Jan. 20, igoo.] 
We started after the other birds, and soon found them, 
and what sport we did have chasing them back and forth 
over that field! Old Jack's work would have done credit 
to a king. But finally they were all gone, except a few; 
and we left these to themselves and started across the 
Woods to A sWatilp. Hefe We cotild only find a few; and 
as the brush was thick, they easily eseaped before our 
guns. We then started for a lafge slashing; of twenty 
or thirty acres, which I knew contained a couple of 
flocks. On the way we passed through a cornfield with 
some brush in it, and Jack flushed four birds. Crack 
goes my gun. Then L. shoots; but still the bird goes on. 
Then crack go the guns gain, but none of the birds 
stop, "Those birds must be made of cast iron," says 
L. "But I guess it was more in the men that held the 
guns than in the birds." "Well, just wait till we get to 
that slashing, then I'll show you." And he did, too; for 
we had not more than arrived when we saw tracks in the 
snow, and i>retty soon Jack pointed a brush pile. The 
order came to flush; then flap, flap, go the tiny wings, 
and crack go ihe guns. There is a fluttering in the 
snow, and Jack gathers in four birds. We then picked 
up a few singles from this flock and went on to the next 
one, which we soon found, and succeeded in bringing 
five of them to the bag. As it was getting late and we 
were both pretty hungry, we sat down and ate our 
lunch. Counting the birds, we found we had thirty-three, 
a fair bag for one day. We llien started on our three- 
mile tramp for home, but on the way found something 
to liven us up a little; for as we were passing through 
a piece of thick woods and underbrush Jack made a 
point. The order came to flush, when out came four 
pheasants. I succeeded in scoring one, and so did L, 
This was a pleasant ending for a glorious day's sport. 
We soon reached the house. L. wanted me to stay till 
morning, but as it was only six miles over good roads 
I concluded to go that night, and soon I was sitting be- 
fore my own fire, while Jack was tearing meat from an 
old beef bone to his heart's content. G — G. 
Boston and Thereabouts. 
Boston, Jan. 15. — The scarcity of venison in the Boston 
markets is a somewhat peculiar feature. Tv\o leading 
dealers in game have told me within a couple of days that 
no more is coming this year. Said one of them : "You 
could not get it now except out of cold storage, not if 
you were willing to pay $1 a pound for it. It is not 
coming, neither from the West nor any other part of Ihe 
country." I learn that the non-transportation game laws 
of the West are being much better enforced this year than 
ever before, and I learn this principally from the receivers 
of game. It is barely possible that New York is getting 
venison this year, but Boston is not. Asking another 
dealer, who has always contended that he has a right to 
receive game from Maine, ev^en in close season therr. a< to 
the prospects for illegal venison coming from that Slate, 
he told me that he does not believe that there will bt much 
of any received this winter. He saj'^s that he does not 
know of any that will be likely to come from his usual 
sources of supply. In the first place, the snow has 
amounted to very little in Maine so far. and hunting has 
been verj- poor. It has been impossible to approach the 
deer in their yards, since the snow has not been deep 
enough at any time to prevent their running anywhere as 
easily as in summer time. It is a great year for the win- 
tering of the deer, and it is possible that nature is con- 
spiring to prevent the shameful shipments of deer, thin in 
flesh and out of season, that took place only a year ago. 
But there are yet two and a half months more for snow to 
fall in Maine, and in the meantime the Boston markets 
will be watched. Special. 
"That reminds me." 
An Old Bear Story. 
Here's a problem for W. W. Hastings, Pine Tree, or 
some other of the old boys. Way back on the other side 
of thirty years ago there was a story in my third t, .'') 
reader which made a more vivid impression on me than 
the great bulk of hunting stories which I've read — and 
written — since; for the last I've mostly forgotten, while 
the first — wtll, let me see how much of it I remember 
since that day. 
It was told as by an eye-witness. For days the party of 
whites and Indians, apparently, had been snowbound in 
a pass — we'll say in the Rockies. 
They were near to starvation. The snow was deep and 
no game. A sound was heard and a large animal (an 
elk?) was seen falling or leaping down the almost per- 
pendicular face of the cliff. They were not ready for such 
an advent and lost the shot; as they hesitated, suddenly 
the heads of about a dozen bears projected over the sky 
line, growling after their vanished prey. 
"For your life, don't fire !" cried Gary, catching the arm 
of one of the hunters ; but it was too late. A dozen rifles 
cracked, and the bullets sped upward, and the bears, 
"who minded the bullets no more than so many pin- 
pricks," with angry growls began to descend the cliff. 
They came down to the last terrace, hesitated, then 
jumped and the fight began. "Some ran away and climbed 
into the low trees." Others sought to find hiding places. 
The rest with hunting knives and clubbed rifles did what 
they could to stand off the bears. Then came the fight 
as far as it related to the teller, who perforce had to mind 
his own business. He was nearly worsted, in the snow- 
drift, when "a light flashed in my eyes. There was a 
strong smell of burning," and the bear gave way before 
the attack of "a strange looking man, whose head was 
perfectly smooth and glistening," and who was yielding a 
torch to the best effect. Some of the bears lay dead. One 
or two others, "evidently wounded, were with difficulty 
making their way up the cliff. But where was the last? ' 
' Tonder he goes.' cried one, pointing to a snow 
wreath in the distance, and as thev watched it there 
came a death yell. The Indians grasped their weapons 
end dashed over to the spot. Then, came the death wail of 
thm tribe, as they found one cf their bravgs iyinst nie 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
by side with the bear, with his knife buried in the latter's 
heart. Gary runs up to the stranger shouting: 
"Here's your scalp, Doctor; you've saved us all!" and 
handed him a wig. And next 'day somehow they got out 
of their trap. 
Now I have no doubt that there are enough old boys 
among us who still remember reading this tale of the 
days when rifles gave the bears a better show than now; 
and what I want to know is. What's the rest of the story, 
before and after? Who were they? How did they get in 
there? Where did they go next? And who wrote it and 
what do they think of this bit of memory? 
J. P. T. 
DciSTON, Mass 
Fishing on the Boardman. 
The Boardman River is a grand trout stream, rising 
away over northeast of here, flowing first southwest, 
then west, and finally north, and emptying into Grand 
Traverse Bay at Traverse City, Mich. In the early days 
It teemed with countless speckled trout, but years of 
log running drove the fish out until its fame was almost 
forgotten. The pine forest finally came to an end, logs 
no more navigated its waters, rainbow and German 
brown trout were planted, and its pools are now in- 
habited by fish of enormous size and startling pro- 
portions. I don't believe there is another stream hi this 
peninsula that can compare with it. The water is clear 
and cold, and runs so fast that one can hardly stand 
m Its current. Ripples, rapids, pools, deep holes, rocks, 
logs, stumps, roots, tree tops and divers and sundry 
other things are found in its bed at very frequent in- 
tervals, and make fishing interesting. 
There are fish there yet, plenty of them, for few are 
caught, but I have seen them. 
One evening last summer my wife and I drove two 
miles up stream, and I began whipping the water with a 
cast of fins on a single gut leader. There was a splash, 
a rush, a log and a few remarks. I then tied on one fly 
and took a couple of small fish of possibly a pound 
weight each. Looking down a long reach of smooth 
water, a sight met my gaze that took my breath. The 
water was suddenly dotted with large flies, and a dozen 
or more large trout were having a picnic. I plunged in 
over my boots and laid my fly on the eddies made by 
the breaking fish, but without result, till, growing des- 
perate, I picked a fly from the water, stuck it on my 
fly and tossed it with my hand about 10 feet away, Splash 
—a 2-pound speckled trout hitched on, and the fun be- 
gan, but didn't last long, for I just "rustled" him into 
the net, grabbed another fly, and in a jiffy had another 
m tow — weight on the scales 2^2 pounds. 
AVhere was my wife all this time? Tust dancing up 
and down the bank demanding one of those "bugs." She 
finally made me hear, but by the time I had caught the 
fly and got her hook baited the fish had got enough, and 
all of a sudden there was a great quiet settled on the 
face of the waters, and I discovered that I was wet and 
cold, 
The next morning we were there again, and 3 friend 
with m.e, The sam.e play was on the boards, but neither 
he nor I could hold the fish we hooked. We had pro- 
vided ourselves with rather small hooks to hold the 
flies, and the fish simply flapped their tails and took 
another fly. My friend stood by a large pool and said 
there were three and four fish up at a time, and he cast 
hooks as fast as he could put them on. 
On another day I hooked and lost five good fish of 
two or more pounds each on not over 200 feet of water. 
One took to a tree top; another went up a stump and the 
others were not sufficiently well hooked to stand the 
strain, for know ye that when one of these rainbows takes 
hold he has his eye on a convenient snag, and it is simply 
a case of pull or he is lost, and with most of us it is 
lost 
Why don't we use bigger hooks? I have tried it and 
couldn't get a bite, unless I was looking somewhere else, 
when, splash, my fly or bait was gone. 
This fishing in this river is a problem Avhich I have 
still to solve. I have read Forest and Stream for 
fifteen years, and carefully noted everything pertaining to 
the surroundings of the wily Salmo. Fred Mather says 
to let the flies float down with the current; that a trout 
knows that flies don't meander up hill. So I go down 
stream, whipping every foot of likely water, and not a 
rise. I step out on a log and lav out my line, foot by 
foot, till I get so much string on the water that I can't 
raise the flies, and start to reel in, when, presto! he spits 
It out before I get over my stax't. 
Finally along comes E. Hough wath his Taylor system, 
and I in fancy see myself cleaning out the stream, I 
take my shears, trim up some flies, read the instructions 
again, to make sure I have overlooked nothing, and 
wade boldly in. Right over there is a hole that I know 
hides a trout of not less than 4 pounds weight. (That 5s 
the weight of the largest fish I ever caught, and all of less 
size are considered small since.) I splash mv bobtailed 
flies up there, drop them gently, let them float lightly 
past. There must have been some mistake; so I try 
again, but never a fin is shown. Down the stream I go, 
cutting, slashing and dropping as lightly as a thistle- 
down. I use all the way from 6 to 50 feet of line— and 
never a rise; and I have yet to get a rise while using 
that system. 
Some time alpng in May last there came into my shop 
an elderly man with a beaming face, and seating himself 
on a sawhorse began to talk of fishing. It deve-loped that 
he had accumulated sufficient of worldly goods to satisfy 
his ambition, and now, having no family ties demanding 
hi.s attention, he wa.s going a-fishing. In fact, had been 
going fishing for some years. 
He said these were new waters to him. and he had 
always found it a wise policy to get acquainted v/ith the 
local experts, and learn if possible the peculiarities of 
the streams and their inhabitants. I a.=kcd him if he 
had ever tried the Taylor system, to which hr vrpXipd 
that he had not, but sliould at the first opportumtv. 
Shaking a fly-book from his pDrket, 'he rtad me 3 
B'i 
synopsis of the directions as given in Forest and' 
Stream, which he had prepared to take along. He tried 
It good and plenty, but did not get a rise, and the next 
time I am in Chicago I am going in and eat Mr. Plough 
unless he promises to come up and show me how. 
I keep a tent up the river from May i till Sept. i, and 
my family go up often for a few days at a time, and at 
every opportunity I mount my wheel when the day's 
work is done and in half an hour I am hard at it. I don't 
get many fish, because I fish exclusively for the big ones, 
and they are hard to get — very hard. 
Out in the hall are now my rods^and a hard-looking 
lot they are. Two of them were tough lanccwood, but they 
have more ferrules by several than the makers supplied, 
and there is only one tip between them, anc^that is several 
inches short. Then there is my split-bamboo casting 
rod. It was a beauty, but its glory has departed. There 
is one tip, with a decided rake to port, left out of three. 
The joint bowed to a monster till its back broke, andl 
now it supports a thin sheet of brass wound with silk,. 
There are other rods around, but there is not enough left: 
to speak of, and I am seaching for something to repair 
them with. I must have a rod, like the boy's legal form., 
"horse high, hog tight and bull strong." Can any ofi 
my brother anglers help me. I have tried greenheart 
and found it wanting. I tried to hold a moderate-sized 
fish' (about 4 pounds) from going under a log at my feet 
and the miserable thing broke. I saw a steel rod buckle 
like lead, and split-bamboo goes to pieces too quickly for 
my moderate means. 
I have been contemplating getting some bethabara 
wood and making some joints and tips, but a brother 
angler has told me of reading that osage orange is all that 
can be desired. This is a new wood for rods to me, and if 
any a,ngler in the United States has had any experience 
with it I pray him to communicate with me, for just four 
months from to-morrow morning at daylight I mttst he 
at the front in full fighting trim. What sort of an iideai 
would it be to wind the rod spirally with from i-S txj 
3-16 of an inch between the lay? 
With lines I have no trouble. I get one with a war-- 
ranted breaking strain of 17 pounds, and something else- 
gives first; but the hooks break me all up by breaking in 
the most heartrending way. A No. 20 Cincinnati bass 
hook let go in the bend when a rainbow vaulted some 
feet out of water. A No. 4 white-miller parted in the 
middle when I had a nice fish in a clear place, and was 
\vorkihg him easy, while a 3-pounder gave in when 
hooked with the smallest of minnow hooks. 
Then there were others that simply let go when I was 
doing the delicate act to perfection. They didn't seem to 
take hold. . . 
I fished morning, noon and night; in sunshine and rain; 
in moonlight and when it was dark as a pocket; I hav<» 
sometimes caught some fish, not many, and often no fish 
at all. The morning of the last day of the season is 
marked with a long, wide red line, for my fishing com- 
panion and I did it well and thoroughly. 
There were two pools, big, deep and dark, which v.'c 
had fished diligently many times and oft, but from whichi 
we had never taken a trout. We knew they were there., 
for they had taken divers and sundry flies, minnows, etc.. 
Meeting my friend on the street, I put it to him thus;-; 
"Ed. to-morrow is our last chance this year, and we may 
die before next spring; so let's go up to camp to-night 
and in the morning go out and plunk for those old "fel- 
lows in the holes by the oat field. I hear that that Swede 
got his big catch of last Sunday by using pieces of 
suckers, which he let down into the pools from above 
with a long line. Now, I am desperate." 
"So am I," said Ed. "Bring your bass rod and big bass 
landing net; I will take my outfit, and if either of us hook i 
one, the other is to man the net and land him if he has 
to swim. Leave your watch at home, for you may forget 
it and get it wet. I'll take along a few worms to catch a 
sucker for bait with." 
Da3dight saw two desperate men draining Uie coffee 
pot, after which they started up stream, whipping the 
water just to get the blood up and their dander at the 
desired pitch. 
Arriving at the oat field, a detour was made, for the 
victims must not know that the enemy was abroad. A 
small hook, baited with a piece of worm soon furnished 
a sucker. Cutting a chunk about the size of his thumb. 
Ed baited a No. 20 Cincinnati bass hook, and wading- 
boldly in began to pay out line. No sooner had the 
plebeian lure reached the first eddy than there was a 
screech from the reel, and the fun began. The fish 
darted down stream, and Ed on the bank was hard after 
him and reeling in like mad. The lower end of the pool 
was fairly clear of snags, and the way Ed hauled that 
fish up and down would have scandalized even a pot- 
fisher. With the net in both hands, I waited my oppor- 
tunity, till, with a mighty sweep, I scooped him up and 
carried him ashore. He wasn't so very big after all- 
only 20 inches long—but he w^as a fighter, as I had found 
to my sorrom on several previous occasions. 
Down to the next and larger pool we went, and I 
plunked in my hunk of meat. There was a tug, and 
then a steady pull down stream. What was it? There 
was no rush, no jump, but just pull. Working down 
to a shallow bar, Ed soon had what proved to be a 
German brown trout of 211^ inches length. Back up to 
the head of the pool went Ed, and in a few minutes he 
was being towed down by one 22^ inches long. To 
even up I pulled out one of 16 inches, and we quit, for we 
had to get back to work. 
What ugly looking things the brown trout were be- 
side the rainbow, and they fought like a team of oxen. 
They almost never rise to the fly, and are about as game 
as a pike. 
I doubt not that some of your readers would call this 
very^far from "true sportsmanship," and so would I if 
the "creeters" would take the fly, which they won't— 
hardly ever. I almost always begin with the fly, and am 
considered an expert. After I have faithfully presented 
my stock for their inspection, and they will have none 
of thein, I do not feel that I transgress the laws of sports- 
manship by resortin.e to other devices to accomoli.<^h 
the destruction gf a limited number. Anyway, T t'-- ':. 
it belter than to do as I know a very flowerv w'-^'.- < j 
do— catch with a minnow ami bury (rout bv the bushel, 
;iiid 111 wriling tell of (hf^ir entirpment with ihe artifi.-iai 
dftcil.. V. E. MoNtAGUE. ~ 
Travjiese Ciiy, Mich,, lljSO P. Dvc. m. 
