252 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept. zg, 1900. 1 
experiment with steelheads. They were put into tjie lake 
late in 1898 and were then over two years, old and about 
7 inches long. They were' not seen during 1899, except 
ihat 1 heard of two being caught. Last.spring they bit 
very fretly and were then about from ij4 to iVz pounds 
weight, and I was told of some 2-;pounders, but I am 
not sure that they were weighed. I consider this ratio 
of growth simply astonishing. They are a very strong, 
hard fighting fish, stronger even than the salmon, and 
that is very high praise. ' , 
I have at last become positive that the salmon arc 
breeding in our lake. Numbers of fry have this suninier 
come down through the hatchery supply pipe. i\s the 
mouth of that pipe is at least 40 feet below the surface 
of the lake, the fry must stay in very deep water. Have 
you noticed that peculiarity in other places, vir., that the 
little salmon and steelheads are rarely seen? I believe 
that since we have had salmon at Tuxedo, some six years 
now, not more than ten fish have been taken under half 
a' pound in weight." 
I do ilot know about the yOung steelheads from per- 
sonal knowledge, for I do not know of any being taken 
from or seen in the waters where I have planted them. 
I sent some to Long Island, and Mr. Edward Thompson, 
who was then SlielKish Commissioner, told me that at 
two years they rose eagerly to the fly. As to the land- 
locked salmon, for this is the fish Mr. Kent refers to, 
it was said in New Hampshire that when they were 
planted in new waters it wa;s rare to take one under 5 
pounds in weight, and this I found to be the general 
belief on Lake Sunapee, in that State. The salmon were 
first planted in Lake George, in the State of New York, 
in 1894, and three years later the first one was taken and 
weighed 6 pounds. The first one was taken in Lake 
Champlain three years after the first plant of the species 
was made, and it also weighed 6 pounds. Since that 
vear (1897) a considerable number have been taken from 
'both lakes and I have failed to hear of a single fish 
weighing less than 5 pounds. But one swallow does not 
make a summer, and what may be true of Sunapee, 
Tuxedo, Champlain and Lake George may not be true 
of other waters, and yet it may help to form an opinion 
regarding the salmon, its growth and first appearance pn 
the hook that will stand until disproven by further 
evidence, and that to the contrary. Certainly no higher 
praise can be awarded to the steelhead as a game fish 
than is cpntairied iji Mr. Kent's letter that I have quoted. 
A. N. Cheney. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
Picketet. 
Chicago, 111., Sept. 21.— Mr. H. R. Reed. Western , 
representative of the American Review - of Reviews, is 
just back from a fishing trip to Otter Lake, Minn., with, 
his brother-in-law, Mr. L. S'. Coe. They iKid rattling 
fun with the pickerel of that little water, taking some 
60 pounds daily, with spoon and frog bait. Mr. Reed is 
just branching out into the angling industrj^ and is tak- 
ing very kindly to it. He and Mr. Coe are enthusiastic 
over pickerel fishing and are now in a fair way to go 
after bass pretty soon. 
Trout. 
Mr. B. L. Taylor, of the Chicago Journal, who was 
mentioned as going up to the north shore country of 
L-ake Superior last July, was in at the Forest AND 
Stream office this week, looking for another tip, and I 
have sent him up to Fox Lake, Wis., where I send al- 
most all the broken down Chicago newspaper men whose 
health needs a change. Mr. Taylor says that he had 
splendid sport up in the Superior region. He camped 
about fifteen miles from Grand Marais, and fished waters 
of which he never heard before — rivers with canons and 
waterfalls to them, and above all rivers with plenty of 
2-pound trout to them. He took all the fish he wanted 
and says the country is an ideal one for camping out. 
He has tried the Isle Royale fishing and thinks that for 
trout a Western man really must go to the Superior 
country. Lie looks very well aftei; his trip, but declares 
he is in need of another. We all know how that is. 
Illinois Fish Commission on Seines. 
President Nat, H. Cohen, of the Illinois State Fish 
Commission, sends to this office an article which he re- 
cently had printed in a Peoria paper, replying to cer- 
tain strictures upon the work of the Commission. He 
puts the matter succinctly enough from the point of the 
Commission, and no doiibt the food work m.ust always 
take absolute precedence over the game fish propagation. 
But as to those carp — well, the sportsmen of this State 
are not yet quite ready to forgive and forget. Mr. Cohen 
goes on to say in his new.spaper article ; 
Urbana, 111., Sept- S.— A recent article m the Star published al 
Peoria, til., in respect to fishing in the streams ot the State, and 
especially. in the Illinois River, brings so palpable an indictment 
against the Illinois Fi-sh Commission and against tiie laws for the 
protection of fish, and so grossly misrepresents the situation ol 
an important industry of the State, that an authoritative reply 
seems fairly demanded in behalf of the interests of the people. 
As introductory to what I have to say, I quote the following 
from the article in question: "The time has come when the State 
of Illinois ought to prohibit all seining in the waters of its rivers 
and lakes. If it does not adopt this measure it will soon have no 
fish to take with hook or line. The time was when the Ohio was 
filled with fish, but seizing having been permitted that rivet is now 
denuded and there is no fish to be taken." 
This sounds well enough to the ear of the uninformed, but it is 
wholly erroneous. The fact is tlie Ohio River never was a fish 
propagating stream because its current is too rapid to favor 
spawning. Originally its stock of fish was replenished from the 
spawning in the trubutary streams, but in later vears the sewage 
from the cities along its hanks has practically ruined- the Ohio 
as a stream, for game hsh. This, and not seining, accounts for the 
present conditions in that stream. 
In regard to the Illinois, it may be said that it is in Tact the 
greatest propagating river- in the country, and this for several 
reasons; First, it has .an average of say not. to exceed one-half 
inch of fall to the mile for a total distance of 200 miles— probably 
more now- since the accession of the great volume of water from 
the Chicago drainage canal, but still an unusually small fall. 
Before the draina.ffe canal water was admitted, however, the 
Illinois always has had immense overflows, which spread out over 
thousands of acres, and which give the fish from ninety days to 
four months for spawning undisturbed before the waters again 
recgdc within the banks of the stream. The drainage canal has 
added 4 to 6 feet to the average stage of water in the river, and 
a greater spawning area than ever, and it is therefore proportionately 
a better fish spawning stream. I think I may safely say that now, 
with an absolutely closed season against hooksjand lines, seines 
Sn4 <»n dttier devices, coveritiRr tfie brief periocl frotn April 15 to 
July 1 each year, the lUirtois and its tribtitaries would have im- 
mensely more fish than they ever had. . . 
But this is all the protection required. Seining under existmg 
regulations for the rest of the year would not only do no harm, 
but would be necessary; and here are the reasons: tighty per 
cent, of all the fish in the Illinois River are kinds that cannot be 
taken with hook and line. They do not take Ihe hook. They must 
be taken with nets, and cannot be taken otherwise. If semmg were 
not allowed these coarse fishes— the buffalo, carp and a few others 
which propagate with enormous rapidity— would soon become so 
numerous ths^t the stream would be kept constantly muddy, and 
the game fishes, in which anglers are most mterested, would be 
obliged to abandon it. Game fishes will not habitually mhabit 
muddy water. Thus the proposed prohibition of seining would 
ultimately not only ruin the sportsmen's interests in the Illinois, 
but it would greatly damage those who depend on the coarse food 
fishes for the larger part of their subsistence. 
But a.s I have already suggested, these coarse food fishes con- 
stitute by far the larger part of the fish in the Illinois River and 
taken therefrom. In the report of the Illinois Fisherman's As- 
sociation for the vear 1899 it is shown that of 11,205,516 pounds of 
fish taken at twenty different points on the river in that year 
9 476,144 pounds were of carp and buffalo, which must have been 
taken with seine. As these figures apply to or are derived from the 
work done at onlv twenty points it seems reasonable to say that 
they cannot represent more than half the annual fish catch of the 
river at the most. The black bass is really the game fish of the 
Illinois; but in the year covered in the report just me^ntioned 
only 70,221, pounds of .them were taken, as against the 9,4ft,m 
pounds of these coarse food fishes, really the poor man s hsh, which 
cannot be taken except with nets. Yet we are gravely told that 
.seining in' the Illinois and its tributaries ought to be prohibited. 
Such a regulation would practically destroy the employment on 
which 5,000 to 10,000 people between La Salle and Orafton depend 
for livelihood, and the shipments from whose catch bring into the 
State from $750,000 to $1,000,000 in money every year. It can very 
safely be assumed that Illinois will not take any such foolish and 
unjust step. -h j- a: 
But the Peoria paper referred to says the seines have killed ott 
the pickerel and wall-eycd salmon" in Illinois, The statement is 
not justified.. To , begin with, these fishes are migratory- .Two 
dams on the lower river— those at La Grange and CampsviUe-- 
prevent them from coming up stream annually to propagate, and 
the pollution of the water has killed off the sujpply in the stream 
above, and this explains the scarcity of these fishes on the parts 
of the river above mentioned. , . 
The Star article very confidently assiires us that an acre of water 
properly cared for will produce more food than 160 acres of corn. 
Evidently that depends on many circumstances. There cannot 
be any truth in it unless the reference is to an acre of water artir 
ficially furnished with fish and food for them. Even then of course 
it would require high skill surely to make this acre compete with 
ICO acres of corn, which in my county this year, at current 
prices, will yield about $3,200 worth of human food. But we are 
dealing with natural, not artificial; conditions, and in the natural 
conditions you may find fifty acres of water where there are no 
fish, simply because there is no fish food, and then an acre where 
fish are abundant because fish food is abundant. What the law, and 
the Fish Commission in the execution of it, undertake to do is to 
preserve these natural conditions as perfectly as consistent with 
the convenience of civilized men and their ever increasmg in- 
dustrial enterprises. To undertake more would be folly. 
An argument thus shown to be faulty in its general premises 
is not entitled to much consideration in the portions in which it 
passes criticism upon the Fish Commissioners as a body. The 
Commissioners serve without pay. They give much time, a good 
deal of experience, together with the best abilities they have, to 
the discharge of the duties imposed upon them, and do it for 
love of the work and for the advantage of the public. In the dis- 
tribution of fish alone they have added immensely to the working 
facilities of large numbers of poor people who take the living 
of themselves and their families from the waters of the State. The 
Commissioners cannot hope to secure the complete enforcement 
of the law. Many of the obstacles in the way are utterly incom- 
prehensible to anv one not experimentally familiar witli them. 
They cannot justly be held responsible for the failures of the 
fish wardens. These officers are appointed almost uniformly on the 
recommendation of local people, and they receive their appoint- 
ments on the well grounded belief that they will make efficient 
men for the place thev are asked to fill. The Commission insist.s 
( n the obedience to the law as it is, and hopes the next Legisla- 
ture may see fit to so amend it as to provide a close season ex- 
tending from April 15 to July 1 of each year, a step which I think 
I have already shown would immensely multiply the fish supply 
,n the waters -of the State. ^ ^^^^^^ 
President Illinois Fish Commission, 
The Park Again. 
Col. J. S. Cooper, whom I name to be a sportsman 
second to none in the West on his record of unselfish 
labor for a common good to sportsmanship and to hu- 
manity in connection with the proposed national park 
in upper Minnesota, is at this writing still absent in 
Minnesota, where he went the first week of September 
for an outing in his beloved pine woods. Col. Cooper 
is by no means done with his fight with the Minnesota 
lumbermen over this park project, and it is by no means 
a foregone cohclusion that he will lose his fight. Jt -viH 
be remembered that this measure has passed the Senate 
and that the committee stands appointed there. It ha.s 
never been turned down by the House, but only denied 
debate, because it was feared to be too strong to turn 
down. It will go very hard indeed if Speaker Hender- 
sdn shall not see it expedient to allow this measure to 
coine up sometime during this coming season, and 
when he does it is well nigh sure that the mea.sure will 
pass in the House, as it did in the Senate. If is to be 
hoped that this will be the case, not only on account ol 
the actual public benefit thai will result, but on accoiinl: 
of the principle of the thing. The sportsmen of .-Vmerica 
have fought an uphill fight. They have met nothing but 
discouragement. It would be a handsome case of poetic 
justice to see this blue-eyed old man, not so young as 
he once was, but just as vigorous and hopeful, succeed 
in what is really the dearest object of his ambition. 
Mr. Jos. Irwin, of Little Rock, Ark., writes: ".A.m just 
returning from mv White River. Colo., country trip of 
eighteen days. We enjoyed good sport, both shooting 
and fishing. Had all the venison, trout and grouse we 
could use in camp. The trout were much larger than 
those taken in the earlier season last year. I think vy 
buck much larger than that killed by Gov. Tanner." 
A Forest Fire in ^he Rockies, 
Does any one who has not seen such a thing know 
what a forest fire may mean? No; it is something which 
does not compose in cold type. Yet here is a descrip- 
tion of such a fire, which f find in the intitial num_ber 
" of the Rocky Mountain Magazine, of Helena, Mont.,' 
over the signature of my old friend and college com- 
panion, Arthur J. Craven, now a successful attorney at 
Helena. Mr. Craven took a trip over into the Rose- 
bud country after trout and there he met that grand old 
man of the mountains. Uncle Bill Hamilton, of whom 
all Montana is justly proud. It is pleasing to know that 
Uncle Bill is still well and hearty, that he is as interest- 
ing as ever, as kindly and as much disposed as ever to 
draw in the sand his maps of the Montana that was once 
before the white man came, and which could not be 
altogether altered by his coming. Of Uncle Bill one 
could %vrite long and lovingly, for he is one of the few 
real old-timers who are sterling; but it is of the forest 
fire that we were to speak: 
"On tlie afternoon of our fifth day the lakf," says 
Mr. Craven, "something happened. Some campers, with 
their families, forded the channel the evening before and 
camped on the eastern shore of the lake a half mile from 
the cabin. About 2:30 in the afternoon these people 
became hungry. The morning catch of fish was in camp, 
but had to be cooked before eaten. A strong wind was 
blowing from the southwest. Their former camp-fire had 
bared a safe place in the center of the little park where 
they had pitched their tent, but it was windy there. So 
they struck a match and started a fire close to the small 
pines on the south edge of this park, so the smoke would 
not blow in their eyes. But the smoke did blow in their 
eyes, and this tiny flame, thus ignited from the match, 
with which to heat the bottom of a frying pan, conspiretl 
with the winds to burn up the world. This tiny flame, 
dancing on the end of a sulphur match, like an imp from 
Hades, scorned the menial service of a pot boiler; reached 
up its yellow arms into the thick, resinous foliage of the 
young pine, ran the height of the taller tree in a trice, 
leaped like a squirrel out upon the emerald floor of the 
ballroom inlaid vvith the tree tops of the , adjoining 
grove and there waltzed in rollicking measure with 
Zephyrus, with whom it is said there has existed a dan- 
gerous flirtation ever since Prometheus brought down his 
ardent, red-headed goblin from the heavens. 
"The flames crept up the , mountain, and were there 
caught by the full force of the gale and soon devel- 
oped into a general cofiflagratiofl, in which height and 
depth were covered with red surges that raced and roared 
like a tornado. Frequently the fagots would be hurried 
by the wind, like a skirmish line, several hundred yards 
ahead of the general advance of flame, which, on strik- 
ing a forest, especially of the same general height, would 
sweep from the lake shore to the highest summits with 
the roar of an explosion, and there leaping and lashing 
into the sky would disappear over the mountain. 
"Uncle Bill was with us at the cabin when the fire 
began, but made a quick half mile to the scene of the 
trouble on little Snow Ball, the veteran racer among the 
cowboys, and soon summoned all hands not needed to 
protect the cabin and our camp. 
"A few minutes showed the utter futility of any furthex, 
endeavor to extinguish the fire, and we then lined tip 
along the edge of the grass land, determined if pti^siblb 
to save the meadow to the north and east of the 'Cabin. 
By this time the entire range to the east was a 'billoW of 
flame. The squirrels and grouse, losing all' fear of man, 
came rushing by us into the meadow, while the deer 
among the ferns of the gulches far to the northeast in- 
stinctively recognized the heralds on the wind and 
broke into flight. And none too soon, for up those 
gulches the flames burst with the thunder of the ocean 
and licked their summits miles away, with a crashing: 
uproar positively appalling. 
"We walked lionie in the evening across the meadow 
in the weird, uncanny glamor which well became thi.s 
criminal desecration of nature, and listened, on the 
way, to some very choice philosophy from Uncle Bill- 
This man has lived among the mountain solitudes long 
cnou.gh to be gifted with the quality of mdividuality — a 
rare possession, which, unfortunately, is now nearly 
extinct. His rugged common sense sticks out of his 
speech like the ledges of rock on a moiintain side. 'Some 
people,' said he, 'need evoluting for a thousand years be- 
fore they would have enough sense to go to a kinder- 
garten' — a proposition which is here respectfully referred 
to the many perplexed students -tji ^Qciological and polit- 
ical problems. 
'Tt should here be recorded that a Federal Grand Jury 
at Helena found that no one was to blame. No blame 
on the part of anybody for the damage to the ranch- 
men below, no blame for the alarm signaled that night 
from the mountain tops to the cattlemen fifty miles away 
on the Yellowstone, who fought the fire off the ranges 
night and day for a fortnight; no blame for the destruc- 
tion of thousands of dollars of machinery belonging to 
the prospectors; no blame for burning up millions of 
feet of lumber; no blame whatever for the desecration of 
this fair region, which nature upHfted and mantled in 
grandeur and splendor for the inspiration of the earth- 
worn and the weary! 
"No; a Federal Grand Jury effected a permanent or- 
ganization by placing a cuspidor iti the center of the 
room, equidistant from the chair ot each distingtwshed 
member, and proceeded with the regular order of busi- 
ness of dispatching the Marshal for a few mangy Indians 
who had got a little cheer into a dreary life out of a bot- 
tle on the reservation; and then, after purifying the mails 
and rescuing the timber lands on the public domain 
from the piratical depredations of a few homesteaders 
intent upon a little fire.-wood and a iew fence posts, they 
indulged in low comedy in masquerade. They took up 
this case and concluded no one was to blame. One mem- 
ber suggested that it was the fault of the wind; another 
that the campers were not to blame for getting hungry; 
while a third, wiser than the rest, blamed it on the fish — 
no fish, no fire. Until finally a very wise old sage, learned 
in the lavv, who was once a justice of the peace, on a car- 
penter's bench in Indiana, summed up the case and log- 
ically relegated wind, fish and hunger back to the .Al- 
mighty as the causa proxima, and so they declared it was 
the 'act of God' and found an indictment against Provi- 
dence." 
E. Hough, 
Hartford Boildinc, Chicago, 111. 
Keuka Lake. 
Catawba, N. V.— I send you a photo of a catch of 
Great Lake troufc or togue, caught by two anglers just 
ofif this hotel, a fcAV days since. Will Dart was their 
guide. This picture speaks for the fishing at the present 
time without any comment, I would advise any anglers 
coming here for lake trout to bring half a dozen small 
Archer spinners, as bait is the thing they are taking at 
the present time. A great improvement in the mode of 
angling has taken place in Keuka during the last couple 
of years. Instead of lines thick enough to hang' clothes 
oti, the anglers are using enameled lines with g-foot single- 
gut leaders, so that with this light rig it requires some 
skill to bring a lo-pound trout to the gaff. I saw at least 
a dozen taken this morning off the bluff that wottld 
scale from 7 to lo pounds, James Church vtAjRio, 
