Nov. i8, 1899.] 
FOHEST AND STREAM. 
4ll 
club he will not get any evidence that will convict, for the 
simple reason that my trips to the deer territory have been 
for purposes of recreation and not to secure evidence of 
illegal hounding, and that I have taken good care to give 
the men who were using dogs as wide a birth as possible. 
I am perfectly willing to pass Mr. Beede's statement that 
my Imowledge is nothing more than rumors and hearsay, 
and let the matter rest on the letter of his spokesman, who, 
while he admits the fact of hounding, only produces evi- 
dence of two arrests which arc specifically stated to be 
for this cause, both made since the publication of my 
letter. J. B. Buenham. 
P. S,- — Lest my letter be misconstrued I want to state 
that I believe at the present time Beede is doing good 
work. The fact that he has at last made arrests at Mud 
Pond is evidence of this. As I said before, game pro- 
tectors have everything to contend with, and particularly 
because of the strong public sentiment in favor of hound- 
ing which exists throughout the Adirondacks. Beede is 
an expert woodsman, and is capable of making his terri- 
tory a model one in the observance of the game laws, atld 
I trust we will now see this end accomplished. 
Seasonable Hints. 
It is a good thing to remember that moccasins, and 
particularly oil-tanned moccasins, burn very easily, if 
they are hung too near the fire when drying. A com- 
paratively low temperature will take the life from buck- 
skin or leather and render the footgear useless. 
Men who have walked the city streets in shoe leather 
cannot very easily accommodate their feet to moccasins, 
and frozen ground soon makes shore feet. A good plan 
under any circumstances is to take along cork insoles or 
insoles cut from leather, or even from the leg of an old 
rubber boot. It is better to wear insoles than to be 
obliged to go back to heavy shoes, which are necessarily 
noisy in the woods. 
A friend tells me that a cure for toothache Avhich has 
answered in his case is to soak a rag in whisky and 
place it in the ear on the side effected. The effect is 
stimulating to the nerves and lessens the pain. 
J. B. B. 
North Carolina Quail. 
KiTTRELL, N. C, Nov. 8. — EHifor Forest and Stream: 
On Nov. 6 Mr. G. A. Fales, of Boston, Mass., and Mr. 
A. F. Adams, of Newton, Mass., started seventeen 
coveys of" quail in their day's tramp. They stayed in the 
field until 3:30 P. M., when their cartridges gave out, and 
then returned to the house with a bag of forty birds — all 
quail. 
On NoA. 7 they again started out, well supplied with 
ammunition, and returned this time with a bag of sixty- 
unc quail, having started twenty bevies during the day. 
There are more quail here than ever this year, and also 
large numljers of wild turkeys. 
The weather is delightful, being pCipl and clear. 
De Forest & Bunce. 
Vermont Game League. 
The annual meeting of the Vermont Fish and Game 
League was held at Burlington on Wednesday evening 
of last week. 
Then and Now, 
I wish I had been grandpa's child, 
lliat I could have had the joy 
Of fishing in those good old 'days 
When father was a boy. 
Foi- then the fish grew bigger lav 
Than they do nowadays, 
And literally packed the streams — 
At least, so father says. 
They never caught a sucker then 
That didn't weigh a ton, 
And pickerel were longer than 
A modern Armstrong gun. 
They used to yank out halibut 
In hundreds from our bays, 
And chad ran up the banks to bite— 
. At least, so father says. 
They never thought of using bait 
To lure the wily trout; 
They reached a bushel basket down 
And simply yanked them out. 
And in about an hour or two 
'They'd fill up several drays. 
And .show them through the neighborhood— 
At least, so father says. 
In short, they caught so many fish 
That 'fore their sport was through. 
The stream where they were fishing would 
Go down a yard or two. 
And not an angler failed to come 
Home loaded in those days — 
A habit father still pursues — 
At least, so mother says. 
— Cornish Telegraph. 
In Pine Tree's Coantry, 
With much interest I have read 'the communication and nar- 
ratives of Pine Tree; much more interesting to me because 1 have 
hunted over moat of the territory described by him, and now 
know why the Bloody Brook is called by its gruesome name. 
Many a nice woodcock have I shot on Co«-le's meadow swamp, 
partridges in the large tract of forest between Northampton and 
North Hatfield,' wood ducks on the j-onjantie Mill River, and 
foxes in the meadows along the Connecticut. 
C. F. B. 
Five memberships !n- a fully equipped game club in the Province 
of Quebec, within easy access of New York city, can be obtained 
by the right kind of sportsmen. Moose, .deer and partridge hunt- 
ing. Trout, bass, pike and pickerel fishing. For particulars ad- 
dress A. I.. Forest aud Strbah.— Adv. 
Fishing Up and Down the Potomac. 
The Close of the Season, 
It is time to put away the fly-rods. The water has 
chilled with the early frosts; the flies have disappeared 
off the face of ihe water ; the moss beds where the bass 
hid are decaying masse^ of slime, and worse still the fall 
rains have muddied the streams past any hope of fly water 
till winter is with us; the bass are huddling to headwaters 
for winter quarters. So the flies have been packed way, 
fly-rods put up save those destined for the repair shop, 
and lines overhauled for their winter rest. 
Wild stories of seventy-two mallards and 180 ortolan to 
two guns on the Patuxcnt, only a few miles down the 
Potomac — birds blown in by the late coast gale — gets in 
emergency orders for shells, and the hammerless is ten- 
derly wiped and oiled in anticipation of future game din- 
ners. 
Not that fish may not be taken yet in these waters; that 
may be done with bait and sometimes with a spoon scrap- 
ing the bottom as late as December, depending on 
weather, but to one who cares only for surface fishing 
the season is over. 
But when it is learned that veteran author and angler 
Charles Hallock is in the city — the father of Forest and 
Stream— the privilege of a day with him outweighs all. 
objections to bait, and he was persuaded to go down to 
Occoquan Falls to see what the Fish Commission had 
done for the lower Potomac. 
Then came the question of bait, always more serious 
than the actual labor of fishing. Neither mad toms nor 
branch chub nor goldfish were to be had; only gudgeons 
and pike smelt, and the latter Were too small. There was 
DON'T SHOOT 
ttatil .you SEE yot»f deer — aad see 
tfaat ff is a degr a,nd not a maQ. 
CHARLES HALLOCK ON THE POTOMAC. 
Photo by Henry Talbott. 
nothing left for it but the gudgeon or smelt, as they are 
called here. They are one of the best live baits, but soft. 
Their scales are put on with mucilage, and a poor qual- 
ity at that, and they will not stand casting. 
Three buckets of these were obtained — beautiful silvery 
fellows 5 and 6 inches long — and a depot porter was 
bribed to ice them. When we had ridden thirty miles by 
train and three by wagon they were still in first rate con- 
dition. But trouble was ahead. We dared not trust them 
in the river over night, for only an evening or two before 
enterprising boys had looted a minnow box and left the 
hopeless fisherman baitless. It is a temptation, for min- 
./'iiows are scarce here and hard to get. We borrowed a 
tub, brought it into the hotel kitchen and filled it with 
water from the well. The tub was clean, the water about 
the same temperature as that in the buckets, but very 
hard. The smelt were carefully put in this and seemed 
to enjoy their enlargement. At bedtime none were dead, 
though three or four were swimming on their backs, but 
Ave could not have expected less. The next morning two- 
thirds were dead as the proverbial herring, and another 
vow was registered to leave bait fishing to those who 
knew more about it, though Taylor, from whom we se- 
cured our gudgeons, sometimes loses half his catch be- 
tween the net and the livebox. The bruising in the net, 
or crowding in the can, or simply picking them, up, 
seems to be fatal; they will stand neither travel nor han- 
dling. But they are bright and silvery on the hook and 
will always be a popular bait when they can be saved. 
Well water is not always fatal, but this is hard and is 
possibly less aerated than may be necessary. 
We had slept well, for our talk had been exhausted over 
the cigars by the fireside. Only those who have had the 
privilege can appreciate the delight of listening to rem- 
iniscences like Mr. Hallock's, extending as they do over 
nearly half a century, and so much of the continent from 
Florida to Alaska, when waters were virgin and the for- 
ests almost untracked. W^e caught trout in the Nepigon 
and ouananiche in the St. John; traveled from the Range- 
leys to the Yukon, and always, whether in forest or by 
stream, upon the map of memory each place was marked 
b}' its own peculiar fin or fur or feather. Mr. Hallock 
may well be considered the dean of our craft, and bis ac- 
quaintance covers nearly all the noted anglers since the 
fifties who have fished in American waters. Notwilh- 
fitanding his devotion to the chase, and its lovers, he 
makes of it no "pent-up Utica." i'or several years he 
has been engaged in researches upon the ancestry of our 
aborifcjines, that puzzle picture whose many blanks in- 
crease the difficulties, hut add to the interest, in per- 
mitting, excursions into that dreamland of conjecture 
where the most practical sometimes love to revel. 
It is worthy of note how the habit of observation grows 
on one, and developed in one direction unexpectedly af- 
fects our relations with our whole surroundings. Train- 
ing the eye to note the slightest evidence of organic re- 
maitis in the shingle of a creek bed, may lead the palaion- ■ 
tologist to a facility in the detection of four-leaf clovers 
that deceives the uhapprcciative into the false notion of 
intentional indulgence in a childish and useless pastime, 
when in reality it is but the accident of a habit of notic- 
ing small diflferences. We waked from our first nap with 
a commotion among the chickens, which we had seen 
earlier in the evening, and appetite had marked them for 
our own; now visions of a barmecidal feast pf shadows 
for the morrow disturbed us, but it was only a family 
quarrel and soon subsided. Expecting comment on the 
homely incident, it was a little startling to hear only 
"Pretty eyes." The inspiration for the observation had 
been earlier in evidence and there was no room for argu- 
ment, lie had seen a four-leaf clover. When we waked 
again it was time for breakfast. 
A hundred yards from the hotel we take a boat. The 
water is cloudy and a dense fog is on the little river, but 
we cross and try at the foot of the Palisades opposite. 
Mr. Hallock catches the first bass, as he should, but we 
do not find many below, and later on move up past the 
old water mill toward the foot of the falls. Here a sur- 
prise awaits us. It is the middle of the week and few 
fishermen are expected save on Sunday; but the morn- 
ing train has brought a load, and from every rock there 
sprouts a rod. There were nearly three dozen anglers, 
native and imported, and all were getting good strings. 
Once we saw in a little eddy four bobs within a square 
yard. 
There was no question of the great plenty of bass here 
nor of the popularity of the sport or of the resort. Two 
evenings later there were more than 430 bass on the 
porch of the hotel for the day's catch, and not all the 
bass caught come to the hotel. This is but a single point, 
and every station along the Virginia shore has yielded 
surprising quantities of bass this season. In the Mary- 
land runs still more remarkable catches have been made, 
but these are inaccessible for a single day's fishing. 
It is a demonstration of the wonder working results 
following the efforts of the Fish Commission. Compara- 
tively few of the large-mouthed bass were planted in the 
tributary runs of the Potomac; at the most a few thou- 
sand, and these within the last six or seven years. Some 
of these were known to be lost, as one lot dumped in this 
same Occoquan from the so-foot bridge on a skim of ice 
by a heedless messenger. But the conditions of this tide 
water river, with its shallow bays and embouchures of 
many tributaries, seem to have exactly suited this bass, 
and particularly the abundance of food, of which he se- 
cures a fresh consignment with every tide. So the bass 
have multiplied and grown as they probably have in no 
other water in the country. 
They have been found above 8 pounds in weight, and 
as for numbers, more adult bass were taken with hook 
and line at Occoquan this year than all the yearlings ever 
put in the river. 
And it is not alone the anglers who have benefited by 
this introduction of the bass, for the net fishermen have 
taken advantage of the fall run and shipped many bar- 
rels of these fish, mostly intercepted at the mouth of 
small runs. So great a showing has been made this year 
that it is to be expected a slaughter will be inaugurated 
in the spring in water so poorly policed as is much of 
the lower Potomac. It is to be hoped that the great ter- 
ritory and the unlimited food supplies will so far operate 
to the increase and growth of the bass as to withstand 
these raids and leave the anglers' stock unimpaired. The 
coming of the bass has already made a difference in the 
fishing at well-known points. 
At Four-Mile Run, where in the great bay at its mouth 
it was formerly easy on almost any evening to get a 
hundred perch and sunfish with small flies, they cannot 
now be found. That they are not all eaten is apparent, 
for within a fortnight thousands of inch-long sunfish have 
been dipped, to stock an artificial pond, but the ancient 
colonies are deserted. As for perch, on some tides the 
surface of the pools are alive and noisy with their snap- 
ping, but the little coves where they used to feed undis- 
turbed are empty and we have not been able to find them 
regularly this summer in the shallows where they were, 
wont to be as "thick as autumnal leaves that strew the 
brooks in Vallombrosa." 
A still more remarkable change has been noted at 
Choppewamsic. Here the pool had been for years a 
noted place for jack fishing, and no other fish was caught 
except perhaps an occasional yellow ned. Three seasons 
ago we found bass here, but our catches even with the 
fly were still more than half pickerel (Reticulatus) . espe- 
cially at the beginning and close of the season. Some of 
these were quit large — more than 2 feet in length and 
weighing above 3 pounds. This year it was all bass from 
beginning to end. No large pickerel were caught or even 
seen, and less than an average of one of the small ones 
taken for each day's fishing. 
The -bass may not have destroyed the pickerel, but he 
has crowded the latter out. The carp, too, which were 
formerly so plenty here, have practically disappeared. 
Although a 20-pounder occasionally makes his noisy 
flounder yet, it is but seldom, and the feeding places they 
once kept muddy are now clear and full of bass. 
In warm, waters the bass is king. Henry Talbott. 
New Hampshire Dfoiigfht and Trout. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The last season in New Hampshire has been an aver- 
age one for lake and pond fishing. The brook trout fish- 
ing, which ends Aug. i. has not been so good for years, 
but the drought has been the severest in the memory 
of the oldest people. Brooks that have never been 
dry before have gone dry, killing the trout by thousands 
and practically depleting many of our best streams. 
Onr commission is m.aking every effort to take all the 
' snawn possible, and with, the two million spawn om- 
chased we intend to giA c our streams a Ijetter stockiug 
than ever before the coming spring. With some (^l rt-flx 
brooks drving ur occasionallv and the increased numtigr 
of fisherraeu, this is the only wa3'* we expect to have 
trout fishing- in New Hampshire, N, Wl 
