May 4, igoi,] 
V 
FOREST AND. STREAM. 
849 
New England Fishing. 
Boston, April 21. — The ice is not out of the Range- 
le\'s nor Moosehead, but may go from either at any time, 
if the stormy weather and rain continues. Still, if the 
weather should turn cold and freezing, it might remain 
fast for a week longer. A couple of Rangeley guides 
were here on Wednesday and Thursday, and they, were 
for hurrying back, believing that the ice might go at 
any moment, and their work begin. The Brackett and 
Clark veteran angler part3', made up each year of W. D. 
Brackett, W. P. Clark, S. Henry Emery and Rufus 
Brown, is all ready to go to the Upper Dam as soon as 
the ice is out. Mr. Clark has fished those waters reg- 
ularly every year for about forty years, and he and Mr. 
Brackett have been there together almost as many sea- 
sons. Mr. C. P. Stevens, of Camp Vive Vale, Richard- 
son Lake Narrows, is always one of the first to be off. 
Going to the Rangeleys is to include a new feature this 
year. Two parlor cars are to be put on from Portland 
to Bemis. The cars are named the Rangeley and the 
Bemis, running as follows: Leave Portland at 8:30 a. m. 
and 12:55 P- M., and Bemis at 7:55 A. M. and 1:25 P. M. 
The service will commence May 13. On the other route 
parlor car service will be made between Portland and 
Farmington, broad gauge; with a new parlor car on the 
narrow gauge from Farmington to Rangeley. 
Grand Lake waters are clear of ice. They cleared 
early this week. Mr. Jacob P; Bates, C. A. Hopkins and 
Rev. C. A. Slack are off for their spring salmon fishing. 
They go to their own camp, in the Grand Lake region. 
Dr. Heber Bishop, W. S. Hinnan, Mr. Whitmg and Mr. 
Perry have started for Clearwater Pond, Fannington, 
Me. There are good reports of salmon and togue fishing 
in that pond, as well as in Varnum pond, near by. At 
Lake Auburn fishing has been greatly hindered by the 
cold rain and northeasterly gales. But a few- salmon have 
been taken. On Tuesday Fred Lemaire, of Lewiston, 
caught a salmon of 8 pounds and a trout of 3 pounds. 
The" ice is out- of Newfound Lake, New Hampshire, 
and some Boston sportsmen have gone up there. The 
weather has been too bad for any sort of success, thovigh 
one or two salmon are reported; one to P. H. Smith, 
weighing 4 pounds. Air. T. J. McDonald, of Lowell, 
with Mrs. McDonald started for Newfound Lake Friday. 
They fish this lake every spring, and then go to the Upper 
Dam. With some fishing friends, they have built a camp 
at Black Point, Mooselucmaguntic, the past winter. Mrs. 
McDonald is a good deal of an angler, and well up to her 
husband in that direction, though his record is one that 
would make the novice stare. She has been in California 
a part of the winter, and has been fishing for sea bass 
in Pacific waters. She caught one of 10 pounds weight, 
and told her husband of her success with a great deal of 
pride; and how she landed the big fish all herself. "And 
did it really weight 10 pounds?" he asked. "Well, what's 
the harm if it weighed a pound or two more or a pound 
'ess?'' was the reply. There the- matter was dropped. 
Winnipisaukee fishermen have been having a rather hard 
time since the ice went out. The wind has blown a gale 
almost every day, with a cold rain. Mr. D. W. Teimey, 
of Methuen, and George Tenney are there, but they send 
only reports of the lake being too rough for fishing. The 
ice still lingers in Lake Sunapee. 
April 29. — At last a couple of bright, sunny days, fol- 
lowing the continued cold storm and gales, have given 
the fishing season a start. New England waters are, 
many of them, open very early, but the weather has kept 
back the fishing. An Augusta, Me., report of Saturday 
says that fishin.g at Cobbosseecontee has been retarded 
by the cold rains. E. H. Langston was the first fisher- 
man to report any success, including a trout weighing 
pounds. Stanley Hawkins has taken three fine trout, 
one weighing 5 pounds. Charlie Kinsman caught one fish- 
ing from the steps of his cottage. R. W. Soule has taken 
three trout, the united weight of which was 10 pounds. 
Milo McLinch has caught a trout measuring 22 inches 
in length. Among the other good fishing lakes in that 
vicinity may be noted the Belgrade chain, Annabessa- 
cook and Maranacook, at Winthrop, Pleasant Pond in 
Litchfield, and China Lake at China. These waters 
have all been receiving the attention of the Fish and 
Game Commission in restocking for several years, and 
all of them are beginning to show good results in both 
trout and salmon." Catches at Lake Auburn have been 
kept back by the cold winds and rain, but Saturday 
brought out "a lot of fishermen, with more or less of suc- 
cess. A Skowhegan report says that the lakes and ponds 
in that vicinity are all open, with something doing on 
the trout brooks, though the water is still too high for 
the best results. At Lake George E. Richardson and 
George Averill have the honor of taking the first land- 
locked salmon of the season. At Alton Bay, New Hamp- 
shire, the fishermen have been gathering since the end 
of the storm. Nearly all the fishing camps at Alton Bay 
and Glendale are occupied, and good weather will bring 
strings of trout. Horace Pope, of Brockton, Mass., .has 
already taken one salmon and two trout; H. L. Sargent, 
Haverhill, a trout of 4 pounds and a salmon of 6 pounds. 
A Meredith, N. H., dispatch says that despite the 
bad weather more trout and salmon have been taken 
at that point than for several years. All of the local 
guides are very busy, with new parties arriving since 
the storm. Bristol. N. H., reports say that Newfound 
Lake is starting in well. Gen. Paul Lang, of Oxford, 
has taken a salmon of 7^ pounds, and Gen. Rufus N. 
Elwell, of Exeter, two salmon of good size. William and 
Frank George have taken a lake trout weighing 12 
pounds, the largest fish of the season, thus far. They 
have also caught two or three sa'mon. Mr. and Mrs. 
Eben Phillips, of Swampscott. Mass.. have been at New- 
found the past week, and Mr. Phillips has caught a irout 
of 6 pounds and two salmon of 3 pounds and 4 pounds 
weight. Mrs, Phillips has taken a handsome laker of 4 
pounds. Local sportsmen are still in the lead at that 
lake, having t-aken last week more than a dozen salmon, 
from 3 to 8 pounds weight, and a number of trout. Bos- 
ton anglers are gathering there. A report from The 
Weirs, New Hampshire, mentions cold weather and high 
winds, with a downpour of rain. Fishing has not been 
mdulged in to the extent that is usual on the ice first 
leaving Winnipisaukee. At Laconia women anglers have 
been taking trout and salmon from Winnesquam, and 
good weather promises to bfing good fishing. 
The big salmon pool at Bangor, Me., has not been 
panning out to the fishermen very well the past week, 
by reason of the rains-and freshet in the river. Still one 
or two good ones have been landed; George Willey, a 
24-pound salmon: Samuel Drinkwater, 22-pound. Be- 
yond Bangor there are numerous trout and salmon lakes 
and rivers, many of which are open, and all promising 
ample room and good sport for the lovers of the angle. 
From Square Lake, Aroostook county, some good 
catches of trout are already reported, such as 50 pounds 
of trout and salmon in one day by P. N. Burleigh and 
O. N. Smith. In northern Aroostook waters the ice 
still lingers, but it will soon be out, and great catches of 
trout may be looked for. Most of these waters are new, 
and generally they are well supplied with brook trout. 
Stream fishing in that part of the county is all that could 
be asked. Happy is the lover of the rod and reel who can 
spend his vacation on the right spot in Aroostook coun- 
ty. Washington county is also coming to the front in 
the way of trout and salmon fishing. The Union Salmon 
Pool, at Calais, is expccled to show good results this 
season. At Pcnnesseewassee Lake, Norway, Me., the 
early fishermen have got into some trouble. As 'soon 
as the ice went out they begun to assemb'e and to fish. 
A warden soon appeared and warned them, that under 
special provision of the statu' es that lake was not legally 
open till May i. Some of the sportsmen ceased fishing, 
while others continued. Some of the anglers who per- 
sisted in fishing were leading citizens of the surrounding 
towns and legal complications arc expected. Special. 
ANGLING NOTES. 
Scap Net. 
A GENTLEMAN much interested in fish and game protec- 
tion and president of a society that is very active in this 
direction, writes me a letter which I will g've nearly in 
full : 
"Will you tell me what a scap net is? It appears in 
the game law, but it is new to me. and undefinab'e by 
any man in this section of the State, as far as I am able 
to find. 
■"Our gams protector seized a number of fyke nets in 
the river a few days ago, and took from the docks where 
they were in use four squat nets, or, at least the men 
under hirri seized them. The owners of the squat nets 
swore out warrants for the game protector's men beforr a 
justice of the peace, and yesterday the case was tried. 
The game protector was well defended by an able lawyer, 
and our society had two lawyers in attendance as his 
counsel. An ex-assemblyman represented the pirates and 
made a pretty stifif case for them. He claimed that the 
'scap net,' so called, was a squat net, which they were 
using, and that the use of these nets is permissible under 
the law for the purpose of catching minnows for bait but 
upon our production of the nets, showing that the m_e=:h 
was too large to catch minnows, the tide turned against 
them, and the protector's men were acquitted. 
"The case stirred up an immense amount of interest. A 
large court room was packed, three or four hundred men, 
mostly interested in fish piracy, being present. The lives 
of our protectors have been threatened, and there \yas 
blood on the moon, but nothing came of it ; all was quiet. 
Still, we are all anxious to know what a scap net is. My 
thought is that a scoop net was referred to in the law, and 
through typographical error it was made 'scap.' I sup- 
posed I was familiar wnth all sorts of nets, but scap is 
beyond me." 
It is safe to believe that scap is a corruption of scoop, 
but a scap net has been a scap net as long as I can remem- 
ber, and it means a small hand net used for lifting fish 
fry out of a trough in a hatchery, or minnows out of a 
bait bucket, and I have often heard the term applied to a 
landing net. The Century Dictionary recognizes a scap 
net thus : "Scap net. A net used by anglers to catch min- 
nows, shrimp, etc., for bait. See scoop net." 
"Scoop net. A form of net used to bail out fish col- 
lected in a pound ; also a small hand net, used for catching 
bait; a scap net." 
The expression scap net occurs in the Forest, Fish and 
Game Law of New York in Section 65, as follows : "Nets 
other than scap nets, dip nets and minnow nets, when 
permitted, shall not be set or used without a license 
granted by the Commission.'' 
The context indicates that a scap net is not to be used 
for taking food fish, but belongs to a class of nets used 
in taking- minnows. 
Large versus Small Troat. 
"Massachusetts has a nevvr trout law which forbids 
taking trout under six inches in length. The Hartford 
Times says that this law will bear hard on fishermen in 
the mountain streams in Berkshire County which are much 
like those of New Hampshire, where the limit is wisely 
placed at five inches. This matter has been often dis- 
cussed, and the six-inch limit in Connecticut works the 
same hardship in small streams. Dr. Pyme, an excellent 
authority on fi.shing, niaintains that 'if the purpose is to 
prevent the depletion of streams the proper way is to for- 
bid the taking of large fish instead of small. One of the 
large fish will produce thousands of young where a small 
one produces scores.' " 
The quoted matter is a marked editorial from the Al- 
bany Argus of recent date which I received this evening 
in my mail, and I as.sume that I am exiected to say some- 
thing on the subject in this column of Forest and Stream. 
The first thing I desire to say is that the Hartford 
Times' man has a good mcmorv. for I answered this same 
heresy more than a ucz-^'r. years ago, when Dr. Pr'me 
first uttered it, for it was Dr. W. C. Prime who advanced 
it, and not Dr. Pyrne, as "the types now make the name. 
Just one week ago to-night I was at the Suffolk Ch'b on 
Long Island and something that was said by one of the 
members recalled Dr. Prime'5 article and my crit'cism 
upon it, and I then determined to look for the art'cle and 
my comments, and now this editorial comef as a further 
reminder. First, I will quote a part of the original article 
as it appeared in the New Y6t<< Journal of Commerce un- 
der the head lines "Stop Killing Large Trout." "Useless 
Fish Commissions," "Absurd Game Laws." I had hoped 
that the argument in favor of killing small trout and pre- 
serving the large ones was forgotten, and its teachings 
unheeded, for if followed it is bound to work great injury 
to the trout fishing of the country, and for_ this reason it 
is well to discuss the matter once more, as it has come to 
the fore again after all these years. 
The Original Complaint. 
The following quoted mattfer appeared over the old-Eng- 
lish W. used by Dr. Prime in his contributions to the 
Journal of Commerce: 
"Do I intend to keep this small fish ? Of course I shall 
keep him. You have the common notion that small troiit 
should be put back and only large fish taken home. This 
notion is one of the absurdities of angling literature and 
angling legislation. It is just possible that continued com- 
bating may in time educate the people, so that what is 
called 'fishculture' may proceed on correct principles. 
"The best w'ay to combat it would probably be to take 
the boldest course, and advocate statute law forbidding the 
capture of any trout weighing over a pound. Better 
still, for a few years at least, would be the preservation, in 
some waters, of all weighing over a half-pound. 
"The indignation with which the city sportsman has 
met this proposition when I have heretofore made it has 
been very amusing. But no one ventures to answer the 
common sense argument — namely, that if you wi.sh to 
breed for food or market purposes any animals, ca'tie, 
sheep, chickens, trout, you are very ignorant indeed if 
you adopt the practice of killing off your old breeders 
every spring and depending on future increase on the 
young an mals. Take, for example a farm through which 
runs a good stream. The owner desires to restore ihe 
trout fishing which was once good, and which supplied 
his family with many luxurious meals. They eat lamb, 
chicken, veal, various meats. They consider the question 
of adding fish to their home supply. The farmer pur- 
chases a ict of trout and stocks the streams. Then he 
consults books, anglers and statute law. for instruction 
how to secure a steady supply of trout in h s brook. He 
is told never to kill small fish, but when they grow large 
to kill and eat them. He tries the experiment, catches 
all the trout he can over five inches long and expects a 
lot more from year to year. He find^ his experiment i.- a 
dead failure as ninety-nine out of a hundred have found 
it of late years. Then he tries again on common .sen.se 
principles. He treats trout as he treats his hens and his 
sheep, keeping the well-grown for breeders and killing 
each year more or less of his lambs, chickens and young 
trout. This time he is successful. In his stream are a 
goodly number of large trout. They grow to weigh from 
one to three or four pounds each. He would no more kill 
one of those large trout than he would kill his breeding 
sheep. From each pair of them he expects and has many 
thousands of young fish. He preserves them two years, by 
which time they are good little food fish. The stream 
swarms with them. * * * I have no doubt that the 
total disappearance of trout from very many streams is 
due to the fact that the large trout haxe been killed out- 
■H * * Repeal the ridiculous statutes which forbid kill 
ing and eating the trout chickens, and enact and enforce 
statutes forbidding the taking of any breeders — in short, of 
all which weigh over a pound. Each pound trout, if left 
to live, will be ancestor of a hundred thousand trout, and 
the breeders will live ten or twenty years continually pro 
ducing." 
There is more of it, but I have quoted a fair sample- 
enough to show that the author had scarcely any knowl- 
edge of the habits of trout from the standpoint of a 
breeder. He says no one ventures to answer the common 
sense argument he advances, but I did have the hardihood 
to answer it, and I will quote from what I said. 
Comments Twelve Years Old. 
"The letter, printed in another column, is sent to us 
by a subscriber in New York city who writes, 'Read it 
carefully; there is much room for thought in it, and it 
has common sense in it — at least, I think so.' The letter 
is sighed with an old-English W., the sign manual of no 
less an authority on angling than Dr. Wm. C. Prime. 
"We are a great admirer of Dr. Prime's writings, and 
we have read this particular letter carefully, as advised 
to do, and in our opinion it is weak in argument, wrong in 
assumption of facts and utterly lacking in that for which 
it Avas commended to us — common sense. We say it with 
regret, but the author appears to have given no heed to 
the results derived from years of practical fishculture, and 
little thought to the habits of the fishes themselves, other- 
Wise he would have chosen comparisons in breeding with 
surrounding conditions more similar than those of farm 
cattle and wild fishes. 
"Trout are cannibals. They eat the eggs of one an- 
other a's they are deposited, if they are not securely cov- 
ered, and the eggs that are covered are eaten by the next 
pair of trout that uncover them to make their own spawn- 
ing bed. They eat the fry that escape destruction at an 
earlier stage, and then they eat one another so long as 
life lasts. How would sheep and cattle thrive under such 
conditions? Is it not an absurd comparison? 
. "Trout Ixeeders — those who raise trout for market or 
breeding fish for sale, men who do this for bread and 
butter — will say, and they judge from practical experience, 
that the ponds and streams must be watched for old fish — 
!)ig fellows that prey upon everything in sight smaller 
than they are — that they may be removed. It will be 
difficult to catch them, for they are wary from long ex-" 
per'ence w-ith the lures of men, but fish breeders will 
tell you if you would preserve your stock to remove them 
with net snare or spear if other means fail. Protect the 
big trout and permit the small ones to be taken, and be- 
tween the trout and the fisherman there would soon be 
nothing but big ones, and then, in a short lime more, when 
big ones, if any. would have to be caught, there would be 
none left worth mentioning. 
"Nearly twenty years ago the writer obtained permis- 
sion to fi-h a small pond wh'ch for ten years or so pre- 
vious had been closed to all fishing. The owner Y;'ould 
not fish it nor permit any one else to do so; but when 
the property was inherited by his son. the permit was 
obtained. The fi.sh were nearly all of uniform size, as if 
they had been screened as coal is screened to obtain lumps 
of equal size. They were gaunt, ferocious looking fish, and 
far from inviting in appenmnoe; There was absolutely bo 
