308 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oct. 19, igoi 
Black Dttcfcs and Night Shooting. | ^ 
Currituck, N. C— Mr. W. H. Tallett's letter in your 
issue ot Sept. 28 is certainly a very interesting one, and 
should be seriously considered by all lovers of wildfowl 
shooting. I am well acquainted with the black duck 
shooting; have shot them both day and night for thirty 
years. My experience is that nothing frightens them 
away from a place half so quickly as night shooting. It 
is not true that they cannot be shot in the day time. 
They give fine sport in the day time, especially if it is a 
little stormy. Nothing decoys better than the black 
duck when properly protected and not disturbed on its 
feeding grounds at night. Some of the largest bags of 
ducks I ever made were black ducks. I shot ninety from 
9 A. M. to 3 P. M. here at Currituck three years ago. 
If Mr. Tallett and his Jefferson county friends stick to 
their present laws, and see that they are enforced, they 
will have plenty of ducks for many years to come. 
More Anon. 
Maine Game. 
Blakeslee Camps, Me., Oct. r. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: As the trout season closes "in a blaze of glory," 
the shooting season opens to-morrow in several blazes. 
Deer were never more plentiful ; bear enough and par- 
tridge galore. The last party left here by buckboard to- 
day for Eustis, en route homeward, excepting Messrs. 
Chas H. Meigs, of Cleveland, O., and Major George La 
Rue, who have hung up their rods and tackle and taken 
out their rifles, the Major uncasing his handsome .45-70 
Winchester, so well known in the Maine woods for many 
years past, while Mr. Meigs is advocating his new .30-30, 
though his .45-70 companion piece of the Major's is not 
far out of reach. They have as guide the famous half- 
breed, Joe St. Ober, and are going up into the Spencer 
Bog, Tumble Down Mountain, country, as well as the 
Baker and Rock Pond region, equipped with bear traps 
and every requisite for a big-game hunt. Their success 
is a foregone conclusion. The weather conditions are 
favorable for a fine season. Bt.akes Lee. 
Antelope in Wyomingr. 
MoRGANTOWN, W. Va. — Editor Forest and Stream: The 
Saratoga Sun, of Saratoga. Wyo., of Oct. 3, contains 
the following: ''Thirty antelope a week are being killed 
in the vicinity of Cheyenne. The animals are unusually 
numerous^ this year, but very wild and hard to get a shot 
at. Parties of hunters are leaving the city daily, and the 
majority of them return with game." 
To me this sounds a little strange if true. 
Emerson Carney. 
An Oregon Game Cowntry. 
Kellogg, Ore. — Editor Forest and Stream: This is one 
of the finest game countries I have ever known. We 
have deer, elk, bear and smaller game. Not far distant 
from here is a little river where no one lives, where bands 
of elk roam the year round. The stream is full of trout, 
and at its head is a small lake full of fish. This place is 
not far from Winchester Bay; I can hear the sea breakers 
on the beach. W. D. Moore. 
m{d ^w^r ^ist(ing. 
- — • — 
Proprietors of.,,fishing resorts will find it profitable to advertise 
them, in Fgji^sx^ifD Stream. 
Squeteague and Bluefish. 
In the Biological Notes which have just been pub- 
lished by the United Slates Fish Commissioners, Messrs. 
Sherwood and Edwards discuss the fluctuations in the 
supply of squeteague (weakfish) and bluefish, and the re- 
lation between the two. They note: 
The first squeteague was taken at Cuttyhunk on May 
S, and nine days later they reached Woods Hole. To- 
ward the last of May one was caught at Cuttyhunk which 
weighed 14 pounds. The abundance of squeteague was 
remarkable. In the Menemsha traps alone 10,000 were 
taken in a single day — July 31 — and, in fact, they were so 
plenty throughout the season that they ruined their own 
niarket, and did not bring enough to pay their shipping 
bills. Many of the Vineyard fishermen retained the fish 
in the pockets, waiting for better prices, but a heavy 
northeast storm tore up the nets in the fall, and most qi 
the summer's catch was lost. 
When, a few years ago, a bill to prohibit all net fishing 
in Buzzard's Bdy was presented to the Massachusetts 
Legislature, one of the strongest arguments of its sup- 
porters was that the bay was the naturar spawning ground 
of the food fishes, and therefore their decrease was at- 
tributed to excessive trap fishing. A careful study of 
the records of the m.cvements of squeteague for the last 
thirtj'^ years has revealed some striking facts which have 
an important bearing on this question. Notwithstanding 
protective legislation, it is very evident that breeding 
squeteague have ceased to enter Buzzard's Bay in any 
considerable numbers; for, while twentj'' years ago the 
young could be seined almost anywhere in the vicinity 
of Woods Hole (at Great Harbor, Hadley Harbor, Nob- 
ska Beach, and Quisset), there are now only two locali- 
ties in Buzzard's Bay and Vineyard Sound where they 
are found — at Wareham, near the head of the bay, and 
in Acushnet River, on the New Bedford side. Even in 
these places their numbers are greatly reduced. 
The former abundance of the young was due in ail 
.probability to the fact that the. adults spawned in the open 
bay or outside waters, and since the buoyant eggs were 
subject to the influence of winds and currents, they were 
carried hither and thither until finally lodged in the pro- 
tected harbors and inlets. Such conditions would tend 
to distribute the eggs more or less uniformly along the 
shores of the bay, and the ivy would not be restricted 
to the present areas. On the other hand, with the re- 
tparkable increase of the adyltSi if they still continx^ed to 
spawn in the same places, there would have been a cor- 
respondingly large increase of the young. 
It may be argued that the spawn is deposited in the 
same places as formerly, but that the eggs merely drift 
into the estuaries — Wareham River and Acushnet River. 
But this does not seem at all probable, since the outward 
current of these rivers is stronger and longer continued 
than the inward. A more plausible explanation is that 
the few adults entering these rivers find conditions favor- 
able, and therefore spawn, while the great majority of 
the fish seek other localities. The Rhode Island fisher- 
men, who control the sea traps off Seaconnet and New- 
port, say, that whereas years ago they used to catch 
plenty of squeteague at the mouth of the bay, very few 
are ever seen there now. They believe that the fish no 
longer run in- offshore waters, but enter the bays and 
inlets. Substantiating this is the extraordinary abundance 
of the fry during the past few years in Narragansett Bay, 
particularly in its upper part, near Red Bridge and India 
Point. Even here great numbers of them were killed 
m 1900 by Peridinium. For two weeks or more in Sep- 
tember this small protozoan infested the waters of the 
upper bay in such numbers that the water was almost a 
blood-red color, and, as a result, young squeteague, to- 
gether with fish of several other species, were piled in 
windrows on the shoi'e. There is but one conclusion to 
be drawn from the foregoing facts — the squeteague has 
changed its spawning grounds within a few years, and, 
judging from the abundance of the young, Narragansett 
Bay is the more favorable locality at the present time. 
The sttidy of the yearly records has also shown that a 
definite relation exists between the abundance of sque- 
teague and blue-fish. Twenty years ago 100 squeteague 
were considered a rem.arkable catch, but now it is not 
uncommon to take 4,000 at a single draft of a trap. On 
the other hand, twenty years ago blue-fish were so plen- 
tiful that barrels of them were shipped daily, while in 
1900 not over 50 were recorded from the bay or sound. 
There can be but little doubt that the marvelous increase 
of the squeteague has been made possible by the dis- 
appearance of one of its most dangerous enemies — the 
savage bluefish. 
Simultaneously with this change there has occurred 
another, equally difficult to explain, in the time of the 
arrival of Ihe bluefish. Some twenty years ago the fish 
were sure to be taken in the traps the first or second 
week in May, while recently they may be as late as the 
middle of June. The presence of large schools of blue- 
fish off Nantucket and No Man's Land all summer 
makes it evident that they have not completely deserted 
our coast; but just why so few come inshore, and why 
they are so much later in their arrival, is not apparent, 
In spite cf the scarcity of mature fish the young have 
been very abundant everywhere, and particularly at 
Katama Baj', where, undoubtedly, they have destroyed 
many of the rare, bright-colored, southern forms re- 
ferred to in Biological Notes No. i. The rate of growth 
of the young, as found in Katama Bay, in 1900, is as fol- 
lows: July 27, 3 inches; Aug. 8, 3 to 5 inches; Aug. 29, 
5 to 7 inches; Sept. 24, 7 to 9 inches; Oct. 3, 8 to 11 
inches. ^ 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
FJsIiiag Season Not Yet Ended. 
Chicago, Oct. 11. — ^We are having weather much 
cooler than prevailed during September, it is triie, but 
none the less mild for this date in the fall, and still too 
mild to offer good shooting in this latitude for wild fowl, 
and many of our sportsmen are still sticking to the rod 
and reel rather than to the dog and gun. Some good 
takes of pickerel and bass were made in the Lauderdale 
chain of lakes last week by F. N. Peet and friends, of this 
city. They state that the big pickerel are just beginning 
to strike, and believe that the fishing there will be good 
until cold weather sets in. 
Muscallunge fishing in the Minoqua chain of lakes of 
Wisconsin has been exceedingly good during the past 
ten days. One party came out with 19 muscallunge, ta- 
ken during a stay of Jess than a week. They state that 
they had magnificent .'sport. 
Wishininoe Muscallunge Luncheon. 
Mr. Jack O'Neill, of "this city, returned this week from 
a muscallunge trip in Wisconsin and gave a grand fish 
banquet to Mayor Carter H. Harrison, and to his friends 
of the Wishininne Club. There were thirteen at table, 
all good men, and true. The Mayor came in, and in his 
eagerness to display a new umbrella, which he had pur- 
chased, opened the- latter in the room^ which act is also 
notoriously a sure hoodoo. None the less, nothing fate- 
ful happened except to the muscallunge which Mr. O'Neill 
had presented as the chief feature of this occasion. This 
fish weighed 25 pounds, and it was served at the club 
table, unbroken, and in full length. It surely made a 
magnificent appearance, as it lay on the large plank upon 
which it was served. There was fish enough for even the 
hearty appetites of the Wishininnes, and enough for one 
or two stragglers who came in later in the game. 
Mr. (D'Neill, when called upon by the Mayor to make 
a few remarks, stated that his capture of this fish was 
somewhat singular. He had promised to send the 
Mayor a muscallunge, and on this morning, when he 
started out with his guide, he said, "I just want to catch 
one good muscallunge this morning, and I want it to 
wergh exactly 35 pounds, because I want to send it to 
Mayor Harrison' down in Chicago." In less than three 
minutes after he had uttered this remark he had a good, 
solid strike. The fish was heavy and loggy, acting very 
dull, and it was brought to the side of the boat and gaffed 
in about 15 minutes after ix first struck. Weighed on 
the hand scale in the boat, it weighed exactly 25 pounds. 
This satisfied Mr. O'Neill, and he at once rowed for the 
hotel, and as soon as possible took the train home with 
his trophy. 
This was the first general meeting of the Wishininnes 
for the fall, and is the predecessor of several club ses- 
sions which will be pulled off during the cold season, 
when golf, fishing and shooting are not so possible as 
they have been of late. It is to be observed that a cer- 
tain esprit marked this first fall gathering. Mr. J. V. 
Clarke, president of the TJiberniafi Bsak w^s detected 
in tile act of whispering to his brother, also of the bank. 
The two were promptly fined for talking shop during 
lunch time, this latter being one of the offenses against 
the immutable Wishininne laws. Mr. Graham H. Har- 
ris, undertaking to talk politics, was also fined, as was 
Bill Haskell for starting to repeat a muscallunge story 
which had been told at an earlier date. The session was 
marked by great business energy, as well as distinct 
activity, in passing of plates for the second helping of 
muscallunge. 
By the way, as comparing the muscallunge and his 
cousin, the white-spotted Great Northern pike, it may be 
said that the flesli of this fish was delicate, white and 
firm, unmarked by any small bones, and distinctly 
sweeter and more palatable than that of any pickerel or 
Great Northern pike which any one present had ever 
eaten. 
The Season^s Angling Record. 
Speaking of angling records, it seems to me that all 
sorts of records in that line, for big catches, delicacy, ac- 
curacy, or anything else, are fairly to be called broken 
by the season's performance of Mr. Harry Miner, mana- 
ger of the Cresc'ent Iron Works, of Chicago. Earlier in 
the season, when I was mentioning the names of gentle- 
men who had gone out fi.shing, I foimd Mr. Miner's 
name in the lists so oft^ t'^at I finally cut it out, as not 
having news value any iongtr. Now— for such a strange 
thing is news — ^it does hav'e a very distinct news value. 
Mr. Miner was not news after the middle of the summer, 
but he has been steadily getting newsier for the last 30 
days. 
To-day, Saturday, Is a very cold, bleak, rainy day, and 
in prowling around the sou.rces of information in such 
matters, I can discover the name of only one man who 
has gone fi.shing for bass this afternoon. The name is 
that of Mr. Harry Miner. Investigation shows that Mr. 
Miner has not missed a single week since the ice went 
out. but as regularly as Saturday rolls around has taken 
his little basket of frogs and his casting rod, and likewise 
taken the train for Lake Villa, 111. His order is for three 
dozen small bait frogs every Saturday morning, the sea- 
son through. He begins when the ice goes out and stops 
when the ice comes in. He has outfished all Chicago, 
and the record surely goes to him. E. Hoitgh. 
Hartforb Building, Chicago, III. 
Sturgeon Hatching in the Lake 
Champlain Basin.* 
BY LIVINGSTON STONE. 
(Read before the American Fisheries Society.) 
Somewhat of the mystery formerly surrounding the 
taking and fertilizing of sturgeon eggs on a large scale 
has been removed, only to be replaced by the appearance 
of difficulties which seem even now to be almost insur- 
mountable. Only three years ago it was a mystery why 
the net fishermen, while they caught plenty of parent 
sturgeon with eggs in all stages of maturity, never caught 
any with wholly ripe eggs in them, Now that we know 
the reason of this to be that ripe sturgeons caught in 
nets, throw all their eggs in their efforts to liberate them- 
selves, the difficulty arises of securing the parent fish 
before they throw their eggs. 
We adopted various devices this spring to accomplish 
this object, We set trap nets in the two rivers and also 
in the lake, but the sturgeon would not go into the trap 
nets. We set gill nets in various places in both the 
Lamoille and the Missisquoi rivers, and we had these 
nets overhauled every hour, night and day. We also over- 
hauled and examined all the parent sturgeon in the pens 
every day, but somehow most of the ripe fish eluded us 
in one way or another before their eggs could be secured. 
In some instances, even when we had a night guard on 
duty, parent fish caught at night by the fishermen, and 
put in confinement, were stolen before morning, the high 
price paid for caviar, sturgeon (i. e., female sturgeon with 
nearly ripe eggs in them) being a sufficient incentive to 
poachers to incur unusual risks in stealing them. At 
other times ripe fish gilled at night and safely conveyed 
to the pens by the fishermen would spawn in confinement 
before morning, thus eluding the spawn takers. At an- 
other time — this was on May 13 — a large, ripe, female 
sturgeon of nearly a hundred pounds in weight was found 
in our Missisquoi River pens. There were three able- 
bodied men present to handle the fish besides the writer, 
who stood by, ready witli the spawning pan. The fish was 
no sooner lifted from the dip net by the men on the 
stripping platform than with two terrible blows Avith the 
tail right and left, she sent her eggs flying across the 
platform to the distance of a rod or two, in the meantime 
struggling so violently that it required the combined 
efforts of the three men to hold her. Finally having sub- 
sided to a degree of comparative quietness, the few re- 
maining eggs in her — perhaps 20,000 — were taken, but 
though these were successfully hatched, the stripping of 
the fish was, of course, a failure, as not more than 4 per 
cent, of the eggs were taken. At still another time, three 
large female sturgeon, supposed to be fully ripe, were 
caught. On holding the fish up by the tail, the eggs 
sagged in the abdomen as with a fully ripe salmon, and 
In order to ensure our not losing these eggs, as others had 
been previously lost, two of these fish were knocked in 
the head and instantly killed, when, to the great dismay 
of the spawn takers, the eggs were found after all not to 
be sufficiently mature to be fertilized. To avoid a repeti- 
tion of this risk, the third fish, which appeared to be the 
least ripe of all, was put In confinement to ensure the 
further ripening of her eggs. This fish spawned that 
very night. 
The above instances illustrate how elusive and disap- 
pointing the sturgeon were, when an attempt was made 
to get their eggs, and how many difficulties presented 
themselves, even after their mysterious character had been 
removed. 
The difficulties did not prove wholly insurmountable, 
however. All the fishing for spawning sturgeon had been 
*The operations referred to in this pa-per were conducted under 
the auspices of the United States Fish Commission by the writer, 
very aWy assisted by Mr. Myron Green, in northwestern Vermont 
in the Missisquoi Kiver and the Lamoille River, tributaries of 
I-akei Ch^tnplaiii, and in t**® lak* *tself. 
