68 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
' [July 22, 1899. 
head in the water to feed at the bottom, generally on the 
larvae of insects. In this position, with tail above the 
head, it is called "tailing," and is supposed at such times 
not to take food at tlie surface as readily as at other 
times when it is not "tailing." A. N. Cheney. 
Fishing Up and Down the Potomac. 
The Anglets' Club House. 
The Anglers' Association of Washington has its sum- 
mer home on the banks of the Potomac a dozen miles 
above the city, on the Maryland shore, two and a half 
miles below the Great Falls. 
It is a substantial building, cozily arranged, with a 
general sleeping room above for members and bedrooms 
for their wives on the first floor. The reception room is 
hung with pictures of game and reproductions of Kil- 
bourne's fish. The most valuable souvenir is a picture 
of a Restigouche salmon, presented by Mrs. Surgeon- 
General Baxter. The fish, weighing between 40 and 
Solbs., was killed by the lady, with a single leader, its 
outline traced life size on a great sheet of birch bark and 
colored by herself. 
A splendid pair of elk horns adorns the walls. An odd 
incident is related in connection with these. A nervous 
huntsman, trying his shells before going out, was warned 
by his companioins of the danger, but its only efifect was 
to confuse, and a moment later a load of shot struck the 
deer head squarely between the horns. 
The club is incorporated, owns about seven acres of 
ground, with a membership limited to forty. The house 
is prettily located on the Highlands, and from the veran- 
das occasional glimpses may be had of the river far 
below. 
A short walk down the hill brings one to the Chesa- 
peake & Ohio Canal, where in a little cove are moored 
two or three boats. 
If one's destination is the river, a couple of strokes 
puts the boat across, and a few rods below is the club 
fleet, of a dozen strongly built boats heavy enough to 
stand grinding on the rocks. To one who has watched 
the voyageur or half-breed handle the delicate bark canoe 
Potomac boating seems a very crude science. 
This of necessity, since it is not a trade, and in spend- 
ing a summer of holidays on the river one is sure to be 
poled by men who have never learned to handle the boat 
or who are making their first trip for "the season. And 
instead of a 50 or 75lb. boat, one uses a scow that weighs 
between 200 and 30olbs., not far removed from a raft, and 
as an unskillful driver sends it down a rapid of 4 or sft. 
squarely on a hidden rock, which one can hear grinding 
the bottom of the boat as it swings broadside and ships 
a bushel of water, he is inclined to wish that the boat 
was twice as big and the boards ift thick. 
It is a convenient enough form of boat for bob-fish- 
ing, as a forest of rods may be put over the sides and 
ends, and three or four men may fish from the same boat 
comfortably; but when one attempts the fly, more than 
half the fishing water is lost. Going up stream the boat- 
man stands in the stern, with a long pole, and as he 
pounds the rocks at the bottom and scrapes th^ rocks 
at the surface, or gets out to wade and pull or push the 
boat, as he sometimes does, the bass in the vicinity, if 
they do not take to the woods, it is because they have 
grown partially accustomed to the commotion, and they 
are at least no longer asleep; and when a bass is thor- 
oughly awake he does not dine — ^he watches. 
Some day a fisherman will come along with a tiny 
craft and an expert to manage it, and will fill it with the 
fish these heavy boats cannot approach. 
There are some beautiful canoes occasionally on the 
Potomac, and creditably handled, but you can hire 
neither the boats nor the boatmen. Then there are a 
few professionals at points on the river who have such a 
reputation for skill with the Potomac scow that they 
are engaged for every high-day and holiday that the 
river is clear, so a stranger does not get to test their abil- 
ity. 
Some years the river is hardly clear for the whole 
season, and nearly all the anglers on the river use bait, 
which requires little more of a boatman than pushing the 
boat to a pool somewhere Avithin a mile or two, so it is 
little matter of wonder if boats are built for safety and 
comfort rather than quiet and progress, 
Just above the boat landing is an island, and be- 
tween this and the Maryland shore is the backwater, a 
turbulent chute when the water is high, but through 
which the water scarcely trickles when the river is down. 
This quiet cove, a half mile long, is a favorite spawning 
place for the bass, crappie and other fish, and so great 
is the variety found here that the upper pool has been 
appropriately named the Aquarium. 
In the main channel at the head of this chute the river 
is divided by a great stone, and the rapids on each side 
are called respectively the Virginiia and the Maryland 
chutes. 
Opposite, on the Virginia shore, a cleft in the .dense 
low woods marks the mouth of Difficult Run, whose trib- 
utaries still furnish a few native speckled trout; stragglers 
are occasionally caught here in the Potomac. The club 
register records the taking of one or two here by its mem- 
bers. Below the mouth of Difficult, on a bench 20ft. 
above low water, but subject to overflow by spring 
floods, is the Black Pond, a pool fed by springs, clear 
and cold, full of bass and crappie of exceptional excel- 
lence. It is private property, but permission may be had 
of the owner to fish. 
There is fine boating water, and plenty for the wader, 
both above and below the club house. Any evening the 
leaping bass will convince the most skeptical of their 
size and plenty. If one goes over the ground with a 
member whose experience is large enough and memory 
good, to say nothing of his imagination, every rock and 
grass pud, every rfffle and eddy, every deep hole and 
bar, will have its legend of some tremendous bass which 
it has yielded, and one feels it is only necessary to throw 
a line to get a rise. 
The better water, however, is below, and one of the 
favorite spots is Calico Riffles, so called from the varie- 
gated color of the stones on the bottom. Another point, 
too, a quiet pool, has yielded its frequenters such rfeward 
they fondly call it the Honey Hole. 
One of our friends here, who had been wading in 
knickerbockers and low-quarter rubber-soled cloth- 
topped shoes, on his way along the margin of the river 
stepped on a large water moccasin, and it resented the 
attack by putting its teeth through his shoe. 
Thoroughly frightened, the unfortunate hurried to the 
club house and absorbed all the antidote that could be 
found, and then raced home as fast as his horse could 
carry him. Two tiny red spots showed where the upper 
teeth of the snake had brought blood, but no swelling of 
consequence followed; however, he was too rattled or 
som_ething to sleep. He found some sympathizing com- 
panions, and they laid in unlimited supplies of wet goods 
and a dozen decks of cards, and spent the entire night in 
alternately sa3dng "That's good." The next day he was 
entirely cured so far as his foot was concerned; the other 
end Avas somewhat swelled, a consequence his compan- 
ions shared with him. He cannot be convinced that the 
water snake is harmless, .but is that only this heroic 
treatment saved his life. From an ardent wader he has de- 
generated into an ordinary boat fisherman. 
A few hundred yards above the club house in the 
canal is the famous Broad Water, where the canal bank 
dams a great ravine. 
Some years ago the retaining wall was washed 
out at this point and 20 or 30ft. of wall went down. It 
is said the pool left was 30ft. deep, and standing all about 
in it were the blackened trunks of the trees which had 
been left when the canal was built, many years ago. 
This Broad Water is well stocked with bass, crappie 
and pickerel, and is a favorite pool for a good many bait 
fishermen. 
Two or three great stones on its margin and one well 
Ouananiche vs. Kogani Trout. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I have only recently returned from a fishing trip to the 
Province of Quebec, and for the benefit of your many- 
readers will proceed to give them a little account of my 
success. Leaving New York on the evening of June 12, 
en route to the far-famed Grande Decharge, the home of 
the "leaping ouananiche," I arrived at Quebec at 2 P. M. 
the following day, to find the train for Lake St. John had 
left at 7:30 that morning, and that the next rtain would 
not leave for two days, as during the fall, winter and 
spring only three trains per week leave Quebec for Rob- 
erval. The time required to make the 190 miles is about 
twelve hours, which, considering the train was a freight 
train, with a combination passenger coach, is pretty fair 
time. 
Eventually I arrived at the hotel at Roberval on Thurs- 
day night, remaining there only long enough to take the 
little steamboat which makes daily trips across Lake St. 
John to the Island House, situated on a little island at 
the mouth of the Grand Discharge, or Saguenay River. 
By the advice of a famous ouananiche fisher — one who 
has written a book on the subject — I took with me no 
less than seven split bamboo rods, ranging in weight 
from 4 to looz., with lines to match, and to cap it all an 
automatic reel, which it was explained was an absolute 
necessity, owing to the lightning rapiditj' of the move- 
ments of the ouananiche. I was also informed that J 
would probably smash all my rods, owing to the fight- 
ing qualities of these famous "kings of game fishes"; 
CLUB HOUSE OF THE WASHINGTON ANGLERS ASSOCIATION. 
Photo by Henry Talbott. 
out from shore are famous perches for the man with the. 
.bob, and have given many a happy hour to jaded nerves 
and hungry hearts. ^ 
The Conduit Road, the most noted drive about Wash- 
lagton, is good to this point, fourteen miles from the 
Treasury Building; the rest of th^ road, which leaves the 
river here and goes around the hills to Great Falls, is 
crooked, hilly and poorly kept. 
The cyclers of Washington have united in tlie enter- 
prise of building a 6ft. path from here to the Falls, close 
to the canal, and friends of the measure about the city 
sport a red button bearing the legend, "Great Falls Cycle 
Path." This will considerably shorten the time and labor 
to the Falls, whose sixteen miles is now reckoned an 
hour by century riders. Next to plenty of fish, nothing 
delights the angler more than plenty to eat, and some- 
times this is his only consolation for an empty basket. 
The appetizing counti-y fare the club offers is a delight 
to a hungry man, and its guests are safe to lose no flesh 
if they get no fish. Henry Talbott. 
Stream Stocking Systems. I : i 
A Cornish (Me.) correspondent writes: "Fishing is 
also slow about here, excepting at 'Sebago Lake, which is 
nine miles from O — — owing to over-fishing and the 
non-enforcement of the fish law. I believe for one that the 
fishing would be better if the State would stock all brooks 
that were noted for good ones for trout. It would not 
cost any more than to employ wardens, and if all good 
brooks were stocked there would be no such rush to any 
one brook as there is to one that has been protected for a 
certain number of years and the times expires, as your 
worthy correspondent, Mr. C. M. Stark, tells of in north- 
ern New Hampshire, where they camped for miles upon 
the stream the night before the law expired, and burned 
the fences." raS it^^i a 
The Halifax 'Herald says : The first pelican ever shot 
in Nova Scotia was killed Saturday on the shore at Three 
Fathom Harbor by William Graham with a rifle. The 
bird was brought to the city this morning and is on view at 
Egan's gun store. The wings have a spread of 6ft. 6in. 
The bill is I4in. long. The distance from the front of the 
bill to the tip of the tail is 48in. The fish pouch, which 
hangs from the bill, contained thirty-five small herring; 
when the bird was shot. 
that I would be lucky if I succeeded in landing two out 
of five ouananiche hooked. Well, to make a short story 
of it, I killed nine ouananiche in succession without los- 
ing a single one, and did not smash any rods in doing 
it. I remained only four days at the Island House, kflled 
eighteen ounananiche, and from my experience am pre- 
pared to assert that compared with a good, healthy chub 
a ouananiche is not in it for gameness. In other words, 
I consider the ouananiche a much overrated fish. The 
largest one caught while I remained at the Island House 
weighed between 2^4 and 2^1bs. John Merril, the 
famous canoeman of the Saguenay, who, with one of 
his seven sons, acted as my guide, informed me that the 
largest ouananiche killed in the waters controlled by the 
Island House last year weighed 4lbs. 
The proprietors of the Island House have nominal 
control of several miles of fishing on the Saguenay River, 
but the last day I fished there I counted no less than 
seven natives fishing in those waters, and by using pork, 
the favorite bait for ouananiche, they all seemed to have 
had fair success. ■ ii ^ 
While in the city of Quebec I called at the store of the 
Chinic Fishing Tackle Co., and met Mr. Bertrand, the 
manager, who informed me that I would find good trout 
fishing at Lake Kenogami, thirteen miles from Chicou- 
timi, the fishing rights of which are controlled by the Cha- 
teau Saguenay Co., of Chicoutimi. Having been a chaser 
of will-o'-the-wisps for lo these many years, I took Mon- 
sieur Bertrand's statement cum grano salts, as I expect 
many of the readers of Forest and Stream will take 
mine. However, arriving at the Chateau Saguenay, I 
made arrangements the next morning to be driven over 
to the lake, where I arrived at about noon. The house 
at the lake is conducted for the hotel_ company by a Mr. 
Randall, an Englishman, who for eight years was the 
valet and general factotum of the Earl of Seafton.' The 
house is a new one, built of logs only last year. In addi- 
tion there are already three tents up on the grounds, and 
as many more will be put up as may be required. A 
telephone connects the house at the lake with the cha- 
teau at Chicoutimi. The ho.uses are situated on a beauti- 
ful sandy, pebbly beach, immediately upon the shore of 
the lake, and the view from the veranda is beautiful be- 
yond description. Stretched out as far as the eye can 
reach in both directions lies Lake Kenogami, twenty- 
one miles long by an average width of three-eighths of a 
miles, the waters of which are ice cold and clear as 
crystal. Lalce Kenogami is merely the widening of Chi- 
coutimi River, which has many smaller rivers emptying 
into it in those twenty-one miles of lake. From the very 
