May 25, 1901.] 
Thomas Canning, of Bangor, who has seven salmon to 
his credit. Miss Janette SulHvan has landed three and 
Mrs. William H. Munroe has caught two, landing both in 
one afternoon and both weighing about 18 pounds. 
At the Rangeleys the fishing continues excellent. A 
Haines' Landing report says that Francis A. Nichols, of 
Bostori, has already taken over a hundred trout and sal- 
mon. Admiral Bunce and H. A. Redfield, fishing at that 
point, have a salmon of 7^-4 pounds to their credit, and a 
great many trout of fair size. Fish and Game Commis- 
sioners Stanley and Oak have been fishing Mooseluc- 
maguntic, and have had great success. It is reported that 
over 1,000 pounds of trout and salmon have been taken 
from that lake since the season opened. At Rangeley 
Lake fishing is good. Anglers will be sorry to learn that 
Capt. R. A. Tuttle, of Boston, who has been at that lake 
every season for twenty-five years, and the founder of 
Lake Point Cottage, is laid up with rheumatism, and may 
have to give up his spring fishing trip altogether. Mr. 
and Mr. C. F. Hutchins, of Boston, will be at Lake Point 
Cottage the same as ever. Fishing has continued good 
at Bemis, foot of Mooselucmaguntic. In .one day last 
week 125 trout were landed. These were of good size, 
running up to 4 pounds and over. At the Birches the 
cottages are rapidly filling up, while Bemis cottages are 
all fi3l of fishermen. One day last week a Mr. and Mrs. 
Walton, of Newton, Mass., came to Bemis for fishing. As 
they could not be accommodated there, they were taken 
up to the Birches, or rather started for that point, when 
the little steamer gave out and they could make no 
progress. They had a guide with them and boat in tow. 
The guide proposed that they try. the fishing while another 
steamer was signaled for to tow the disabled boat to the 
Birches. They did so. Evidently the guide knew the 
fishing ground well, for soon Mrs. Walton had a salmon 
weighing 3 pounds. They also took several trout before 
the steamer was ready to take them to the camps. 
Again the old trouble as to the meaning of the terms 
"When the ice is out" in the Maine fish and game laws 
has arisen. The law reads that there shall be an animal 
close time on trout, togue and landlocked salmon from 
the first day of October till the ice is out the following 
spring. This term "ice is out" has been construed by the 
Commissioners to mean when the lake, pond or stream is 
entirely clear of ice. But sportsmen have thought diifer- 
ently, and on several instances last year they claimed the 
right to fish as soon as there was any open water, although 
a greater part of the lake might be covered with ice. This 
year a number of Bangor fishermen went to Green Lake, 
one of the best salmon lakes in that part of the country. 
The ice was only partly out, but they shoved boats over 
the ice into the open water and went to fishing. Local 
sportsmen and residents objected, and have entered com- 
plaint against the Bangor sportsmen for illegal fishing. 
The matter will have to go to the courts for settlement. I 
am quite sure that the Legislature of Maine was asked to 
make the meaning of "when the ice is out" more plain 
last winter, but failed to do so. 
Fishing at Lake Webb. Weld, Me., has been good so far 
the present season. Ned Stanley, of Boston, goes there 
every yeai", and has just made a record of eight trout 
and salmon one day and twelve the next day. A large 
number of Maine fishermen have been there, and tlie 
catches have been good. New Hampshire waters continue 
to report good success. At Newfound Lake and Sunapee 
the fishing has continued good. Special. 
American Fishermen in Canada. 
The news that the high spring water in most of the 
northern Canadian streams and lakes had fallen to the 
level at which fontinalis rises to the fly, has caused quite a 
rush of anglers into the country, and there are few club 
houses along the St. Maurice and the line of the Quebec & 
Lake St. John Railway that are not now occupied. 
Dr. Geo. L. Porter, of Bridgeport, went up to his club 
waters with a party of friends over a week ago. 
On the Stadacona Club lakes a number of trout weigh- 
ing over 3 pounds each have already been taken this sea- 
son with the Hy. and anglers from the Riviere aux Sables 
claim to have taken fish there weighing over 4 pounds 
each. 
A party of New Yorkers belonging to the Laurentian 
Fish and Game Club passed through here on Thursday on 
their way to their club limits, via the Quebec & Lake St. 
John Railway and the crossing by Lake Edward and a 
chain of lakes to the west of it to the St. Maurice. In 
this party were Mr. C. Grant La Forge, the architect, and 
Mrs. La Forge, Mr. Walter E. Maynard and Mr, Geo.. L. 
Heins. 
On the Metabetchouan Club's limits there is quite a 
large party at present, which includes Samuel Dodd, C. 
P. Bradley and George A. Fay, of Meriden. Conn., and 
Cyrus Berry Peets, of New Haven. With Mr. Co& i^ a 
guest, Mr. Charles A. Russell, of Washington. 
Salmon fishermen are also in expectation of an early 
season, and a number of them will go down to their 
rivers in about a fortnight. Mr. Stearn, of Montreal, and 
other members of the Chamberlain Shoals Club, leave for 
the Ristigouche in the first week of June. 
Ivers W. Adams and party of friends expect to be 
here about June 5 on their way to the Moisie, where they 
have recently acquired both the riparian rights and those 
of the Provincial Government. Several members of the 
St. Marguerite Salmon Club are expected here in about 
fifteen days on their way to their river. 
Notwithstanding the high water in Lake St. John, 
ouananiche fishing is already pretty good there, and the 
natives are catching them from the steamboat wharf at 
Roberval. The fly-fishing in the Grande Decharge will, 
certainly not be good until the water is much lower, how- 
ever, which will probably be about June 12. 
Mr. McCormick, of Florida, has already returned, some 
time ago, to his summer cottage at Lake Edward, and 
some very good catches of heavy brook trout are already 
reported from that vicinity. 
E. T. D. Chambers. 
Quebec, May 19. 
The Forest and Stream is put to press each week on Taesday. 
Correspondence intended for publication should r^ch us the 
latest by Monday and as mucb 99 practicable. ^ 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
Bass FishingUin the Delaware* 
Black bass fishing in the Lower Delaware River— and 
bv the Lower Delaware is meant that beautiful portion 
of the stream between Trenton, N. J., and the Water 
Gap — is less known to sportsmen than it should be. Per- 
haps this part of that noble stream may nevej- become 
as popular as it ought to be among anglers from a dis- 
tance owing to the fact that before you go a-fishing 
there you must make certain from some one residing 
near it thai the condition of the water is just right for 
good fishing. If you trust to luck you may find upon 
arriving at the river that a rain has made the water 
muddy and caused a rise of a foot or two, and then there 
will be no fishing. If you find the river in that state you 
might just as well not unpack your tackle but take the 
next train for home. But wind, weather and water right, 
the angler is pretty certain to find royal sport here. This 
bass fishing territory po.ssesses the merit, too, of being 
easy of access. It is within two hours' ride of New York 
or Philadelphia and the coming and going, especially if 
your destination takes you over the Belvedere-Dela- 
ware Railroad along the river, is well worth the trip. 
The scenery in tliis historic valley is simply perfect, un- 
surpassed by beauty anywhere, and picturesque landscape 
contributes largely to the pleasure a true sportsman takes 
in his outings. When the beauties of nature appeal 
strongly to one, the angler gets the deepest enjoyment 
from his trips. 
The Delaware River, not a natural black bass stream, 
has been .stocked long enough to have made pretty good 
bass grounds. Had it not been for two public nuisances 
— the pot-hunter, who has now been pretty thoroughly 
abated, and the coal dirt washings from the Lehigh val- 
ley coal mines, a nuisance that has not been abated at 
all — the Delaware would now be a famous home for this 
splendid game fish. If ever a fish took naturally to 
strange water the small-mouth bass did to the Delaware. 
It has a rocky bottom, at places is very deep, affording 
safe harbors, and has numerous tributaries, at whose 
mouths are gravel bars, making the best of feeding 
grounds. Though probably thrice decimated by the 
nuisances just referred to, bass have thrived here to a 
wonderful degree, breed rapidly, and are increasing every 
year in numbers, and the angling is consequently better 
flow than it ever was. 
The Lower Delaware can be fished with the fly, yet 
ly-fishing is not exactly the sport for this section of the 
■iver. Since the days of aged Caleb E. Wright, lawyer, 
lovelist and devoted lover of angling, who disdained to 
ise anything but the fly, nobody whom I can recall has 
)een bold enough to try this branch of the fine art here. 
Pardon a digression of a minute or two while I tell 
ibout Caleb. He was a Quaker and would have his 
'riends call him only by his first name. He could always 
?et one or two congenial companions to accompany him 
3n his fly-fishing trips. White-haired, with a strong, re- 
iined face, the short, frail figure, clothed in a picturesque 
fishing suit, standing in the foaming ripples, braced^ 
against his steel-tipped staff to prevent the swift current 
carrying him off his feet and reehng in a struggling bass 
with the nervous adroitness born of sixty j-^ears' practice — 
this is one of the pictures indelibly photographed upon 
the memory of his friends. He was a typical grand old 
-man from the sportsman's 'view point. And the old man 
often got fish, but more often the drive of ten iniles 
to and from the river was the only pleasure he derived 
out of a day's trip; but when this happened he always 
took his bad luck philosophically and had a plausible 
explanation as to why they would not rise. You could 
not help but admire his resolution not to use live bait, 
yet you were sometimes provoked at his perversity when 
you felt instinctively the fish, which steadily refused to 
fly, would take a minnow. If the bass were not in that 
buoyant mood when they come up into the sunlight of 
the surface and dash at bits of brilliant color, he would 
have none of them. 
One day Caleb's companion wandered up the river, 
leaving the old man behind absorbed in the task of get- 
ting a rise. When a bend in the stream hid the old gen- 
tleman from view, the youngster put his fly back in his 
book, rigged for live bait and impaled a couple of hel- 
gramites, found along the water's edge. The change 
worked like magic. The bass wanted something more 
substantial than a fly, and he soon had his creel well 
filled. Returning to where the old lawyer still stood 
patiently whipping the strong current, Caleb asked in his 
characteristic drawl : 
"Well, Martin; what luck above?" 
"Oh, fine," said Martin, relentless as to the old gen- 
tleman's sensibilities; "look at that!" and Martin raised 
the flap of his creel. 
•"Ahem! Well, that beats me, for I haven't had a rise." 
Voice and countenance both betrayed his chagrin. 
"I've been working hard here all morning," he con- 
tinued, "with every fly in the catalogue; and look at 
that water — why, it's a paradise for bass, and with this 
kind of a sun and wind, too. Aha, Martin, aha! — ^what 
fly did they take?" 
Further deception was now out p£ the question and 
Martin held up his hooks, with two squirming "googlies" 
dangling from them, 
"Helgramites!" exclaimed the old man. "Helgramites! 
Bait fit only for the devil! No Christian gentleman or 
civilized angler would ever use them." The look of con- 
tempt he gave Martin as he waded ashore and began to 
"take down" his tackle was succeeded by a smile of sat- 
isfaction that seemed eloquent with the thought possibly 
in his mind that he had not been conquered by a man 
using the legitimate appliances of the fine art. 
Yet, notwithstanding Caleb's aversion to it, live bait 
fishing is great sport. There are three months when this 
sort of fishing is at its best — August, September Jind. 
October. In these months you are pretty sure to find the 
water conditions right. When you go in August yotl 
cannot reach the fishing grounds too early. I have 
found daybreak a good time. One of these Augtist trips 
I shall attempt to describe. We reached our skiff along 
the river's edge just as it began to get light. The boat 
was tied up to a raft of logs, against which the waves 
lapped musically as "the dawn came creeping slowly up 
over" the river. The river was in fine condition, the 
water being slightly hazy, not too clear. It was too early 
409 
to tell what 'kind of weather the day would bring forth, 
but indications pointed to fine weather. We deposited 
our "traps" in the boat and by the time we were ready 
to start it had become light enough to see readily. We 
knew that trolling would not bring good results at this 
time of day, so we rowed for a bar a quarter of a mile 
down stream. The bar edged off mto deep water. Here 
we had found fish upon other occasions feeding early 
in the morning. We put four kinds of bait in the boat — 
chub, lamprey eels, helgramites and small hop-toads. The 
toads we had caught the afternoon before on some sand 
hills along the river bank near the water's edge. A short 
row brought us to the bar and we anchored near the 
current, with the bar to our left. It was a beautiful 
morning. A deep haze lay on the high hills which 
skirted the river banks. Blue smoke cUrled from a few 
chimneys of the modest houses along the river road, 
indicating preparations for an early breakfast. Streaks 
of deep red marked the sky where the sun was about to 
rise. The clang of a small bell heralded the approach 
of the first canal boat for the day down the Delaware 
Division Canal and presently the slow moving mules 
hove in sight. The canal adds a picturesque feature to 
the surroundings. 
We rigged our rods and lines quickly, knowing that 
every moment lost meant sport thrown away. I baited 
with toads and my companion put on chub. Hardly had 
my line floated twenty feet from the boat when there 
was a signal. The fish struck hard, I hooked him arid 
after a brief struggle brought him to the net, a splendid 
small-mouth, weighing all of two pounds. He had taken 
the toad with great avidity and at the first cast I had 
found what the fish's favorite bait was that morning. 
The next cast I had another strike much like the first. 
It was a new experience to me to have bass strike like 
they did that morning. They seemed to make a fierce 
dart at the bait, catching -it true in their mouths every 
time while under full speed, their momentum carrying 
them five to ten feet after they had secured their prey. 
Such striking was thrilling, almost wresting the rod from 
your grasp and affording the keenest sport possible, 
indeed, the fish struck so hard they hooked themselves, 
and we lost not a bass that morning. Four fish, run- 
ning from two pounds to two pounds and three-quarters 
struck in exactly the same way, when the sport was 
over. 
Meanwhile my companion landed a nice fish, but, find- 
ing the chub bait slow, he also tried the toads, and in a 
short time he brought two more to the boat, one pf which 
weighed nearly three pounds — and a beauty he was, too. 
We waited fifteen minutes longer, but not another strike; 
the Delaware small-mouth had shown us one of his pecuH- 
arities by quitting us as suddenly as he had_ begun. 
Knowing we could do nothing more at that time and 
place we came off the river with seven as pretty fish 
as you ever saw, and then ate our breakfast. 
Our next scheme was to try trolling. Taking as rower 
an old riverman who thoroughly understood his busi- 
ness, we pointed the scow's prow toward deeper water 
at a beautiful bend in the river in what is known as 
Lower Black Eddy. Plere is a stretch of a mile or more 
of deep water, backed up by the dam of the Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad Company, the dam acting as a feeder to 
the Raritan Canal. An ideal spot is- this for trolling and 
we found fish there. For trolling an artificial minnow is 
best. A small spoon is also good. We had neither with 
us on this day, and instead we used large dead minnows, 
with swivels to prevent the lines from becoming kinked. 
We had proceeded only a short distance when the bass 
began to strike. We missed our first two or three strikes 
and one big fish succeeded in snapping my hook squarely 
off. Care and skill, as well as some experience, is needed 
to catch bass by this process. We soon caught on to the 
tricks of the fish and the next strike resulted in hooking 
and landing a beauty. We succeeded in adding a half 
dozen fine fish to our morning catch and then "laid by" 
during the heat of the day. Early in the afternoon we 
drove homeward with thirteen very fine fish, a_ total 
weight of about twenty-five pounds, which we considered 
a very good day's sport. 
But the ideal month for bass fishing in this territory 
is September. Then, unless you should strike very warm 
weather, you can fish all day. And it is a great pleasure 
to fish then. The river is at its best then, as well as beau- 
tiful beyond description. The green hills begirting the 
river have changed to autumnal reds, purples and golden 
tints, and, ascending high above the surface of the stream, 
are an important element in this most charming scenery. 
The wooded islands add to the beauty, while the long 
quiet stretches of water at the foot of a rift almost de- 
ceive one into the belief that he is rowing upon a placid 
lake. 
In September, especially during the latter part of the 
month, it is not important that you should reach the 
grounds very early in the day. The fish usually bite 
best from 11 A. M. to 2 P. M. And you must change 
your bait, too. Helgramites, toads and small frogs are 
not good bait now. Lamprey eels, minnows and stone 
catfish are best, especially stone catfish; do not go for 
bass that month without some of them. 
I cannot close without describing an October day's 
fishing on this section of the Delaware. October is 
often regarded as a little late for bass. That notion is 
wrong. Oi course, rains sometimes unfit the river for 
good fishing, but a dry October, preceded by a favorable 
September, gives the angler the very finest sport he could 
desire. Last year I was a member of a party that made 
three October trips to the famous fishing place below 
Lumberville. All these days will live in memory. I shall 
describe in detail only the last. The first trip was made 
during the first week in the month. When we found the 
bass in pretty much the same feeding grounds as during 
September. In the middle of the month they had taken 
to deeper water. Our last trip was in the last week in 
October. So late as that it is not often that river bass 
fishing can be found, but we were fortunate enough to 
find it in the greatest perfection. "We" comprised a 
party of four. The day was such as you can hope to find 
only occasionally. We started from shore in two boats. 
A cool night was succeeded by a perfect morning. The 
sun rose in a heavy fog which filled the valley and ob- 
scured the shore and shut out the view down the river 
like a wall of steam. Faintly the rich browns and reds 
of autumn were visible through the haze. It was like a 
