Sept. 13, 1902.] 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
£09 
journey. The fish that tenanted this Arctic stream when, 
beneath a genial sun, it coursed through verdurous banks 
to an hospitable sea, have become extinct, circumstances 
evidently not favoring their change of habit as they did 
with their brethren that ages ago found themselves held 
captive in the tributaries of the Asiatic Polar Sea. 
A special biological expedition, despatched by the Rus- 
sian Government, to explore the northeastern portion of 
Siberia, exhibited its ichthyological collection preserved 
in alcohol. Among the many specimens were the familiar 
salmon of our Pacific coast, that, in their annual migra- 
tion, pack the streams of Corea, Kamschatka, Saghalien, 
etc.. as densely as they throng our own. Wonderful tales 
are told of incoming masses of salmon, causing rivers to 
overflow their banks, to render them impassable to boats 
and to make their waters undrinkable, all of which, in the 
light of our Alaskan knowledge, is credible. The salmon 
fisheries of northeast Siberia will at some future time 
equal, if not surpass, our own in vohtme and value, but, 
line. The matter is being investigated, and I expect to 
be shortly placed in possession of all the facts. 
A FishJag Admiral, 
Sir Archibald Douglas, K, C. B., commanding His 
Britannic Majesty's North American squadron in At- 
lantic waters, is a fishing admiral. This term may per- 
haps require a little explanation, in view of the fact that 
there were fishing admirals who have figured in history. 
Two hundred years ago there were fishing admirals in 
Newfoundland — plenty of them. The itle was then be- 
stowed upon a number of illiterate skippers, to whom 
judicial authority was entrusted upon the west shore of 
the island. One of Newfoundland's historians describes 
these fishing admirals as "clothed, not in the simple and 
sober black of the police magistrate, but in his ordi- 
nary blue fishing jacket and trousers, besmeared with 
pitch, tar and fish slime, his head adorned with an old 
sealskin cap, robbed from an Indian, or bartered for a 
MICHIGAN GRAYLING.^ 
riioto bv W, B. Mershon, 
were the Russian Government disposed to throw them 
jpen to American enterprise and capital, their full develop- 
m.ent would be of speedy accomplishment. The policy 
adopted in the Caspian of farming out large areas, under 
proper restrictions, to the most acceptable bidder-, Will 
doubtless be applied to the Pacific fisheries and their due 
;onservation be promoted in conjunction with an access 
?.f revenitc. A. H. Gouraud. 
[to be concluded.] 
Fish and Fishing, 
§trijpe^ Sasfe in the St. Lawfence, 
St)ME exceedingly good sport has been enjoyed with- 
in the last few days among the striped bass of the St. 
Lawrence. These fish ascend the river to the neighbor- 
hood of Quebec, but are llOl llsluilly takeh by anglitlg 
nearer to that city thali AlMatne jslanti, Whi'efi is Soffle 
ittle distiihee below tlife ifei'e bl Orleans. On account 
bf the dislaiige frOhi Quebec, and because of the neces- 
sity t?f securing boats for the sport, few, if any, visiting 
mglers attempt to indulge in it, and though large 
matches have been made since the open'ng of the month, 
the fishing is done in_ the crudest possible manner. 
There .are no suitable piers, as in the neighborhood of 
i^ew York, w^hence fly-fishing or tfoliing for stfiped bass 
s possible, and most of those \Vho take the fish in the 
5t. Lawrence, do hot even use a I'od, but content them- 
selves with a Coarse hand-line, which they cast from a 
ichoDliet- or other boat, in coils, and when a fish is 
looked, they haul it in hand over hand. The local name 
af the striped bass is "bar," and large quantities of it 
ire captured by commercial fishermen for the local mar- 
cets. The water about Madame Island is quite brack- 
ish, and ils so many American anglers are passing 
:hrDUgh Quebec in the month of September, I do not 
jee why excellent sport should not be had by them with 
he striped bass of the St. Lawrence, if they care to cx- 
aeriment with rod and line, from boats which may be 
bartered, with their crews, either at Quebec, or at 
some of the small river ports on the south side of the 
river, opposite to Madame Island, all of which are 
•eached by the Intercolonial Railway. The majority of 
he fish taken there are small, but some of them weigh 
IS much as twenty pounds each. The baits employed 
ire minnows and young herrings, and there is no trouble 
ji obtaining them. 
Caoadlan Tuna. 
The recent references in Forest and Stream to the 
possibility of catching the tuna of North Atlantic waters 
With rod and line have stirred up a number of the 
A.merican anglers who come to Canada for their salmon 
ishing, and it is more than probable that next season 
will witness the effort on the part of some of them to 
cill the big fish in Canadian waters. One gentleman 
who fishes the Cascapedia took a run down to Gaspe 
his summer before returning home and made complete 
inquiries as to the tuna of Gaspe basin, with the result 
hat he is perfectly certain that there is nothing to pre- 
vent successful sport tliere. and that next year he will 
come prepared to try it. There are professional fisher- 
men at Gaspe who are quite ready to go out with ang- 
ers anxious to fish for tuna, and there is also a report 
:hat a gentleman still living in this province succeeded 
?ome years ago in killing one of these fish in the Gulf 
of St. Lawrence oy the Baie des Chaleurs with rod and 
drink of rum and d stick of tobacco. The sacred tenlple 
of law and equity was a fish store; the judicial seat an 
inverted butter firkin. Justice was freely dispensed to the 
suitor who paid the most for it. In the absence of a 
higher bribe, his worship's decision was often favorably 
af¥ected by the judiciotiS presentation of a few New Eng- 
land apples. The litigant who comiiienc'ed his case with 
the production of a flowing bowl of calabogus (com- 
posed of rum, molasses and spruce beer) captivated the 
judicial mind most effectually. Sometimes, alas, the 
dignity of the Bench was diminished by the sudden fall 
of the cotirt prostrate on the fl.oor, overcome by the too 
potent fefffcet^ of new rum ftnd spruce beer. One of the 
most remarkable go the fishiiig admirals who rejoiced 
in the title of "the Lord High Hadmiral," and who was 
the agent of the great Englsh fishing house of the plade, 
was once called down by a superior officer for having 
given a number of judgments in favor of his own firm. 
Quite unabashed, he replied, "Well, I must be a pretty 
sort of a fool of a judge if I could not do justice to 
myself.'; 
The fishing admirals of the preseiit day are very differ- 
ent from those of two hundred 3'ears ago, but the name, 
which it naturally occurs to an angler to apply to them, 
suggests at once a reference to the rascally adventurers, 
who being the first skippers to bring vessels into a New- 
foundland port, became, in virtue of a statute of Wil- 
liam III., "of pious and immortal memory," the abso- 
lute rulers for the season. The first arrival was admiral 
for the year, and was allowed to take as much of the 
beach as he chose for his own use, the masters of the 
second and third vessels arriving at the same harbor, be- 
ing vice-admiral and rear-admiral, with similar privi- 
leges. When these worthies had helped themselves, if 
anything was left, the unfortunate fishermen might ob- 
tain a scrap. 
Admiral Douglas, during a recent visit to Quebec, en- 
joyed niagnificent sport among the trout of the Mont- 
morenci. at Laval, a few miles north of thccity. He 
is also a devoted salmon fisherman. In this sense it is 
not surprising that Sir John Hopkins and many other of 
Admiral Douglas's predecessors, were also fishing ad- 
mirals. Stationed, as they are, near the best salmon 
waters in the world, it would be strange if it were other- 
wise. Turning over the •■leaves of a number of old ang- 
ling books with Sir Archibald the other day, I was sur- 
prised to learn from him that though a native of Que- 
bec> it w-as only comparativelj'- late in life that he ht- 
came a fisherman. He has made up for lost time since, 
however, and I shall not be surprised to learn that in the 
near future we may be indebted to Admiral Douglas and 
some of the officers of his fleet for reliable information 
respecting the nature of the fishing to be had in some of 
the far distant salmon rivers of the Labrador coast. Few 
ordinary mortals possess the means that these officials 
do for visiting at will any or all of these little known 
streams. 
After Oaanantclie acd Tfoot. 
By the time that these lines appear in print the 
ouananiche season will be practically closed, the open 
season lasting only to the 15th inst. It is unfortunate 
for anglers that this is so, for September is the finest 
month of the year in Canadian woods, and while the 
trout season lasts until the end of the month, there is 
no doubt whatever that the ouananiche are later spawn- 
ers than fontliialis. - Some very large catches of ouan- 
aniche are being made at present writing in the upper 
waters of the Grand Discharge and also in Lake St. 
John itself, in the vicinity of the islands about the head 
of the outlet. Both fly-fishing and trolling are excellent, 
especially the latter. The best of this sport, however, 
has fallen to the lot of a party of visiting anglers from 
the United States, who spent last week on the lower 
pools of the Metabetchouan, and enjoyed some of the 
grandest fly-fishing ever reported from these famous wa- 
ters. Included in the party were Dr. F. M. Johnson 
and Mrs. Johnson, of Boston, and Mr. and Mrs. Eugene 
McCarthy, of Syracuse, N. Y. They have now gone to 
Lake Edward after both big trout and big game. Mr. 
and Mrs. A. H. Porter, Jr., of New York, are also at 
Lake Edward for the fly-fishing in the adjacent lakes, 
and Dr. Geo. L. Porter, of Bridgeport, who is now on 
the preserves of the Bostonnais Club, expects to join 
them in a few days. All the club houses along the line 
of the Quebec and Lake St. John Railway are rapidly 
filling up with anglers who are after the September trout 
fishing. Their expectations are great, because the fish- 
ing hitherto this season has not been extra good, the 
perversity of the weather having been something quite 
unusual. 
Among the other well-known anglers now encamped 
on the Triton Tract are Messrs. Geo. H. Hart, E. L. 
Frisbie, Han-y Chase and E. Wade, of Waterbury, and 
Gordon W. Burnham, of New York. 
E. T. D. Chambers. 
Michigan Grayling: Streams. 
Saginaw, Mich,, Aug. 30. — Editor Forest and Strefam: 
I inclose an unmounted photograph of four gray- 
ling, the real, genuine Michigan grayling. This was 
taken on the recent trip which Mr. Hough so pleas- 
antly described. His account of this trip was a 
practical one. To me, the taking of these last of 
the Michigan grayling is filled with sentiment and re- 
membrances of old times. I remember my first grayling 
when I camped on the Au Sable with my father and 
mother and a dear old aunt of mine, and I had the good 
fortune to take my first grayling, a fish about 12 inches 
in length. Thad Norris and Uncle Dan Fitzhugh were 
on the stream at that time, and I know they had a hearty 
laugh at my enthusiasm over the taking of this, my first 
grayling. 
I imagine I love the grayling more than almost any- 
one else does, for it brings back memories of my father, 
one of the most gentle of anglers and a thorough sports- 
rnan. When I was a mere boy — and that is more than 
thirty-five years ago— I recollect one of the land-look- 
ers, Jerry Day, coming back and reporting to father of 
this unknown fish in the Au Sable River, and my father 
got down his old copy, I think, of Frank Forester's 
Fishes, or some other old book, and picking out Back's 
Arctic Grayling and pointing out to me the fin of that 
fish, and saying he was certain it was the same fish in 
the Au Sable River. 
The grayling brings back memories of Fred Mather, 
a friend of many years standing, and Charles Hallock, 
wlso has fished with me and my father in yejCs gone by; 
Dan Fitzhugh, Len Jewell and Charlie Fitzhugh, who 
were all good enough to take me with them when I was 
but a mere youngster. So our recent grayling trip 
meant a good deal to me. 
The fish from which this picture was taken ran from 
J 2 to 14 inches in length, and the picture was taken four 
days after the fish were taken out of the water. They 
had been cleaned and much mussed up, as is readily 
seen. But they were the same grand old fighters as of 
old, taking the fly delicately and gingerly, and the in- 
stant they were struck they would make that grand diag- 
onal rush of theirs that no other fish can equal. For 
their size they fight w'ith terrific force, and when they 
give up, they give up completely. I love the smell of 
the thyme, from which they get their name, the beauty 
of their fins; their symmetry and color both delight the 
sportsman and naturalist and the lover of nature. 
It is a shame they caimot be kept forever in the streams 
of Michigan, where they were native and to the manor 
born. 
The largest grayling I ever took was on the little 
Manistee River years ago, when I went in from Wingle- 
ton. One and three-quarter pounds is the weight of the 
fish I have taken on that stream repeatedly. I have 
heard of larger fish, but with an accurate scale, I do not 
believe that any have gone beyond that weight. 
There are a few grayling left in two streams in Michi- 
gan. In one of these streams, the Manistee, they could 
be saved if propeidy protected; in the other stream, where 
Mr. Hough fished Avith us, they are surely doomed, for 
it is bound to be a trout stream, and that means, event- 
ually, no grayling. W. B. Mershon. 
The Rttlmg- Passion Strong: in Death. 
Elizabethport, N. J., Sept. 3.— While fishing a few 
days ago for Oswego bass at Budd Lake, N. J., I saw 
something which I had. never seen before. ' A friend of 
mine who was also fishing near me and had caught two 
fair-sized fi.'^h. lifted tlie lid of the live box in his boat and 
called me to look at hi.s fish. 
The larger one had apparently tried to eat the small 
one, and had its whole head in his mouth, but that taxed 
luin to his fidl capacity, and he could get him no further 
down, while the small fish could not get away. I did not 
learn the weight of the fish, but should judge that the 
large one would weigh over four pounds, while the 
small one was more than half as big. 
I know that when free, fish will eat each other, but I 
Itave never before known a fish confined in so small a space 
as the live box of a rowboat to undertake to eat a fellow 
captive. 
The small fish was rescued from the hm one and both 
were placed in a large fish box at the Foat house and 
were taken out very much alive some days afterward. 
Perhaps this may interest some of your readers who have 
heard of or seen similar cases. L. L. Burkitt. 
A party— ]\Ir. and Mrs. Herman B. Duryea, Messrs. 
William C. Whitney, Harry Payne Whitney, and Yale 
Dolan — sailed for Liverpool on Friday of last week. They 
contemplate a pleasant participation in the autumn shoot- 
ing in Scotland!. 
