10 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
justice and had him fined. Soon after this he received a 
letter from a prominent citizen of Suffolk county, who 
spends his winters at Garden City, which reads as follows : 
Center Moriches, L. I. — John E. Overton, Esq. Dear 
Sir — In the name of every lover of birds I want to thank 
you for your action in bringing the party at Eastport to 
book for shooting the eagle. You are the first game pro- 
tector we have had who protected anything, so far as I 
know. 
Birds of that nature are rare, and a beautiful sight to 
any one who may see them, and their destruction is a piece 
of wanton and utter selfishness. You are entitled to the 
thanks of the community. 
Yours gratefully, 
NicoLL Floyd. 
Game Protector Overton is, as Mr. Floyd observes, en- 
titled to the thanks of the community, but to more than 
their thanks. He is entitled to their hearty support and 
assistance, and every one interested in the protection of 
birds and mammals and in the carrying out of laws gov- 
erning these matters should be willing and glad to give 
Mr, Overton all the help that he can in punishing law- 
breakers and awakening a better game protective senti- 
ment in the community. 
Ossining: Gun Qttb» 
Sing Sing, N. Y., Dec. 21. — Editor Forest and Stream. ^ 
It will be of interest to your readers to know that a step 
has been taken in this locality — even if in a small way — 
toward the protection of Westchester county game. We 
have organized the Ossining Gun Club, and now have a 
membership of sixty-seven, which is pretty good for a 
prison-ridden town of this sort. This "prison-ridden" 
is used advisedly. The New York press can't rub it in 
much longer, hoAvever, for a mass meeting of good citizens 
here last week forever separated this fair little burg from 
its 2,000 unwelcome neighbors "in durance vile. We 
will be soon known as Ossining-on-Hudson. What I 
started to say wasj We have co-operated with the 
farmers in the vicinity to the extent of 2,000 acres, we 
posting the lands and they keeping all but club members 
off. This property in years gone by has been the best 
game land in the county. We propose to restock it with 
quail and shut down on all shooting for three years. At 
the end of that time, if the system works all right, we 
will have first-class shooting. Just pass that Plank of 
yours about selling game and a lot of these lazy old pot- 
shooters in this vicinity will hang up their muskets and 
work their 'tater patches. All through the game season the 
meat stores here are stocked with partridges, quail and 
woodcock. Chas. G. Blandford. 
Notice. 
All conimunications intended for Forest and Streau should 
always be addressed to the Forest and Stream Publishing Co., ftnd 
not to any individual connected with the paper. 
Proprietors of fishing resorts will find it profitable to advertise 
them xn Forest and Stream. 
ANGLING NOTES. 
spawning of Landlocked Salmoiu 
This evening a trainman on the Delaware & Hudson 
R. R. between Albany and Lake George told me that 
on Dec. 6 he saw five fish in Lake George in the shallow 
water 20 feet fi-om the shore in front of the Fort William 
Henry Hotel. His story, in brief, was that the fish were 
on light colored gravel, they were in size what he would 
estimate to be 5 or 6 pounds each, and from his descrip- 
tion of their movements they were spawning fish, and the 
light colored gravel was a spawning bed which tliey had 
prepared. The fish were silveiy in appearance, and he 
concluded that they were lake trout. His attention was 
called to the fish by another man, who, in walking along 
a path in front of the hotel somewhat elevated above the 
water, had noticed the light spot in the water and investi- 
gated, to find it as described above — a spawning bed. My 
own conclusions are that it was the spawning bed of 
landlocked salmon and not . of lake trout, and for this 
reason: E. L. Marks, an experienced man, has been 
employed this fall by the Forest, Fish and Game Commis- 
sion to investigate the spawning of lake trout in this 
lake. He netted the lake from its head to a distance 
fifteen miles down toward its outlet, and remained until 
the lake trout were through spawning, and left about the 
middle of November. , All the lake trout were found 
spawning on rocky ledges or shoals where it was almost 
impossible to work even a gill net and not destroy it 
from being hung up in the large boulders. Landlocked 
salmon have been planted for six years in a stream en- 
tering the lake very near to the place where the five fish 
were seen on Dec. 6, and it is more than likely that the 
five fish were salmon that could not put into the brook, 
and so prepared a bed near its mouth in the lake itself. 
While it is late for salmon to be spawning, all fish have 
been late in spawning this fall — whitefish, brook trout, 
brown trout and lake trout. Lake trout spawn at night, 
and do not spawn in such places as these fish were seen, 
and landlocked salmon do. Last year the salmon were 
seen in the brook at spawning time, and it is probable that 
they were there again this year, but the five fish were, I 
think, the OArerflow from the brook for some reason, and 
salmon, instead of lake trout, as the trainman supposed. 
For a number of years I hesitated about planting land- 
locked salmon in Lake George for the reason that the 
inlet streams are so small that big salmon cannot get into 
them to spawn, as a rule, in the fall, and it w^s only when 
I found at Sunapee Lake, New Hampshirej ihp same 
conditions existing, and that they had been QyefCQirjg: jby 
netting the fish at ^ the mputh of one of thp strej^nis fjfff-] 
perming them ujitll the spjiwp was taken, tfraf; I ' ra^% 
application ta ths United States fish Commisiion M 
Fish Ponds, 
The following letter is a sample, and a fair sample, of 
letters that I receive every little while. It is dated at .■ 
Union Stock Yards, New York city, and reads: "I am 
the owner of property on Long Island and have a pond 
thereon where I would like to raise fish. Will you advise 
me where I can obtain the same, or if I can purchase them 
of the State, as I shall be more than satisfied to pay for 
them." 
The kind of fish is not mentioned, and plain "fish" is such 
a broad term that I cannot even guess the kind of fish 
desired for the pond. Of course, the State does not, can- 
not, sell fish. While I am always very glad to advise any 
one so far as I can about stocking waters with fish, I must 
know the kind of fish and something about the character 
of the water before I can even try to give advice. 
From the fact that the pond is on Long Island I might 
assume that the fish desired were trout, but I find from 
reading a great many letters in the course of a year that a 
man who is not familiar with species is quite apt to divide 
all fishes into two classes — trout and fish. The average 
man not particularly versed in fishes will say trout if he 
means trout, and all other fishes are plain "fish." 
Private Parks, 
The section of the fish and game law which provides 
for the laying out of private parks for the propagation and 
protection of fish, game and birds reads in pjart as fol- 
lows: "Waters stocked with fish by the S:ate at any 
time after April 17, 1896, shall not be laid out in any such 
park. If waters in any such park are hereafter stocked 
by the State with the consent of the owners, the provisions 
of this article shall no longer apply thereto." 
Last year some gentlemen in the Adirondacks made 
application to the Forest, Fish and Game Commission 
for fish to be planted in what they declared in the applica- 
tion to be public waters. The fish were furnished and 
planted. 
A few days ago the same gentlemen wrote to the Com- 
mission stating the number of fish that they had received 
and planted, and said that as they desired to include the 
lake in a private park they would like a bill for the fish 
and that they would remit the amount by return mail after 
they were informed of it. The Commission could only 
quote the law and inform the gentlemen that no bill 
could be sent, as the State was not permitted to sell trout 
or any other fish that were reared at the expense of 
the State, and there the matter rests for the pr.esent. 
North American Association, 
Mr. Chas. H. Wilson, one of the committee of the. 
North American Association for the Protection of Fish 
and Game, called to see tne, and from him I learn that 
several clubs in northern New York and elsewhere are 
taking an active interest in the coming meeting of the 
Association, and have made suggestions regarding a 
uniform law in the territory contiguous to the border 
line. I have made but one suggestion to Mr. Wilson, and 
it is one that I expect will meet with opposition when it 
is presented in convention, if not in committee. It is that 
the St. Lawrence River shou'ld have a black bass law 
operative in American and Canadian waters that will pro- 
tect black bass until July i of each year. If the "game 
fish of the people," as the black bass has been called, is to 
prolong its existence as such for generations to come, it 
must have the protection of the law during the breeding 
season and during the time the parent bass are guarding 
their young. It is my belief that the opposition to ex- 
tending the close season to include the entire month of 
June instead of nine days or fifteen days, as the case may 
be, comes almost entirely from hotel keepers and not 
from sportsmen. 
At a luncheon given to the New York Fish Commis- 
sioners and delegates from several St. Lawrence River 
towns by Mr. Boldt at his cottage on one of the islands 
in the St. Lawrence, it was frankly admitted that the law 
was made to open June 10 to accommodate visiting 
anglers. The luncheon was given, as I now recall the 
date, June 19. Anyway, several days had passed since 
the season had opened, and during the discussion the 
president of the Anglers' Association said that bass he 
had taken that day had not spawned. One or two nights 
before I examined a number of black bass exhibited to 
the Commissioners, and the females were apparently not 
within two weeks of spawning. The black bass, perhaps 
more than any of the so-called game fishes, requires pro- 
tection during the spawning season because it cannot be 
handled and its eggs taken as the eggs of trout and other 
fish are taken. The black bass is the only one of the 
game fish that broods or watches over its young for a 
time after they are hatched. The sunfish and bullhead 
watches over its young, but they are not with the elect 
when game fishes are considered. 
New York State no longer distributes black bass, be- 
cause the law does not protect them (there are some shal- 
low waters where the black bass, either the large or small 
mouth, may spawn before June 15, and I mention this so 
I will not have to be reminded of it), and it is certainly 
unjust to take them from one lake where the sentiment is 
such that the fish abound and plant them in other waters 
where the sentiment and practice has reduced their num- 
bers to that degree that restocking is necessary. 
The moment a bill is introduced to extend the close 
season, those who are interested in some particular pond, 
where, perhaps, the water warms early and the bass spawn 
early, at once opposes it because of that pond. The great- 
est score of black bass I ever knew of in Eastern waters 
fly-fishing was made as the bass were coming on to the 
shoals to spawn, and it was made by a Fish Commissioner 
of one of the Eastern States, and made in the open season, 
of course, though the law is now changed. The greatest 
good to the greatest number demands a black bass law 
which does not open until July i. A. N. Chekey. 
close to the bank under the bushes, following the caperers 
hovering and darting about backward and forward in 
short flights just over the surface, and every now and 
then a trout would leap out at them. But our American 
friends tell stories of trout which come up out of the 
water with a graceful curve and snap a fly off the sur- 
face as they go in again. I confess I never believed thisr 
but from my experience last autumn on the little sheet of 
water at Broadwater, near Worthing, I am half -incliiied"'^ 
to believe that rainbows at times do something- very;'', 
like it. The water— a shallow artificial pond of an acre 
or J;wo— is crystal clear spi'ing water, and every dayr 
in September, about sundown, there was a big rise of the ' 
Little Marryat, a wee light buff colored dun. When this' 
came on the rainbows were leaping all over the surface. I ■ 
had to cast a long line, as the fish saw one so easily, but I 
could see my little oiled fly floating easily enough; and on 
several occasions it seemed to me that one of the jumping 
fish came down on it and when I struck I found I had 
hooked a rainbow fairly in the mouth. Convinced I am 
not, for I cannot suppose a fish sees as clearly out of 
water as it does in it; but I am not so skeptical as I was, 
all the same.— R. B, Marston in London Fishing Gazette.' 
An Industrious Fisherman* 
Silencer, Dec. 4.— Julius C. Butler, night watchman 
at the Boston & Albany freight yard in Spencer, has a 
fish story to tell that he believes will make all others 
that have appeared in many months go to cover. Mr. 
Butler is an enthusiastic fisherman, and after he gets 
the sleep necessary every day, takes his rod and line and 
goes to some resort where experience has taught him 
fish flourish. He is out in all seasons of the year suita- 
ble for fishing, and says he wants to stake his season's 
record against the best. 
As in all other things, Mr. Butler is methodical in his 
fishing habits, and after each trip marks down the hum- > 
ber caught and the kind. He has kept liis report of his 
fishing excursions since April 21, and last night showed 
the tables to a reporter for the Telegram. As a general 
rule he chooses Podunk Pond, in Brookfield, for his- 
fishing grounds because, he says, he has found that day 
in and day out it is the best location for miles around in 
this vicinity. 
On April 21, Mr. Butler was at Podunk and brought 
home as the result of the day's fishing 18 perch and a 
djice, On April 29 he was out again and this tinie the 
' ca:tch was 29 perch and 7 pickerel. On May 3 he got 34 
perch, 5 pickerel and a pout, and two' days later the string 
was made up of 35 perch and iS' pickerel. ■ On the'iotfi 
he got 20 perch and 9 pickerel, and oh' the 12th 50 percTi ' 
and 2 pickerel. May 17, the number was 20 perch, 15 
pickerel and 15 pout; and on the 24111' it was perch. 
4 pickerel and 2 white perch. He began fishing for the 
month of June on the second day and had big luck, " 
getting 27 perch, 13 pickerel, 5 White perch and '8' pput. 
June 7 he got 26 perch, 14 pickerel and- i poiit,' atid a 
week later had the smallest day of the season, with a ' 
perch and a pickerel to show, but on that day it -'rained 
so hard he had to give up the sport, . : > ' 7- r 
Good Luck returned in two days, when h'e' cajJtur^d '^'6 ■ 
perch, 16 pickerel and il white perch. June 21 his tMith ' 
■ was 21 perch, 12 white perch and a pout. For June 28 ' 
^he had 7 perch, 18 pickerel and 21 white perch when^the 
quit for the day. July 6 was another small day, Juck 
only calling up 6 perch and 10 white perch. Things were 
better on July 10, with 46 perch and 2 dace, and the 17th : 
brought in 39' perch and a pickerel. His next outing:" 
netted only 13 perch and on the last day of the month 
he went out for better luck and got a meal bag full' o5 
pout, in number over 400. ; 
In August Mr. Butler did his first fishing oil the 8th,- 
and had 57 perch and a dace for the trip. He kept away 
from the pond a week then and wlien he went at it again 
got one of his best messes of fish. He captured it i. 
white perch. On the 27th he got 157 perch, and on Sept. 
3, 120 perch and a pickerel. He did not go but again till 
the 20th, when he got 186 perch and a pickerel, and a 
few days after got 91 perch, 2 bass and a pair of pickerel. ^ 
During the month of October he went out for fish six" 
times, and on the first day got 85 perch and 5 picl?erel. 
On the second trip of the month he caught 106 perch ■ 
and_ 4 pickerel, and on the third attempt, 134 perch and 
4 pickerel. For the rest of October his catches aggre- 
gated 339 perch and 6 pickerel. On Nov. 3 he caught 
72 perch and an even dozen of pickerel, and on Nov. 7. 
29 perch. - - 
Mr. Butler figures his total eatch as close to a.'Sod.-ah'i 
the average catch for a trip as 80 fish. He does not 
believe there are any fishermen in the county who can 
better this for home pond fishing, and if he is mistaken, 
he says he would like to know. " ■ . . = ^ 
[The instruction to be drawn from -this rpco'fd of' in- 
dustry appears to be that there's mighty little chance in ■ 
those parts for fishing folks who have to work by day.].' 
Ttou^^Aad Fly, 
Do troUft ever jump out of the water in 
flv on the surface when they come down 
never seen an English tpout do it, though I 
on the Avon, below Amesbuty. jump 6 pr 
the water at flies, In the \m$ etretch 
f){e ml}! I hn ^fi^ f f|tgf»?«l the 
order to take ^ 
again? I have 
have seen them 
8 inebes out of 
dead WHtei' be^ 
Wanton Trottt Killingf, 
Editor Forest wnd Stream: ' 
The following article appeared in the New York Sun- 
day Tribune, Dec. 23, 1900: 
"The members of the United States Geological Survey 
party, who recently went over the Lewis and Clarke tim- 
ber lands in Montana, found time to do some hunting and 
fishing. At one point, on the south fork of the Flathead 
River, about one hundred miles north of Helena, Sartell 
Prentice, who is a clerk in the office of the General Su- 
perintendent of the New York Central Railroad, and R. 
H. Chapman, of Washington, stopped to cast for trouL 
and caught sixty-eight fine specimens in two hours, some 
of them weighing more than 3 pounds. 'We were just a 
little too far from home,' said Mr. Prentice^ 'to send the 
fish to friends, but did the next best thing, made a picture 
of what was left, after the cooks had finished their work. 
p.nd sent the pictures on tp show th?tt there's pretty good- 
fishing in Montana.' " ; • . . . 
The abovp article is accompanied by - a photograph, 
.showing a long string of trout, about fifty in number, 
banging frpfn ^ Hri«, with ft t^llt aiTtl wpr4s in fhe back- 
ground, ' ' • ;. , . . 
Even withottt the ffank Qummion cmulnm in the last 
