Sept. 22, igoo.| 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
229 
"I don't require any sinker." 
"Then how do you make it sink?" 
"I don't sink the fly, just drop it gently on the water 
and skip it along the surface; the fish comes up and takes 
it in his moulh, when by a slight movement of the wrist 
the fish is hooked." 
I was deeply interested and desired to possess an arti- 
ficial fiy, that I might experiment in this novel mode of 
fishing. I was made happy when this gentleman made a 
present to me of the fly with the request that I try it and 
report to him the result when he should come again. 
I accepted w-ith thanks and promised to comply with his 
request. He took his departure soon thereafter, and 
within thirty minutes I had that fly hook with a 6-ounce 
trout attached Inmg in a willow branch at least 15 feet 
above the surface of the stream. All anglers know that 
a fly treated tlius is not likely to be of service long. This 
one was no e.xception. Within a week from date of its 
presentation my artistic red ant had resolved itself into 
a naked hook with a broken snell. 
Septuagenarian. 
St. Louis^ Mo, 
ANGLING NOTES. 
Fish Applications. 
The State of New York distributes through the Com- 
mission various kinds of fish free to all applicants who 
desire to plant the fish in suitable public waters. The 
applicants have only to fill out a blank form, answering 
certain questions as to conditions of water and fish food, 
and the fish asked for are generally sent to the railroad 
station nearest to the water in which it is desired that 
the fish should be planted. I say the fish are- "generally 
sent," and this qualification means that sometimes fish 
are asked for that the State docs not propagate, or the 
waters may be unsuitable for the fish desired, or the sup- 
ply of certain species may fail in some years. 
The State Fishculturist has just prepared a circular 
letter to be sent out with each blank application, making 
a very reasonable request of all who fill out applications 
for State fish. The circtilar reads as follows: 
State of New York, Forest, Fish and Game Commission. Albany, 
N. Y., Aug^. 23. — Every application VilanJc furnished by this Com- 
mission to those who desire fish for planting in public waters 
bears a conspicuous notice in red ink which reads as follows: 
"^1. B. — A separate application must be used for eacli kind of fish 
desired" 
'I'liis means if brook, brown and lake trout are applied for, three 
blanks must be used, one for each species of trout, and each addi- 
tional fish Will require an additional blank. 
The Commission will furnish all Ihe fish blanks that may be 
desired, but hereafler if more than one species of fish is applied for 
on a single blank the application will be ignored. 
This request \fss made necessary because applications 
have been received by the Forest, Fish and Game Com- 
mission asking for two, three and even four different 
species of fish on the same blank. It is bad enough to 
ask for trout fry and trout fingerlings on the saiue blank, 
and even that makes confusion when the application is 
entered in the application books in the office at Albany, 
though suck an application can be filled, for fry are fur- 
nished in the spring and fingerlings in the fall; but when 
four kinds of fish are requested on the saiue blank it is 
confusion confounded. The fish may have to be supplied 
from four different hatching stations, widely separated 
and at different seasons of the year, and one blank can- 
not be divided into four parts and sent in four different 
directions without impairing its usefulness. It is also 
bad enough to ask for four species of trout on one blank 
which may have to be filled from several hatching sta- 
tions; but when trout and pike-perch and black bass and 
lobsters are asked for on the same blank the proper place 
for the application is the waste basket. 
While on this subject, there is another phase of it 
other than the one mentioned that I am sure the Com- 
mission would like attention called to. and it is embod- 
ied in a circular first issued nearly five years ago, and 
now forgotien or ignored. The following is a part of 
the circular, and it is as much in force now as when it 
was first printed and sent out: 
All persons who desire to obtain fish or fish fry from the Forest, 
Fish and Game Commission, for planting in public waters of the 
State, for under no circumstances are fish furnished by the Stale 
to be planted in private waters, should apply to the Secretary of 
the Commission at the oflice in Albany, for blanks to be filled 
out for this purpose, at the same time stating the kind or kinds 
or fish desired. Three different blanks are furnished — blanks for 
t^out, blanks for fish fry (including ail fish furnished by the 
Commission, other than trout and black bass), and blanks for 
black bass. A separate blank must be filled for each kind of fish 
applied for. All applications for trout (including brook, brown, 
rainbow and lake trcul), whitefish, ciscoes, Adirondack frostfish 
and smelts, must be filed in the office at Albany on or before Feb. 
1 each year. 
Applications for tomcods must be filed on or before Jan. 1. 
Pike-perclr and niascalonge applications may be filed as late as 
April 1, and applications for black bas.s as late as May 1. 
jNlost of the siiecies of the salmon family reared by the State 
spawn in the fall and are hatched Ihe following spring, and are 
ready for delivery from March to May, depending upon the 
season and the situation of the hs.tchery. The spring spawning 
fishes, like the mascalonge, pike-iiercli and b ack bass, may be 
delivered in May and June. Applicants for fish are notified in 
advance of the shipments of fish assigned to them. Applications 
for fish received after Uie dates fixed by the Commission for that 
purpose must be rejected tor thai year, as assignments once made 
are final. The clerical work of filing applications and assigning 
millions of fi;-li is so great that it cannot be reviewed for re- 
assignment before distribution begins. 
The idea prevails that because trout fry are distributed 
in the spring and fingerlings in the autumn that it will 
answei every purpose if the applications for fingerlings 
are sent in at any time before the distribution takes 
place, but such is not the case. With all the applications 
on file at the time fixed in the circular, those who have 
the distribution in charge know how many fry must be 
reserved to be reared to the fingerling age and how 
many can be distributed as fry. The number of trout 
asked for exceed the number the State has thus far been 
able to hatch and rear and applications inust be filled 
pro rata. If there was no fixed time when all applica- 
tions must be on fi'e the result would be that early appli- 
cations wouH be fi'led nearly if not quite in full and 
there would be no. fish to fill later applications. When 
jll arnlicatiors are i;j at a given time and the reports 
from the varintis batclteries are received in Albany about 
the same time, it is a simnle matter to make the as»*!gn- 
m-en'ts of fry artd set aside a sufficient number to be 
reared, alway? allowing for loss in rearing, and if nec- 
essary scale the applications so that each shall receive 
proper consideration, and a fair distribution will follow. 
Until the fish are hatched no one can estimate how many 
there will be, even from the stock fish under control at 
the hatching stations. 
Pike-perch may appear in great numbers at spawning 
time, and, as was the case this year, over fifty millions 
of fry may be hatched from eighty million's of eggs taken, 
or they may fail to appear in numbers and only a few 
eggs be taken. Smelt may come into the streams to 
spawn, or they may not, as has been the case for two 
years, and the fry hatched may be thirty or forty million 
or thej^ may amount to only one million. So with trout; 
the niunher of ecrgs taken may vaiT greatly, one season 
with another, and applications for fish cannot be granted 
until it is known whai: the State has to grant; and 
when this is known and the fish and apolications are 
brought into conjunction, it is smooth sailing to make 
the assignments so far as the fish will go. I say so far 
as the fish will go. for the applications call for ridicu- 
lous numbers of fish. The banner application was one 
calling for pike-perch, and had the State been able to 
fill it the State fish car wottld have had to make forty- 
tw6 trips, each time with a full load of fish, to fill it. 
Tt is not at all unusual for an application to call for a 
carload of something, which may mean from 500,000 to 
T, 000. 000 fry or Q.ooo yearlings, and each application has 
a notice requesting that not more than 500 to 1,000 fin- 
gerlings be asked for at one time. 
Planting Fish. 
In line with what has gone before is the manner of 
planting 3'oung fish, and upon this subject the State has 
issued another circular, now as much a dead letter as the 
one already quoted. The first paragraph of the circular 
reads: "Brook, brown, rainbow and Loch Leven trout 
should be planted in small spring rivulets tributary to 
the larger stream intended to be stoccked. * * * The 
fry should be well distributed throughout the length of 
the stream (by planting in rivulets, as previously stated), 
as by bunching the plant there is danger of exhausting 
the food suitable for the young fish." 
The directions are plain enough, but how many of 
those who plant trout fry take the trouble to follow 
them? Recently some one unknown to me sent me a 
newspaper clipping and a newspaper illustration. The 
illustration shows a man in the act of pouring a can of 
trout fry into a big stream near a highway where a 
bridge crosses the stream. A team and sleigh stand in 
the road near the bridge and three more cans of trout 
fry are on the ground near the sleigh, and I assume from 
the picture and the text of the letter in the newspaper 
clipping that about 20,000 trout fry were turned into 
th:s big brawling stream, and the reason for it is appar- 
ent from the picture. It was the easiest way to plant 
the fish; the highway crossed the stream, and by carry- 
ing the cans a few feet the contents of the cans could be 
deposited with the least possible trouble and with dis- 
patch; and yet it was all wrong, though it was done by 
an employee of the Forest, Fish and Game Commission, 
who should have known better. If an employee of the 
Commission, in the person of a State Game Protector, 
provides an example of how fish should not be planted, I 
am sure there can be little fault found with those who 
are not in the employ of the Commission who may fol- 
low his example. True, it; is not one of the duties of a 
State Game Protector to plant fish, but when they en- 
gage in fish planting they, more than the unofficial citi- 
zen, should know the right way to do it and do it prop- 
erly. I give an extract from the letter in the clipping: 
Stocfchig Streams* 
To the Editors of The Herald: 
1 wish to call your attention to the reproduction of a photograph 
which appeared in the Fost-Standard Sunday, April 8, showing 
the Fish and Game Protector planting trout fry. 
For many years the State lias spent considerable time and money 
attempting to stock the streams of Onondaga county with trout, 
and millions of young fish have been planted, yet the question is 
asked year after year, "What becomes of all these trout?" It 
strikes me that this photograph may explain. 
Every person who has had experience in planting trout will be 
surprised and horrified when lie gazes upon the photograph of our 
protector of fish in the act of murdering trout by the tens of 
thousands. The title of the picture shown is "Planting Trout Fry 
in Nearby Streams." The picture mentioned shows the protector 
deliberately emptying a can of t>.000 trout fry into the main waters 
of a large, swilt flowing stream where trout fry could not possibly 
survive more than a few hours at the most. Just back are three 
more cans, probably containing a total of 15,000 more small trout 
waiting their turn for slaughter. 
My lov<2 for trout fishing promists me to bring this photograph 
to your notice, in order that the State Commissioners of Fisfieries 
may not be held responsible because there is no fishing in our 
county. 
For the benefit of those who are not familiar with trout planting 
I will quote in brief from the report of the Fish Commissioners 
for 1885, page 149, which is the instructions for transporting and 
planting young fish. 
Had our protector first acquired information as to how to plant 
trout, possibly that photograph would never have appeared in a 
daily paper, and the trout fishing would be better in Onondaga 
county. A Fisherman. 
SvRACUSE, April 10. 
There is a prevailing impression that trout fry are of 
little use for stocking streams, and when they are duiuped 
into a stream such as is shown in the illustration it is 
doubtful if many survive. Natural conditions should be 
followed as far as possible in planting try, and that means 
that the fry should be planted at the sources of the 
streams away from fish that will eat them, and they 
should be well distributed throughout the small feeders 
of the main stream to be stocked, for without food the 
fry will not thrive. This manner of planting trout fry 
involves hard drives through fields or woods and carry- 
iug of cans by hand over considerable distances. When 
the planting is well done natural conditions are im- 
proved upon, and the results from such planting are 
as effective in restocking a stream as though fingerling 
trout were planted in the main stream. The State can- 
not rear all the trout hatched to the fingerling age, as 
it has not enough water at all the hatching stations com- 
bined to do 'this, and many trout must of necessity be 
planted at the fry stage; but if they are not properly 
planted, as the circular of the Commission directs, little 
benefit will be derived from the planting. If a thing is 
wor k doing at all it is worth doing well, and if people 
wish to res'-ock brooks with trout they must do the 
work in a manner to brins: about the best results, or 
their time and the State's fish are wasted. 
What the State Game Protector may have had to sa.v 
for himself when he saw his methods photographed and 
criticised in print I do not: know; probably nothing, for 
there was nothing to sayMia defense of such miserable 
fish plant, which simply w'astcd the fish and made friait- 
less the effort of the State to restock the water for which 
the fish were intended. Had he read the directions for 
planting fry, a copy of which he doubtless possessed, he 
would have known he was not proceeding in a proper 
manner to get the best resirlts from the planting with 
which he was intrusted. That he permitted himself to 
be photographed in the manner that he was is evidence 
that he believed he was doing the proper thing, and 
therefore I would advise the anglers' association he rep- 
resented to get some one else to take charge of their 
fish planting in the future. 
Wfaiiefish. 
There is another matter that may well be threshed out 
here and now, as it is closely allied to what has gone 
before. Many of our inland lakes now contain vast 
quantities of the very best of food fish that is absolutely 
going to waste because they are not used, and I refer to 
the whitefish, one of the most delicate of food fishes and 
one that will not as a rule take a hook, and therefore, to 
be available as food for mankind, must be taken in nets. 
The State hatches millions of whitefish, the big lake 
wdiitefish as well as the round whitefish or Adirondack 
frostfish, and every year a large proportion of the white- 
fish hatched are planted in the inland lakes, where they 
serve no good purpose, as a rule, except to feed other 
fish, and it is extremely doutful if they do not destroy 
more food of other fish in the same water, under present 
conditions, than is gained by their serving as food them- 
selves. This could all be changed if fishermen would 
avail themselves of the provisions contained in Section 
64 of the Forest, Fish and Game Law, which reads as 
follows: 
"Frostfish, whitefish, catfish, sunfish, pumpkin seeds, 
bullheads, perch, suckers and sturgeon may be taken with 
nets from inland lakes not inhabited by trout, pursuant 
to rules prescribed by the Commission. Such rules shall 
he subject to amendment (fr abrogation at any time and 
may be either general or special, and published as the 
Commission direc's." 
This section of the law, like one or two others, 
requires a key before one can understand what the words 
actually mean, for on the face of it any waters contain- 
ing trout would seem to be exempt from the right to 
net. Not so. When ihe key, to be found in Article VII. 
under the heading "Definitions and Constructions," is 
examined, for there it is exp'a'ned that " "trout' includes 
speckled trout, brown trout, rainbow trout, red-throat 
trout and brook trout." 
"Trout" does not include lake trout, for the next para- 
graph states that " ' lake trout,' for the purposes of this 
act, includes landlocked salmon and ouananische." I 
tried to take that s out of ouananiche when I discovered 
it. but it was the law. and being so the word could not 
be correctly spelled without an act of the Legislature to 
justify it. 
With this explanation it will be observed that where 
whitefish are found in inland lakes that also contain lake 
trout (and do not contain "speckled trout" or "brook 
trout," this redundancy of terms to designate the com- 
mon brook trout being another of the unaccountable 
things in the game law), the former may be taken in 
nets. A license is first obtained from the Forest, Fish 
and Game Commission and the netter would make a 
profit on his catch and the people who buy the fish 
would have one of the finest table fishes that swims. 
The State hatches whitefish at Canandaigua Lake and 
at Hemlock Lake (at other points as well), and in taking 
eggs a small proportion of the fish are injured. These 
fish and those caught in the meshes of the pounds are 
killed and sold to local fish dealers at a small price per 
pound, with the understanding that they must be retai'ed 
at a fixed price. The demand was so great for the fish 
that one dealer sought to corripel th'e State to deliver 
to him all the whitefish taken in the nets. Whitefish will 
not bear a long journey and arrive in the perfect state 
that they are when fresh from the water, but where white- 
fish can be netted there vi'M be a local demand that will 
exhaust the supply, if one can judge from the experience 
of the men who have had State fish from tlie nets. 
Brush in Trout Streams, 
If those who desire to stock a stream with fingerling 
trout will go to a little troub'e in advance of the actual 
planting of the 'fish they will do much to preserve the 
fish or a portion of them until they have had an oppor- 
tunity to spawn. This trouble consists of cutting a quan- 
tity of brush and throwing it into the stream to form 
hiding places and refuge for the trout. The brush must 
be so thick in the water that no hook and line fisherman 
can get his bait through it and out again w'th a fish op 
the hook, and if the brush is placed in the water green It 
.should lie long enough to lose the leaves and become 
fixed in the stream. To do this well a considerab'e por- 
tion of the ptre^m should be brushed near the head- 
waters and the finsterlings. planted where they can avail 
theni^elves of the bru'^h refuge, would be ^afe from the 
hook and line man and the man w'th a net. and when 
thev grow to a greater size and have snawned the trout 
w'l! wortc dowr> stream to places where fliey can be 
caught, in a legitimate manner, it is to be hn<^pd. 
A. N. CiiEXEX". 
"Tfie OuVi-^^ of My Life/' 
Arefar writes from Auburn. Cak: I have had the "out- 
ing of my life." Caught a lo^-nound rainbow trout on 
an 8-ounce rod ; also a g-)^, an 8, and two 7^, besides 
several and 6 pounders. Also got dticks and snipe 
galore after Sent. i. I may be able to give you a short 
paper on the subject by and by. 
A Pennsylvania S-Pound Bass. 
TToNEsnALK. Pa.. Sept. 14. — Mr. Georere W. Cr-^'?';. of 
Carbonade. Pa., canttired with a P. & S. troll on T'nir*;-. 
day last at York Lake a b'ack bass that mpa-^ur"'^ 22'4 
inches in length and weighed jiist 8 pounds. This is 
believed to be the largest bass ever taken out of our 
fresh-vvater lakes in this vicinity. G, W, L. 
