FtEB. 3$, I901.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
147 
March I to Aug. 31, both inclusive. Similar measures 
, have been introduced in previous Legislatures, but have 
failed of passage. Many States have passed laws prohibit- 
ing "spring shooting," and it is high time that such a blot 
upon our fairly good game laws be stricken out. The 
Forest, Fish and Game Commission recommend that 
spring duck shooting be forbidden. The present law 
allows the shooting of wildfowl up to April 30. This 
covers a period of time when they are breeding and 
should be unmolested. It is earnestly believed that if 
these birds are better protected they would make the 
different sections of the State habitual breeding grounds 
and multiply very fast. 
Bill No. 354 provides for a new section to the game 
laws by prohibiting the sale of woodcock, grouse and quail 
throughout the State. These birds are disappearing very 
rapidly, and unless some stringent law is passed stopping 
their wholesale slaughter it is only a question of a very 
short time before they will be entirely exterminated. It 
is believed if the shooting for market is stopped it will 
have a great tendency to increase the number of the birds. 
Bill No. 355 provides for an appropriation for fishways 
in the Oswego and Seneca rivers. The construction of 
such fishways would soon add vastly to the supply of food 
and game fish in the lakes and rivers of central New 
York, as their construction would enable the fish to 
return to their natural spawning beds. 
Bill No. 357 relates to the pollution of streams. On 
page 6 of the la.st annual report of the Forest, Fish and 
Game Commission to the Legislature is found the fol- 
lowing in reference to the subject matter of the above 
bill : "Above all we would especially call 3'our attention 
to the difficulty of enforcing the law in regard to the 
pollution of streams. This is a matter of -vHital importance 
and not to be dismissed as affecting only the lives of 
some fishes, the pleasures of some anglers or the dividends 
of some pulp mills. We are a water drinking people, and 
we are allowing every brook to be defiled. Nature pro- 
vides that they should be kept pure by animals feeding on 
the dead matters which fall into them, but the chemicals 
with which they are polluted can destroy all forms of life, 
so that every beast which dies in the mountains will soon 
roll down into our reservoirs, pickled in acids which no 
fish or bacteria can touch and live. It is not necessary 
to destroy or hamper any industry in order to prevent 
the pollution of water courses. What is really needed is 
to check the criminal selfishness of those who would 
rather poison their fellow citizens with their offal than to 
spend s few dollars to take care of it" 
Belieying these bills to be meritorious and worthy of 
legislative enactment, we earnestly urge uopn each club 
and organization of the State League to at once interest 
Senators and members of the Legislature representing 
■ the different localities to support and work for the pas- 
sage of the League bills or similar measures that may be 
pending before their respective houses, to the end that we 
may have better fish and game protection in the future 
than in the past. 
Dated, Feb. 9, 1901. j" 
C. B. Lapham, Chairman, 
Canandaigua, N. Y. 
i W. S. MacGregor, New York. 1 
, . . , W. S. Gavitt, Lyons. : | 
Charles H. Mowrey, Syracuse. ^ 
'^^ Robert B. Lawrence, New York, 
if • Law Committee. 
Spfingf Shooting"* 
East Quogue, Long Island, N. 11' — Editor Forest and 
Stream: In your issue of Feb. 16 I notice an editorial ad- 
vocating the abolition of spring shooting. In it is said 
that the ducks are pursued by spring shooters and are 
driven north and do not remain in any numbers to nest in 
New York territory, but under other conditions, if given 
security, several species would tarry within the State and 
nest there. I wish to ask what the species this article refers 
\l to are, and what part of the State they would stay and 
[1 nest there. You say New York has extensive stretches 
of marsh lands adapted to become again the breeding 
I grounds of vast numbers of wildfowl. Where is this land 
F or marsh located, and what year or years have ducks or 
wildfowl bred in numbers in New York State? 
Again you say, A game law should be framed on the 
' principle of the greatest good to the greatest number. 
I Are the greatest good and the greatest number club men 
that go South and shoot all winter and as soon as the 
ducks leave or migrate to the North come back to New 
York State and cry "Stop spring shooting"? 
There is a law in New York State that stops the 
shooting of bay birds, or snipe, as we call them. Now, 
Mr. Editor, does the spring law stop the shooting of bay 
birds? It does not, and there are localities on Long 
Island where bay birds are shot just as much as they 
were before the spring law abolishing bay bird shooting 
was passed. It was stated when that law was made 
that snipe would breed in New York State and that there 
would be an increase of snipe. Where have, since the 
spring law was passed, any birds nested in New York 
Stale, and have they increased in numbers? 
What benefit will it be to New York to forbid spring 
shooting, when as soon as the fowl pass beyond our 
borders they are gunned? An Old Bay Man. 
On the Florida Gulf Coast, 
A CORRESPONDENT writcs from Panacea, Fla. : Running 
along for several miles in front of this hotel is Dixon's 
Bay, a beautiful little sheet of water, very shallow, land- 
locked from the gulf and alive with ducks and geese, and 
on evey windy day the shooting is fine. The fishing for 
redfish, trout and sheepshead is good. The quail shooting 
is fully equal to any in Florida, and the best part of it is 
that tlae accommodations are such that the ladies are 
made comfortable and do not have to be left at home. 
Those that are fond of fishing can have it to their hearts' 
content, or if more ambitious can follow the dogs or 
take to the bay for ducks. I am not going to mention 
the bags of game brought in. Twenty-five quail per gun 
is the limit by law per day; I regard it a good law. It is 
no trouble to make it here by driving a few miles to 
the large plantations. Yqw can hunt from the wagon if 
you like. I hunf ^fgot f r^Rl choice, as I i^sg the alLyound 
— ® — 
Notice. 
Ail comtnunicatiost intended for Fokxst akv Stxkau should 
alwaya be addressed to the Forest and Stream Publishing Co., and 
not to any Lndividual connected with the paper. 
Fishing Up and Down the Potomac. 
Little Huotiog Creek. 
This short little tidewater run is the upper boundary 
of the Mt. Vernon estate, and separates it from the River 
Farm, conveyed by Washington's will to George Fayette 
and Lawrence Augustine Washington, located, as de- 
scribed therein, as east of Little Hunting Creek, and on 
the Potomac River, including "360 acres leased to Tobias 
Lear," and containing in all 2,027 acres, to be equally 
divided between the two legatees. 
The run is of no great depth now, and at very low tide 
with a bateau one must have a care for the channel, to 
avoid grounding, but in the upper reaches are a few pools 
where bass are taken in the fall in considerable quantities. 
One may imagine, with an effort, the immortal George 
having a little boat house on the shore- and sometimes 
coming down here to while away an hour or two. If he 
had any amiable weakness for this recreation, historians 
have not made much of it; but then bass have only been 
planted here within the last decade; that is the big-rnouth 
liasE, which has so wonderfully thriven and multiplied 
in this Potomac estuary. The little-mouth bass, which 
has been plenty in the upper river since the early sixties, 
must have occasionally washed down here, but the muddy 
bottoms and sluggish currents were not congenial for 
them, as for their congeners more recently arrived, and 
they made no such record. 
It is doubtful if the stream was considerable enough, 
even in the olden days, to attract anything but the perches. 
While rockfish or striped bass no doubt came up the 
river from the sea, as they continued to do for a century 
later, and often of great size, open river bait fishing has 
been ever a monotonous business. The shad, and more 
especially the herring, were the river harvest then as 
now, and were of necessity taken with nets. The fishing 
shores were more valuable than at the present time, for 
they were the open markets for interior plantations 
where winter stocks of whitefish or shad and herrings 
or Potomac robins were laid in. 
It is probable the Colonial gentry seldom sought 
recreation with a rod and line. There was the less need, 
since a wilder country furnished more attractive out of 
door pursuits denied the modern _ urbanite. The fox 
chase and racing and cock fighting were commoner 
sports, with social features and excitement, fishing could 
never supply, and far more attractive to a scattered popu- 
lation, whose recreation, unlike that of the dwellers in 
cities, has for its first requisite the necessity to "get 
together." 
But while the father of his country probably was some- 
times guilty of fishing for sport, he never confesses as 
much, although his entries of September, 1770, sound 
suspiciously like it. 
In Captain Snowden's "Histroic Landmarks of Virginia 
and Marj'land," in a sketch on Broad Creek, Md., is 
found, "There Washington often went, as he tells us in 
his diary, with his friend and neighbor Diggs, of War- 
burton Manor, to throw his line for the finny denizens of 
the still waters," and quoting some extracts from the 
Diaryy (p. 61) appears: I773. May i. Went fishing in 
Broad Creek.. April 13, 1774, in company with Colonel 
Bassett, went fishing in Broad Creek." 
In trying to verify these extracts the only entries found 
for those dates in the diary read as follows: "May i, 
1773. Went to the different fishing landings on both 
sides of the river and found that few fish had been 
catched," and "April 13, 1774, roaed (rowed) to the dif- 
ferent fishing landings as high as Broad Creek." It is 
not impossible there may be other entries for the same 
dates, as sometimes happens, but no entry the writer has 
found tells of actually casting a line. In his Western tour 
of inspection of his lands beyond the mountains, made 
for the purpose of ousting the squatters, under date 
Sept. 22, 1784, he has the following, "Note — In my 
equipage trunk and the canteens were Madeira and port 
wine, cherry hoimce, Oyl, mustard, vinegar and spices of 
all sorts. Tea and sugar in the camp kettles (a whole 
loaf of white sugar broke up about seven pounds weight), 
the camp kettles are under a lock, as the canteens and 
trunks' also are. My fishing lines are in, the canteens." 
There stands his credentials for admission to the gentle 
craft. Of course, he uses canteen in the sense of an 
officer's chest. The other has tlone duty for bait, but 
never for tackle. 
But he did fish regularly, and in his voluminous diary, 
yet unpublished, are many records in quaintly spelled 
and recklessly capitalized language, of his observations 
on the wandering denizens of the river. In an effort to 
establish for him a reputation for charitable works, en- 
tirely superfluous, since his life was full of them, his 
eulogists are at some pains to tell of. his keeping a net 
and bateau, at some point on the shore, always in good 
order for the deserving poor, the widows and orphans, 
and when they were unable to draw it, of his sending 
slaves to assist in the operation. This is probably like 
the little hatchet story of Weems, whom Lodge in his 
history of Washington discusses in a most delicate 
manner. Lodge says, emphatically, that Weems "was 
not a cold-blooded liar," but that he was a "myth-maker," 
and as to certain of his familiar anecdotes, that there was 
not "a scintilla of evidence that they had any foundation." 
Weems seems to have made his great hits by taking cur- 
retit events and dating them back fifty years" to get them 
into Washington's childhood. The modern method is to 
take antique stories and date them forward to give them 
current interest. But we have Washington's own testi- 
mony that he run fish nets, and did it intelligently. He 
was ever a busy man, and much in public demand; in his 
diary he tells of scores of rides after the hounds, and as 
he heads each month in \ht later years with "Where, how 
and with whom my tiv(\ft is pent," we learn much of the 
poppany he kept. He ^feesj fc)3?f§, ^^mtk 11)?^} \wm 
them loose next day for another run; often loses theih; 
many times draws blanks; sometimes starts a deer, and 
even as late as 1772 starts a bear near Mt. Vernon. In 
March, 1768, he says, "Catchd a fox with a bobbd tail 
and cut ears, after seven hours chase, in which most of 
the dogs were worsted." In October, 1768, "Went into 
the Neck and up the Creek (Little Hunting) after Blew 
Wings," and he tells often of ducking. In December, 
1768, "Went a Pheasant hunting, carried Hounds and they 
stratcd and followed a Deer." If anybody else went 
pheasant hunting and carried Hounds it would be "food 
for laughter." He attended a purse race at Accotink, 
and the races at Manassas and Annapolis; he apparently 
never missed a chance to see a play, whether at night 
or matinee, and in that regard was much like that other 
famous diajist. Pepys. He attended balls when he could, 
and tells of one which in derision he called the Bread and. 
Butter Ball at Alexandria, because there were no other 
refreshments, and handkerchiefs did duty for napkins 
and table linen. The neighborhood organized a dancing 
class, and when it met at Mt. Vernon, all parties remained 
over night, and sometimes two or three days. In Sep- 
tember, 1773, "Went to a Barbicuc of my own giving at 
Accatinck," and there were others. 
Owning ten miles of river front with three fishing 
shores, it is not strange he should have been interested 
in the fishing, as his diary abundantly proves. 
This daily journal has never been printed, and is now 
in manuscript, bound in about forty volumes, in the Con- 
gressional Library; that is a verbatim transcript, with 
sixteen volumes annotated by Dr. Toner. 
The following extracts exhibit his methods of obser- 
vation and record, and show his interest and activity in 
the role of fisherman. Later he leased the shores or 
their catch, and had apparently no further responsibility, 
though he continues to make frequent visits to the various 
"fishing landings," 
"1760: 
Jan. 3. — Hauld the Sein and got some Fish, but was 
near being disappointed of my Boat by means of an 
Oyster Man, who had lain at my landing and plagud me 
a good deal by his disorderly behavior. 
April 4. — Apprehending the Herrings were come. 
Hauled the Sein, but catchd only a few of them, tho' a 
good many of other sorts. 
April 5. — Hauld the Sein again, catchd 2 or 3 White 
fish, more Herring than yesterday & a great number of 
Cats. 
1761: 
April 10. — Employed the hands in making two or three 
hauls of the Sein & found that the Herring had come. 
April II. — Abt. II Oclock set the People to Hauling 
the Sein, and by Night, and in the Night catchd and 
dressed Barrels of Herrings and 60 White Fish. Ob- 
served that the Flood tide was infinitely the best for 
these Fish. 
April 12. — Hauld the Sein, but without Success, some 
said it was owing to the Wind setting of the Shore, 
which seems in some Measure confirmed by the quantity 
we catchd yesterday, when the Wind blew on upon it. 
April 13.— (Sunday.) My Negroes asked the lent of 
the Sein today, but catchd little or no Fish. Note — Ye 
wind blew upon the Shore today. 
April 14. — No Fish were to be catchd today neither. 
April 22. — The Herrings run in great abundance. 
1768: 
April 12. — White fish began to run, catching 60 or 70 
at a Haul, with some Her'g. 
April 18. — Began fishing for Herrings with Carpenters, 
etc. 
May 10. — Went a dragging for Sturgeon. 
May 16. — Fishing for Sturgeon from Breakfast to 
Dinner, but catchd none. 
May 30.— Went fishing and dined under Mr. L. Wash- 
ington's Shore. 
Aug. 25.— Hauling the Sein upon the Bar of Cedar 
Point for Sheepsheads, but catchd none. Run down, be- 
low the Mouth of Machadock. 
Aug. 27. — Hauling the Sein upon Hollis's Marsh Bar 
& elsewhere for Sheepsheads, but catchd none. 
Aug. 29. — Went into Machadock Cr'k fishing and dined 
with the Rev'd Mr. Smith. 
Aug. 30. — Hauling the Sein on the Bars near Hollis's 
Marsh & other places. (Nomini Creek.) 
1770: 
Feb. 3.— Agreed with Mr. Robt. Adam for the fish 
catchd at the Fishing Landing, I bought of Posey on fol- 
lowing terms towit. He is obliged to take all I catch at that 
place, provided the quantity does not exceed 500 Bar'Is 
and will take more than this qt'y if he can get Cask to 
put _them. in. He is to take them as fast as they are 
catchd, without giving any interruption to my people, and 
is to have the use of the Fish house for his Salt, Fish, 
&c., taking care to have the House clear at least before 
the next Fishing season. In consideration of which he 
is to pay me ten Pounds for the use of the House; give 
3 shillings a thous'd for the Herrings (Virg. Money) 
and 8 shillings 4 pence a hundred (Maryland Curr'y) for 
the White Fish. Mr. Piper & Lund Washington present. 
(This was the lowest of his three shores. 14 pounds 
Maryland Cixrrency equaled 11 pounds Virginia.) 
April 13. — Began my Fishery at Posey's for Mr. Robt, 
Adam. 
Sept. 3. — Went in the vening a fishing with my 
Brothers Sam'l & Charles. 
Sept. 7. — ^Went a fishing into the mouth of Doeg's 
Creek. 
Sept. 8.— A fishing along towards Sheridan's Point 
Dined upon the Point. 
1771: 
April 10.— Began to Haul the Sein, tho few Fish were 
catchd, & those of the Shad kind, owing to the coolness 
of the weather. Many Shad had been catchd on the Mary- 
land Shore. 
April 25.— The Herring began to run in large Shoals, 
but were checked again by cool Weather. 
1772: • • - 
. Feb. 21.— Rid to the Ferry Plantation and to the Fish- 
ing Landing, where a few Fish were catchd in the Sein. 
1773: 
April 29,— Rid into- the Neck (River Farm), & from 
there went to Sheridene's Point attempting to clear it 
for the Sein. 
April 30.— Went to the fom\ m^i^, ^nd made one or 
two pretty good H^Mlf, ' ^ . ,7 , 
