May 9, 1903.J 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
869 
the Platte River proper. This, however, I consider 
erroneous, as the South Platte, where it joins the North 
Platte, is a stream of not much more than half the 
volume of the North Platte. The latter is also the 
longest, widest and most important stream every way, 
and is undoubtedly the Platte River proper, and in the 
name only above the confluence of the, two streams is 
called the North Platte. I have written Attorney Ge.i- 
eral Van Orsdel for his opinion, and expect to receive 
it in a day or so. 
The jacksnipe are still with us, and big bags are being 
made daily by Omaha shooters on the other side of the 
river. The cause for the wonderful abundance of this 
choice bird this spring is still being marveled at by all 
our gunners, but none can advance a tenable theory why 
this is so. While their long stay here is easily accounted 
for by the unseasonable weather, it is a different proposi- 
tion when you try to explain the conditions that have 
made it possible this spring to kill one hundred jacks on 
the same grounds every day in the week for three straight 
weeks. Bags of these dimensions have been the rule 
and not the exception and I would like to hear from the 
Forest and Stream on this matter. 
Sandy Griswold. 
Canoe and Camp Life Along the 
^ Delaware River. _ ^ 
Snaps [with a'Pocfcet Camera^ and Fly Casts with Tamarack 
PqIcs* 
VL— The Camp-Fire.— Two Pictofes. 
In the dance of the camp-fire's ruddy liglit, 
In the flame and smoke so free — 
In the glow of its embers red and bright, 
Are comfort and cheer for me! 
"Light through sumri.v-r foliage stealing, 
Shedding a glow of such mild hue — 
So warm, and yet so shadowy too — 
As makes the very darkness there 
More beautiful than light elsewhere." 
— ^Moore. 
We are back in camp alter a perfect angling day. 
with a fresh wind from the west, and showery weather. 
Pond Eddy has swarmed with schools pi bass. Two 
rods have landed four fish, each weighing over three 
pounds; and we have hooked and released about fifty 
more whose weight would average nearly one and 
a half pounds. We are regarding this hunger to hook 
so many fish, with a feeling rather akin to shame. But 
we seek forgetfulness of it in a renewed study of our 
environment. _ " 
In the tent is a recent number of a famous _ English 
magazine, which was purchased on the Erie train as we 
"came up" from New York. It contains an article 
about salmon fishing in Norway; and its writer warns 
his readers that he did not go to Norway to look at 
scenery, but to kill salition. He killed them by dozens, 
and was blind to the loveliness and grandeur of the 
titanic Norse scenery — to the tender grace and beauty 
of the acres of lilies-of-the-valley that grow on or near 
every meadow. He was a fisherman, perhaps an ang- 
ler, but hardly a sportsman, much less an artist or 
poet. Walton was a poet, and delighted in and studied 
the beauty around him — ^joyed in the pleasantness of 
pure air. low lap of waves on beaches, _ forest odors, 
and winding light of water as it circled in sedgy shal- 
lows, or deepened with baby murmurings, and in the 
evening sleep of blue-flag blossoms, pond lilies, and 
wild roses. More and more, the angling becomes an 
excuse to live in the forest and beside the stream, and 
for handling the blackened coffee pot and dingy frying- 
pan or camp kettle, over that very soul and joy of tent 
life, the simple camp-fire. 
Camp-fire ! What varied memories that word will 
summon to the reader! Even the sodden, extinguished 
embers of such a fire, abandoned months ago, are full 
of interest. Kindled, and roaring its actual life, the 
camp-fire is a comfort and inspiration — joyous, free, 
wild; and gracious with all the nameless hypnotism of 
a primitive home. Its pillar of smoke by day is a 
glad sight to the angler in his boat, or busy with the 
trout as he wades the brook. Over where that blue 
column rises lazily through the green draperies of the 
trees, is home! And its pillar of fire by night dances 
a welcome, as the flare of the flames pushes back the 
wall of darkness that closes around from the forest, 
where owls hoot in lonely nocturne, and the whip-poor- 
wills are calling. 
How reality, day-dreams, memory, longing, good 
cheer, anticipation, hope, hunger, appetite and restful- 
ness, cluster and intertwine in its lambent flames and 
blue smoke-drift! Joy in its morning replenishment 
and cooking incense; while its resinous woods "grow 
precious in burning," giving out their sweets and fill- 
ing all the air with an enchantment of odors that draw 
to your camp even the most practical and hard-headed 
natives. For its builders, who sit around in a circle 
atid smoke the pipe or cigar of peace, feel drawn close 
together, their faces lighted up fitfully, showing them 
under a hypnotic spell — that touch of nature which makes 
the whole world kin. The camp-fire is the shrine of the 
hunter and fisher — sacred to sport, and whereon we 
make burnt offerings to nymph, satyr and dryad. It 
is the Aixadian holy of holies. Seated in that circle, we 
become children again, and people the fire's white-hot 
heart with armies, flaming villages of tiny houses, scar- 
let parades of little demons, ranks of flaming hills- — all 
throbbing with heat and life. We Aveave air castles 
there in the dolce far niente of the angler's and camp- 
er's outing. We drive back the dark by piling high on 
the fire great heaps of cedar, pine, spruce or hemlock 
h<:)ughs that snap and crack in the heat like volleys of 
rifle shots, and send up through the chimney of the 
wide air, millions of flying sparks. We deepen beside it, 
a hunger that fairly tears at the throat; we grow 
ashamed — almost alarmed — as supper is eaten; and 
corn bread, baked potatoes, coffee, fried fish, cheese, 
bacon, and beans baked there in the ground, march in 
a molley procession into our mouths. Then the pipe 
or cigar, the heart's ease, the surcease of sorrow, as 
lustrous Hesperus sinks through the trees to the west- 
ern horizon! 
At the camp-fire we renew courage — ^faith to fight 
life's battles; and, blessed fact! sleep is given to us. 
There, we find and cherish perfect human companion- 
ships in some spot which we have longed to see for 
months "as the hart panteth for the water brooks" — 
memories of it shining clear and far when we may 
have been haunted and hounded by business cares and 
specters, and personal griefs. We joy in the fire's 
fierce life, love its embers as they burn low, and listen 
to their whispers even when we are rolled in our 
blankets inside the tent, whose canvas flaps are parted 
as we hear the falling of a burned stick, and we look 
out, noting the sudden, flickering bm-st of flame, and its 
tiny column of smoke that floats toward the river's 
ceaseless flow and murmur. Some last impressions of 
its intermittent crackling, with louder snaps from the 
smouldering back log, are borne to our subconscious- 
ness across the borders of dreamland, and the roused 
midnight wind stirs the foliage and ruffles the river with 
its low cadences and crooning — the 
"still sound 
Of falling waters, lulling as the song 
Of Indian bees at sunset, when they throng 
Around the fragrant Nilica, and deep 
In its blue blossoms, hum themselves to sleep." 
It is -humiliating to merely festoon this subject with 
rather tawdry garlands of words, Oh, for simple words 
to show all this in its simple verity, when we love it 
so! Oh, for power to shake off the blighting self-con- 
sciousness, the "playing on sweetly modulated pipes of 
diction," and to search out and use the plain language 
POND EDDY — MORNING. 
that would show, as in a sacred picture, the beneficence 
and life of the open-air fire before the camper's tent! 
But one fact is certain. Such a spot is the home of 
Health. Let any man sleep for a month in a tent beside 
the upper Delaware River in July, noting the absence 
of mosquitoes, the restfulness. the appetite he has, and 
then let him try sleeping in his city room during 
August. He will often feel that he will sufTocate. For 
the free, Avide air, the tent life, the harmonies of the 
flowing water, the mystery of forest and mountain, 
there is where Health dwells with her hand-maid, Hap- 
piness! 
Sam. Johnson wrote of the illusions of hope and the 
futility of believing that "the deficiency of the present 
day Avill be supplied by the morrow." Ruskin sadly 
"admitted" that men are so constituted as to be in- 
capable of satisfaction with anything. Some bilious 
poet was guilty of a line, which has been quoted by half 
POND EDDY — EVENING. 
the misanthropes: "Man never is, but always to be, 
blest." Even Burns whined from his carousals: "Man 
was made to mourn." 
Those fellows should have had a month of fishing 
with kindly, jolly comrades, evei-y day full of correct 
life and hard work, change, study and sight; and every 
evening a hearty supper in the Avoods beside the stream 
and a camp-fire of their own building — a supper cooked 
by themselves, Avith dishes to wash and skillet and kettle 
to clean and hang up; and tlisn a long draught of com- 
radeship before sleeping in a tent, around and over 
which leaves Avhisper, and eerie night-voices come wan- 
dering to mingle Avith the liquid song of the Avater that 
we feel is alive, happy, tremulous and dimpling with 
joy as it circles, eddies and glides — talking in surging 
words that break and die upon its pebbled lips, and 
murmuring to itself a sinless secret hidden forever in 
its heart. 
There, if anyAvhere, men will wrench themselves loose 
from the myth of tl?e fallacy of hope— know that they 
are in a land of tenderest blessing, and Avill be glad 
they are alive; and they will realize how inconceivable 
it is that creative intelligence is not doing all things 
well. AAvay with the falsehood that black fate Avill at 
last extinguish the blessings and harvests of noble pur- 
pose and loving life! Go a-fishing, camp, build a fire 
hy your tent, and learn that the "philosophy of despair" 
is but another name for a disordered liver. You will 
postpone for many years the date of your de^th. Mean- 
while, you will learn to know the real preciousness of 
the philosophy embodied in Hindoo ethics; 
"Blessed is he that, lying on his death-bed, finds the 
sum total of happiness he has brought to the world to 
be greater than the sum total of pain he has inflicted 
upon the world; for the balance shall be given back to 
him a thousand fold." 
And now, as the light of the morning brings the joy 
like it, and Ave rise "kindled Avith the wine of sleep," 
our comrade hands me the tAvo pictures of the river 
near our camp at Pond Eddy, one looking northeast 
over the river in early morning light, with shadows 
and comparative grayness of hue over all the landscape; 
and the other, a rosy ahcav of sky and water just before 
sunset. 
Much of the tenderness and delicacy of hue in the 
actual scenes are lost by the imperfect processes o.f 
photography and emgraving; but the reader should 
feel the steel-gray, sharp tint and outline of the one, 
and the Avild-rose glow, the radiant mist, the atmos- 
pheric transfiguration of the sunset scene, the water 
transparent in green and pure amethyst blue; Avhile, 
OAving to a sudden onrush of the current, a swell has 
been created, on whose near side is stamped the length- 
ened reflection of the pointed tops of the stone pier 
just above, which is itself invisible bc'hind the cluster 
of ^ foliage. He should feel the blended radiance and 
bright mystery, the distinct, sharp-edged, purple 
shadows in and around that tree, the preciousness of 
the vista of far hills along the opposite shores. 
And he will understand how cheap and even nausjeat- 
ing it Avould be to describe the scene in the words of 
the man Avho glares, and calls it "perfectly beAVtifuI." 
For he Avill realize that if he had been privileged to 
witness that scene in its actuality — in all the loveliness 
of the special, rare moment when Xteme Nature was 
trying on one of her most exquisite robes, he Avould 
have been silent, hypnotized, and all Avords would have 
been impotent to describe it. And in studying the 
picture he will remember what has already been stated 
in these articles, that the brightest color' possible to 
photographer, printer or painter, is merely pure Avliite, 
which is pitifully inadequate to show the throbbing blue 
of that sky, deep, quivering, transparent, no spot in its 
lighted, orange glory AA^here the delicate color is not 
in a state of transition, "things A\'hich the angels work 
out for us daily, yet vary eternally, and never found 
but once," the whole "almost human in its passions, 
almost spiritual in its tenderness, almost divine in its 
infinity," and so "producing scene after scene, picture 
after picture, glor}- after glory, working still upon such 
exquisite and constant principles of the most perfect 
beauty that it is quite certain it is all done for us, and 
intended for our special pleasure." The real picture 
Avas a mile long; this picture is mere black ink on white 
paper, and less than three inches long. 
Such earth-scrolls are unfolded to one Avho goes 
a-fishing on the Delaware, and we are grateful. Let 
the rod bend and SAvay, the reel scream, and the flies 
kiss the Avater of rapid and pool. Let the black bass 
leap, dart, shoot and fight in a glorious, thrilling strug- 
gle. But do not foIloAv the example of that Norse sal- 
mon-fisher, and merely go a-fishing to fish. 
L. F. Brown. 
Fish and Fishing. 
Spring Fishing Prospects in Canada. 
The month of April brought me the usual spring crop 
of letters from the United States filled Avith inquiries 
concerning the prospects of the early fishing in Canada. 
If I have not been able to reply to all of them personal!}', 
it is by no means because of disinclination to oblige by 
giving the desired information, but because it Avas not 
mine to give. Our springs are just as uncertain things 
as they are anvAvhere else, only perhaps a little more so. 
An apparently very early break-up of the Canadian A\'in- 
ter in the end of February or beginning of March is fre- 
quently but the prelude to a very late spring. This is 
our experience at the present time. A very fine month 
of March has been folloAved by an extremely disagree- 
able, backward and cold April, so far, at least, as the 
first three weeks of it are concerned. It is pretty safe 
to say that there will not be many fish caught in northern 
Quebec on the first of May, the opening day of the trout 
season, this year. All the lakes are still covered with ice, 
and will be for some days to come. The streams are for 
the most part clear of their Avinter covering, and there 
arc spots Avhere the next feAV days may yield a few tro- 
phies to the persistent angler, but artificial flies Avill not 
be killing for another ten days or a fortnight, except in 
very favored localities. 
For all practical purposes — so far as the angler is con- 
cerned — the ouananiche season does not open before the 
T5th of May, and sometimes the date is even later. It all 
depends upon the breakup of the ice on Lake St. John. 
By the third week of May there is ahvays good sport to 
be had around the shores of the lake and in the mouths 
of many of its tributaries, especially of the Ouiatchauan 
and Metabetchouan, for those Avho are not A^ery particu- 
lar about hotel accommodation. The Hotel Roberval 
only opens, as a rule, about the time when the fly-fishing 
in the Grand Discharge is comxnencing, and prior to that 
time the angler Avho visits Lake St. John must be con- 
tent with country fare and accommodation, which can' 
easily be obtained at Roberval. The conductors and olhei: 
employes of the railway will readily direct passengers to 
lodgings, and it is quite easy to obtain boats or canoes 
and men to roAv or paddle them. This sport is always 
good between the 15th and 20th of May around the west 
and south shores of the lake, though it does not com- 
mence at the Grand Discharge to any extent before the 
second week of June. For this early fishing in the lake 
I have always found large and gaudy flies to be the best. 
Though the sport is good all round the shores above 
mentioned, the pool immediately above the railway bridge 
A\'hich crosses the mouth of the Ouiatchouan River some 
seven miles south of Roberval, yields the best return of 
genuine enjoyment to the angler, not only because of the 
greater number of fish to be found there, but also because 
of the beauty of the surroundings and the fact that the 
ouananiche of the pool immediately be|ow the heavy 
