Sept. 2, 1899.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
18 7 
Proprietors of fishing and hunting resorts will find it profitable 
to advertise them in Fokest and Stkeau. 
In the New Dominion. 
Th:^ years 1897 and 1898 were wet years, and the 
people grumbled because there was not enough fair 
weather to cure their hay; but it takes such a year as this 
to bring them to their senses, and long for the rains they 
despised. The poor fish are faring badly. The West 
Fork of Greenbrier River stinks with the dead brook 
trout, and on the smaller streams are signs of where 
harpies have drained the pools and taken the ti-out by 
wholsale. This season bids fair to undo the good work 
of the wet years in stocking the streams. 
Pocahontas county will soon be open to the world, for 
a thousand laborers are at work building a rarlroad along 
the banks of the once sequestered Greenbrier River, and 
we fear the worst. The railroad hands have alwavs dyna- 
mite at hand, and are desperate characters. They com- 
mit the unpardonable sin of dynamiting the fish. The 
work has just commenced, but the dull boom of dyna- 
mite has already been heard after dark, when we know 
that it it not used for any legitimate purpose. The new 
road follows the bank of the river for ninety-eight 
ttiiles, and is to be built within a year. We hope that 
enough bass will creep in the safe places in the rocks 
and escape to restock the stream. This railroad develop- 
ment is sudden and unexpected, and very welcome in 
every way except hunting and fishing, as we are all glad 
down to the bottom of our souls that we are going to 
have a railroad. As much as we delight in hunting and 
fishing, we who have to work for a living must hold that 
"sport is of our life a thing apart, and not our whole ex- 
istence," to paraphrase a familiar quotation. 
A part of the development of the Greenbrier Valley 
which set the fishermen to objecting was the establishing 
an unusually large pulp mill about forty miles from the 
mouth of the river. The fishermen and a small town 
which took its drinking water from the Greenbrier pro- 
tested vigorousljr, and threatened to apply for an in- 
junction, that vague, formless, paralyzing influence of 
courts; and behold! the company pulled up the stakes 
it had set for thirty-seven acres of buildings and crossed 
:he divide into Virginia, to pollute the headAvaters of the 
loble James, and those few devoted fishermen and water- 
srorkers were the cause — oratleastthe pretext — for moving, 
ind they have been the subject of as much abuse and vitu- 
peration as ever was heaped on the heads of a few offend- 
ng mortals. And now, when the would-be fisherman fishes 
ill day in the Greenbrier without getting a nibble — and 
■heir name is legion— he thinks about that protest, and his 
soul boils within him, and he says, "And it was for this 
that Virginia instead of West Virginia secured the big- 
gest pulp mill in the world," and goes home and writes 
to the papers about it. 
I think myself the objectors are a little frightened at 
the effect of their protesting, and having tried to raise 
the devil are scared at the apparition. I think, too, that 
they showed a vein of selfishness that should be foreign 
■o the makeup of the sportsman. I know there are plenty 
of men who v.'ill say that every man has a right as an 
individual to block the development of a section by 
insisting on one of his minor inalienable rights, and is 
justified in asserting it; but in this particular case I 
jelong to the majority, who have been bewailing the loss 
of the greatest industry that ever was offered to this 
State, and we were willing to sacrifice one of the choicest 
jf streams for it. 
The trees are being sheared away looft. from the edge 
□f the water, letting more sunshine fall on the river. The 
railroad will run where there has never been even a pub- 
lic county road, and every pool in the Greenbrier will be 
easy to reach. Along the east bank of the river for the 
entire distance of ninety-eight miles are well-known 
deer stands, each bearing" a name familiar to all the 
people of the locality, and it is safe to say that from the 
:ar windows these stands can be seen at intervals of. 
half a mile or less, each of which has been the scene of 
stirring hunting events. 
The country is to be developed, but we will pay the 
price for the busy times promised in the loss of our 
'orests. They can be cut but once in our time, and much 
3f the land will be nothing but a barren waste of brusli, 
nstead of a wide reach of stately trees. 
Catching a basket of fish has been a very uncertain 
thing this year, and it is all but impossible to induce 
them to rise to a fly. Near the mouth of the river, how- 
ever, two bass of 3^1bs. each were caught at one cast. 
At Alderson a man was fishing from the county bridge 
with a stiff bait rod. He hooked a fish weighing 4lbs. 
50Z., and lifted it out of the water and deposited it on 
;he floor of the bridge by the power of his elbow. 
The boom company on this river have a very vexatious 
dam, and they have afforded very poor facilities for 
bass to pass over it. In speaking of it, a lawyer said it 
looked like mill dam people expected the fish to get out 
Dn the bank and get around their dams. This dam was 
drained the other day, and after the water had sub- 
sided a catfish weighing 2olbs. was discovered stranded 
on a riffle, and was killed with a pike-pole by a lumber- 
man. The whole neighborhood had catfish steak for 
iupper. 
An eel was speared in the river this year. There 
are very few to be found west of the crest of the Alle- 
shany Mountains, but all that have ever been taken are 
arge. There are about as many eels in the Greenbrier 
as there are in land-locked waters, and in its tributaries 
aone. 
The condition of this country in this season of drought 
is very much like that described in the "Jungle Book." 
The small streams of the woods are entirely dry, and in 
ivhat are ordinarily mountain torrents the fisherman can 
fish all day dr.vshod. The water is so clear, however, 
that the fish are easily alarmed, and they hide under the 
rocks. If a man crawls over rocks with a snake-like 
motion when he sees a trout lying in the foot of a pool 
and gets a fly over it with an awkward side swipe he has 
a chance to Qatch it, but ordinary fishing brings very 
poor rfswits, 
Since the waters have dwindled so I have had one 
trip into the heart of the wilderness. We packed our 
freight to the usual place, and arrived in the afternoon. 
Then we discovered that some one had found the cave 
where we had hid our cooking utensils for many years 
and carried away everything. We were in a desperate 
situation, It was twelve miles over the roughest bridle 
path ever trod by horses to the first house. But it hap- 
pened that we had two loaves of bread — the first time 
we ever went there with a supply of bread, it being our 
custom to bake bread as soon as we had made our 
canip. We had bread and butter, and we were like the 
princess who said she saw no occasion for anybody starv- 
ing; she would eat bread and butter before "she starved! 
But we did not come out to fast. We sent Joe, the black 
cook, back for a baker, pot, frying-pan and other neces- 
sary articles, and scattered off for trout, after demolish- 
ing a camp we found, which probably belonged to the 
thieves. 
We came back with a hundred or so good trout, and 
no way to cook them except to give them a smoky broil 
at the fire. We were about to make a dry supper on 
bread and butter, when we thought of our big new 
coft'ee-pot. We filled it full of big trout, standing them 
on their heads, and pouring in water brought to a boil 
let them cook a few minutes. We made a sauce with 
butter, flour, lemon juice and the soup off the fish, and 
had the best dish of boiled trout it has ever been my lot 
to share. That bountiful supply of the most toothsome 
dish turned famine into a feast. The next day we were 
in shape to cook everything which came our way. 
I kept account of the number of fish I brought into 
camp during the week we spent there, and it amounted 
to 19s There were eight in the party, and as some did 
not care to fish, it kept those who did fish working to 
bring in enough to form this, the principal item of diet. 
A trout over a foot long in West Virginia is a rarity, 
but out of that number I caught three which exceeded 
that length, two of I3in. each and one of I4in. 
All of these were unusually large trout for this section, 
as one is likely to take a thousand without getting one 
over a foot long. Of that number I took my entire 
catdi except one with fly, but that one was one of the 
big ones. It was taken from a baited pool just as the 
rain dashed down on the water. 
The largest one was got in a big, clear pool, where 
the bed of the stream widened behind me so that I 
could cast at least soft, of line. He boiled up like a bass 
and gave me a fine tussle in landing him. 
The third trout was by far the finest fish, and his 
taking gave me an hour of the keenest of sport. I 
found a deep pool, surrounded by rocks, one of which 
v,as as large as a small cottage. I had caught a big 
trout there going up, and another one rose, but did not 
take the fly. Coming back I crawled to the top of the 
largest boulder and cast over the pool, and a big trout 
rose to the fly, but before he could reach it a tre- 
mendous fellow interposed himself between the trout 
and the fly, and neither took it. It seemed as if the big 
trout had compelled the smaller trout to abandon a 
manifest intention of taking the bait. Of coure I lusted 
after that troiit, which looked bigger that he really was. 
I dropped back and smoked a pipe, and made a cast 
from another quarter, and the same thing occurred. I 
only made the one cast and retired. This time I ate my 
lunch, consisting of a biscuit and piece of bacon, and 
had another pipe, and then cast from the lower end ot 
the pool. The two trout rose again in the same way, 
the big one dashing in in time to save his companion. 
I was prepared then to maintain that the big trout's 
object was to keep the smaller trout from taking the fly, 
and if I had quit then I might possibly have asked the 
F0RE.ST AND Stream readers to believe that there was 
a missionary trout in the North Fork of Cranberry 
which warned its brethren away from the snare of the fish- 
erman. When I tried the pool the fourth time I got no 
rise until a fingerling dashed at it and got hooked. 
Then I stepped to the side of the pool, and found that 
the trout had been rising from under a sunken tree 
in about 6ft. of water. With about loft. of line I let 
my cast of flies sink to the bottom and jiggered them to 
the top. I had no well-defined hope of this sort of 
juggling succeeding, but as I brought the flies up the 
third or fourth time, I saw a flash of crimson, and I had 
him. He was a strong fish and fought a good fight, but 
he was landed. Even in the strand where I was gloat- 
ing over him he died hard. 
While on that trip a medical gentleman and myself 
went to walk in the woods and lost ourselves beauti- 
fully, and walked seven hours before we got back to 
camp. I am not ashamed of having lost my way, and 
the best woodsman will be the last to ridicule any one 
for having done so. They know that such a thing is 
possible with any one. On that wonderful tramp we saw 
bear sign. A large rotten log was hterally torn to pieces 
and scattered around. This must have been the work of 
a big bear searching for grubs. 
Andrew Price. 
Marun roK, W. Va. 
ANGLING NOTES. 
Pacific Salmon and Artificial Fly, 
Affow Wood foi* Rods. 
Judge S. H, GreenEj of Portland, Ore., sends us this 
note from the Oregonian : "It has long been known that 
the wood of the brush or shrub called by the Indians 
"arrow wood," and which is common in this State, is very 
suitable for maldng fishing rods, and many a fisherm_an 
who has been so unfortunate as to break a joint of his 
rod has had it replaced by a joint of arrow wood, which 
made a good substitute. A man at Oregon City has been 
making some very fine light rods of this wood, one of 
which is now owned by Judge Greene, of this city, an 
ardent sportsman, by whom it is highly prized. A test was 
lately made of the strength of an arrow wood rod as 
compared with lancewood and split bamboo. It w^as 
found that lancewood broke imder a strain of iilbs., split 
bamboo under iSlbs., and arroAV wood under 27]bs. It 
may be that arrow wood is the coming wood for fishing 
rods and will supplant lancewood, greenheart, bamboo, 
Bethabara and the various other woods which have, from 
time to time, been used in the matmfacture of fishing rods. 
It is not to be found in large pieces, but plenty can be 
foimd of a length anrl SUitsW? for making fishing 
In a previous note upon the subject of the Pacific sal- 
mon taking the artificial fly when cast in the same manner 
that it is successfully presented to the Atlantic salmon, I 
admitted that my former belief that the Pacific salmon 
would, or might be made to, take the fly under such con- 
ditions, could well be shaken if Mr. Henry P. Wells had 
made the effort and failed. I know Mr. Wells to be stlch 
a careful, painstaking man in everything pertaining to ex- 
periments in angling, and an experienced salmon fisher- 
' man, who fished with his head as well as with his fly, that 
it did not seem to me to be the proper thing to set up a 
belief again.st his practice, but he writes me fully about 
his experience with the Pacific salmon, and it appears 
from his letter, which follows, that his experiments with 
the fly were not conclusive: 
New York^ Aug. 16.— -My Dear Mr. Cheney.- Business 
pressure compels me at times to fall behindhand in read- 
ing up my copies of the Forest and Stream. This being 
an afternoon of unexpected leisure, I began to work up 
my arrears and found three articles which particularly 
interested me. The first was by you in the paper of June 
17 in reference to Mr. Kipling's experiences in salmon 
fishing near Portland, Ore. ; the next, an article by Mr. 
Beadleston, in the paper of July 22, in which he briefly 
describes his and my efforts in that direction on Mr. Kip- 
ling's ground; and third and last, an article of yours in 
the paper of July 29. 
Your article last mentioned concludes with these 
words : 
"For the same reason, I have believed that when salmon 
are fresh run and on the rise they are not particular as to 
the name of the fly if it is properly presented, and that 
Pacific salmon would prove no exception. I say I have 
believed, for Mr. Wells' trial may well cause me not to 
be too cock sure when belief is confronted by practice." 
Do no abandon your old belief, but be firm in the faith 
until something happens to shake it which is entitled to 
much more weight than my brief essay. 
As you are aware, angling in an unfamiliar country 
where nothing in the nature of a guide is obtainable, and 
sight-seeing do not fellowship together. Mr. Beadleston 
and I were obliged to leave Portland in the morning, drive 
out to Clackamas Creek, do our fishing and get back to 
Portland the same evening. How far this point was from 
our hotel in Portland I cannot now remember, but I know 
we lost our way and that the ride was a protracted busi- 
ness with dust as in the wreck of a flour mill. 
However, we got there at last, and found a fine-looking 
river, perhaps as much as 6oyds. wide, as I recollect it. 
An island divided this river into two equal branches. 
Immediately below the island, and where the branches of 
the river again united on its way to the sea, a rack was 
run across the river from bank to bank, completely barring 
the stream. This rack was composed of slats a couple of 
inches thick and perhaps 2 or 3in. apart. The lower ends 
were embedded in the bottom of the stream, the upper 
ends projecting several feet above the water and inclining 
down stream. Along the up-stream side of this rack ran 
a foot bridge about 2ft. wide. 
Below this rack lay the Chinook salmon in plain sight. 
Mr. Beadleston very modestly estimated their average 
weight at 3olbs. My recollection is that we saw none not 
much heavier. Judging from their length, as compared 
with the Atlantic salmon, and allowing for their greater 
depth, I remember that I thought two of those we saw 
fully equaled, if they did not exceed, 6olbs. in weight. 
Some thirty fish were plainly visible. 
They were in fearful condition, battered to a degree that 
one would have thought would be fatal by jumping against 
the rack in their efforts to get up stream. I remember 
one, the skin on the left side of the head of which was 
almost completely stripped off and hanging down from 
the lower jaw like a loose piece of cloth. All of them, as 
I recollect it, without exception were more or less, so 
bruised. 
Now the only way to reach these salmon, owing to the 
nature of the banks, was from this foot bridge, and the 
only shelter from sight was a post about 9 or loin. in 
diameter. 
It is true, as Mr. Beadleston says, we tned all the 
more popular salmon flies with considerable persistence. 
We tried and rested the water, and tried and rested the 
water again and again. Tackle, rod, line, leader and flies 
were all right, if one may judge by their former efficiency 
on Canadian salmon rivers, and they were handled in the ■ 
way which experience has shown to be the most killing 
in those waters. Every cast made passed over and within 
easy fishing distance of one or more fish. Once 1 thought 
one salmon moved slightly as if he had contemplated tak- 
ing the fly and then had changed his mind^ but that 
was all. • I 
I need not say to one of your experience that, under 
these conditions, this experiment has no bearing whatever 
on the question whether the Chinook salmon will take the 
fl-y or not. Located immediately below an obstruction 
which they had endeavored in vain to surmount, and bat- 
tered and bruised in their efforts so to do, I think you 
will agree with me that no Atlantic salmon would have 
acted differently. 
As to the fishing above the rack, the water there held a 
number of steelhead salmon, but as far as we could tell, no 
Chinook salmon. These steelhead salmon took the fly verv 
readily, but they were no meat for a isft. split bamboo 
salmon rod. I find from my notes made at the time, that 
Mr. Beadleston and I. turn and turn about (for we had 
but the one rod), took ten of these steelhead salmon, gaffing' 
the first two until we found out what they were like, and 
then tailing the rest, removing the hook and setting them 
at liberty below the rack. Most of them_ were taken on a 
No. 4 Pennel silver-doctor fly. The largest fish was 36in. 
long, but weighed only nibs. Indeed, to borrow one of 
our old friend .John Danforth's quaint expressions, they 
were all quite "lathy." The date was Aug. 4, 1899. 
It was at this^ point above the rack that I judge, from 
reading Mr. Kipling's article, that he must have taken his 
fish. 
Notwithstanding our experiment, if such it tOay be 
called, I am still firm in the belief that under reasonably 
favorable conditions the Chinook salmon, if it takes the 
■Spoon, a§ it undoubtedly <^o?s, will filso take the fly^ It is 
