IFOREST AND STREAM. 
[May s, igbd. 
of ice, though, at this writing, Simapec and Newfound 
had not cleared. At Winnepesaukee, Winnesquam and 
Paugus fishing has begun in good earnest. Winnesquam 
seems to have afforded the best fishing thus far. Friday 
Dr. J. N. Letourneau took two fine lake trout of 6 
pounds and 8 pounds. E. H. Wilkins and G. H. Stone, 
while trolling Friday, near the south shore of Winnepe- 
saukee, landed two trout of "jYi and 3>4 pounds. A good 
many boats have been out, when the wind has not blown 
too hard, but the best fishing always comes after the 
influence of ice and snow water is less in evidence. 
Reports suggest that Moosehead may be clear of ice in 
about a week. The stage has gone up over the ice with the 
mails for the last time this season, and until the ice 
leaves Kineo will be shut off from communication with 
the outside world, except by telephone and telegraph. The 
dates of the departure of the ice from Moosehead in 
former years may be of interest. The dates are from files 
of Forest and Stream, though nearly every paper in New 
England has cribbed and claimed the item : In 1881 the 
ice left May 0; 1882, May 19; 1883, May 13; 1884, May 16; 
1885, May 16; 1886, May 2; 1887, May 12; 1888, May 2t ; 
1889, April 29 ; 1890, May 8; 1891, May 14; 1892, May 4; 
1893, May 19; 1894, April 29; 1895, May 8; 1896, May 9; 
1897, May 10; 1898, May 3; 1899, May 6. This year the 
date is yet to be told. Sportsmen are on the watch. The 
usual number of Boston fishermen are interested. 
It is reported that Lady Bemis, the big cow moose run 
down by a train near Houghton, of which the Forest and 
Stream has already had an account, is to be chloroformed, 
or has already gone to other brousing grounds. At Merry- 
meeting Park, where the poor beast was taken for treat- 
ment, it has been found that both hind legs are broken, and 
Commissioner Carleton has given orders that she be killed. 
Good trout fishing continues to be reported on the 
Cape. Boston fishermen continue to go down to their 
preserves, or those of their friends, 'on Saturday afternoon 
and return on Monday in season for business. Fishing 
is reported good at Scroton Brook, on the preserve of 
CoJ. Harry Russel, of Boston. Members of the Tihonet 
and Monument clubs continue to fish the streams in the 
vicinity of Marshpee. Marshpee Lake is being fished a 
good deal, as usual, with some good creels taken. Fishing 
has been good at Simon's Pond, at the junction of Marsh- 
pee and Cotuit rivers. Wakeby Lake is receiving atten- 
tion. This is a favorite fishing resort of Grover Cleve- 
land and Joseph Jefferson. They have spent many happy 
hours there, and hope to spend many more. Chas. C. 
Paine, of Hyanni?. and a party of Boston anglers know 
where there is good trout fishing near Barnstable. Mill 
River, at that point, has also been fished by Grover Cleve- 
land. At Wareham the sport has continued good. Here 
George H. Lyman and other distinguished gentlemen 
love to fish. 
Boston, April 30.— Grand Lake, Me., one of the 
Schoodics, is clear of ice, and fishing has begun. Duck Lake 
and the other lakes and ponds are clear, or will be in a 
day or two. The Schoodics are the natural home of 
landlocked salmon. Along with, Sebago, salmon have 
been found in these lakes for time immemorial. Boston 
fishermen are interested. Mr. Lyman Underwood started 
for that section Saturday. Later, his brother, Mr. Harry 
Underwood, will go to the camps of the Duck Lake 
Club with a party of fishermen. Mr. Charles Sias has 
fished Grand Lake and other lakes of the chain for many 
Special. 
seasons. 
How the Ice Goes Out. 
Greenville, Me., Moosehead Lake, April 26. — Editor 
Forest and Stream: Present indications warrant the pre- 
diction that Moosehead Lake will be free from ice by 
May 10. The very warm weather of the past week has 
caused all our streams to be flooded and the lake has risen 
very fast, breaking the ice loose from the shores and 
allowing the wind to get hold of it and keep it in motion 
and beat it to pieces. This is always the first stage of 
the opening process. 
A great many people who come here yearly still talk 
of the ice "sinking" when the lake opens, and such is the 
general idea of most outers. But our Maine ice doesn't 
sink, for it is too light and pure to perform such a re- 
markable feat. Here is the way our largest of Maine 
lakes casts off its icy chrysalis to woo the goddess of 
spring: 
As the warm sun melts the deep snow in the big woods 
all our streams pour a flood of water into the lake, which 
soon begins to rise. But the vast .sheet of solid ice cov- 
ering it does not rise at first, for it is frozen so solidly 
along the shores that it cannot easily be torn loose. But 
the tremendous pressure of the spring floods searches out 
the cracks in' the ice along shore and forces the water 
through them and up beyond the rim of the ice, in time 
making a streak of clear water in all favorable places 
along the shore, and often covering the ice itself for some 
distance out. Gradually the ice cracks become larger, 
the strip of warm shallow water melts the ice underneath 
and the whole frozen surface is torn locse from the shore 
and lies at the mercy of the winds and waves. "The ice 
has riz!" Like a giant roused to a pitch of self-destruc- 
tion, the ice now begins to tear itself to pieces. Moved 
by the wind, it crunches at the shore and grinds upon 
the rocks, and thus the area of open water grows larger 
and larger. With the hot sun melting it from above and 
the jagged rocks boring its flanks at every shift of wind, 
the ice now begins to break up into detached fields and 
finds room to move about freely up and down the lake, 
constantly decreasing in area and strength. Before a 
big northwest wind it is driven down the lake with an 
irresistible force, and when it strikes the shores every- 
thing movable begins to take to the woods — logs, stumps, 
rocks and even boulders as big as an ox cart. Great 
trees are uprooted and overturned, rocks are split and 
nulverized. At points where sloping ledges enter the 
lake the ice mounts them in great cakes and is broken to 
pieces by its own weight, and many ledges bear the 
marks the ice has made during the asres in the form of 
■deep-worn oaralleled grooves, just like those made in 
remote glacial times, which Agassiz found on high moun- 
tains. On some of these ledges great boulders tons in 
wei^ght are to be seen, having been thrust up b^^ the ire. 
Some giant boulders, nearly square, are to be seen on the 
shores of Moose Islard and a'sc at the Moody Islands. 
They appear to have been torn from rock ledges by the 
resistless ice and set up on shore as a monument of its 
tremendous power. 
But it requires more than one wind storm to beat the 
largest ice fields to pieces, for after the first terrific im- 
pact with the shore the great body ot floating matter 
gradually comes to rest, having spent its force in partly 
destroying itself. An ice field ten miles long, propelled 
by a strong wind, can make things crack for a while, but 
it cannot annihilate the everlasting hills. So there it lies, 
all the while melting on top beneath the sun's rays, melt- 
ing on shore where the warm shallow water is, while 
its outside edge, perhaps five miles out in the lake, is 
slowly broken to pieces as it heaves up and down be- 
neath the swell kicked up by the wind, like the death gasps 
of a monster about to die. As from the very first there 
are always streaks of open water out in the lake, the 
wind is ever at work there, and the undulation caused by 
its action breaks the ice up into tiny crystal fragments 
which are soon eaten up by the sun. These fragments 
present a peculiar spongeiike appearance just before they 
entirely melt, and as they jostle one another in theii 
dance on the waves a musical sound is produced like the 
jingling of innumerable glasses — a continuous tinkle, tin- 
kle, tinkle, when the waves are not too strong, which rises 
into a crash like broken crockery as the sea grows 
higher. 
Thus the ice is assailed on all sides as it lies wedged 
upon the shore, and in time it will melt and entirely dis- 
appear. When the lake opens in this way the ice merely 
melts away, and in such years the season is very late. 
Thus, in 1888, the ice remained until May 22, the latest 
on record. Usually, however, the big ice fields are kept 
in motion by shifting winds, finding room to move about 
at first in the open streaks along shore and out in the 
lake. The more exposed places out in the lake are 
always the last to freeze, as the wind keeps the water in 
motion and prevents ice fonning. For this reason the ice 
is not of uniform thickness. In some places it may be 
3 feet thick, in others not more than 15 inches. It is these 
thin spots that thaw out first, giving room for motion, 
and the greater the motion the sooner the immense area 
of ice is pounded to pieces as it is hurled finst upon one 
shore and then on another, propelled by shifting winds. 
Under such conditions the lake opens early, usually the 
first week in May. The earliest date on record is April 
26, and in 1889 the ice went out April 29. 
The season at Moosehead this year will be a good 
one. Everything is being done by the hotels and rail- 
roads to arrange for the coming of the hosts of fisher- 
men, campers, sportsmen and tourists who annually visit 
this- lovely land, and a new through Pullman sleeping cai 
service wil-1 be inaugurated on Mav 7 between Boston and 
Greenville via the Bangor & Aroostook route. 
Edgar E. Harlow. 
Registered Guide No, 92. 
ANGLESTO NOTES. 
An Angler's Den. 
It was at the Sportsmen's Show in New York last 
year that my friend Mr. George E. Hart and I were 
talking about fish and fishing, for our last previous meet- 
ing had been at Lac des Passe, on the Triton Club tract, 
where he was on his wdy into Lac Moise from the club 
house and I and some friends were on our way back 
to the club house from the Batiscan. Finally he said: 
"You must have a photograph of some favorite fishing 
pool or camp or spot that is associated in your mind with 
a glorious good time, and if you send it to me I will have 
it reproduced so you can carry it with you." This caused 
me to think, for there are so many fishing pools and so 
many camps scattered over this broad land of lakes and 
rivers and streams where I have had the best of sport, that 
it was most difficult to make a selection and separate one 
from all the others to be reproduced in permanent form. 
At last I made a choice of a room in a country hpuse in 
LOOKING OUT FROM THE DEN. 
which I have had all kinds of sport — salmon fishing, 
trout fishing, moose hunting, black bass fishing, lake trout 
fishing, fox hunting, trapping, snowshoeing, etc. — and all 
in anticipation or rehearsal as I talked with the owner of 
the house and his family, in summer, in winter, in the 
spring and in the autumn ; for I do not know of any 
place that calls to mind so many pleasant memories as the 
"gun room" in the house of my friend, Hon. Walter C. 
Witherbee. Selecting a photograph of one end of the gun 
room I sent it to Mr. Hart, and in return he presented me 
with a watch with the view of the gun room engraved 
on its back ; the dial had for the figures the card suit of 
diamonds, from the ace up to the queen, and for a fob a 
check strap with a silver check, which reads. "Quebec 
& Lake St. John R. R. Quebec to Triton Club," and the 
number of the check is the time honored 4. 11.44. Nat- 
urally the back of the watch can show but one end of the 
gun room, but that end is faithfully represented, and I 
have often been asked what the other end was like. The 
illustrations printed herewith show other views of the 
gun room. From the great entrance hall of the house, its 
floor covered with the skins of tiger, lion, leopard, white 
and black and grizzly bear and panther, the drawing room, 
library and dining room are reachqjl. Over a recessed 
fireplace in the hall is the head of a great moose, a 
trophy of the owner's skill. Suspended over stairways are 
swans with outspread v/ings, and the pictures on the 
walls and the bear erect at the door to take in its arms 
walking sticks and umbrellas, all indicate that it is the 
home of a sportsman, and a sportswoman, too, for it was 
the gun of the chatelaine that brought down the swans 
and others of the trophies, and she will yet have a moose 
of her own killing to match that of my lord's. By open- 
ing a door in this hall, at the right of the vestibule, one 
may step from the luxurious fittings of a modern country 
house into a log cabin ; and this is the gun room. 
The Gun Room. 
Facing the visitor, as he or she enters, is a great fire- 
place, almost filling the end of the room, of rough-faced 
granite blocks with crane and kettle hanging above the 
andirons and usually a pointer or a hound, or both, lying 
near the hearth. The sides of the room are made of logs, 
and before they were placed where they now rest they 
w-ere exposed to air to become weather beaten, for our 
host has an eye to the eternal fitness of things, and be- 
lieving in "old friends to trust, old wood to bum and 
old authors to read," he naturally thinks old logs to be 
more companionable, or that "auld claes look a'maist as 
weel's the new." 
Cross timbers, showing the marks of the hewer's axe, 
above the logs support the peaked roof of plained boards, 
pendent from which are skins of various kinds, while some 
skins are nailed to the roof itself. An ordinary tin lantern 
is suspended between two of the cross beams, but close in- 
spection by day will show that at night a gas jet gives light 
instead of oil or candle. One side of the room has a great 
sash of .small window glass, and here is where the tools 
for loading shells are placed. What are apparently tin 
candlesticks, with candles with tin plates for reflectors, 
stand out from the divisions in the sash, but. like the 
lantern they give out light from gas jets. A frying pan 
hangs against the wall, bottom outward, on which is a 
clock dial, and that is what is is — a clock. Over the 
mantel above the fireplace is a mounted stag's head, and 
there is another over the door by which you enter the 
den. On the mantel is the model of a yacht with full suit 
of sails. -Pegs driven into the logs form a rack for eight 
or ten guns and .rifles. There are gun cases and gun 
trunks, pack baskets and fish baskets, landing nets and 
minnow nets, rubber camp bags and sleeping bags, shoot- 
ing hats and caps and gum clothing in evidence on the 
walls or on the floor. A horn for moose calling hangs 
from a rafter. Outlines of big fish in birch bark, and 
mounted fish adorn the walls. Snowshoes and mocca.sins 
for master and mistress, the children and all their friends 
hang on pegs in the logs, for it is a peculiarity of this 
establishment in all its departments that it is outfitted in 
generous profusion to provide not only for the owners 
but for all their guests, whether it be siimmer or winter, 
fishing, shooting, ice-boating, canoeing, snowshoeing. 
riding, driving or walking. There are decoys, ducks and 
shore birds, race glasses, cartridge belts, foot gear of all 
.sorts and sizes, gaffs, golf clubs, hockey sticks, hatchets 
for the hunter's belt and hatchets of a larger growth ; dog 
leashes and chains, collars and whips, boxing gloves and 
pigeon traps, paddles and skates, ammunition bags and 
haversacks, bait buckets, boat and canoe cushions, Japan- 
ese swords and Cuban machetes. There is a rack for 
fishing rods and a chest of drawers for reels, fly-books and 
the little tools dear to the sportsman. Over the beams in 
one corner is a folding boat of canvas. 
Decorations. 
For purely decorative purposes there are canoe flags and 
canoe models, photographs of game and fish and camps 
and the owner's hunters, and his dogs and camping 
parties, for everything in that room is closely related to 
sport in some form or another. The pipe rack and the 
tobacco jars are built on the same generous plan with 
everything else under the roof, and they are always full, 
filled by some mysterious hand, no matter how great the 
draft upon them, and on long winter nights — :yes, and early 
winter mornings — when some past campaign has to be 
discussed over again or future campaign planned, the 
drafts are heavy on the tobacco jars and cigar boxes. 
One snap shot at the fireplace would have given the im- 
pression that it was a tobacconist's shop with the cigar 
boxes piled up on the mantle, almost crowding the yacht 
model to the' floor, instead of a sportsman's gun room. 
The moose whose head now hangs over the fireplace in 
the entrance hall, was killed a number of times during 
several years in the gun room between dinner and early 
morning, before he was actually killed in the woods. In 
fact, I freely confess that I never shot at that moose ex- 
cept in the gun room at night, for I never saw the animal 
in the woods, or anywhere else xmtil the owner brought 
his head home. And the big trout ! Some of the large 
trout we have caught there, in season and out of season, 
would break a man's back if he had to carry them in the 
flesh. It is the easiest place, that gun room, to catch big 
fish or shoot large game of any that exists out on the water 
or in the woods. They rise to your fly with such certainty 
and you always hook them and never lose them. Then, 
too. you never break any tackle and you can catch any 
kind of trout 3'ou wish and of any size. Salmon, too; that 
is where I killed a 45-pounder one night in winter — or it 
may have been morning, for we take no notice of the time 
indicated by the frying pan clock when we gather in the 
gun room. 
Drviding the Sport. 
The sport is always fairly and evenly divided, so there 
is a satisfaction in that, for the Commodore always kills 
all the big game and leaves it to me to. catch the big 
trout or kill the big salmon. Then the gun room is the 
only place where we ever fish or shoot out of season, but 
there is something about the atmosphere that simply im- 
pels one to go fishing in that room in winter, when we 
know it is the close season, and in summer, when deer and 
moose are in the velvet and the pipes are lighted, the 
Commodore will shoot a moose up in Canada, where we 
both know that it is not only out of season but wrong and 
illegal. But then the trout, salmon, ouananiche, black 
bass, moose, deer and birds never suffer, because we catch 
or kill them in the gun room, so there is that to be said 
in favor of our fishing and shooting between dinner and 
bed time. No : not bed time, hut the time we got to bed. 
1 
