S©2 
FOI=lEST AND SttlElAM. 
[Nov. IS, 1902, 
of my flies tied on long-shanked hooks, No, 8, so as to 
make a big fly, but a small hook. I have referred to the 
sneck bend hook, and to the stream patterns. By the way, 
don't forget to have some Stone flies; they are great at 
cimes," 
There is no fly more vaunted than the brown-hackle, 
yet I may join Mr. Mershon m his experience. The coach- 
man I have found more useful, though I can't say I ever 
gave it much of a test in Michigan trout fishing. 
The above list of flies should be useful to one making 
up a book for Wisconsin. For the latter State I would 
suggest the addition of coachman, alder, cowdung ({or 
early iishing), also grizzly-king, gray-hackle, and some- 
times the Reuben-Wood. There is a good fly out this 
summer in our shops, perhaps old elsewhere, the Carkton, 
which is thought good at times, in 8 or 10. I should 
always like a few silver-doctors along, up to 6 in size, the 
English pattern, with thin body, pale turkey wings and 
peacock hurl in wings having proved a killer in some of 
my experiences. The tinsel on this fly does not tarnish, 
and it casts well. I think trout may strike it for a young 
minnow. It is one of those freaks which sometimes 
go, at least. Hare's-ear is another good fly to have along. 
I have sometimes tied a sort of rough hare's-ear with a 
raw wool body, and wings of the widgeon shoulder 
feather, and this fly killed at the time it was used— Maj'— 
in northern Wisconsin. 
After the first of August, indeed after the middle of 
July, Michigan takes a smaller fly than Wisconsin, and 
the Au Sable streams are best fi jied then with ten or 
even twelve at times. Some sti-eains require larger flies 
than others. I have often mentioned Mr. Miller's pre- 
was greater thatl usual, while at Fort Washington Point 
and ih the little bay below it the river was dotted with 
boats every few yards, and thousands of other anglers 
for tomcods were perched in various places along shore. 
Many a poor man who had no vacation last summer 
blessed the fine weather of Nov. 4, and throughout the 
long winter will remember with pleasure the fun he had 
on that day. Fish or no fish, it was good to be out. 
The universal bait for all sorts of fish that may be 
caught along the water front is sand worms, and these 
are also used for tommies. Hooks are quite small, sinkers 
as large as usual, and hand bnes the inost Common, al- 
though salt-w-ater tackle of every sort is seen. The short, 
heavy, stiff rods and big wooden reels are commonly 
found in the hands of the old-timers, but there is also a 
sprinkling of more slender rods and multiplying metal or 
rubber reels carrying finer lines than those used in hand 
casting, with not a few oiled silk. But as long shots are 
the rule in placing the line where it will do the most 
good, and the ebb tides of autumn are strong, very heavy 
sinkers are employed, and these are either pear-shaped or 
flat and oval. Some of them must weigh four ounces or 
more, and woe betide the head that falls afoul of one of 
these whirling weights. 
The persistence of many of the anglers for tommies 
is worthy of something better. Fair weather or foul, 
blow high or blow low, a sprinkling of enthusiasts may 
be seen any day from dawn until dark, patiently angling 
for the elusive tommies. Some provide themselves witii 
heavy ulsters or rain coats, and even umbrellas and fish- 
ing rods are boon companions with pipes and liquid bait 
on raw, cold days in the early winter. It is interesting to 
in these forests, and birch canoes have been made here 
since I came to this region, but 1 doubt if any are left, 
so 1 Covered the Craft with a canvas skin^io-otlnce 
duck, with no seams at all, put oh a Coating of boiled 
linseed oil, with a little Umber and turpentine added, 
wired on some outriggers, screwed on a pair of bow- 
facing oars, and — there 1 was. It is a very satisfactory 
canoe, and doesn't leak a drop. - Kelpie. 
Some Emergency Diets* 
The hardest fare that six strong hien and a boy of 15 
ever kept alive On was the daily menu of the Windover's 
survivors, who were cast up on the Irish coast near 
Kilsegg a few weeks ago. They lived for sixteen days 
on stewed rope yarn, without a crumb of anj^thing else 
to help digest it, except water; and, though it ililade 
them ill, they kept alive on it and did not waste away 
verj' much. 
The Windover was a bark carrying salt between Spain 
and the States, with an English crew, and she was dis- 
masted and abandoned about a thousand miles out on 
the Atlantic. Three of the crew were killed by falling 
masts, and two others were washed overboard; but the 
other- seven took to the whaleboat and set out for Brit- 
ain. Being in too much of a hurry they took too little 
food, but three large butts of water, besides the tank the 
boat already held. The result was they ate up the pro- 
visions in four days, but had water enough for a month, 
and, after starving two days more, they tried boiling 
GLEN LAKE — THE CAMPS OF THE KINGFISHERS. 
served stream, the Pine. It calls for No. 6 nearly always, 
and one could possibly kill fish there sometimes on even 
a larger fly. No 8 will do there, but 6 nearly alwavs 
much better. Yet this is a very bright, clear water. I 
Iiave earlier mentioned the freakishness of the fish in this 
water, and their leaning to bright fl.es. The wild streams 
<of Michigan and Wisconsin call for larger and brighter 
iflies than stocked waters, usually. No one can accoimt for 
.all these things, but with the alaove assortment of flies he 
'can account for a basket of fish in either of our two trout 
States. E. Hough. 
Ha^iford Building, Chicago. III. 
watch these inen at their sport. One who has the in- 
clination to visit their favorite resorts at dawn may find 
them fishing, and dusk of the short days sees them still 
trying for one more. Perry D. Frazes. 
The Tomcod Fishing Season. 
When the leaves begin to fall and the crisp nights of 
autumn follow the balmy days, the local anglers who can 
.■spare a few hours' time from work or business hasten 
away to their favorite haunts and angle for tomcods. 
Some spots are better than others, of course, but when 
the run of tommies is large they frequent all of - the salt- 
Avater reaches and furnish fun for countless thousands of 
men, women and young people, who have neither the time 
nor the means to go fishing as other and more fortunate 
persons do, to far-away resorts where game fish are 
abundant. Like the tiny lafayette, the tommy is a fish 
for the people, and the people go after tomm es with en- 
thusiasm worthy of bigger game. 
The tomcod, or tommy, is the frostfish (Gadus tom- 
cod), which enters the rivers eai'ly in the autumn on its 
way to the shallow waters, where it spawns in December. 
It is not a large fish, and the angler who takes several 
weighing about a pound each considers himself fortunate, 
w-hile the usual catch will average below rather than above 
a half-pound, I fancy. The average fisherman keeps 
«very fish he catches, and often dozens are seen in the fish 
ibaskets that average nearer two ounces than a pound. 
But the fish is well liked as a pan fish, and several of the 
larger ones, nicelj' cooked, are rtot to be despised by any 
means. 
The lafayette visits the waters round about New York 
city in late summer and early autumn, and is followed 
by the tomcod. The latter, being larger, attracts the at- 
tention, not of greater numbers, but of the habitual angh^r 
in salt waters as well as the casual fisherman with rod 
or hand line. The pierheads are generally sought by most 
of the anglers, and these swarm with human beings all 
day long; but club house floats, favorite nooks along the 
sea wall, all of the points along the New Jersey shore, and 
every jutting rock holds its fisherman while the run is 
on, and every available boat is pressed into service by 
persons who have a day to devote to the sport. Saturday 
afternoons and Sundays see the largest crowds along the 
Hudson, but on Election .E)ay, which was warm and fine. 
ev^feT- man who tbiild musrer a rod or a hand line se^^mfe'd 
to be but, a'p4 tlite n^ijei- of bbatis Um'HottA aloit^ shore 
Camps of the Kingfishers. 
Central Lake, Mich., Oct. 16.— Editor Rarest and 
Stream: I have sent you a photograph of Glen Lake, 
Leelanan County, Michigan, near the outlet of which 
lake the Kingfishers have camped the past two seasons 
(1901 and 1902). 
The view is taken from a hill opposite the camp and 
shows the tents — or most of them — along the shore. To 
the left is the eminence fauiiliar to those who sail on 
Lake Michigan and known as the "Sleeping Bear." On 
the right are the two "Fisher" lakes, through which 
flows the stream which leaves Glen Lake not far from 
our camp, and empties into Lake Michigan. Near the 
a lake superior birch. 
Fisher lakes you can see the house of Mr. Burgess, 
whom we found a very convenient and obliging neigh- 
bor. 
The camps were very pleasant ones, although the 
fishing was nothing to brag of. yet Kingfisher said that 
he had made "records" enough and didn't much care 
w-hesher or not he made any more. When he was taken 
ill and left the camp, it was hardly the same place. My 
letter from him, within four days, is written in good 
spirits, and one later, from another of the party, states 
that he is out and w-alking around. I send also a photo- 
graph of a canoe in which I have done some cruising 
this summer. It is an old Lake Superior birch, which 
was given me by Rev. Luthfer Pardee^ of Chicago, and 
whicn,- b'eiri'g in b^d repair, has remained stored in my 
loft for several years. There used to be canoe biriph?! 
lengths of tarred hemp rope into a pulp and swallow- 
ing it. They had a keg of paraffine wax, and, though 
it made them very ill at first, they eventually contrived 
to live on the boiled hemp, the tar, boiled to a jelly, 
adding to the nourishment of the rope. They landed in 
comparatively good health. 
Two men who went to a small island off the Irish 
coast a little while ago kept themselves going for ten 
days on a diet almost worse. They landed in a boat, 
which was smashed by a wave on their trying to re- 
launch her, and they were left on the bare," r,ocky island, 
wh ch has only a slight scalp of coarse turf, without food. 
Fortunately there is a spring on the island, but nothing 
in the way of food but gulls, wbich they could not catch, 
and nothing to make a fire with as a distress signal. 
There are not even any shellfish, as there is no beach, 
and the pair had to subsist for the ten days on cold raw 
seaweed washed up by the tide. For two days they 
starved, but after that they tackled the seaweed, making 
three meals a day of it, until rescued. When taken off. 
they were a good deal emaciated, but no ill eft'ects re- 
sulted. The same thing happened off the same coast 
five years ago, when four fisherwomen were imprisoned 
on an inlet by the loss of their boat. They lived on 
"kelpie" grass for six days. 
A diet of boots is one of the commonest of last-re- 
source foods; and, thotigh it is hard for a well-fed pc- 
son to imagine that any one could masticate and digest 
shoe leather, a pair of long seaboots will keep a man 
alive for a fortnight, if he has a little water. Capt. 
INIaboly, of the foundered steamer Gwalior, and his second 
officer, created a record last year by living for seventeen 
daj's on boat leather and a pint of water per day each. 
Of course, no teeth can tear cowhide boots; they have 
to be cut up and shredded with a knife, and the shreds 
chewed and swallowed. Boiling, even when possible, 
does no good at all, but takes from the boots what 
nourishment they contain. A few ounces of leather, be- 
ing so hard to digest, stays the stomach for fifteen or 
twenty hours. 
The best known and most useful of starvation diets 
for wrecked or castaway people, however, is that of 
barnacles, and if anything of the kind happens to you 
they will probably be your staple food. Barnacles are 
long, tough, half shellfish, half vegetable creatures, that 
grow on the under sides of vessels. Three Englishmen 
and a crew of Lascars who had been forced to abandon 
the sailing vessel, North Star, a few months ago, kept 
themselves going for over a week on barnacles, and 
onb' two of the crew died. The worst of them is that 
they give one internal cramps and cayise. an insufferable 
thirst; but they do nourish the frame. You have to 
reach under the vessel's side and pull them off, taking 
care not to leave the best half of them sticking to the 
planks. Only a starving eerson could possibly eat tlietn. 
Many a Ga'staway crew, howfeVer, lia| foAind them "better 
tha^i noticing.— Loti^on. Ansvvers. 
