July S, 1899.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
81 
having echoed to the sounds of wandering life was a trail 
across the shallow of the head-water, where the gentle 
caribou had passed and repassed for many ages. 
I looked over my cast, which contained a silver doctor, 
a terra nova, a gray hackle and a little black fly, saw they 
were all right, and softly dropped my flies just where the 
river ceases to appear to flow and mingles with the waters 
of the gully — just beside the golden lilies that lay in 
great Itixuriance there. The effect was magical. With 
that indescribable swish — a noise more pleasant to the 
senses of an angler than music's sweetest strains-^the 
gully appeared to be alive, 
The flies were literally devoured, and it <W&S with the 
keenest pleasure imaginable that 1 hooked, fought five 
minutes or so, and landed atone haul four rich, fat, gainey 
mud trout, ranging in weight from 44 to i^llbs. At every 
throw I succeeded in hooking two, three or four beauties, 
and at last, when darlcness had settled in, I knocked off 
with fair play, well satisfied with my evening's sport, 
and having for once at least got a "square meal" of it. 
I filled a canvas bag that I carried, then cut two "gads" 
and loaded- them and started for camp, about half a mile 
off. I was now in a quandary, for I was in a strange coun- 
try, and in the eagerness of my pursuit I had failed to 
make mental notes of landmarks that would guide me on 
the way back. Howe\er, I tramped back through the 
gully, and at the head-waters, where 'twas shallow, I was 
fortunate enough to strike the deer trail, and I knew it led 
through a long marsh in the vicinit)^ of our camp. I 
followed it as well as might be, feeling the way with my 
feet, for the trail, as is usual, was well defined. It was 
now so dark I could scarcely see an arm's length before 
me. 
At last I broke out into the marsh, and heard the wel- 
come sound of our camp dog's honest bark, and arrived 
safely in a short time, and was for the time being the 
cynosure of a score of admiring camp fellows, who gath- 
ered around, pipes in mouth, to inspect the catch and 
indulge in the usual camp talk on such occasions. They 
had decided before my arrival that I had lost my way 
and were just getting ready to start out and hunt me 
up. My one regret was that in my hurry I had to leave 
my dogwood pole — one that I had cut in the woods and 
that had been my companion in many pleasant hours. 
After a change of dry clothes and a good "tuck-in" at 
supper — not the least enjoyable part of which was a dish 
of rich, red, "musky" mud trout, I lit my pipe and laid 
me down to rest, well satisfied with my day on the Come- 
by-Chance with my old dogwood rod and flies. 
W. J. Carroll. 
Newfound LANtt. 
After Ouananiche, 
Ther£ has been considerable variety about the early 
fishing for ouananiche this season in the Grande Decharge 
, of T^ake St. John. In the first place it opened late, as 
everybody expected it would, on account of the extreme 
lateness of the season. The waters were high, but for a 
day or two the sport ^was reported good. Then heavy 
rains and high winds set in. filling the high water of the 
lake with thick mud to such an extent that the fish were 
unable to see the flies on the surface of the pools in the 
Decharge. A few anglers went away disapopinted. 
Those who could possibly spare the time returned to 
Roberval to await the arrival of more favorable weatlier, 
and last week proved an off season for ouananiche fish- 
ing, though the fish could be seen in the pools in very 
large numbers. On Saturday and Sunday last the wind 
fell, and. by Monday the surplus water that was flowing 
out of the lake over the Decharge had lost much of its 
sediment, and the ouananiche were again on the feed. 
I had a good day's sport there, killing over a dozen fish, 
and might have taken as many more, When I found that 
the fish were taking the fly freely, I laid aside my 70Z. 
rod to experiment with one of exactly half that weight. 
There has been so much nonsense written from time to 
time about the rod^smashing qualities of the ouananiche 
that I had some time ago made up my mind to give the 
fish a chance. I was not fortunate enough to hook any- 
thing larger than a 31b. fish on the syioz. rod, but a 3lb. 
ouananiche, like a islb. salmon, is usually in perfect fight- 
ing condition, and the little cane was put to a thorough 
test, and came honorably out of the conflict. Some of 
the fish killed upon it were lofty leapers, and occasionally 
they ran out into the heaviest water of the pools. The 
light bamboo was so readily responsive that I gave it no 
allowance for size and never lowered the tip when the 
fish vaulted from the water, alwa}rs allowing him rather 
the freedom of the line. It took a little longer time to 
lead the fish to net than would have been necessary Avith 
a heavier rod, but not so much more as might have been 
-expected, and if the extra sport afforded is not considered 
a sufiicient compensation for the additional expenditure 
of time, I may add the assurance that out of a number of 
fish so played not one was lost by the tearing away of the 
hook, that so frequently occurs when ouananiche are 
handled on stiffer rods. When first I angled for these 
fish, before the construction of the railway as far as Lake 
St. John, I went at them with an old two -handed English 
rod, that I had used for jack pike in the Old Countr}^, as 
a boy. Experience led me to substitute, first a stiff' Ca- 
nadian lancewood trout rod, and then an American split 
cane of moderate weight. Now, for purposes of finest 
sport and greatest comfort I am an advocate of the 
lightest rod, for ouananiche fishing, that can be found. 
1 upon the market, provided it be properly made; that is 
to say. well balanced, and possessed of a reasonable share 
of back bone. I have fished with 50Z. i-ods possessing 
less of these requisite qualities than that weighing 30Z. 
and a fraction, with which I killed my last few ouananiche. 
The form-er scarcely enabled the angler to take in the 
slack of the line without the aid of the automatic reel. 
The latest addition to ray rod case needs no such artificial 
aid. 
I still believe, as I wrote in "Tlic Ouanaolchc and its 
Canadian Environment," over three years ago, that the 
most serviceable tool for the speedy killing of the fish is 
a 7 to 90Z. trout rod. But those who have acquired the 
admiration for this noble fighter that a few seasons of 
Duananiche fishing brings will have no more ambition to 
make a score, and when the fish are plentiful and the 
rises frequent will find their hi|fhest enjoyment in taking 
the ouananiche from its chosen waters upon the finest and 
lightest of tackle. 
Of course rods may be smashed by ouananiche just as 
well as by any other fish, but there is no good reason why 
they should be. While I was fishing from one of the rocky 
islets in the former Griffith pools of the Grande Decharge 
the other day, with my smallest rod, Joseph Morel, one of 
my guides, took up my heaviest trout rod — a Quebec 
lancewood weapon, upon Avhich I have landed a 141b. pike 
and any number of heavy trout and ouananiche. He 
wanted to reach a large patch of foam that was eddying 
around a long distance from shore, and succeeded in 
drawing his flies through it several times without securing 
a rise. Finally he drew the lures close in to the rock upon 
wnich he was standing, when both were seized at' once at 
his very feet. One of the fish was quite large, firobably a 
4-pounder. Without regard to the almost perpaadicular 
position of the rod, Morel struck smartly, and naturally 
enough, off Went the rod at the upper ferrule. A salmon 
rod might have done the same thing. 
The fishing at the Decharge is now at its best, and 
promises to continue good for some time to come. In one 
afternoon this week Lt.-Col. Haggard took over forty 
fish, and as manv more the next morning, returning by 
far the most of them to the water. 
E. T. D. Chambers. 
Quebec, Canada, June 30. 
P. S. — My attention has been drawn to a slip of the 
pen that Occurred in my last letter to Forest and Stream. 
In speaking of the recent big catch of trout on the Triton 
tract by Judge Hiscocks, Douglas E. Petit and William 
Nottingham, of Syracuse, the two largest fish of a catch 
of twelve, weighing 6olbs., were recorded as weighing 
and 3M;lbs. resoectively. If this were true of the two 
largest fish, it would be difiicult to make up the aggregate 
of 6olbs. What I should have written, if there had been 
less haste and more care in the writing of it. is that the 
largest of the big fish weighed dVilhs. and the smallest 
3;ilbs. E. T. D. C. 
Angling Intemperance. 
Charl«;stown^ N. H., June 2(i.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: I have so far refrained from "putting in my 
oar" in the discussion of tlie epithet of "game hog," or 
his near relative, the "count fisherman," but the inclosed 
slip, which I cut from the Boston Sunday Herald of 
yesterday, has rather excited my indignation. I do not 
know who Mr. Seymour is, or what he did with his 701 
trout, caught in one day with one rod! but I hope he 
returned at least 600 of them to the water. Still, even 
then, many of them must have been more or less in- 
jured, and if the gills were torn it is doubtful if they 
survived tlie injury. I cannot conceive of such brutal 
slaughter as coming under the name of either sport or 
amusement. This is the report: 
"Mr. and Mrs. J. S. Seymour, of New York, Avho are 
at Seven Ponds. too'K 650 trout in six hours' fishing 
weighing from to ij-'^lbs. Another day Mr. Seymour 
took 701 trout on one rod. Three were taken at one 
cast. i\Ir. and Mrs. Seymour saw eleven deer one day." 
I was always satisfitd with a moderate creel full, and 
ready to reel up my line and go home at that time: and 
in ordinary fishing near home two or three dozen, 
cnougli Inr breakfast for a small family, were an ample 
reward for my' afternoon's tramp. It was the same with 
shooting. When I had a dozen birds or half a dozen 
gray squirrels I was ready to throw my gun over my 
shoulder and leave the rest of the game for another day. 
Neither fur. fin nor feathei^ are plentiful enough here 
in the old settled parts of New England to make any 
larger bags possible, but the "count fisherman" yet 
troubles us a good deal. There are two or three meri 
in our village who persecute the trout brooks every 
spring, from the day the snow is off till the water get's 
too low, and come into the village and brag of the num- 
ber they have caught, and they keep it up, "day in and 
daj^ out," till no one who realh- wishes a quiet after- 
noon's enjoyment can find trout enough to reward him 
for a two or three mile tramp. I met one of these fel- 
lows last year with a six-quart tin pail half full of dressed 
trout, and though I could. not say that any of them were 
under the legal limit of sin., I certainly did not see one 
that would measure 6in., even counting in the tail, and I 
have no doubt that they Avere all fish with which some 
of my friends and myself had stocked the brook the 
year before. The worst of it is, that these fellows con- 
tribute nothing toward restocking the brooks; they just 
go out and catch all they can, and as long as they can, 
until those of us who have spent time and money in 
getting the trout from the State hatcheries and dis- 
tributing them in the breeding brooks have buttoned 
up our pockets and refused to make further efforts to 
supplv amusement to this class of our "fellow towns- 
men"! 
To return to my text, I have some doubts as to the 
truth of the statement, for Mr. Seymour must have 
caught a trout a minute for nearly twelve hours to ac- 
complish the alleged feat, but the 650 fish to himself and 
wife in six hours' fishing is about as bad. and I should 
think she would have been ashamed of herself, if he was 
not! 
I was much pleased to read the letter of my friend 
Commissioner Shurtleft' in ixgard to the discovery of the 
"Sunapee saibling," in the Averill Ponds. When up 
at Colebrook, some sixteen years ago, I heard of the 
large trout that were found in these ponds; but the waters 
were reported to be verj- difficult of access, with no 
camps or accommodations of any sort after reaching 
them, and I gave up the idea of going into them. 
I had heard similar stories of the big trout in Dan 
Hole Ponds, near Wolfeboro, N. H., some years pre- 
vious, but never got into them myself, and now the 
fish have both proved to be the saibling. which is first 
recorded as being noticed as a dift'erent variety of trout 
in Sunapee in 188 1, 
It goes to confirm my belief that we do not yet know 
all the inhabitants of our waters, and that both the 
saibling and yvannanish will yet be found to be inhabitants 
of Lake Superior. That very entertaining paper, "A 
Trouting Trip to St. Ignace," published in Orvis and 
Cheney's "Fishing With the Fly," speaks of several 
v.ineties '0.f trout in Lake Superior, and I cannot believe 
in lumping them as Salmo namayciish. What has be- 
came of the Siskaivits we used to hear of? I think the 
matter worthy of careful investigati6n. Von W. 
ANGLING NOTES. 
Water in Bloom. 
Ponds and lakes, being "in bloom," or "working," or 
"breaking," or "purging," has served as an excuse for 
anglers who have returned from fishing with no fish ever 
since I can remember. At this moment I do not recall that 
I ever heard of a stream "blooming," but Hay Bay, in 
Canada, was most certainly "in bloom" on one occasion 
in the fall when I went there with some friends to fish 
for muscalonge. Some waters bloom at one season, and 
others at another, and it has been commonly understood 
that the blooming or purging was caused by the seeds of 
water plants floating in or permeating the water until re- 
production took place and they sank to the bottom. In 
Germany the blooming is called wasser-bhtthe, water 
blossom: and in France les Ueurs d'eau. Sir Thomas 
Wardle, F. G. S., F. C. S., read a paper on this subject 
before a field club in England, from which I will make 
some extracts, as it gives the results of scientific inquiry 
into the causes of water blooming or purging, although he 
uses the term "breaking." His investigations were con- 
ducted at Copmere, a lake of forty-four acres, the time 
being autumn : 
"The lake presented an unexpected appearance. Its 
color was a bright emerald green, but not that of green 
coloring matter in solution. By a close inspection with 
our lenses, we saw the water to be permeated through 
its entire depth by bright green particles so numerous and 
pervading as to give the appearance of a green liquid, even 
when a glassful was held up to the light, * * * j 
appearance, because in addition to the permeation of the 
, bright emerald particles, there was also a green scum 
floating on the surface, thickest among the sedges, where 
it had been drifted by the wind, also unresolvabie by the 
unassisted eye, evidently possessing points of difference, 
mainly by specific gravity, from the particles suspended 
below the surface; besides this, the green was of a darker 
tint. Each drop contained a number of these green 
specks. * * * At certain times in each year, generally 
in autumn, the Shropshire Meres become turbid with 
these green particles, the water becomes unfit for domestic 
purposes, and it defies the powers of filtration, soon clog- 
ging up the pores of filters. Fish become sickly in it, and 
in some instances die, and in others are easily caught. 
* * * Tliis condition continues in varying periods from 
a few days to months. After a time the water emits a 
purtrid odor from the decomposition of the green particles. 
* * * The prevalence of these green particles is 
variable. They disappear and reappear and occur in 
greater quantities in various parts of the Shropshire 
Meres. * * * Copmere did not break in 1895; it re- 
mained very clear all summer and autumn: but a ver^ 
singular fact is connected with this exception of break- 
ing, in that a great quantity of fish died that year of a 
fnngus-growth disease, whereas in 1896 none died, not- 
withstanding the mere broke badly. * * * You will 
now be prepared to know that this breaking of the meres 
is due to microscopic algse, of which various species cause 
the phenomenal appearance. Dr. Drummond found the 
green color of the water of Lake Glaslough, in Ireland, 
owing to vast quantities of flocculent oscillating algse. 
In Loch Hainining, in Selkirkshire, a rich purple color 
occurs. * * * The broken water is characterized by 
various colors, sometimes green, purple, brown or red 
(Here follows a list of about a dozen species of algse found 
in different waters, including one found in the arctic re- 
gions.) "Most probably these minute algse, having been 
born of last year's spores, remain at the bottom of the 
lakes during the winter and urftil they find 3, need for 
further growth and development, and for this, accordmg 
to Mr. Blunt, they begin to absorb carbonic acid, which 
they find dissolved in the water. * * * Under the in- 
fluence of light the carbonic acid is decomposed, the oxy- 
gen is set free, and, thus liberated, adheres in globules to 
the algJE, causing them to rise into a fuller and stronger 
light." 
The entire article is of interest, but I have quoted its 
salient features, and. as the author says, the murder is 
out, and breaking of water explained, and that is about 
all there is of it, as no remedy for this condition is sug- 
gested, although more is promised on the subject. The 
various colors of the algje will explain why some fisher- 
men report a lake blooming in one color while another 
lake blooms in quite a different color, but it does not al- 
ways follow that because a pond or lake is in bloom (still 
another term for this condition of the water is "crud- 
dling") the fish in that water will not bite, for it is of 
record that fish have been caught when the water is 
blooming. 
Fly-Fishing for Shad, 
My name would have been signed here and these notes 
ended for this week had I not chanced to pick up Game 
Laws in Brief and Woodcraft Magazine and open it to 
Mr. Hammond's article on fly-fishing for shad. It seems 
to me that the magazine opened of itself in my hands to 
the article to remind me of something I have been trying 
to remember for more than a year. During the Sports- 
men's Show in Boston last year I sat at dinner one night 
with Mr. Walter M. Brackett, and we talked of fish and 
fishing, and he mentioned that years before he had taken 
shad with the fly in the Charles River, I think, but am not 
sure. Anyway, I made a memorandum of what he told 
me (probably on the back of an envelope, as I am. in the 
habit of doing, and about seven times out of ten losing 
the envelope or failing ever to see it again), intending to 
print it in "Angling Notes" some time, but have not seen 
it since, although the chief facts have been recalled on 
several occasions. Last week I was on Long Island Avhere 
the State is hatching shad eggs taken from fish caught in 
the Nessaquogue River, and one of the men told me of two 
shad caught last year in the stream with a fly, and I was 
again reminded of Mr. Brackett's experience. and forgot 
it before I returned to New York. Now Mr. Hammond's 
article has again reminded me of it, and I will ask Mr. 
Brackett to relate in this journal his early experience 
with shad on the fly, as the surest way to get it on record, 
A. N* Cw'EKey. 
