Aug. 1899.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
167 
or any other law of any sort whatsoever which has been 
regularly passed by the duly constituted Legislature of a 
State. The law is the law, and it goes. It is no use 
hollering because it pinches now and then. It is the law. 
Every one of us helped make it, and part of our joint 
action as citizens, whether we voted for or against a 
law, is represented in that law after it is passed and 
signed. We may not like it, but if so it is our privilege to 
vote next time for men who will kill it. It is not our 
privilege to break the law or countenance breaking it. 
We ought as gentlemen to take our medicine, and if we 
don't like it we know what to do next time. But if we 
break the game law, whether or not it pinches us person- 
ally, we are lawbreakers just as much as a burglar is a 
lawbreaker. Under no other view is the law entitled to 
any respect, and when we cease to respect the law we are 
worse than criminals— we are anarchists, putting forth 
actions and advocating principles subversive of all law. In 
game law matters the individual has for a long time 
thought that he was the State. It is about time that 
the State should get big enough to show to the individual 
x)f this sort that he is not the State, but only a section of 
the same. I am very much pleased to observe that the 
State of Illinois is asserting its dignity in this way, by 
passing around the hat, and I have no doubt that if the 
list of sporting newspapers and sporting goods houses 
holds out we shall eventually wrest from the pro- 
posed invaders the unwilling confession that though the 
shoe may be a leetle tight, it is not so tight but that it can 
be worn. 
Of course, there is the old, old cry of "unconstitutional." 
This new game law is "unconstitutional." Of course it 
is,- and the Burlmgton men are going to prove it. Any 
la;w is unconstitutional which is not made for and applied 
to the other fellow exclusively. I am sure the framers 
of this law must feel uneasy in their sleep as they reflect 
how very unconstitutional this law is, since it inflicts a 
penalty for its infraction and lays down certain rules 
which interfere with individual liberty and the right to 
bear arms. If you don't like a law, holler about it, and 
"break it, and say it's unconstitutional. 
Now suppose this law is proved to be unconstitutional — 
and for the sake of the argument I do not care whether it 
is s"o proved or not. It will take some years of time and 
some thousands of monej^ to prove this one way or the 
other. Meantime, the shooters of a certain class— and bythis 
I do not mean to classify as of that class these shooters of 
Burlington — will have gained everytliing they wanted. 
While the lawyers- are year by year driving a coach and 
four through the game law, the shooters will be driving 
the same equipment through the game. The markets will 
be gobbling away under the claim that the whole game 
law is "unconstitutional." Tliis very thing — and we are 
going to have this fight on here in Illinois — is just what 
the more conservative minds pointed out in regard to the 
proposed change in our game law at the last session. We 
had a fairly good law, not a perfect one by any means, 
but a fairly good law, and it had been taken up and 
passed upon by the Supreme Court in its more vital 
points, and we knew what we could expect under it at 
least, poor as it was in many regards. Now under our 
new law, radical as it is, we don't know what we've got. 
Com.e around in a few years and we may be able to tell 
you what we have got in the law, and what we have not 
got in the fields and covers. 
The new law may be theoretically a good thing. I pre- 
sume maybe it is. But it is a pinchy sort of thing. It 
pinches the newspaper classes, Avealthy theugh they be and 
able to stand it. It pinches the downtrodden shooter 
who always did shoot thus and so and who alwaj's wants . 
to.. It pinches the warden who can't collect licenses if the 
law is proved unconstitutional. Lastly, but a very im- 
portant feature to be sure, it pinches the game bird, and 
it will pinch him off the earth. The people of lower 
Illinois don't want any game law. They don't mean it 
when they say they do. Thej' don't want to abolish 
spring shooting. They don't want a license law. They 
don't want any game law except one made for the other 
fellow. Now it may be I am a trifle sad over being 
separated from that $5 by George Kleinman — I was saving 
it up and was going to have another $5 after a while and 
take a trip to the seashore — but none the less I am very 
much disposed to believe there is a large element of fact 
in the foregoing. 
Confiscating Guns. 
I was talking with the deputy wardens above men- 
tioned as soliciting funds, all of them good fellows and 
known to myself as hard workers, and the conversation 
turned upon another odd feature of our game law mat- 
ters. Under the regime of the Hon. Chas. Blow, former 
game warden for Illinois, it was customary for deputies 
to seize the guns of persons whom they arrested, and 
sometimes to keep these guns if the parties never ap- 
peared for trial. It was very common to arrest a man, 
take his gun as security, and have him show up in town 
for trial the next day. A lot of Chicago men were ar- 
rested at Fox Lake one time, and as they wanted to get 
home they were all thus bailed out by the deputy, with- 
out ever having been brought before any court. In fact, it 
has long been the custom in this Western region for the 
oflicers to be court, jury, judge and the whole thing. Of 
course there is not the first color of law in all this. I 
am not now speaking of the many cases in this State under 
earlier wardens, where cases were compromised out of 
court for cash paid to the warden, the prisoner never being 
arraigned at all. 
I was mentioning these things to rny friends, the 
deputies, the other day when they came, and they frankly 
admitted that they sometimes took a man's gun as 
security that he would appear in court. "You see," said 
Mr. Ratto, "we make our money out of the fines, and we 
want to m.ake as good a haul as we can. Suppose I had 
to take one or two men away over to town to put them in 
jail or get them bailed out. I miss, perhaps, half a dozen 
others whom I might get if I just arranged to have these 
fellows all come over themselves for trial, instead of my 
Inking them over personally, one or two at the time." 
There is something of an argument in that, of course, 
but really all deputies ought to know that they take a 
good-sized risk in any such action as the above. The 
deputy is an officer or 5er\"ant of the court, ile can not 
try a cause, it is his duty to take his prisoner to the 
court and file the 'complaint, the same as a policeman does. 
He has no right to bail out a prisoner, or to accept either 
money or property from a prisoner as security. 
George Kleinman said: "Yes, I know that; a lawyer 
told me that. I have never taken a bit of money from a 
prisoner, though I have often taken a gun as security.^ I 
always turned this gun in to the court, and never kept it." 
Of course, George Kleinman is not the .sort of deputy who 
accumulates property out of his work, but none the less he 
takes some chance actually every time he thus demands 
security from a prisoner before he has been brought be- 
fore the court. Mr. Ratto told me that once he had taken 
a watch from a man as security. The man turned up 
the next day and paid his fine and got the watch. All 
of these men would be above dishonest action, and they 
do this sort of thing because it is the most practical 
thing to do in the way of securing convictions. This is 
quite a distinction from the procedure under the Minne- 
sota law, by which the deputies used to seize a man's 
gun and dog as the unlawful tools of his trade. Con- 
fiscation of such tools can no doubt be made under the 
law, but this confiscation must be by action of court, and 
not by action of warden or deputy. I only say these 
things because I believe that the game laws are gradually 
coming to stricter enforcement and a closer inspection 
year by year, and I should not like any one of my friends, 
of whom I have a good many among the deputies, get 
into trouble over an action which might be very practical 
but yet very irregular. Out in the old Southwestern 
country where I lived we never cared very much for the 
law, but we were dead scared of the sheriff. If the 
sheriff thought we ought to hang a man, we did so, and 
sometimes when he didn't think so. The officer was the 
law itself to our eyes. A horse-thief cared not for 
principles, but he cared a plenty for sheriffs. Nowadays 
we are getting pretty high toned in some things in this 
Western country, and if I were a deputy warden I don't 
believe I would take any chances about confiscating a 
man's gun in advance. It is safer to take him carefully 
over the marsh and deposit him carefully in jail over 
night if he can't get bail. If a prisoner sleeps in jail he 
has time to think it over. If he goes home to the bosom 
of his family, his wife talks to him and persuades him he 
is an injured being. He gets a good breakfast and comes 
into court sassy. He thinks the game law isn't so awful, 
and resolves to be more careful next time. Don't separate 
the sooner from his gun. Separate him from the loved 
ones at home. His wife will then pass sentence because he 
let the dinner get cold. 
E. Hough. 
480 Caxton Building, Chicago, 111. 
Proprietors of fishing and hunting resorts will find it profitable 
to advertise them in Forest and Stream. 
ANGLING NOTES. 
How to Imptove Blapk Bass Fishing. 
A BRIEF history of what has been done to improve the 
black bass fishing in Lake George, and the present con- 
dition of the fishing in the lakes, as compared to what it 
was in the past, may be of interest at this time, when 
there are so many complaints of the black baSs fishing 
falling off in other waters. 
Lake George is a natural black bass water, a rare thing 
in this State, and this can be said only of such waters as 
have connection with the Great Lakes through the St. 
Lawrence. Black bass came into Lake George, probably, 
through the St. Lawrence and Richelieu rivers and Lake 
Champlain. In 1844 John J. Brown, author of "The 
American Anglers' Guide," describes the excellent fishing 
in the lake, and mentions that the largest black bass that 
he caught weighed slbs. goz. As that was before I was 
born, I depend upon statements from the "oldest in- 
habitants" as to the fishing at that period, before and 
after, until I began to go' there as a boy early in the 
sixties. 
One of my earliest recollections of Lake George as a 
fishing water was of a visit I made one spring with 
Mr. Edward McDonald, and finding men "burring" bass 
from their beds in what is now Kattskill Bay, and of Mr. 
McDonald chasing them in his boat and their escape. 
To "burr bass" was to place triangle hooks on the bass 
beds, and as the fish took the hooks in their mouths to 
remove them the butchers yanked the bass into their 
boats. This kind of slaughter was kept up for years ; in 
fact but a few years have elapsed since the practice was 
stamped out and the people who indulged in this style of 
fish-murder came to realize that they were utterly destroy- 
ing the black bass fishing in the lake. 
As the fishing became poor a special law was passed 
to open the black bass season later than in other waters 
in the State, and rigorous means were adopted to stop 
illegal fishing. The special season did not cover the 
spawning period of the bass, as the lake is spring fed and 
very cold, and another amendment, and later still an- 
other, was passed, so that for half a dozen years or more 
the season has opened in Lake George on Aug. i. It was 
much easier to pass laws to protect the bass than it was 
to enforce the laws after they were passed, but the 
Lake George Association was composed of then who em- 
ployed a special fish and game protector, and convictions 
became common, when arrests were made for fishing 
out of season and the people found that fishermen would 
not visit the lake when there were no fish to be had ; and 
gradually there came about a sentiment in the community 
that the laws were just and must be enforced, and the 
gam.e protector had the support of those who had before 
been indifferent in the matter. This year I went through 
the lake on several occasions, and everywhere I was told 
that more bass had been seen on the spawning beds along 
the shores than in many years before, and there was a 
fine prospect for good fishing when the season opened. 
Just here i must tell a story of what happened at one of 
the hotels in July. A j^oung wotnan walked down on the 
dock of the hotel apparently waiting for some one. There 
were a fish rod, line, hook, etc., on the dock where some 
fisherman had left them and a can of earth worms nearby in- 
vited the young woman to bait the hook and cast it into 
the water. In a moment she gave a tremendous yank and 
landed a black bass on the dock. A few moments later a 
rowboat came to the dock and she got into it, taking the 
bass with her and leaving the rod where she found it. 
All this was seen by some dining room girls from the 
dining room windows. 
An hour or so after the deparLure of the young woman 
with her bass, an old gentleman walked down on the dock 
from the hotel, quietly smoking a pipe. He looked over 
the edge of the dock into the water, and the pipe came 
out of his mouth, so tliat he could fairly pant: "Who 
stole that bass from its bed ?" Then he gave utterance to 
remarks that the editor would blue pencil should I write 
them down, and finally became calm enough to offer a re- 
ward of $25 for information that would lead to the arrest 
and conviction of the person or persons guilty of snatch- 
ing a breeding black bass from its spawning bed. He 
meant it, but the girls who saw the act could not identify 
the captor of the bass, who was probably an occupant of 
one of the many cottages along the shore, and who, when 
the hue and cry was out, was careful not to reveal her 
identity. 
It seems that the old gentleman had been watching the 
bass from the dock since it first made its bed and had 
repeatedly warned the boys who fished from the dock 
that the fish must not be disturbed under penalty of the 
law, but the young woman, while waiting for her boat 
and escort, passed the time by dropping a baited hook 
exactly on the bed of the watchful bass, and that act led 
to its destruction, while the young woman was, in all 
probability, utterly ignorant that she was violating a fish 
law and leaving behind her in the water a lot of unhatched 
black bass eggs without the protection that nature in- 
tended they should have. 
On Aug. 7 I was' at Lake George, and there had been 
five fishing days since the season opened. On the opening 
day Mr. C. Burgess Warren and a party of friends caught 
twenty-five black bass weighing 57lbs., two of the fish 
weighing slbs. each. On the 2d half a day's fishing nine 
bass, one of them weighing Slbs. and one 4^1bs. On Aug. 
3 fourteen bass, one of 4lbs 2oz. and one of 4lbs. Aug. 4 
twenty-seven bass, one of 61bs. loz., one of 5^1bs., one of 
4j41bs., one of SJ^lbs. During this time Mrs. T. F. 
Torrey, of New York, caught a bass of 61bs. 140Z. 
The morning of the 7th I was sitting on the veranda of 
the Sagamore waiting for the steamer to take me to 
Hague, having declined an invitation to fish that day, 
when I saw a gentleman land a big bass on the hotel 
dock. The fisherman was Mr. George Halsey, of East 
Orange, N. J., and the fish when brought up to the hotel 
weighed 61bs. Next he caught one of SJ^lbs., then three 
of 4^, 4^, 4j^lbs., or a total of aSJ^lbs. for the five fish. 
To be strictly correct and speak from the record, Mrs. 
Halsey caught one of the bass, but my memorandum does 
not say which one, although I believe it was one of the 
4^1b. fish. A Mr. Bixby was attracted to the dock and 
caught a bass of 4lbs. Several fishing parties had started 
early in the morning, and when I returned to the Saga- 
more in the evening I saw their fish. Judge J. O. Dyke- 
man, of White Plains, N. Y., and Mr. Francis Irwin 
brought in eleven bass of the following weights: 6, 5%, 
4J^, 4, 4.' 3^, 5/4, 4H, 4. 4^ and 4lbs. each. Mf9. Torrey 
caught about a dozen bass, the largest weighing SJ^^, 4j4j 
4l4 and 3^1bs. Mr, Warren had as his guests Adjutant- 
General Avery D. Andrews, Rev. Dr. Van DeWater 
and Commodore John Boulton Simpson, and they had 
tAvo bass of 61bs., each one of 5^ and one of 4lbs. At 
the Hundred Island House Capt. Harris, of the steamer 
Horican, on which I went to Hague, told me there was a 
bass on the dock which was said to weigh 61bs. Returning 
in the afternoon we passed a boat at anchor, and the 
fishermen held two bass which must have weighed over 
5lbs. each. 
But the bass caught from the Sagamore dock or by 
fishermen from the hotel, nearly all of which I saw, num- 
bered twenty-five, and weighed iiQj^lbs., and if that 
is not good black bass fishing I do not know where it 
can be found. The bass caught from the dock were caught 
on crayfish, a bait that is not native to the lake, but 
planted in the tributary streams by the State twenty-two 
years ago, and they are now abundant. 
To restore the black bass fishing in any lake where it 
was once good requires only that the bass be protected 
during the breeding season and that they be taken only by 
fair angling. 
As soon as a lake is fished out, practically, by fishing on 
the spawning beds and before the parent bass has left its 
young, although it may be done without violating any 
statute law, and by illegal methods, the State is appealed 
to for fish to restock it. All the black bass the State can 
furnish will not do as much to restore the fishing as a 
law, well enforced, to protect such bass as are left in the 
lake during the spawning and brooding 'period. 
I have already cited Glen Lake as an example of black 
bass stocking. It had thirteen little black bass planted in its 
waters, and they furnished tons of bass during the follow- 
ing twenty-five years with no other addition except as it 
came from the natural increase, and certainly no lake 
has been so persistently fished in a lawful manner, for in 
no instance has anyone been kno-vvn to take a bass from 
its bed in the lake. When Glen Lake was originally 
stocked it swarmed with pike (pickerel), and the bass in- 
creased and the pike decreased, until very lately a gentle- 
man came to me to say he feared the bass were almost 
gone from the lake, and the pike were increasing, and he 
wanted the State to plant more bass and have a law passed 
that would make the open season the same as in Lake' 
George, viz., from Aug. i to Dec. 15. The future of black 
bass rests largely with the people and the lawmakers, for 
the State cannot supply fish to restore the fishing, and it is 
not necessary even if it could. 
Black Bass and Yellow Perch, 
Section 141 of the fisheries, game and forest law of 
New York provides that: "Pickerel, bullheads, catfish, 
eels, perch and sunfish may be fished for through the ice 
with hooks and line or tip-ups" (in certain named 
waters), "and in any other waters o£ the State not inhab- 
ited by trout, lake trout, salmon trout, black or Oswego 
bass, or landlocked salmon or mascalonge." 
This has always appeared to me to be an unwise law, 
for perch are at their best for the table in winter, when 
they can be caught through the ice, and they afford sport, 
food and an income in some localities at a season when 
all are desirable by one or another. Perch are a prolific 
