810 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
(April ig, 1902, 
ice has made, rather than melted. The balance of opinion 
centers on about April 30. The clearing of Mooselucma- 
guntic was May 2 last year, though Richardson had 
cleared a couple of days earlier. Rangeley cleared two 
days later. The earliest clearing of which there is any 
record was April 30, in 1899, and the latest. May 21, in 
1888. 
Boston, April 14.— Some of the Boston anglers are off 
for Newfound Lake, New Hampshire. Word has been 
received that some good salmon are being taken. Dr. 
Austin Woodman, of Plymouth, and Dr. Pierce, of Ox- 
ford, have each caught several salmon, the largest weigh- 
ing 4% and 4^4 pounds. Stephen Vallier has caught two 
salmon, each weighing about 7 pounds; Q. A. Ballou, two 
salmon, about 8 pounds; Mrs. I. Smith, two salmon, 4 
and 7 pounds; Felix Kenney, one salmon, 4 pounds; Wilb 
iam Cyr, salmon, 4^4 pounds; Fred Gray, trout. 4J/4 
pounds; Frank W. Galley, salmon, 3^2 pounds; A. F. 
Cate, salmon, 4 pounds ; Earl Solomon, salmon, 3 pounds. 
Lake Winnipiseogee is clear of ice, and two Boston 
anglers have gone up there. Some lake trout of 6 and 7 
pounds have already been taken. Warmer weather is 
looked for to improve the fishing. Special. 
Fish and Fishing. 
Grayling in the Yukon. 
Mr. Michael Crean, the Superintendent of the 
Dominion Government telegraph lines in the Yukon, was 
here the other day, and after being an interested listener 
for some time to the stories of bighorn, moose and 
grizzlies in the far Northwest, which he was relating to 
an attentive group, of sportsmen in the Quebec Garrison 
Club, I asked him something about the fishing in the 
Klondike country. I am sorry that I had not time to 
make very detailed inquiries of Mr. Crean, but in a gen- 
eral way I gleaned some information from him that can 
scarcely fail to interest a number of the readers of Forest 
and Stream. His description of the grayling fishing in 
sbme of the streams in the neighborhood of Lake Atlin 
was exceedingly graphic. The fish are plentiful, and 
esting problem. It is also an open question whether they 
will be able to return to Lake St. John from the sea, over 
some of the falls of the Upper Saguenay ; and it is sincere- 
ly to be hoped that some competent engineer, conversant 
with the life history of the Atlantic salmon, will be in- 
structed to ascertain whether the blasting away of 
boulders or the construction of fish ladders at some of 
these falls may not be necessary to the ascent of the re- 
turning fish. 
One plant of young fish from the Roberval hatchery 
which was made two years ago last autumn was the 
product of mixed parentage. The progeny was half-sal- 
mon, half-ouananiche. If these fish are not mules, but 
reproduce their kind, there ought, in a few years, to be 
a marked improvement in the size of many of the Lake St. 
John ouananiche ; and the naturalists fail to see any 
varietal distinction between the ouananiche and .Salnio 
salar to warrant the belief that their joint product would 
prove to be mules. 
An Early Season. 
The oldest inhabitant in Canada fails to recall so early 
a spring as that of the present season. There has been 
scarcely any snowfall in Quebec since the first week of 
February. Plowing commenced in the end of March, and 
although the lakes are, still covered with ice, the streams 
are all clear, and scarcely any snow is left in the northern 
woods. The thaw will be complete in a few days. The 
season in general is a full month earlier than usual. 
Trout fishing ought to be good this year by the first of 
May, when the open season commences, though generally 
there is little or no fly-fishing in the far northern waters 
until the 15th or 20th of the month. The ouananiche 
fishing in the Grande Decharge, which usually begins 
about June T2 or 15, will probably be good this year in the 
first week of the month. 
A Trade} In Natural Flies. 
The importance of supplying proper food for fish is now 
pretty well realized by almost every novice in the art of 
fishculture. Smelt, minnows and other small whitefish are 
the more ordinary varieties of food employed when pro- 
Elops saurus. 
though not large, are extremely gamy. They seize the 
angler's flies with avidity and afford capital sport when 
hooked. Trout are described as abundant, and I have 
very little doubt from Mr. Crean's account of their forked 
tails and deep red bellies and sides, that one or more 
species of the Arctic char, more or less closely resembling 
the Salvelinus marstonii of Garman and Cheney, abound 
there I was not surprised to hear from Mr. Crean that 
the Pacific salmon are taken up to 75 pounds in weight 
in the vicinity of Dawson, but what caused me to wonder 
more was his statement that they run up the river some 
hundreds of miles higher than that place, 
Half a Million Ouananiche. 
It is a far cry from the Klondike to Lake St. John, yet 
upon the same page of my notebook with a memoran- 
dum of Mr. Crean's story, I find an entry about the 
Roberval hatchery. This refers to the success achieved 
by Mr. Marcoux, the manager of the establishment, in 
securing 600,000 ouananiche eggs last autumn, which are 
now in an exceedingly healthy condition, giving promise 
of an early crop of at least half a million young fish, which 
will be ready for planting next fall. Mr. Marcoux 
secured the parent fish in the Salmon River, a tributary of 
the Ashuapmouchouan, and liberated them as soon as 
thev had been stripped of their ova and milt. Friends 
of the ouananiche will be glad to learn of the success of 
the Roberval hatchery ; for despite the natural fecundity 
of the fish, the waters in which it spawns contain so many 
enemies of both the spawn and the fry, that the fish 
hatchery is an improvement upon nature so far as the 
protection of the eggs and the young fish are concerned. 
Under ordinary circumstances, of course, the hatchery 
would be no more necessary to the preservation of species 
than it was during the ages that elapsed before the opera- 
tions of nature with respect to the ouananiche suffered in- 
terference at the hands of man. Since ouananiche fishing 
has attained its present popularity, it is fortunate that the 
fact has thus early been realized that artificial aid to the 
reproduction of the species is called for to compensate for 
the loss of fish that now fall to the wiles of the angler. 
A reasonable supply of young fish, hatched m this 
hatchery, have been distributed in creeks tributary to 
some of the feeders of Lake St. John, for three or four 
years past, but never before were operations carried on 
there so extensively as during the present season. 
Several of the samlets planted in Lake St. John waters 
two or three years ago were found last year, still bearing 
the parr marks. A close watch should be kept for them 
this season, and it would much add to the interest of the 
experiment if anglers, competent to identify salmon 
smolts from the young of the ouananiche, and fortunate 
enough to catch any of the former this season, in these 
waters, should report the circumstances fully through the 
columns of Forest and Stream. It should scarcely be 
necessary to add that no good sportsman capturing salmon 
smolt will fail to replace them in the water. Whether 
these fish will attain the grilse stage in Lake St. John, or 
Whether they will first xm (fctyftl & tu? sea, is an inter- 
viding it for game fishes, though for trout, in particular, 
it has long been established that they thrive best of all 
on Crustacea, larvae and flies. It may readily be under- 
stood, however, that superficial observers are likely to 
regard smaller fishes as a more substantial food than flies 
or larvae for trout, while the facility with which the May- 
fly, the fresh-water shrimp and other excellent .trout 
food may be planted is not nearly as well known as it 
deserves to be. A few carefully and intelligently con- 
ducted experiments will nevertheless convince the most 
skeptical of the ease with which the transplanting may 
be accomplished. 
I have not noticed any advertisements in Forest and 
Stream similar to those in some of the English sporting 
papers, in which all kinds of fish food are offered for 
sale. One, at least, of the English houses has carried 
out a number of valuable experiments in breeding water 
under banks and sheltered places. The trout fed with 
worms grew slowly, and had a lean appearance; those 
nourished on minnows — which it was observed, they 
darted at with great voracity — became much larger; while 
such as were fattened upon flies only, attained in a short 
time prodigious dimensions, weighing twice, as much as 
both the others together, although the quantity of food 
swallowed by them was in nowise so great. 
Lanman has stated that one principal cause of the great 
variety in color of the brook trout is the difference of 
food, such as live upon fresh-water shrimps and other 
crustacea are the brightest; those which feed upon May 
flies and, other aquatic insects are the next, and those, 
which feed upon worms are the dullest of all. Trout 
which feed much upon larvae (Phrygamda) and their 
cases are not only red in flesh, but they become golden 
in hue and the red spots increase in number. 
Professor Agassiz has said "the most beautiful trout 
are found in waters which abound in crustacea ; direct 
experiments having shown that the intensity of the red 
colors of their flesh depends upon the quantity of Gam- 
maridse which they have devoured." 
And as long ago as the days of old Father Walton we 
find in "The Compleat Angler" that the May fly, which 
is bred of the cod worm or caddies, "makes the trout 
bold and ItfMy ; and he -is usually fatter and better meat 
at the end of "that month than at anv time of the year." 
E. T. D. Chambers. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
The Renovation of Cedar Lake. 
Chicago, 111., April 12. — As is generally understood by 
the bass fishermen of Chicago, the little lake known as 
Cedar Lake, on the Monon road in Indiana, is the very 
earliest of all the bass waters of this country. As was 
stated last week, our bass fishers have already begun to 
visit this favorite water, although the fishers who came 
back from there the first of the week reported but poor 
sport. Mr. W. H. English was lucky enough- to kill one 
bass which weighed nearly four pounds, and one other of 
the party got a good bass, though for the most part but 
little success was had. 
At that time it became generally understood that Cedar 
Lake was to be seined this week for the purpose of re- 
moving all the worthless fish, such as buffalo, carp, dog- 
fish, etc., it being the intention of the railroad and the 
residents to improve the angling so that Cedar Lake might 
come into still greater prominence as a bass water. 
Different members of the local settlement had contributed 
toward the purchase of a seine, a net of about 500 feet in 
length being considered ample for the purpose intended. 
The seining was to be done under the supervision of the 
State Fish Commissioner. The worthless fishes were to 
be destroyed or given away, and all game fish returned to 
the water. The enterprise was very widely advertised, 
and, in fact, we rather expectd a convulsion of nature 
when that big seine began to tear through the pearly 
depths of Cedar Lake. It is even stated that some repre- 
sentatives of the Field Columbian Museum were to be 
on hand to take care of the scientific possibilities of this 
undertaking. At the least calculation, everybody sup- 
posed, thousands of carp, bullheads, etc., would be taken 
when the big seine got to work, although no one anti- 
cipated that it would be possible to exterminate the carp 
or buffalo fish in this way. 
As a matter of fact, the Cedar Lake seining proposition 
panned out worse than any circle hunt for wolves that 
ever was pulled off in all the wide, wide world. Of 
course a 500-foot seine is just about one-tenth of the 
length it ought to have been for the purpose intended. A 
steam launch was fastened to one end of the seine, and 
after considerable excitement one or two hauls were 
made. Reports have it, with probably a fair degree of 
accuracy, that the first haul resulted in the capture of 
one small and somewhat dismayed croppy, which by order 
of the representative of the State Fish Commission was 
returned to the element from which it had been thus un- 
ceremoniously haled. The dogfish, bullheads, etc., were, 
at last accounts, still reveling in the outer depths of the 
Albula vulpes. 
flies, and is continuing the work on commercial lines. In 
their recently issued price list, they advertise both the 
fertilized eggs and larvae of the May fly, the former being 
delivered in June. In addition, they sell mollusca (fresh- 
water snails) and crustaceans, such as Gammarus pulex 
(the fresh-water shrimp), and a variety of useful water 
weeds, such as those to which the different varieties of 
fish food cling. 
In connection with what I have said concerning insect 
food for fishes, an interesting experiment is worthy of 
note here, which is mentioned by Mr. Stoddart in his 
"Art of Angling as Practiced in Scotland." It was made 
some years ago with trout in the south of England, in 
order to ascertain the relative value of different food. 
Fish were placed in three different tanks, one of which 
was supplied daily with worms, another with live min- 
nows, and the third with those small, dark-colored water 
fljes which are to be found nipying a,bout on the surface 
lake, and declining to come into the shallow water to 
become involved in the meshes of the big net. What the 
ultimate returns may be no one knows, though at present- 
in the words of the country reporter, great excitement 
prevails. 
Early Bass. 
The most favorable outlook for early bass seems to 
be at Bass Lake, Ind., and at Fox Lake, 111., both of 
which may now be declared to be open for business. 
One angler caught eighteen good bass last Sunday at 
Bass Lake. Mr. Jim Edwards, of this city, caught six 
buss early in the week at Fox Lake, and he thinks there 
will be good bass fishing in the latter district within the 
coming week, This would be a good time to go bass 
fishing in the Kankakee River, or would have been six or 
eight years ago, at which time the Chicago anglers used 
to have such sport along that stream below Moraeuce, 111, 
