Jttly 28, igoo.J 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
69 
Notes From Dennysville. 
When Mr. Hallock writes of the snug corners that he 
finds one feels that the world is all full of just the right 
sort of places, but after all a good deal of responsibility 
remains with the enjoyee. I once coaxed a friend to go 
away up North with me, telling him incidentally about the 
goods things that we would have on the camp table- 
omelet of eider ducks' eggs, caribou roasted on a birch 
spit, rich posted curlew, boiled pink salmon, sea trout fried 
in their own fat, beaver baked in a clay oven under 
ground, tender boiled jewel weed, cloud berries that make 
the tiindra all golden, blueberries as big as cherries — and 
we would get all of these things without even asking for 
them, and nobody to pay. I was just as good as my 
word, and we had every one of the luxuries and more 
galore. Yet my companion was disappointed because we 
did not have everything at once. For instance, we would 
sometimes have nothing much beside curlew for a week; 
then just cloud berries for a week, and that's the way we 
lived. If a bear stole the seal tenderloins, we would have 
to cut up the pectoral muscles for our own dinner, after 
finding where the bear had hidden our seal, and the table 
was not just what a preconceived notion would have made 
it from my most trustworthy description. 
Last year Mr. Hallock wrote such a charming letter 
from Dennysville for Forest and Stream that I cut it 
out and pasted it in my hat. The most beautiful village 
in Maine. People exceptionally nice. Salmon leaping in 
the river under the window at night. Trout to be had 
for the casting. Deer peered into the school house win- 
dows, and there were at Dennysville about all of the things , 
that one would really care to see. I will not repeat th | 
entire letter, because it is my policy to plagiarize freel> 
from none but poor authors. Emerson says that plagiar- 
ism is proper if one transmutes lead into gold. The fact 
is that Mr. Hallock was right, but it requires the right 
men to see straight at his mark. It was like my de- 
scription of the table up North. When I read the letter 
I handed it to my wife, and said, "There, now !" So we 
came to Dennysville. 
A beautiful village it is indeed. The main street runs 
alongside of the cool Denny s River. The banks are lined 
with a free and inspiring growth of conifers — pine, larch, 
fir, spruce and white cedar. The village houses on 
spacious grounds overlooking the river are roomy and 
comfortable and very neat. Neatness in housekeeping is 
a characteristic of the good housewives here. The people 
are so accommodating as to make a city man feel un- 
comfortable for fear that he may not keep his end up. 
Deer can be seen in the fields about the village on almost 
any evening — but the salmon and trout! As a salmon 
stream the name of the river is Dennys. Sawmilla fecit. 
Until very recently the river was full of salmon. There 
are half a dozen fine pools within the first two miles, and 
the salmon took the fly freely. They tell of Mr. Prime 
and Mr. Brackett taking eight or ten salmon a day. Shad 
came up the river in June in large schools, and furnished 
an abundance of toothsome fare for the people. Alewives 
crowded the ripples, and the poorer people laid up barrels 
of them against a snowy day. But these things are all 
spoken of in the past tense, because the lumber company 
has a sawmill at the head of tide water, and the artificial 
fishway will not allow breeding fish to pass. The natural 
fishway, a narrow channel running around the dam, has 
been closed because it allowed too much mill water to 
escape. Everj^thing has been turned to utility for a few 
men, and the rest of the people are most naturally left out. 
In addition to barring the river against anadromous fish, 
the mill runs night and day, and fills the river with such a 
pudding of sawdust and shavings that few fish can even 
get up to the chief obstructions. 
Last Monday I went down to try the pool below the dam 
before the mill started after its Sunday rest. When the 
sawdust began to pour in at the beginning of the work 
day I hurried down to a pool a quarter of a mile below 
and got there just as the sawdust arrived. It was a sight 
worth the early morning rising to see the eels come down 
in distress in the cloud of refuse. So many eels I never 
saw before — thirty or forty in sight at a time, and all at 
the top of the water in a peculiar attitude. Their tails 
were at the surface of the water, and their heads down. 
They made an eft'ort to keep going at the exact speed 
of the current, not faster or slower. In all probability 
they had learned that this was the best way to keep 
sawdust out of their gills. An eel will stand about as 
much punishment as any fish on my visiting list, and if 
eels were driven out by the sawdust like flies ahead of a 
whisk broom I wonder how the noble salmon meets the 
indignity, to say nothing of the sensitive alewives and 
shad. «.;■ I 
All of this could be stopped by burning the sawdust and 
opening the natural fishway. The lumber company could 
then rent salmon fishing privileges for twice the amount 
of profit that their lumber brings, the people could have 
their shad and alewives again, and the eyesore of sawdust 
and slabs would be removed from the beautiful river that 
runs alongside the beautiful street. 
It is said that the mill and some 20,000 acres of timber 
land were purchased by the lumber company for $20,000. 
I could have sold the same property to four or five fisher- 
men for $50,000, and would have kept one of the shares 
myself, before the river was ruined. It would now re- 
quire four years for restoring the stream to its normal 
condition. There are big trout in the river above the mill, 
and restocking from time to time would make it a grand 
trout stream if salmon fishermen wished to have trout in 
their waters. 1 
The salmon and shad and alewives still attempt to get 
past the dam, but in constantly diminishing numbers, and 
in two or three years more the mill will have accomplished 
in a free country what is not permitted in any old despotic 
civilization. Canada, with the effete ideas of European 
experience, requires mill owners to dispose of mill rubbish 
in a harmless way, and derives a great income from salm.on 
properties. 
Last week I drove over to Calais to try the St. Croix 
River. On the Canadian side the mills were burning 
their mill refuse, and on the American side they were 
dumping it into God's clean waters by the ton. The 
salmon pool at Calais is an excellent one, and not much 
fished, perhaps for the reason that 1 did not stay, because 
fishermen like wild surroundings and do not care to fish 
in town. I made two or three casts, avoiding hooking 
a railway train on the back cast, and hooked and brought 
to gaff a lively lo-pound salmon. There were plenty of 
salmon there, and they were leaping all over the pool. A 
good fisherman can probably get salmon at Calais at almost 
any time during the summer, but 1 did not like to fish 
within sight of houses, and came away as soon as my 
salmon was landed. Then I found an Indian and went 
up river twenty or thirty miles to try for salmon in the 
woods. The fish had not as yet ascended so far, and I 
shall go again in a fortnight. 
The upper pools are so full of black .bass that they are 
a nuisance to the salmon fisherman, very much like trout 
in Canadian rivers. I have gone to a lot of trouble to get 
good trout fishing, and have thought that a 2-pounder was 
a prize. It was only a careful study of the conditions that 
gave me many such prizes, and the wind and water and 
flies and time of day all had to be given consideration. 
On the other hand, on salmon rivers, where the sharp 
teeth of the trout destroy the expensive salmon flies, and 
the quicker fish get there ahead of the salmon, I have 
had several trout weighing from I to 5 pounds apiece rush 
for the fly at the same instant, and my guide spoke of 
them in a most disrespectful manner, calling them "cussed 
critters." On the St. Croix the bass are "cussed critters." 
I have gone a long way for bass fishing, and, as with trout, 
it w^as necessary to have the flies and the weather and the 
time of day just right. Even then about half of the bass 
would get off after they were hooked, and a good part of 
our time was spent in quiet contemplation by the river 
bank. On the St. Croix, when I did not want bass, they 
were rising all day long on any kind of a day, and to any 
sort of fly. They would hook themselves and would not 
get off, in spite of my giving them slack line and avoiding 
a strike. I had to catch five big bass out of one small 
stretch of salmon water before they would let me fish in 
peace. The bass were all set free again, excepting the few 
that we wanted for camp use, and I suspect that they will 
have in future still less respect for the dangling of the 
artificial fly. 
Speaking of bass reminds me of something funny : Two 
years ago I wanted to take my wife fishing. She had 
never gone into the woods before, and had never caught 
a fish. One of the basic principles of her character was 
the idea that it was wrong to kill anything, bless her heart. 
She began gently with black flies and mosquitoes, and 
ended ixp in a blaze of gloiy with salmon and bears before 
we left the woods. That shows how environment modifies 
our ideas. I took her straight to the best part of one of my 
best salmon rivers. We stepped out into a wood road, 
where I showed her something about casting the fly. 
Then we went down to the river, and she made a fair 
sort of cast, and promptly hooked a 22-pound salmon, 
which she brought to gaff in good style in half an hour 
without help. She caught salmon right along — big ones — ■ 
and the funny part of it was that for the first few days 
she persisted in calling them bass. Her idea of fishing 
was that any one could step up to almost any rise, cast in 
a fly and hook salmon, and one might as well call them 
bass as anything else. Now what do you think of that? 
It simply illustrates the decadence that follows too luxuri- 
ous living. I can now readily understand the downfall 
of Rome. Down South, where they have no salmon, they 
call the pike-perch '"salmon." That shows what perse- 
verance will accomplish in the face of obstacles. 
Next summer I am going to a big wild salmon river 
again; one that is the real thing, and all' full of silver 
springers, but this summer I wanted to experiment with 
United States rivers. The upper Penobscot and St. Croix 
are certainly magnificent salmon waters, but they need to 
be studied thoroughly. The Dennys River can be made 
an excellent salmon stream at a small part of the expense 
that one would pay for a Quebec river, and it does not 
need to be stvidied much. It is a comparatively small 
river. The St. Croix is not so large as the Penobscot, 
but it is a very large river nevertheless, and it is surpris- 
ing to me that its salmon possibilities were not worked 
out a hundred ye3/"s ago. It is not a difficitlt river to 
manage. To be sure, it is not a smooth-flowing, con- 
tented river like the Ohio, nor is it a hell of a diapason 
of titantic bombardment like the St. Paul, but it has roar- 
ing rapids and thundering falls and long stretches of quiet- 
looking but determined current. One can make the entire 
trip from Vanceboro to the sea easily in a canoe without 
making any long carries, and there are always trout and 
bass to be had for camp fare and for the sport of fisher- 
men who are not too restless when in the presence of 
King Salmon. Robert T. Morris. 
Dennysville, Me., July 1. 
Canadian Fishing; Licenses* 
Philadelphia. Pa., July 20. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
I notice in your issue of July 21 a letter signed Special 
and dated at Boston, July 14, which is headed Canadian 
Fishing Licenses." Despite the fact that Special gives 
the residence of the person arrested at Yarmouth as 
Boston, and although no names are mentioned, I cannot 
but believe that my own was the arrest to which he 
refers, inasmuch as T am given to understand that while 
warrants were issued for other parties, as stated in the 
letter, my own was the only case in which they pro- 
ceeded to the length of an actual arrest. I have always 
intended and still intend, no matter what the outcome of 
the pending proceedings, to send j^ou a full report of 
the case, as raising a question of widespread interest to 
sportsmen in the United States, but inasmuch as my 
appeal of 'the matter to the Department at Ottawa is still 
pending. I deem it premature to presently say anything 
definite in regard to the subject. In this spirit I ask 
that all further discussion of the tnatter be postponed 
until after the Department of Marine and Fisheries has 
given final judgment upon my appeal, which is at pres- 
ent being prosecuted. Pray rest assured that I shall at 
the proper time send you a full statement of the facts, 
coupled with the decision of the Department, whatsoever 
that may be, which statement, it is imnecessary to add, 
shall be over my own signature and not my nom de 
phmie. Wadleigh Brook. 
See the list of good things in Woodcraft in our adv. cols. 
A Yankee Muscallunge. 
The staging of this sketch is one of the many beautiful 
spots of New England. Afloat on the placid Connecticut 
River, with the rocks of the Holyoke range on either 
hand, to the north stretch the broad, fertile "valley mead- 
ows" until their level sweep is broken here by the chim- 
neys of a large manufacturing town, there by the bold 
bluff of the Sugarloaf Mountain, and on the west by the 
Berkshire Hills. These all combine to form a pictiire 
beautiful to the city-tired eyes of the writer, just begin- 
ning his vacation. 
The other members of the party are the Veteran, born 
and reared in a nearby village, but who saw service during 
and since the Civil War in the Navy, and the Drummer, 
who goes up and down, seeking whom he may sell brass 
goods to. AH the brass he has, however, is carried in hiS' 
sample bag, and on this day that is laid away. The shifty 
bamboo, the shining silk and the spoon hook are our 
weapons, and the peace of early morning on the water 
and of good tobacco is ours also. 
The morning grows gray, and a breeze comes up. The 
writer, new at this kind of work, misses two strikes and 
takes to the oars in disgrace with himself, but full of en- 
joyment nevertheless. Is he not free from all care for a 
time ? Free to watch the marvelous play of sun, wind and 
cloud over the landscape. Free to admire the skill of the 
Veteran, as the pliant rod sends the ■ spoon through the 
air to light with unerring accuracy on a hlypad-encircled 
pool. 
The oars plash lazily in the cool water ; to and fro spin 
the glittering spoons ; nothing breaks the pleasing monot^ 
ony except now and then the greater pleasure of a cap- 
ture. There is a quick wake in the weed-forested water, 
the rod takes on the curve so beautiful to the angler's eye, 
there is a short, sharp tussle; the landing net is thrust 
under the fighting, struggling victim, and a black bass lies 
in the boat. Or pefhaps only a slow heave in the water 
is seen, and a yellow perch is lifted ignominiously into 
view. The Veteran will growl, "Don't take the landing 
net for him ; lug him in any old way— nuisance." 
Still doing penance with the oars, I sit watching the 
Drummer in the bow casting and skittering with might 
and main. He prepares for another cast. As his spoon 
leaves the water, a huge fin-crowned back comes into 
momentary view. He almost drops his rod. I have seen 
it too, and with an exclamation, "What a fish 1" check the 
boat just before it reaches the eddy left by the big fish. 
That fellow, secure in his kingship, has risen within 10 
feet of the boat. Again and again the Drummer casts, 
with no result. The Veteran tells us to back off and wait 
ten minutes. Then we silently approach the spot again 
and send out the glittering lure. What knack of drawing 
that spoon has the older man acquired? For, within 
sight the monster pursues the Drummer's spoon, then 
leaves it and seizes the Veteran's tackle. Lightly hooked 
in the cartilages of the jaw, he pauses a moment, then 
moves oft' with the majestj^ of an ocean liner leaving her 
dock. Ten, twenty feet he goes ; then, maddened by pain 
and fury as the Veteran sets the hook, he leaps "full 
speed ahead." Out he goes, the Veteran growing anxious 
as he sees the fast-diminishing coils on the reel. Back 
goes the tip over the shoulder, and as the magnificent fel- 
low feels the added strain; up he goes full length out of 
the water, shaking his head savagely to dislodge the cling- 
ing steel. Foot by foot he comes toward us with wide 
side dashes. Near us he lies motionless on the water, 
"sizing up" the strange creatures who torment him so. 
His large eyes gleam with untamed ferocity, and his 
olive green sides, relieved with coppery spots, quiver with 
excitement. Then he goes down straight to the bottom; 
then with a surge and heavy plunge he starts out for a 
run. The rod, bent to a semicircle, seems scarcely able to 
stand the strain. But the notes of the reel — this obligato 
solo is indescribable. Now a few staccato notes, now a 
crescendo of rapid motion. It sings of proud endeavor, 
of almost unbearable effort and of victory. And to the 
true angler, once heard, "the song will never end." Vain 
his mad rushes, his wily breaks; "the place thereof shall 
know him no more!" With his strength exhausted, but 
his kingly spirit unbroken, he is taken into the boat, and 
the trap rocks on either side of the river re-echo the 
Veteran's exultant "hurrah!" 
We row to the bank, and laying our prize on the grassy 
slope guess at his weight. "Eighteen pounds," says the 
Drummer. "Twenty," says the Veteran, and produces 
his pocket scales. Down sinks the brass pointer, until 
almost to the 20-pound mark, and we say "Nineteen 
pounds, not to be too strict with our good fortune." Three 
times we lay the foot rule along his burnished side, scor- 
ing 38 inches from "tip to tip." 
Then we lunch, with many a glance at the gallant fisK 
who had fought for freedom with a courage and dash 
worthy of old Massachusetts. C. R. A. 
Bayonne, N. J. 
Concerning the identity of C. R. A.'s "muscallunge,'* 
Col. Sam'l Webber, who was for years one of the fish 
commissioners of New Hampshire, writes: There are 
no muscallonge and never have been in the Connecticut 
River to the best of my knowledge and belief. The fish 
referred to was unquestionably a pike simply and purely, 
miscalled a pickerel in the West and Northwest, and 
one of the descendants of the stock introduced from 
Lake Champlain into Plymouth Ponds, Vt., about 1836. 
These ponds are at the head of Black River, down which 
they escaped to the Connecticut, and I know of one of 
17 pounds caught at Bellows Falls many years ago. I 
have several times had them brought to identity by fish- 
ermen who thought they were muscallunge simply on ac- 
count of their size and their difference from the common 
river and pond pickerel, but in all cases they were pure 
pike. 
In one case, which I believe I have noted in Forest 
AND Stre.^m, the fish was curiously colored, the light 
spots being orange, and the belly a bright yellow, prob- 
ably from living in a hole where an iron spring came 
into the river. 
Fish nomenclature is badly mixed up in northern New 
Hampshire and Vermont. The great lake trout is a 
"Iun.ge," evidently an abbreviation of the same name, 
which was given him in ignorance, solely on account of 
his size, while in Maine he is a "logue" and in northern 
New York a "salmon trout," the last being a very mean- 
