Sept. 6, igo2.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
193 
Galveston Fishingf^ 
Galveston^ Aug. 27. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
There have been several weeks of high water in the 
Brazos and Trinity rivers that muddied the Gulf shore 
Waters as far as Galveston and drove the fish out to clear 
' water, but notwithstanding we have had a fair season, 
iis our gamiest fnsh, the Spanish mackerel, put in ap- 
pearance earlier than usual. They are unusually large, and 
we have had them since in April. Just now the fishing 
is superb. Mr. Jake Davis, a member of our club, was 
on the Rocks day before yesterday from 2.30 to 6 P. M., 
and with a man he had with him brought in S7 fi"^ 
mackerel, Davis caught ro and several over four pounds 
each. The largest mackerel I have seen this season was 
5^4 pounds. 
Seven of the members of the cU'b and a visitor spent 
three hours and a half on the Rocks one afternoon and 
brought back ninety-six Spanish mackerel, a 9-pound 
redfish, one large pompano, three trout and a sheeps- 
head; and caught two blue sharks about four feet long 
each. The whole party had had all the rod and reel fish- 
ing and exercise they wanted and were ready to leave 
-for town half an hour before sundown. Of the partj^, 
H. K. Rowby, the genial ticket agent of the Union 
Depot, and John W. Keenan, the local agent of the 
Galveston office of the Waters. Pierce Oil Co., fished 
together, putting their catch in the same bags, and they 
caught 47 mackerel and the redfish, beside wrestling with 
and losing tackle to several loafing tarpon that were 
too heavy for mackerel rigs. Not a jackfish was hung, 
strange to say, as we have generally to dispose of several. 
There is many a man who, if he knew of it, would 
be glad to come a thousand miles to wrestle with a 
jackfish or shark or tarpon, standing on a granite rock 
six miles out in the Gulf of Mexico. 
Tt is strange that so few fishermen know of the fish- 
ing we have at Galveston. There is no other place in 
America that deep sea fishing can be had for the rod 
and reel from a comfortable footing on a flat rock, 
many of the rocks six to eight feet square, and so ad- 
jacent that you can follow }'^our big fish along for a hun- 
dred yards if you wish. The jetties are some nine miles 
from the wharves, just far enough to keep out the pot 
fishers and loafers, yet within an hour's run for a good 
launch. The tarpon club is small and has only one boat, 
but it is a fine seaworthy launch, carrying a dozen 
fishermen. It leaves for the jetties every day at one 
o'clock when the weather is suitable for fishing, and 
nearly everj' day some of the members go at four o'clock 
in the morning and get back in time to do a day's work. 
We have an enthusiastic set of fishermen who are al- 
ways glad to welcome the stranger within our gates 
who is of the rod and reel craft, and to give him the 
best advantages we can for fishing. 
We are expecting Mr. Waddell, the tarpon man, of 
Kansas Cit}^, in September, to try King Tarpon from the 
Rocks or in the usual way from a boat, as he may prefer. 
A. B. Homer, of Prouts Neck, Me., is trying to ar- 
range to wet his line in Gulf waters before the season 
is over. Dr. A. F. Sampson, a fisherman from away 
back, came all the way from San Francisco this season 
and reeled in Spanish mackerel until he cried enough. 
G. E. Mann, 
President of Galveston Tarpon Club. 
Pike, Pickerel, Mascalonge. f 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I have read with much interest your article in Forest 
AND Stream for July 19, on "Pike, Pickerel, Mascalonge." 
The article is very instructive. It is too bad that the 
legends for the illustrations got mixed, and I am glad to 
see the slip corrected in your issue of July 26. 
A few additional corrections are needed to put the mat- 
ter entirely right. Taking the cuts in your issue of July 
26, the three heads (Figs, i, 2 and 3) are all correctly 
labeled. The first or upper full-length figure is appar- 
ently from a very poor drawing of the Western brook 
pickerel, whose scientific name is Esox vermiculatus. The 
next figure is properly labeled. The third is the pike 
{Esox lucius), while the last is the common muskallunge 
(Esox viasquinongy) . 
The pike family {Esocidce) contains a, single genus 
{Esox) with seven species. One of them {Esox lucius) 
is cosmopolitan, it being found throughout northern re- 
gions in America, Europe and Asia. The remaining six 
species are confined to North America. No species of the 
family is known from Africa, and it is very improbable 
that any occurs there. 
This family has in most recent fish literature been 
called Lucidce, the name being based upon the generic 
name Lucius, which was supposed to be the proper one. 
But it appears that Linnseus, in characterizing his genus 
Esox evidently had in mind the common European fresh- 
water pike (which is also our common pike). That 
species must therefore be taken as the type of the genus 
Esox, the family must be called Esocidce, and, as all our 
pikes, pickerels and muskallunges belong in the genus 
Esox, Esox must constitute the first part of the binominal 
name of each. 
Their names may be written in full as follows : 
I. Banded pickerel {Esox americanus) . 
■2. Little pickerel or grass pike {Esox vermicuMus) , 
3. Eastern pickerel {Esox reticulatus) . 
4. Common pike {Esox lucius). 
5. Common muskallunge {Esox inasquinongy) . 
6. Chautauqua muskallunge {Esox ohiensis). 
7. Great northern muskallunge or pike {Esox immacu- 
latus) . 
The last three are all muskallunges. Usually they have 
been regarded as constituting but one species, the second 
and third as subspecies of the first, but they occupy differ- 
ent habitats and are not known to intergrade. 
The common muskallunge occurs in the Great Lakes, the 
upper St. Lawrence River^ certain streams and lakes trib- 
utary to the Great Lakes, in Canada north of the Great 
Lakes,_and perhaps in a few small lakes in the upper Mis- 
sissippi Basin. The Chautauqua muskallunge is native onlv 
10 Lake Chautauqua and the Ohio Basin ; while the great 
northern muskallunge is found in Eagle Lake and other 
\^s^ Uik northern Yfisconsin and Minneso^. Fro^ the 
common muskallunge this form seems to differ in having 
the body entirely without spots, there being at most only 
vague, dark cross-shades. The tail is said to be a little 
more slender and the fins a little higher. It is fair to 
say that this form has not been critically studied and its 
exact relations to E. inascjuinongy and E. oJmnsis have 
not been fully and clearly defined. 
I recently had an opportvmity to examine a number of 
fine examples of the Chautauqua muskallunge, while 
spending a few days at Mayville on that beautiful lake, 
and found them quite distinct from the muskallunge of 
the Great Lakes. The two are doubtless entirely distinct 
species. 
I hope I may sometime soon have a chance to examine 
fresh examples of the muskallunge of the small lakes of 
northern Wisconsin and Minnesota. 
The suggestion by some that it is a cfo§s between the 
cont.mon nniskallunge and the pike is based upon an 
erroneous conception of what species really are. "Crosses" 
are so rare in nature as to render this suggestion scarcely 
worth consideration. 
But hew can one identify the various species of Esox? 
The illustrations given in Forest and Stream for July 
26 will help very much for three of the species. 
I believe one can, with the following simple key, taken 
from Jordan and Evermann's "American Food and Game 
Fishes," readily identify any of the seven species : 
a. Cheek entirely scaly; branchiostegals II to 16. 
b. Opercle entirely scaly; dorsal rays Ii to 14. Color, 
greenish, barred or reticulated with darker., 
c. Branchiostegals normally 12 (11 to 13) ; 
scales 105 to 108; dorsal rays 11 or 12; anal 
rays 11 or 12; snout short, middle of eye 
nearer tip of lower jaw than posterior mar- 
gin of opercle; species of small size; the 
fins unspotted. 
d. Head short, 3.56 in length of body; 
snout 2.S in head; eye 2.67 in snout. 
Color, dark greenish, the side with 
about 20 distinct curved blackish 
bars ; fins pale ; 
BANDED PICKEREL. 
dd. Head longer, 3.25 in length of body; 
snout 2.2 in head ; eye 2.5 in snout. 
Color, light greenish, the side with 
many narrow cur\'ed streaks of 
darker, these usually distinct, irre- 
gular and much reticulated; fins 
plain ; 
LITTLE PICKE"REL; GRASS PIKE. 
cc. Branchiostegals 14 to 16 ; scales about 125 ; 
dorsal rays 14 ; anal 13 ; middle of eye mid- 
way between tip of lower jaw and pos- 
terior margin of opercle. Color, greenish, 
with many dark narrow curved lines and 
streaks, mostly horizontal and more or less 
reticulated ; fins plain ; 
COMMON EASTERN PICKEREL. 
bb. Opercle without any scales on the lower half; dor- 
sal rays 16 or 17. Color, grayish, with many 
whitish spots, the young with whitish or yellowish 
cross-bars ; dorsal, anal, and caudal spotted with 
black; a white horizontal band bounding naked 
portion of opercle. Size large : 
COMMON PIKE. 
aa. Cheek as well as opercle with the lower half naked ; 
branchiostegals 17 to 19. 
d. Sides grayish, with round or squarish blackish 
spots, not coalescing to form bands; 
MUSKALLUNGE. 
dd. Sides brassy, with narrow dark cross-shades, 
which break up into vaguely outlined dark 
spots ; 
CHAUTAUQUA MUSKALLUNGE. 
ddd. Sides grayish, unspotted or with verj-- vague 
dark cross-shades ; 
GREAT NORTHERN PIKE. 
Barton Warren Evermann. 
New England Angling. 
Boston, Sept. i.— The President's New England trip is 
over, and .sportsmen consider that their special recreation 
has been highly honored. Perhaps it will hardly do to 
say that at every point he seemed as much interested in 
fishing and shooting as in national affairs, but he certainly 
showed great interest in matters pertaining to the rod 
and gun. At Augusta, Me., he was dined, at Governor 
Hill's, off small brook trout. It is claimed that the trout 
can-'.e from an Androscoggin stream, and that they were 
caught by Col. E. C. Farrington, whom everybody will 
remember as greatly interested in fish and game affairs,, 
and secretary of the Maine Fish and Game Association. 
Doubtless Col. Farrington knew just where to find the 
trout ; possibly they had been corraled for some time. 
The Rangeley Hotel men did not get the President into 
their region, and they feel that he made a great mistake. 
But he did turn aside into New Hampshire and fished 
Sunapee Lake with Secretary Hay and Senator Proctor 
of Vermont, though with what success I am unable to 
icarn. The celebrated Austin Corbin Park offered a 
great attraction, and there the President was permitted to 
shoot a wild boar. He expressed himself as greatly de- 
lighted with the park. He made a clean shot of fifty 
yards at the wild boar, and brought the animal down with 
one shot. "I have shot my wild boar," he explained to 
political friends whom he met on leaving the park, "and 
that is better than shooting another mountain lion." 
Mr. C. F. Danforth, of Boston, who has done so much 
toward getting big fish from Dan Hole Pond, New 
Hampshire, hands me the following boy's letter. It is a 
model of good composition, and anglers will be interested 
from the amount of enthusiasm manifested, as well as the 
easy way in which it is told. Mr. Danforth says that he 
is not "Fish Commissioner" of that section, though thf 
boys call hira so, because he has helped put the small fry 
into Dan Hole for several seasons, furnished by the U. S. 
Fish Commission. In commenting on the "boy's letter" 
he remarks that "the rising generation is receiving good 
training from somewhere, an<J the senior lovers of rod 
and reel, as well as gocd education, are getting good 
returns for their efforts." The letter is as follows : 
Maple Lodge, Roland Park. Moultonville N. H., Aug. 24, 
— Mr. Daiiforth: Dear Sir— As you are Fish Commissioner of Big 
and Little Danholc Ponds, I suppose you would be interested in 
hearing about a salmon I caught on Saturday last, 
Herbert and Ralph Gridley and myself went out fishing about 
10 o'clock, Saturday morning for pickerel on the little pond. We 
anchored on a piece of brush a little way from the shore. T had 
for bait a shiner, that I had caught a pickerel with, which was 
almost split in two. I put my line in the water and had about 
eight feet of hne out, and put my feet on the seat in front of me 
and said, "This , is the only way to fish." 
I had no sooner said this than I had a littk fcite. I jumped 
up. but didn't have any more bites, so I laid back again. I had 
another bite, and I jumped up again, and something began to bend 
my rod. 
I began to reel in, thinking I had a pickerel on, but I kept 
reehng m, and I saw a large fish jump about six feet in the air 
By this time I had about two feet of line out. The fish kept swim- 
m.mg and jumping about all the while. Fortunately we had a net 
with us, and as he made a dive for the boat, Herbert put the net 
in front of mm and he swam into it. We landed him in less 
than three minutes. 
The salmon was twenty-two inches long and weighed four 
pounds. 
The rod was made by J. Clark Smith. Lynn, Mass. 
I am thirteen years old and live in Lynn. 
Yours respectfully, 
Joseph W. LteWrSi 
Mr. Danforth went to Dane Hole Friday for a final try 
for the salmon — the season ending Sept. 15. Mr. George 
Loud and Mr. I. A. McLaughlin are back from their 
fishmg trip to Runaway Camp, Clearwater Lake, near 
Farnr.ngton. Me. They were there for two weeks with 
wives and children, and had beautiful weather. Mr. Mc- 
Laughlm says that he had the best fishing that he has 
ever had, especially for small-mouthed bass, with which 
that lake is well supplied. They took the fly well at 
times, and came freely to bait. They had some trout 
fishing also. At the right time of day trout could be taken 
at the several mlets in the lake. The streams directly 
tributary to the lake are legally closed to all fishing; 
these tributaries being regarded as the natural nurseries 
tor the trout and salmon. From the Middle Dam, Rich- 
ardson Lake, Me., come reports of good fly-fishing. The 
sportsmen seem well disposed and put back most of the 
small fish. Mr. Charles Wiswell has recently taken a 
trout of five pounds from the Pond-in-the-River. Robert 
A, Livingston, of New York, has hooked a large salmon 
111 swift water, beloAV the Dam. After a very hard fight 
the hook broke and the salmon was free. ' Dr. E H 
Stevens and party, of Cambridge, Mass., have gone to the 
doctors camps at Carry Ponds, Me. Dr. Hildreth and 
daughter, of Cambridge, with Dr. G. W. Gay, of the 
same city, have returned from Carry Ponds, and report 
'^'"^^ S^"^^ constantly seen. The 
tall fly-fishing is on at Bemis, and some good-sized trout 
?.re being taken. Every day sees trout and salmon brought 
m weighing from two and a half to five pounds. Bemis 
IS no Icnger the terminus of the Portland & Rumford 
I'alls Railway. Last 'week the Railroad Commissioners 
viewed the extension from Bemis to Oquossoc Station, 
and permission was given to rim passenger trains to that 
point. Oquossoc is about half-way between Haine's Land- 
ing and Mountain View, and sportsmen to the Upper 
Rangeleys can now be landed there in a day from Bos- 
ton, or a day and a night from New York. The road is 
being rapidly pushed through to Canada, and one of the 
best hunting regions in Maine is being made easy of 
access The largest black bass on record is reported to 
have been taken from Lake Wentworth, N. H., recently ' 
Mr. Baril the lucky captor, says that the fish was too 
arge for his landing net, and when brought up beside the 
boat, after a hard fight, the chances for saving the mon- 
ster looked small. Mr. Salinger, his fishing partner, sug- 
wl^^^ 1''^^ ^'^^ rapidly as possible. 
W hen shoal water was reached both men jumped out of 
the boat, pulling the fish quickly on to dry land It 
weighed nineteen pounds. Special 
Carp in the Susquehanna. 
Afton, N. Y.— Editor Forest and Stream: In olden 
tini.es we read of plagues. They were sent then and a les- 
son taught. In modern times we also have had the 
rlagues of different kinds to contend with. This year we 
have had the seventeen-year locusts, and it's often enough 
at that. Mosquitoes and black flies we have always with 
us, but we have the satisfaction of knowing that they 
were here from the first. We have a little charity for the 
man who introduced the English sparrow to this countrv, 
for there is something to say in praise of this saucy and 
imgnacious bird. But where can an excuse be found for 
rhe bringing of the German carp? Our friend from Po- 
hunk says "they make torably good feed for hogs," but I 
slruld hate to eat a hog that had been fed on tliat diet. 
Like thousands of others, we have tried to eat our share 
of carp. It was no fault of the splendid cooking, or the 
perfect serving. Then and there we donated all of our 
future share to any who will take. 
Many years ago, near the headwaters of the Ouleout, .'i 
pond was stocked with these fish furnished by the United 
States Fish Commission. During a very severe Storm 
this pond was washed out, and all. its very undesirable 
contents landed in the Susquehanna River, distributing 
them for many miles. For a few years the damage was 
but ])artly known, but now a river that formerly was 
clear and sparlding in all its length, is in places a regular 
iv.ud hole. And it is kept so by these water hogs, which 
are at all times rooting up the mud from the bottom. 
Only a little way down the river from this place, where in 
time.s past was our very best bass fishing, toj-day hardly a 
fish is taken; and the theory is advanced by some of our 
closest angling friends that there is no doubt that the 
carp do the greatest damage to the nests of the bass. They 
have been known to suck up clean every egg from the bed. 
But be that as it may, we know that the condition of the 
water in the deep places where these fish are will not 
admit of any game fish living. While the water was high 
last week from the heavy rains, and where it overflowed 
its banks at this very spot we have .spoken of, nine of 
these monster fish were taken from a ditch as the water 
receded. The smallest weighed six and one-half pounds, 
others twelve and sixteen pounds, while the largest, a 
mighty mass of disappointment, tipped the scales at 
twenty poiinds and six ounces. Think of the destruction 
of those nine fish alone in waters where game fish are. 
For a distance of at least three miles the carp have taken 
entire possessioii of th? river and are there in countless 
