,S70 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Nov. 4. i8gg. 
served no good purpose whatever in the St. Lawrence, 
as it was not particularly a food for other fishes. This 
mas'- be true in part so far as it relates to black bass, but 
the "sawbelly" does serve as food for lake trout, as the 
experiments made by Mr. Surface go to prove, and the 
Halt water form of the branch herring is classed as a food 
tish, and, by the way, fresh water fishes do not keep as 
well salted as do fishes from salt water, although perhaps 
1-have not used exactly the right terms when I say keep 
as well, and it would be better to say that fresh" water 
fishes arc not so well constituted for salting as fishes from 
the sea. 
Lake Lampreys* 
The State at J^ew York made a small appropriation 
to destroy the lake lampreys in Cayuga, Lake, and at the 
same time to study the habits and mig?i*'ations of some 'of 
i.sur food fish._ The lampreys were caught in a weir as they 
ascended the inlet streams to spawn, and unmolested their 
spawning beds are made so closely one to another as al- 
most to cover the bottom of the stream between rapids. 
I think I never have seen spawning beds of any fish so 
.closely grouped as those of the .lamprey, and "this fact 
alone shows, how abundant they become when war is not 
waged against them, There is one thing the lamprey 
(j^oung ones) is ,good for. and only one, so far as T 
know, and that is to serve as black bass bait. The bio- 
logical department of Cornell University has made some 
valuable discoveries through Mr. Surface in this work 
of destroying lampreys, and one thing that has been found 
is that the lamprey attacks fish in water 350ft. deep in 
the lake. When the result of this work at Cayuga Lake 
is made known in a report, as it will be in the annual re- 
port of tlie Fisheries, Game and Forest Commission. I 
believe it will^be patent to all readers that there is great 
need in tin's State of a systematic scientific inquiry into 
the habits and migrations of sea fishes, and into the food 
supply of the food fishes, and it may result in the estab- 
lishment of a biological station under State auspices. 
Fly-Fishcfs' Clufa. 
The suggestion to organize a fliy-fishers' club in this 
country — ^and the only place is New York city — is not a 
new one. I knoAV that I urged it in this column a few 
years ago, and Forest and Stream advocated it edi- 
toriall}^ and I think that other fly-fishers wrote support- 
ing the proposition to promote such an organization. 
Letters were received at the time by the writer from 
prominent fly-fishers in Canada and in this country, and 
all were of the opinion that New York' was the proper 
place for such a club, and that it w^ould be supported by 
fly-fishers iil the United States and Canada. However 
much the fly-fishers of the cottntry may be interested in 
forming a_ club, the initiative must be taken by anglers 
in New V"ork city, for without their active support the 
plan must fail, no matter how warmly it may be sup- 
ported by would-be comitry members. A week or two 
ago T mentioned, that the London Fly-Fshers have out- 
grown their club rooms and had moved to new and 
larger quarters — ;in fact, they have been .groAving and 
moving ever since the club started in 1884, and the last 
issue of Land and Water has something to say about the 
last move: "May good fortune attend the Fly-Fishers' 
Club' in their rtew premises in the Haymarket. In the 
old club rooms oh the Embankment they grew to matttr- 
it.v. and it is as a highly successful concern that they move 
westward. _ Very hanrlsome accommodation is now pro- 
vided, and I am particularly pleased to see that a room 
has been specially set apart for flj'-dressing, where the 
am.ateur fly-tyer will have every opportunity for practicin.g 
the art. I am also pleased to see that the list, of mem-- 
bers includes moist of tlie well-known salmon and trout 
anglers throughout the country. * * * The annual 
dinners of the club since its establishment in 1884 have 
attracted fishermen and naturalists from English, Irish 
and Scotch districts, as well as from Canada, America 
and the Continent, and there is a long list of honored 
names among the presidents of these feasts — such names 
as the late Marquis of Exeter, the Marquis of Granby., 
the late Sir James Gibson Maitland, Sir Ford Worth, Sir 
Samuel Montague, Sir Herbert Maxwell. Mr. George 
Rooper, Mr. William Senior, Mr. H. M. Halford. Mr. R. 
B. Marston, Mr. A. N, Gilby. Mr. Orchardson, R. A., 
and Dr. Hamilton, Lord North, an enthusiastic fisher- 
manj is to preside at the house warming." 
The London club was organized largely at the instance 
of Mr. Marston, editor of the Fishing Gazette, who was 
most ably supported in his endeavors by Mr. Senior, of 
the London Field, and it has grown to its present propor- 
tions largeb'- through the instrumentality of these two 
men, without, apparently, interfering with their other 
duties, and it must be that we have in the city of New 
York ten times that number of meri who -would give 
enough of their time for the preliminary steps to insure 
a club of the same character in this country, 
Oaana.aiche in Triton dub. 
Nowadays I ' ani fafely surprised at anyfhing^ I itiay 
hear about fi.sh or fishing that at first blush seems to be 
imusual or impossible: but I must confess to surprise 
when Mr. William F. Rathbone informed me last week 
that there were ouananiche in the waters of the Triton 
; Club in Canada, and for once I reserved to myself the 
right to doubt it. His information on this sub.iect was 
not at first hand, and that is why I doubted that ouananiche 
were in the waters of a lake near the club liouse, as we 
have caught ouananiche together in Lake St. John waters. 
His information cam.e from a gentleman who was so 
positive that he was right about it that he offered to bet 
five to one that he was right. Mr. Rathbone had just 
returned from the club when I met him in Albany, and T 
think he was as much surprised at the information as I 
was. The same day that I met Mr. Rathbone I went to 
Syracuse and saw Mr. G. F, Gregory, president of the 
Triton Club, and lie was another surprised man when T 
told him, for he knew nothing of the presence of the 
salmon in club waters. This ! do know: That three oj- 
four years ago 1 had some correspondence with Mr. Sea- 
ton, the sereetary and superintendent, about introducing 
the ouananiche into club waters, and I advised against 
it, and subsequently in conversation with Mr. Seaton at 
the club, he fold me it had been decided not to attempt 
to introduce the fish. Now there are a number of sur- 
has invaded the club waters, oil Its own account, and I 
presume the columns of FoiVest and Stream will be 
open for such explanation as may be given by those who 
know. The information came to Mr. Rathbone from a 
gentleman connected with the Winchester Repeating 
Arms Company. My own idea at this writing is that 
some one has in some Way confused the new trout caught 
by Mr. George Hart in a lake near the club house with 
the ouananiche, but certainljr Mr, Hart is not respon,sible 
for the error. 
Eelst 
When 1 #rote of eels and liheir habits in Forest and 
Stream last summer a friend read the article and said 
to me jokingly, ''Your story is cliiefly about eels in 
Europe and little about eels in this country. Is it possible 
that our Yankee eels have never done any of these strange 
things you tell about.?" What I now have to say relates 
to Yankee _ eels, and I learned of it at the Rockland 
hatchery of the Fisheries, Garnc and Forest Commission 
in Sullivan county last week. The water supply for the 
hatchery comes to the building through a 4in. iron pipe 
under ground. Near the foundation there is a T in the 
pipe by which the water is lifted through a pipe of same 
size to the proper height to feed the troughs, and a valve 
in the T to flush the pipe. When the valve is opened to 
flush the feed pipe it discharges under the hatchery build- 
ing, which is merely a gravel bed so that the water sinks 
out of sight as fast as it is discharged. Just before my 
visit the foreman, Mr. Charles B. Laraw.ay, had opened the 
valve to Hush the pipe, and the water had discharged as 
usual into the gravel bed under the building. The next 
morning he discovered two big eels on the lawn in front of 
the liatchery building and about midway between it and 
the stream, and the eels wei-e headed for the water. 
It was hard sleddin' for the eels, for they have had a 
drouglit there, as elsewhere, and the ground was dry and 
dusty, but they were making fairly good time for the 
water. The eels had come through the pipe (they were 
each nearly 3ft. long, Laraway tells me), and had been 
discharged with the water under the building on the 
gi-avel, and when the water disappeared they were left 
high and fairly dry, and it was a grotmdhog ca.se to get to 
water. There is no pond accommodation at the hatchery 
for eels or any other fish, and they had to light out for the 
.stream, perhaps a thousand feet away. That they knew 
where they wanted to go, and also knew the direction to 
reach it by the nearest route, their positions when found 
gave proof, and if the going had not been so dry and dusty 
they might have made the trip before Laraway caught 
them. 
While on the subject of Yankee eels, let me say that I 
have called the attention of the chief game and fish pro- 
tector of the State to some eei weirs illegally maintainea 
in the southern part of the State. I saAv two from the 
cars as the train passed, and learned by a little question- 
ing that there are others of the same kind that cannot be 
seen from the cars in passing, and otte of the game pro- 
tectors will examine them to see wherein thc}^ fail to com- 
ply with the law. In fact, before this is in tj'pe the ex- 
amination will have been made in all probability. Not that 
I desire to have any one punislied for catching eels, but 
as there is a law on the subject of eel weirs, it should 
be enforced, and if the law does not. serve the purpos : 
of catching eels, amend it so that it will. The first weir 
that T noticed was in the West Branch of the Delaware 
River, near Walton Station of the New York. Ontario & 
Western Railway, and the next near East Branch Sta- 
tion of the same road, in the East Branch of the Dela- 
ware. The eel weir law is found in Section 143 of the 
Fisheries, Game and Forest Law of New York, and reads 
as follows : 
Section 343. Eel Weir.s. — Eel weir,s of which tlie latlis are not less 
than lin. ajjart, may be rnaintained at aiiy time in any of the waterw 
of this State not inhabited by trout, lake trout, salmon trout, or 
l.Didlocked salmon, excepv in the Chemung River and its tribu- 
taries in the counties of Steuben and Chemung, and except in 
waters in Cayuga county, and except in the Susquehanna River; 
provided, that there be a clear passage at low water mark at some 
point in said weir of not less than 10ft. in width for the passage 
of boats and fish. Eel pots of a form and character such as may be 
presci'ibed by the rules of th<J Commissioners of Fisheries, Game 
and Forest may be used in any waters not inhabited by trout, 
lake trout, salmon trout, or landlocked salmon. Except as herein 
provided the use of eel weirs and eel pots in any waters of the 
State is prohibited. Whoever shall violate or attempt to violate 
the provisions of this section shall be deemed guilty of misde- 
meanor, and in addition thereto shall be liable to a" penalty of 
?60 for each and every eel weir or eel pot built or maintained in 
violation of this section, and $10 for each fish caught therein in 
violation of this section. The provisions of this section shall not 
jipply to Long Island. (As am'd by Chap, 405 of Laws of 1898.) 
The weirs that I noticed failed to comply with the 
law, in that they did not have an opening loft. wide for 
the passage of boats and fish. The weirs were V-shaped, 
projecting down stream and without a break from shore 
to shore, except at the basket at the apex of the 'V. It was 
my good fortune to meet on the train a man who lias had 
experience with eel weirs in that region, and he told me 
that ordinarily the xoft. opening was left as the law 
directed, but so arranged that a plank could be inserted 
at night and the opening closed. He also said that in all 
his experience with eel weirs it was the rarest of excep- 
tions to take black bass or other game fish in the weirs. 
There is no sort of question abottt the destructiveness of 
the eel, as it gorges itself ori trout eggs when it has the 
opportunity; and its habits are such that it should be taken 
by all legitimate means at all times when the means 
adopted do not cattse the destruction of other fish, but the 
eel weir law seems to be a liberal one, as it stands, and to 
fence in a river from bank to bank is clearty illegal. 
Salmon have been planted in the West Branch to my 
knowledge, for I went there with a carload of fingerling 
fish, and large trout .have been reported to have been 
caught in the East Branch, but I am not prepared to say 
that either branch is inhabited by the fish mentioned in 
the statutes that would make the erection of any eel weirs 
illegal. If I made the laws. I would make one that per- 
mitted the use of eel pots in any waters, particularly 
waters "inhabited by trout, lake trout, salmon trout or 
landlocked salmon," for it is in such waters that the eels 
do the greatest harm as soawm-eatcrs, but the eel pots 
wotild have to he of such "form and character" as to take 
nothing but eels, and pots are so constructed that thev 
will take nothing but eels. As eels never spawn in fresh 
water, they have no period of fasting, and consequently 
prey upon fish egg."? tbr.uighout the spawning season of 
in of the ffshnon family. ' A?- ttt*? mattjr" «!«»lf gn »?*i'wt^ 
to the sea to spawn, the elvers run up into fresh water to 
grow to maturity, and a constant war" should be waged on 
eels in trout waters, but the great trouble is to find meii 
into whose hands it is safe to place devices to take eels, for 
it seems to be a failing of the human family, or members 
of it, that when they are permitted to take eels or other 
deleterious fish they at once enlarge the field of 
operations and take every blessed thing that swims with 
ling and is good to eat, or that can be sold at a profit. A 
man who is trustworthy in every other respect has to be 
watched when he has a license to take eels to see that he 
recognizes the difference between an eel and a black 
bass, or a trotH of some sort. 
Whitefish on Worm Bait. 
Once in a while I find myself in Syracuse, but never, if 
1 can help it, Avithetit previously preparing to sit up until 
most any time in the morning. L4st week I was not pre- 
pared, and I tried to sneak into the Gates about 11 o'clock 
.P. M., and get to my room unobserved, but my friend 
Gregory had his eye on the entrance door as though he 
wer^ watching a runwaj^ and nailed me before I got to 
the desk. "What are you doing in the city at this hour 
of the night? I supposed you were out at your farm." 
"I would have been, except that I heard that you had 
wired for a room, and so I wanted to visit with you." I 
threw up both hands, and then I took them down and 
lighted a cigar. We talked fish and we ate something, for 
Gregory always keeps his friends who talk fish in con- 
dition, so far as the inner man is concerned, but he never 
sleeps himself at night, and so it never occurs to him 
that any one else has the sleep habit. The trouble is that 
when I sit down and talk of fishing with Gregory, I forget 
about sleeping, and he never forgets about eating, so we 
get on famously. We had talked about Triton Club 
aft'airs, of which club he is the president, and we had 
talked of the past season's fishing, when he said, "You 
cannot guess where I went fishing la.st week, nor what 
I caught." 
"Oneida Lake; black bass." 
"No; reservoir; whitefish, with worm bait." 
"Don't you mean aquarium goldfish with three tails?" 
"No. I am not joking. I was actually fishing for 
whitefish. with worm bait." 
"No need to go to a reservoir to do that; there ts water 
in the canal, and yoit can fish there for whitefish, salm.on, 
tarpon, jewfish or anything else you previously indicate, or 
if it sounds better, you can say you are fishing for all of 
the fishes in Jordati & Evermann'sS Synopsis." 
"But I not only fished for whitefish with a hook and 
line and rod and worm bait, but I caught twenty-eight 
whitefish and brought the whitefish home, and I, with my 
friends, ate the whitefish, and they were as good whitefish 
as that big whitefish you brought here last fall that you 
got out of a net." 
By this time my cigar had gone out, and I slowly re- 
lighted it and looked Gregory squarely in the eye, but he 
met my steady gaze fairly and appeared to be perfectly 
balanced as usual, so I said, "You mean it: tell me 
about it." 
A friend of his in charge of the reservoir in question 
had told him that while fishing iti the reservoir for black 
bass, he had caught a whitefish, and invited Gregory to 
visit him and try the fishing. It seems that the reservo.ir 
is fed from a lake about twenty-five miles away, which 
lake contains whitefish, , and it is supposed that young 
whitefish from the lake had found their way through 
the feed pipe into the reservoir, as there is no other way of 
accounting for the presence of whitefish in the reservoir 
Gregory armed himself with tackle and bait — earth 
worms — and fished near the place where the feed pipe en- 
ters the reservoir, for it was there that the whitefish 
seemed to congregate. When the baited hook was lowered 
into the water the angler could feel that something was- 
working at the bait. It was scarcely a nibble, as a nibble 
is generally understood, btit as though something were 
mouthing the bait without jerking. When this had gone ou , 
for a time, the angler would strike at a venture, and 
usually a whitefish wottld be hooked, and when otice 
hooked the fish furnished fair sport, as the mouth of the 
whitefish is so tender that a hook is easilj' torn out. At 
times there would be a bite from a black bass that left the 
angler in not the least doubt as to the kind of fish at the 
"ither end of the line, and then there would be a bite from 
a yellow perch, and all three species of fish seemed to 
be in about the same locality. 
It is tmusual for whitefish to take a hook, still they do 
it on occasion in some waters, though they cannot be 
considered a hook-and-line fish any more than the shad, 
which take the fly on occasions. Once I printed a letter 
from Dr. Elisha Sterling, of Cleveland, O,, in Avhich he 
described whitefish fishing in the Soo Rapids. The tackle 
was two small hooks whipped to gut one above the 
other, and the bait was flour paste mixed with cotton wool 
to hold it on the hooks. As I now remember, whitefish 
were taken in considerable numbers in this manner in 
Sault Ste. Marie. 
Then, again, they were taken at one time, and for all I 
know, they are yet taken, with hook and line in Lake 
Superior. The whitefish came into shallow water to feed 
on thin, white worms found in the yellow clay of the 
bottom, and by gathering a quantity of these worms and 
putting them on hooks which were allowed to rest on 
the bottom the fish were caught, and caught, too, in 
quantities to warrant pretty general fishing where the 
worms were found. In Chazy Lake, in the Adiron- 
dacks, of New York, whitefish are caught through the ice 
in winter by fishin.g with a baited hook at the bottom, and 
occasionally one is taken with hook and line in Lake 
Champlain, where the fish are known as lake shad, but a.^ 
a rule when whitefish are taken on a hook it is more by 
accident than bj- design on the part of the fisherman. But 
Mr. Gregory's experience may act as an incentive for 
anglers who live near whitefish" waters to fish for them 
with hook and line and worm-baited hook. In waters in- 
habited by whitefish — and it is now conceded bv our 
ichthyologists that the fish of the interior lakes of New 
York are the Great Lakes whitefish, as the Labrador 
whitefish is identical with it — the fish are found in vast 
schools in the autumn and winter, and there will be no 
lack of m^aterial on which to nractice. Fine tackle should 
he used, and by fine tackle I mean delicate, not elegant, 
with small hoolcs and thin gut, and if this style of fishing 
sho^jlii. pTOVP Bvchp.asffjl, nrt4 w the 1>g''h1 of Mr. Greftbry'^ 
