to note that the waters of Kinne Creek will 
not know any backset this year. The club transplanted 
over a thousand yearlings and a number of older trout, 
putting them in the hatchery pens to grow good and fat 
before going into the stream. The stream proper had 
150,000 fry turned in out of the club hatchery. 
Mr. Mershon goes on to give further facts regarding 
his territory, after his obliging and comprehensive way, 
and I feel obliged to quote from his personal letter : 
"Our lumber bttyer returned from a trip through 
northern Michigan the other day and reported that in on 
the Lewiston branch of the Michigan Central Railroad 
last Sunday at a dam on one of the streams that this 
branch of the railroad crosses, a moss back took about 
140 trout, some of them weighing 2;/2lbs. These things 
make your blood boil. 
■'The days are warm and balmy once more, and the 
brook trout feeling prevaides the air and enters into the 
very marrow of one's bones. I hope I can go up May i 
and fetch in a few of them, but I am afraid that business 
and half a dozen other preventatives will decree other- 
wise." 
Early Fishing. 
Our Western fishing season is now just beginning, or 
more properly, our trout season is just beginning, as 
witness a certain uneasiness daily increasing in the de- 
portment of certain friends of mine, who are devoted to 
the pursuit of the brook trout. One gentleman with 
whom I fished last year has been in two or three times al- 
ready to ask if I am "going up there again this spring," 
and if it isn't about time to be getting ready. I agree 
Avith him so far that I have already laid in my trout 
milinerj' for the spring, including some leaders of most 
excellent fineness, which, in an unguarded moment Pop 
Hirth, of Spalding's, sold to me. I surely will do business 
Avith those Prairie RiA^er trout this time, and Avhen I get 
back I may have something further to say about the 
Taylor system of casting a fly. I have laid in a peck or so 
of flies. Avhich. as it seems to me. ought to appeal to 
any self-respecting trout, and it occurs to me personallv 
that trout flies never looked prettier than they do this 
spring. 
Mr. Fred N. Peet. one of our most prominent anglers, 
dropped into my office the other day and shoAved me some 
ncAV flies he has been tying. They Avere as exquisitely 
done as any I haA^e ever seen executed by the best makers. 
Mr, Peet is a sort of all-round athlete in angling. He 
goes in for long range bait casting, can put a quadruple 
reel together in the dark, can cast a bait to all sorts of 
distances, and also maketh and loveth a fly. He tells 
me that he is going over to Grand Rapids, Mich., to 
tangle up with Mr. John Waddell 00 a tour for big 
