Aprii, 2S, 1903-]' 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
381 
No More Salmon in ' Nepissiguit. 
The following article from a Canadian paper fore- 
shadows the speedy destruction of all the salmon in that 
notable angling river of New Brunswick, the Nepissiguit, 
famous for half a ceritury among devotees of the two- 
handed rod in Canada and the United States. And far- 
reaching will be the result, for it is the nursery upon 
which the neighboring commercial coast fisheries depend. 
Our readers will deplore the catastrophe when it comes. 
Excepting this, the only rivers remaining available to the 
angler, among the many which once afforded sport, are 
the Restigouche and the Miramichi and its branches. Wc 
reprint from the Chatham (N. B.) World of April 9: 
"Are the people of Gloucester county aware that our 
Legislature has passed an act empowering Alfred Harms- 
v/orth the great English publisher, to expropriate lands 
on the Ncpisiquit River, and that he has announced his 
intention of getting possession of the Grand Falls on 
that river and erecting near them an extensive pulp mill 
and sulphite works? 
"The justification of this act is 'that the • interests of 
trade and commerce must alwa3'S take precedence of the 
interests of mere sport,' on the ignorant supposition that 
riparian owners of lands and angling pools, from Rough 
Waters to Grand Falls, are the only persons whose inter- 
ests will be affected by the total destruction of the only 
salmon river now left in the county. 
"When the old men of to-day were young, every river 
in Gloucester count)^ — Nepisiquit, Bass River, Caraquet, 
Pokemouche, Big and Little Trucadie — were good salmon 
strearns, but mills, dams and sawdust have caused their 
desertion. The sole river in the county that now remains 
a nursery for salmon is the Nepisiquit, which has escaped 
destruction only because, hitherto, no mills have been built 
along its course. On this river alone now depends the 
whole annual catch of salmon between Point Miscou and 
Bathurst harbor. The catch on this coast last season, 
as given in the report of the Fisheries Department just 
issued, was 458,900 pounds, and in this valuable fishery 
every farmer on the coast has a rested interest in the 
shape of boats, nets, ice houses, etc. 
"A pulp mill at Grand Falls, with all its waste thrown 
into the water, will destroy every spawning bed on the 
river, for just in these shallow and quit reaches will the 
refuse find lodgment. With the destruction of these 
spawning grounds and of the salmon that now resort to 
them annually, goes the whole salmon fishery of the 
comit}'- of Gloucester, because there is no other river on 
its coast to which salmon now resort in numbers sufficient 
to keep up the stock. 
"Some steps should be taken immediately by those inter- 
ested to prevent an alien from destroying, for his own 
.sole profit, the interests and vested rights of more thaji 
half the people of the county, to say nothing of the finest 
angling river in the Maritime Provinces— one of the 
only three now left. What are the electors of Gloucester 
going to do about it?" V. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST, 
Trout Season Open. 
Chicago, 111., April 18. — The Wisconsin trout season 
opened three days ago, but as yet I have not heard from 
anyone who has been out and returned. A few of the 
early and ambitious ones have gone north for the Prairie, 
the Ontanogan, the Brule and other northern streams, not 
to mention a number of Oshkosh anglers who are over on 
the White, Wautoma and other streams in the central 
and lower parts of Wisconsin. The largest number of 
early trout fishermen will leave town early to-day and 
probably return about the middle of next week. There 
is no very encouraging report from the northern waters 
as yet, as we have had a peculiarly patchy sort of 
weather all over this part of the world this spring. I don't 
think the snow fall in northern Wisconsin was quite so 
heavy as usual, and this ought to mean that the streams 
Will clear before the end of April. This, however, is but 
a theory, and everything regarding brook trout and brook 
trout fishing is something mighty uncertain. To-day is 
the first decent day in the week, but that is speaking only 
for Chicago and not for the trout country. Personally 
I should think it much safer to wait until about May i to 
May ro, tlie month of May and the first half of June be- 
ing the best fly-fishing season of the year. 
Bass. 
Some bass fishermen are talking of sneaking out next 
week for a try after big-mouths. Most of these go south 
of Chicago, Cedar Lake, Ind., being the earliest water to 
show bass in this part of the country. I do not take 
much interest in these early bass fishing trips, for the 
niiddle of April is too soon for sportsmen to take bass. 
They are then just going on the spawning grounds and 
ought not to be disturbed until after the spawning opera- 
tions. It is true that the best of the bait-casting season is 
during the time the bass are in the shallow water. Wc 
u.sually suppose that they are feeding on frogs around the 
edges of the water, but the likelihood is that they are 
hanging around the spawning beds and protecting the lat- 
ter, after the well-known habits of this species. Of 
course anyone knows that a bass on the spawning bed will 
run at almost anything which is passed close to it. While 
there is no immediate cause for fear of diminution of the 
supply of big-mouth bass in the better known angling 
waters of this district, we should have still better sport if 
we waited until after the spawning operations are for the 
most part over. This does not mean until the last bass 
has spawned, for this may in some cases be as late as 
July or even August; but granted fairly warm weather, 
the middle of May or first of June will see the bulk of the 
spawning over at this latitude. Let them spawn. We 
talk about stopping spring shooting, though a duck may 
rear only eight or ten 3'omig at a sitting. Old mother 
Bass will hatch about 1,000 young in her sitting, and 
although the mortality among these little fellows is very 
large, the rate of increase is much larger with fish than 
with birds. We shall have fishing in this country long 
after the shooting is gone. 
Tarpon Scales and Indian Trade, 
Mr. Chas. Hallock, of Washington, D. C, always 
turns up with something curious and interesting. In a 
recent letter he says : "By the way, did you ever hear of 
wampum-moons? It is the peach-blow cheek of the abe- 
lone shell of the Pacific side, which used to be affected so 
much hy aboriginal dandies up to the year 1881. The 
Crows were especially fond of them, wearing them around 
their necks as substitutes for Great Father medals. 
Women also wore them as pend d'oreilles. They were 
obtained through middle men in regular course of barter 
with the Coast Indians. Agent Kellar of the Crows in 
1880-1881, Clerk Barstow and I, as the instigator of the 
scheme, tried very hard in those years to establish a trade 
with the Florida Coast for scales of the tarpum (grande 
ccaille) with which the Indians were very much im- 
pressed. They had a legend that the silver king (tarpum) 
once 'used' in the coves of the Rocky Mountains when the 
waters which in ancient days covered the earth made estu- 
aries of the canon mouths. Consequently they regarded 
the_ scales as 'big medicine,' especially the large ones, 
which would cover the palm of a man's hand. Inoppor- 
tunely the extirpation of the buffalo at the time mentioned 
prevented the Indians from gathering robes as before, and 
besides they were short on dry furs, and therefore 'heap 
poor.' So my scheme to make the tarpum product mar- 
ketable most signally failed. I have the correspondence 
before me, with portraits of leading Crow chiefs who 
were interested." 
An Honored Horse. 
In 1849, at the time of the outbreak of the California 
gold fever, Mr. Robert Miller, of Illinois, started for 
California on horseback. He rode a gray mare, of which 
he was very fond. This animal carried him out to Cnli- 
fornia, not onl}' once, but three times. In his three trips 
from Illinois to the Golden State Miller rode this inimal 
more than 25,000 miles. After he got done with gold 
mining he came back to settle down near Sullivan. Feel- 
ing the years creeping on, not long ago he made a will, 
leaving his property to his wife during her life and after 
her death to the Masonic Grand Lodge of Illinois, with 
certain conditions restricting the use of the property. A 
year ago the Grand Lodge accepted this trust and began 
to look into the property. On the old farm near Sullivan 
they found a large and well kept mound, surromided by a 
good fence. Inquiry and investigation showed that this 
was the grave, not of any human being, but of a horse ; 
in point of fact, the old gray mare which had been ridden 
by Miller three times from Illinois to California. It is 
not wholly an unpleasant reflection to think that Miller 
thus remembered his old and faithful servant, ai]d it is 
still more pleasant to be able to add that the trus'tees of 
the estate have taken means for the suitable and perma- 
nent protection arid care of this grave of the • M grav 
mare. E. Hough. ' 
Hartford Building, Chicago, III. 
A Nashua Angfler, 
The Manchester (N. H.) Union prints this from its 
Nashua correspondent, under date of April 12: 
"There is no truer or more sportsmanlike disciple of 
Izaak Walton in New Hampshire nor in any other State 
than Henry F. Mears, of this city. Mr. Mears is well 
known among the fraternity of anglers over this section 
of the_ State. No one better understands the skillful art 
of luring from the cold and turbulent brooks of April 
the shy and speckled trout than does Mr. Mears. His 
latest achievement occurred Thursday, when he returned 
with nine trout from a brook near Nashua, and the prizes 
weighed over six and a half pounds, one tipping the scale 
at more than a pound. 
"Mr. Mears never takes small trout, not even as small 
as the law allows, but puts them back into the stream. He 
considers it no victory to take and bring back twenty- 
five or thirty six-inch trout as evidence of a day's sport. 
'Any kid could do that,' he says, 'but to bring back a 
half dozen from a half pound to a pound weight each, 
means work.' 
"He would rather catch one half-pound trout than 
twenty seven-inchers. He advocates raising the legal 
length from five to six inches. 
"Mr. Mears is not simply a depleter of waters, either, 
and during the last three years has put i,ooD,ooo pike 
perch, or warlike pike, into the ponds in this vicinity, in- 
cluding Stump Pond in South Merrimack, Round Pond 
m Nashua, and Pennichuck Pond, between Nashua and 
Merrimatk. He has also put into local waters 40,000 
trout fry and 1,000 fingerlings. 
"The nine fish Mr. Mears took Thursday were caught 
in six hours' angling in less than a half mile of brook. 
The following day he took a trout which weighed iM 
pounds," 
The Colofingfs of Fish, 
Charlestown, N. H., April i^.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: I think I owe an apology to Mr. Venning for 
misunderstanding his views as to the sea trout. I cer- 
tainly thought from his first letters that he believed them 
to remain in fresh water, only running down to meet the 
smelts in the spring, but from his letter in Forest and 
Stream of April 11, I judge that he thinks that they re- 
side in the estuaries, not going far to sea, and running 
up with the smelts, and also to spawn. Here we agree, 
but the movements of these anadromous fish are an en- 
tire mystery to me, as I believe they are to everyone else, 
after they reach salt water. They are never, or very sel- 
dom, taken in the sea, and I think no one has any definite 
idea as to how far "off shore" they go. 
In the matter of coloration of fish I agree with him 
that no dependance can be placed on it. I long since 
ceased to regard it as a matter of vital consequence. I 
have found so many variations in color in my own ex- 
perience, not only in the trout of different neighboring 
waters, but in different reaches of the same stream, that 
I have come to regard these differences as due to local 
and often transitory causes. I think I have mentioned in 
previous letters the difference in the color of the trout in 
the two Diamond Ponds connected by a clear open 
stream, those in the lower ponds very dark deep red 
fleshed, and seldom over eight ounces in weight; in fact, 
I never caught one quite up to that weight, though I have 
caught many. Those in the upper pond, paler and 
brighter, and sometimes running up to two pounds, while 
those in the head of the Mohawk River, six miles to the 
west on the Connecticut watershed, are quite white 
fleshed. 
In one of mjr old favorite brooks, when I was a boy, 
the trout in one branch, which came mostlyy through the 
woods, were very dark; in the other, flowing through 
open pastures and meadows, quite bright; and in another 
brook, which in its course made a "hole" where it ran 
against the remains of an old glacial moraine of blue clay 
and gravel, I always looked for and usually caught at 
least one with very black back and very white belly, while 
tlie fish in the meadow below were bright and high 
colored. I think color is purely a local matter. 
Von W. 
Lake Champlain Fisliirgf. 
St. Ar.BANS, April 12. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
There is no close sea^son for black bass in Lake Champlain 
waters this year. It is lawful to catch them v\iJi hook and 
line at any season of the year. 
The Vermont Legislature at its session in 1902 seem 
to have arrived at the conclusion that there were plenty of 
small-mouthed bass in these waters, and that further pro- 
tection against hook and line fishing was unnecessary. So 
they repealed the law which made the open season com- 
mencing January 15 the legal time to commence fishing 
for them. There has been no close season for the various 
other kinds of fish which inhabit these waters against 
hook and line fishing for several years. There has been 
a close season for bass for the past twenty years. So the 
Legislature removed the temptation to keep the bass in its 
close season by repealing the laAv. It is easier to catch 
bass during the month of May than any other month of 
the year, the fishing being done along its shores, no 
anchor fishing; they readily take the fly at that time, both 
trolling and casting. Bass are very seldom caught in 
seines as they run on rocky bottoms. After thi's year 
there will be no netting fish in Lake Champlain, as per 
agreement with New York, Vermont and Canada; no 
more licenses will be granted. LI. L. Samson. 
Rapid Growth of Fish. 
Experiments recently made in England furnish inter- 
esting information regarding the rapidity of growth of 
fish of the salmon family during their stay in the sea. 
Says a writer in the Revue Scientifique (February 14) : 
"A sea trout weighing three pounds when captured and 
marked July 8, 1901, weighed six pounds when retaken in 
July, 1902, having thus doubled in weight in one year. A 
1,3-pound salmon taken and marked in January, 1901, 
weighed 21 pounds in July, 1902, and another salmon 
weighing 16 pounds in August, 1901, reached the weight 
of 22 pounds when retaken in July, 1902. An exam- 
ple of still more extraordinary growth has been reported. 
A male salmon caught at Castle Connell on February 24 
of last year, by Mr. S. C. Vansittart, weighed 19 pounds. 
It_ was marked by one of the tags used by the Department 
of Agriculture, bearing the number 1,502 and replaced in 
the water. On March 26 following the same fish was re- 
taken at O'Brien's Bridge, five miles from Castle Connell, 
and it then weighed 33 pounds. Its weight had increased 
by 14 pounds in one month and two days. The fact may 
seem incredible, but it is indubitable, having been estab- 
lished by a naval certificate." — Translation made for The 
Literary Digest. 
Tagf§:ed Tatpon. 
Tarpon, Texas, April 13. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
Inclosed find metal tag, such as is being used by Mr. W. 
B. Young, of New York city, for tagging all his catches. 
In the past few days Mr. Young has placed these tags on 
fi-ve tarpon, six jackfish, two jewfish, one leaping shark, 
and one 200-pound turtle. We shall try this season to 
introduce this idea of tagging fish by all the fishermen. 
Mr. Young is to be congratulated on getting the blue, 
red and white ribbons for landing the first, second and 
third tarpon of the season, this being the first time such 
a record has been made here since tarpon fishing began. 
The Pass is full of tarpon now, and good fishing will be 
had the rest of the season. I. E. Cotter. 
Game and Fish at Albany. 
Albany, April 18.— One of the interesting events of the week to 
sportsmen in legislative circles was the passage by the Senate 
and Assembly of Senator Brown's amended spring shooting bill 
(Assembly printed No. 2068). It now goes to the Governor for his 
consideration. As iinally acted upon, the bill excludes brant from 
the classes of game birds whose shooting in the spring is pro- 
hibited. 
Governor Odell has signed the hill of Assemblyman Whitney 
(Int. No. 986), providing that perch shall not be taken from 
Saratoga Lake or Lake Lonely from March 15 to May 1, both 
inclusive. 
The Senate has passed the following bills: 
Senator W. L. Brown's, Int. No. 365, providing for the publica- 
tion of the forest, iish and game laws, as amended. 
Senator Gates', Int. No. 778, relative to information concerning 
leases and franchises for the cultivation of shell fish. 
_ Assemblyman iNicholls', Int. No. 1281, relative to spearing fish 
m Greene countj', 
Assemblyman Burnett's, Int. No. 199, relative to taking fish in 
Canandaigua Lake. 
The Senate has advanced tlie foUa-wing bills to third reading- 
Senator Townsend's, Int. No. 379, relative to the close season 
for deer. 
Senator W. L. Brown's, Int. No. 703, relative to fire wardens. 
Senator Townsend's, Int. No. C07, re'ative to privileges of 
witnesses, testifying in cases cf game law violations. 
Assemblyman Nicholls', Int. No. 1,94, relative to taking wood- 
cock. 
A.ssemblyman Palmer's. Int. No. 541, relative to the close sea- 
son ftr quail in Schoharie c^amty. 
Assemblyman Reynolds', Int. No. 550, relative to the close 
season for grouse, woodcock and quail in Rensselaer county 
Assemblyman C. W. Smith's, Int. No. 631, relative to penalties 
for game law violations. 
Assemblyman J. W. Smith's, Int. No. 418, relative to fishino- in 
Whaley's Pond, Dutchess county. 
The Assembly has passed the following bills: 
Assemblyman Moran's, Int. No. 470, relative to fishing for non- 
game fish m Cayuga Lake and tributary streams. 
Assemblyman Finegan's, Int. No. 1384, prohibiting non-resi- 
dents from hunting or . fishing in certain counties without a 
license. 
Assemblyman Fowler's, Int. No. 1403, in relation to licenses 
for nets in Lake Erie, Chautauqua county. 
_ Senator Raines', Int. No. 183, relative to taking fish through the 
ice in certain counties. 
Senator Goodsell's, Int. No. 261, relative to fishing through the 
ice with tip-ups in Orange and Rockland counties 
A,ssemblyman C. W. Smith's, Int. No. 1169, fixing the salary of 
assistant game protectors at $1,500, with ?750 annually for ex- 
penses. 
Assemblyman Apgar's. ImU No. 1201, relative to taking shad 
srom the Hudson River.. e 
