228 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept. i6» 1899, 
The Man Targfet. 
M ALONE, N. Y., Sept. I. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
Following close upon the heels of the recent tragedy at 
Fulton Chain, an account of- which was given in the col- 
umns of this paper, comes the report of another sad 
affair in this section that will in all probability have a 
fatal ending. The scene of the accident was at Trout 
Lake, near Parishville, and the victim was George Pren- 
tice, a well-known sportsman and hotel proprietor. Re- 
cently Prentice was fishing on East Brook, and on com- 
ing to a dam, started to carry his boat around it. While 
he was doing this, Lige Converse, who was on the look- 
out for bear, espied him in a stooping position and 
fired, under the impression that he was the animal he was 
seeking — with too good an aim, as the charge struck the 
unfortunate man in one of his knees, completely shatter- 
ing the limb. As Prentice is a man of advanced age, his 
recovery is regarded as being very doubtful. 
Forest and Stream's advice to be sure to know your 
game before you shoot should be posted in the hat or 
stuck on the gun stock of every man that goes into the 
woods for game. You may be prudent, you may think 
yourself discriminating enough to know your game, but in 
a moment of great excitement, when your nerves are at 
their greatest tension, a man to your distorted vision may 
seem a deer or bear, and then but a pressing of the 
trigger and you have a horrilile memory to follow you 
through life. It takes but a moment to verify your eye- 
sight, and although you fail to kill a deer on your outing 
this fall, you at least may know that you are not re- 
sponsible through your carelessness for the death of one of 
your fellow men. K^enewah. 
Game in Ohio. 
Cleveland, O.. Aug. 25. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
I have been a reader of your valuable paper for the past 
ten years, and have always admired the stand you have 
taken regarding the slaughter and sale of game. My boy- 
hood days were spent on a farm, and from the time I was 
able to carry an old army musket in quest of squirrels, 
rabbits and other small game, up to my first perusal of 
Forest and Stream, I did not know what a "game hog" 
was, neither had it ever occurred to me that the game 
might some day become exterminated ; and but for the 
fact that I have read and re-read almost every issue since 
then,^ I might still be of the same opinion; but "being a 
man" I am able to change my mind (thanks to Forest and 
Stream), and can truthfully say that it has made a sports- 
man of me, as well as a number of my good friends. 
I am a commercial traveler and cover most of the 
"Buckeye State," and from numerous inquiries I find 
that the fall shooting wiir be about up to the standard. 
Quail are quite plenty in spite of the severe winter, and I 
see several coveys of half-grown birds every week from 
the car window. Rabbits are also in great abundance, but 
squirrels as yet are quite scarce, except in the southern 
part of the State, where they seem to be quite plenty. 
I went out with a friend last Saturday to try to bag a 
few, but had poor luck on account of it being so dry. We 
^aw perhaps twenty, but it was very difficult to get within 
range of the little rascals. 
Ohio sportsmen, why don't we hear from you often? 
Surely there are enough of you here. Wake up and let 
us hear from you through these columns. 
Wah Wah. 
Wisconsin Resident Licenses. 
Me. Fred Mather sends us a note of a recent decision 
by Attorney-General Hicks, given the State game warden, 
on the new State game hunting license law, in which he 
holds that residents of the State may hunt any kind of 
game in their open season except deer and aquatic fowl 
without a license. We assume that this means the hunting 
of game without the employment of dogs. 
On an Ohio Reservoir. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Members of our hunting club have frequently expressed 
regret that our wives were not in the party and sharing 
the venison steaks, broiled partridge, fish and other good 
things our camp year after year has afforded. But the 
distance of 500 to 600 miles, together with the lateness 
of the season, with its attending changeable and often 
disagreeable weather, has sufficed to keep our families at 
home. Three of us — N. H. Gable, J. E. Bishop and the 
writer — put our heads together and planned a trip to the 
Mercer County (Ohio) Reservoir last week, and our 
wives readily fell into the trap. They will probably never 
forget it. Little Miss Bishop, Masters Que Gable and 
Paul Cunningham went along, and of course don't know 
but that they had a grand time. 
We loaded a 16 by 20ft, tent, camp stove and bedding 
into a saniple wagon, and climbed in, while the three 
women and little girl took to the surry for conveyance. 
It is thirty miles from Portland to Montezuma on the 
south shore of the pond. We were there before noon. 
We drove on east by north from that town some three 
miles, then past a farmhouse and down through a timothy 
meadow to the lake. We put our horses in the farmer's 
barn, .spread a lunch under the shade of a lonesome ash 
bush, and between eating and looking for Bishop, who 
had left us at Montezuma to fetch a boat, wore away 
about two hours of the hottest part of an extremely hot 
day. I became uneasy at Bishop's long absence, and 
leaving the party, skirted the lake about a mile, but re- 
turned without seeing him. There were a good many 
crane along the shore and on logs out in the pond, and I 
saw a few jacksnipe. I then explored the shore in the 
other direction about half a mile, and soon after my re- 
turn from this trip Bishop appeared around a point a half- 
mile away. He had started in a large flat-bottom boat, and 
after pulling out from Montezuma nearly two miles, found 
the boat so undesirable for our purpose that he turned 
.ibout and exchanged it for the best one he could get. The 
pvll was a hard one, as the water was only deep enough 
for a mile or more to float the boat. 
By this time the women were looldng down their noses, 
and my wife whispered to me that it would never do to 
stay there. We held a council, and decided, though we 
were at the nearest point to the stump fishing, and there 
was no danger from timber, pending a possible storm, 
there was neither shore fishing nor shade, two very de- 
sirable features of a pleasant camp. So we hitched up, 
and while the others went back through the village and 
down the Avest side of the inlet a mile or so to a grove, I 
rowed the boat around and beat their time a few minutes. 
There Avas already one camp located at the edge of the 
grove nearest the lake, so we pitched our tent in a small, 
open space on top of the little hill the grove covered. This 
spot was about looyds. from the water and 40yds. from a 
dweller, who was engaged partly in farming and partly 
, in fishing. The ladies brightened up when they alighted 
m the shade and took a look at the clean little wood lot 
with Its farms on three sides and the lake on the other, and 
I felt real good at the prospect for a pleasant and cheerful 
time. It was now near the middle of the afternoon, and 
by the time we had the camp in order and supper over, it 
was night. The children caught a few small cat and sun- 
fish, but Bishop and I waited for morning, when we ex- 
pected to get some bass. We had some frogs, which are 
prime bait at this season. We also had fat meat and flip- 
jack for trolling. We had caught bass out of this water 
and hoped to bring in a good string, while our still-fisher- 
man. Gable, was expected to take a great quantity of small 
fish. The evening was very warm, and the ladies and 
children were all pretty well fagged out with the long 
ride in the hot sun and dust, so we got them to bed 
pretty early, and arranged our bunks under the ropes at 
one side of the tent. We spread some old awning over 
the ropes, scraped a quantity of dry leaves together, 
covered them with straw and spread our bedding on this. 
This looked all right, and after some camp chat and plans 
for the best possible results the next day, we lay down ; 
but we had not closed our eyes in sleep when rain began 
to patter on the covering overhead. At first we paid little 
heed, thinkinig it only a passing shower, and if we had 
held to this idea we would have weathered the night in 
tolerable comfort, but the drops begari to fall thicker and 
faster, and voices from the tent advised us. so we raised 
the wall of the tent and moved our beds inside, occupving 
a part of the side nearest us that had been overstrewn with 
odds and ends unloaded from the wagon. Our tent is 16 
by 20ft., with 5ft. wall and made from looz. double twist 
duck. By the time we were again settled the shower was 
past, and the only discomfort we had to endure was the 
heat and the songs of mosquitoes. It was too warm to 
keep the tent closed, and when a big mosquito snored in 
the vicinity of my off ear I would try to swat hin), only to 
yank my elbow, which was already tired, and be compelled 
to listen to his aggravating squall as he renewed the 
attack. 
We were not very much refreshed in the morning, and 
the ladies acted as though, if called on to express them- 
selves, they might vote the whole thing a bore. After 
breakfast we took lunch and water for three, and rowed 
off among the stumps and logs past the Eagle's Nest, and 
on east until we came to a derrick platform some three 
miles from camp. Here we left Gable, who preferred to 
still-fish from something stationary. We had noticed that 
Gable showed some nervousness on the water, but we did 
not know until that evening that there was good cause for 
it. Gable was at the front in the late unpleasantness, and 
was shipwrecked on the Gulf of Mexico. For several 
days he drifted before the wind with no hope of rescue. 
He don't like deep or turbulent water, and prefers to fisli 
from shore. He is a small limber-jointed man. and I have 
often seen him where the water was shallow near shore 
walk out on a log and bending one knee, sit down on one 
foot with the other stretched out on the log in front of 
him. There he would sit until he either caught a string 
or satisfied himself that there was nothing there to catch. 
The Manhattan Oil Company has drilled a good many 
wells in the reservoir. A large per cent, of them have 
been abandoned, and the piling on which the derricks 
were built alone remains. In some places the entire plat- 
form is intact, while in others heavy plank are nailed or 
bolted to the piling. We had been told that bass were 
being caught around these piling, and that it was a tip- 
top place to catch catfish. Bishop and I tried frogs around 
the stumps and piling, but got no strike, and about noon 
pulled up to where we had left Gable. He had a few 
small fish. We lunched and smoked, and waited for the 
wind to subside. 
This reservoir is supposed to be the largest artificial 
body of water in the world. 
We tried it again after the wind quieted down, but got 
no bass, and taking Gable in the boat we pulled for camp. 
It was pretty hard facing the ladies Avithout those nice bass 
we had dished up for supper in our minds. But we put on 
a bold front and sat down to refresh ourselves from the 
things we had brought from home. 
The air was cooler that evening. We were tired, and 
the ladies and children had become more accustomed to 
the surroundings, so we got* a good rest, and when morn- 
ing dawned made ready to try for those bass. Gable 
concluded to fish near camp, and got a boat from a fisher- 
man near by. Bishop and I filled a couple of glass fruit 
jars with lemonade, and a basket with lunch and rowed 
out beyond the Eagle's Nest (which is a small island that 
was originally covered with large timber, in which eagles 
nested) and put in the day stump fishing, but returned at 
night_ without a strike. We stayed until the following 
morning before breaking camp. We met several fisher- 
men, and heard the same story from all, "Not Ijiting to 
do any good." The fact is, they have been caught in nets 
and shipped to Chicago, Dayton and Cincinnati, until 
there are very few left. Of course, "the law" forbids this. 
Mrs. C. says she enjoyed it. I hope she did. 
G. W. Cunningham. 
P. S. — I forgot to state that on the third night at 11 
P. M., while we were asleep Avith tent open for air, a 
wind storm struck us very .suddenly and came near carry- 
ing our tent away. We had to get out of bed, tie the tent 
to trees, make stakes and stake the walls down, all 
Avithout light, and in a gale that threatened to uproot all 
the trees in the Avood lot. The whole camp was ready to 
cut and run for it, except my little boy; he slept on. 
No timber fell on us, and things quieted down in about 
an hour. It was only an incident of camping in the shade 
in hot weather. ■ G. W. C. 
Portland, Indiana. 
Fishing Up and Down the Potomac 
The Damnation of the Carp. 
The Avrifer has been retained by some friends of i^^ 
condemned, not to defend, but to secure if he may a ne 
hearing for this ichthyological Dreyfus. The carp hi 
been accused of, and denounced for, sins enough to coi' 
sign the whole brood to eternal perdition. Every ye;; 
from some quarter comes the cry of "Conspuez carp," ar' 
a hysterical echo goes up, "A has le carp." It is popul; 
in some localities, but not here, where it is believed th; 
nine-tenths of the testimony on which the carp has bee 
convicted has been forged. 
He is said to be German; to dig up wild celery roo 
and thereby starve out the canvasbacks; to drive out tl 
bass and other game fishes ; to eat the spawn of bass art 
other river breeding fishes; to excavate river beds ar, 
ponds and make them uninhabitable for other fish; 
live only on filth; to be without an element of gameness 
to consist principally of bones and to be unfit fc 
human food. 
He is not German any more than American, but 
naturalized citizen of both countries, his ancestors heir 
supposed to have emigrated from India or China 
somewhere in the far East where civilization started, an' 
no other family of the flood has been so widely dil 
tributed, or has proved itself equal to maintaining eS; 
istence, even thriving, under such various environment'" 
as this much-abused water sheep. 
If the .survival of the fittest proves anything, 
establishes his character as a philosopher, and holds his 
up, a shining example of the superiority of a nature th; 
makes the best of its surroundings. He has fed ar 
enriched communities and indiA^duals who, with that ba: 
ingratitude to which we are aU prone, reward him with 
SAvift kick and an imkind word. 
Fortunately this wordy abuse cannot accomplish h 
destruction. "All the king's horses and all the king 
meia" cannot rid us now of this most valuable addition t 
our preserves, and he will continue to feed our people anl 
our game fish so long as we have waters fit for fish t 
live in. 
That with his soft nose, much lilce the tip of an ele 
phant's trunk, he can dig up strong roots, or withoii 
a.rtificial teeth chew them after they are up, is not ht 
lieved by anybody in the East, but wa's for a tfme seriousl 
contended by some Californians because the celery bee 
went soon after the carp were introduced. The re; 
reason of that disappearance is noAV known to have becj 
due to an arch enemy of the carp, and his reputatio 
has been cleared of that offense. 
From the blood-curdling accounts of his havoc anion 
garne fishes, one would be led to suppose he was 
veritable shark, or worse, a bluefish, that charged amon 
the schools of bass, biting and killing out of pure wantor 
ness, and when the river comes down blood-red we some 
times wonder if it is only iron or if it may not be th 
sanguinary results of another crusade of the' carp amon 
the bass. With that delicate sucker mouth, soft as virgi 
rubber, pointing straight downward, and no horns 
teeth, there seems but one Avay possible he might injur 
any other fish. Certainly not by i-amming, for his bow i 
.so round and soft his opponent would think he had col 
lided with a feather pillow. But there is a way, an 
•since there is a way he must be guilty; he might hold 
pebble in his lips, as the aboriginal helved his stone axf 
and getting above a poor bass pound him to death with it 
It is heart rending to think of what slaughter one Sam 
son of a carp might do among the Phillistian army of thi 
bass if he adopted this method and the bass submitted t 
be caught and thumped. 
HoAvever, the principal count in the indictment is th; 
charge of eating bass spawn, and on this point it 
denied : 
1. That anybody ever saw a carp eat spawn, 
2. That anybody ever saw anybody else who had seen 
carp eat spawn. 
3. That any bass would let any carp get close enoug\ 
to see the spawn. 
4. That a carp could eat bass spawn if lie had an un 
disturbed opportunity. 
5. That any bass spawn were ever found in any carp. 
6. A general traverse that any carp ever ate any has 
spawn. 
The ^heretofore insurmountable difficulty in the effort 
to artificially propagate bass has been the impossibility o 
stripping the milt from the live male, but principal!] 
the peculiar viscid character of the spawn which sticks i 
so tightly to the first object touched that it cannot be re 
moA'^ed or handled. It does not float freely as do thosJ 
others which our breeders have so brilliantly manipulated 
With the spawn stuck fast to^ the pebbles of the spawn 
ing bowl which the bass builds for his nest, a carp migh; 
be turned loose in a ten-acre field of them, and if theti 
were nothing else_ to eat. he Avould starve to death 01 
develop a gizzard like the Gillaroo trout, because he wouk 
have to sAvallow the pebbles with the spawn. 
But Avhen aboA'e that spawn you set a rough rider lik 
the black bass, spoiling for a fight, never asleep, nevei 
relaxing his vigilance, afraid of nothing but a man and no 
to be driA'^en away even by him, there is no carp living has 
a ghost of a shoAv of dining on caviar de bass. A bas! 
has been known to hover over a spawn bed in a pool, with 
in 2ft. of shore, and refusing to be dislodged by pebble 
or sticks, has been .sniggled three times off his post an 
returned to the water at points away from the bed, onl 
to return to his sentry duty undaunted. Rather tha 
move, they permit themselves to be picked up by t 
osprey. A pound bass Avith his caudal fin in splints m; 
be backed to keep away or kill the biggest carp th: 
swims. ' 
No pretense is made of any better opportunities for ob- 
servation here than elsewhere, or that other experiences 
and conditions may not vary with other observers and, 
localities, but granting that much, it is demanded that 
the verdict of guilty be set aside so far as Potomac carp 
and Potomac bass spawn are concerned. 
It is believed that carp would not eat bass spaAvn if they 
had the opportunity; we are assured that with the bas"-^ 
on guard there are not carp enough between the foui 
seas to disturb his charge. 
So positive are Ave of this, that a medal will be given, 
to that individual who will prove that one carp has eaten, 
