July i8, 1903.! 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
49 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST* 
"Western Salmon Aogleis. 
Chicago,, 111., July 10— Mr. W. B. Mershon, of Sagi- 
naw, is just back from his annual trip to the Casca- 
pedia and reports rather an unsuccessful season thus 
far, his personal advice being as below: 
"Tom Harvey, Billy Jr. and I returned from the 
Cascapcdia last Thursday afternoon. We had 14 days 
on the river and did not do very well. We took seven 
salmon among us, the largest being 39 lbs. We got a 
few large trout also; I got one weighing lbs. and 
another 3>'2 and Billy, my 14 year old son, took one 
weighing 4^ lbs. on a little 6-ounce rod with a small 
fly. ~ The fish put up a splendid fight and the yoimgster 
handled it like an expert. Mr. Harvey also took a 
45^-pounder. 
''Nearly every river was in the dumps for salmon 
fishing this vear; I did not hear of any one who really 
thoi:ght they had big luck. Mr. R. W. _ Paterson of 
New York who is joint owner with me in the fishing 
on the Cascapedia got down there early. I did not 
arrive until the 15th so he had been there two weeks 
before and took 20 fish up tp the time of our arrival. 
He took 7 while we were there, making 34 taken from 
our waters this year. There possibly was an early run 
of fish that went up on the spring freshet the last of 
May, but there was no intermediate run that we usually 
get the first two weeks of June. By the time we ar- 
rived, the water was so low and clear, it was very hard 
to get a rise and there were very few fish in the river. 
But the last week of June a good many fish came in; we 
could see ten or twelve in the pools and nearly every 
pool has fish, but it was out of the question to get them 
to take the fly. We fished early and we fished late; we 
fished with a small line and a fine fly and did every- 
thing we knew of to coax them, but it was no use. 
"The sea trout were also late in coming and it was 
counted a poor year all the way through. The natives 
said there were large numbers of sea trout going down 
the river in the early spring on their way to the sea but 
they were lean, thin and nearly all head. The few we 
met on their pilgrimage up stream the week we came 
E:\vay were great, fat. lusty fellows. 
"Waldo Avery and his friend, Keena, of Detroit, 
rented the Barnes waters for July on the Cascapedia. 
Avery is always lucky. The day he arrived a big rain 
storm came in, something we had waited two weeks for 
and did not get a drop. The river rose and the salmon 
began to take, so his wife took one and he two on the 
day following the rain. Keena had four trout weighing 
17 lbs. They were certainly in luck. 
"Walls Humphrey of this city got home yesterday. 
He has had two weeks with Charlie Davis on the Lit- 
tle Pabos and they took 32 salmon. The salmon there, 
though, run small. They reported excellent trout fish- 
ing as well but had to limit themselves owing to their 
inability to do anything with their fish. Mr. Tanner of 
this city has now gone to join Mr. Davis, who will re- 
main two weeks longer." 
Westtfn Trout Fishers. 
The party of Chicago anglers, as finally made up for 
the Grand Rapids trip, consists of Messrs. Peet, Smith, 
Church, Chadwick, Letterman, Brown and Hascall, of 
Chicago, who left by. boat Thursday night for Holland, 
T^" i.-lijcra,-!. These gentlemen were to have spent to-day, 
Friday, in' Grand Rapids, and should leave to-night for 
a sliort camping trip which will undoubtedly be on the 
Pine River, and not upon the Pere Marquette, as was 
the original intention. They will be accompanied by 
Mr. John Waddell, of Grand Rapids, and by Mr, Aver}\ 
the well-known railroad man of that city. The Pine 
River is reported to be in fairly good condition at tliis 
writing and there should be ofTcred at least some 
morning and evening fishing, although the season is 
now well adv.';inccd and the days iuive of late been ex- 
ccplionally w.-frm. One or two grayling's have been 
taken in the Pine this summer. 
Members of Kinne Creek Club of Winglcton, Mich., 
most of whom are residents of Saginaw and Detroit, 
have had better luck than usual on their recent trips to 
the club stream, and have taken numbers of fine fish. 
The Pine of Wisconsin, 
Evcrjr district in the Rocky Mountains has an "Old 
Baldy" mountain and every western State has a "Pine 
River." The Pine River of Wisconsin is indeed some- 
what nnillifold. 1 have often mentioned the Pine River 
01' Waushara county, which is preserved by Mr. B. K. 
Miller, of Milwaukee. On the Fourth of July Mr. 
Miller, his associate, Mr. John D. McLeod. and myself, 
look a turn at this beautiful little river. The weather 
was very hot_ and the three rods in two days, after hard 
work, look only 98 fish. Among these were several 
beautiful specimens for this part of the world. On the 
last evening's fishing Mr. McLeod, using a No. 6 pro- 
fessor, killed five trout, any one of which would have 
gone over a pound. Mr. Miller had one or two speci- 
mens of similar weights. The fishing was extremely 
difficult. The trout are numerous, but at this time of 
the year in this clear water they become very shy, so 
that one needs to strike as soon as he sees the move- 
ment of a fish in the water. Mr. McLeod stuck to the 
professor. Mr. Miller found - coachman as his best 
steady fly. 
How to Cure a Poacher. 
The most persistent poacher on the Pine River is a 
Danish woman, wife of a neighboring farmer, who 
does not speak English, but who delights in night fish- 
ing for trout. She has worn nearly bare a big place 
on the grassy front of one of the best trout pools on 
the stream, and nothing that William Wood, the keep- 
er, could say to her has thus far served to teach her 
to mend her ways. Had it been a man the matter 
would have been simple for the husky William, but it 
being a woman his natural sense of gallantry gave the 
situation additional difficulty. ' Under these circum- 
stances, he sent down to Mr. Miller for a dark lantern, 
and last week, one dark night, he crept up to the clump 
pf trees near which the old lady clr^es most of her 
fishing. She was there as usual, William turned the 
light of the dark lantern full upon . her and for the 
time thought he would have to do some life saving, as 
she came near jumping into the creek. Gathering her 
skirts about her and abandoning her fishing rod, she 
started home on a gallop. William did not disclose 
himself, but kept the full light of the bullseye turned 
upon her as she crossed the bridge and headed over 
the meadow. The next day there were I'umors in all 
the countryside to the effect that a luminous-eyed 
ghost was walking the Pine and that it was no longer 
safe for a lady to catch a few trout for breakfast, even 
on the darkest night. 
Wrinkles. 
The prettiest fly book I ever saw was that made for 
Mr. B. K. Miller by Mr. McLeod, whom I have often 
mentioned as a very successful amateur artist in fly 
fishing material, Mr. Miller's fly book is so arranged 
that all the leaves are easily detachable and can be 
spread out on a table like a map, although when in 
place and bound by the metal clip at the back, which 
constitutes the main feature of this book, the fly book 
as a whole is square, solid and durable. On the leather 
surface of the front and back of this book Mr. McLeod 
has engraved, very skillfuly, diagrams of the most use- 
ful knots used by anglers in fly fishing, so that he 
Avho runs may be able to read. All the book is the 
product of his own labor and is so beautifully and ar- 
tistically done that it is very much worth mention. 
The adherents of the Woodpile school ("The Wood- 
pile" being the name of Mr. Miller's fishing lodge on 
the Pine River), are at present gone over to the cult of 
the detachable butt piece for fly rods. Mr. Miller, 
when ordering his last fly rod, instructed the builder 
to make it in three pieces, the middle and top joints 
and the short butt piece, into which the second joint 
fits by means of a long and strong ferule. He became 
converted to this notion through his friend, Mr. Mc- 
Leod, who altered a six-ounce Leonard fly rod to these 
dimensions not long ago. Mr. McLeod also changed 
his own pet fly rod to this style and has built butts for 
several of his friends. The beauty of it is that one may 
have three or four rods, that is to say, the middle piece 
and tips of so many rods, all carried in a screwtop piece 
of bio^cle tubing, water proof, wagon proof and boat 
proof. To handle so many rods he needs but one or at 
the outside two of these detachable butts. The butt is 
short enough to carry in a valise. The hang of the 
rod is not altered in any way, and these gentlemen and 
their friends at least believe that this is the only true 
theory of rod equipment. 
Divers other Western anglers are rapidly swinging 
to the notion that the day of the snelled fly is short and 
soon to come to an end. The eyed hook is having a 
great boom in this part of the world at present. There 
are many things in its favor, and not a few against the 
snelled hook of our fathers. The main trouble with 
the latter is that it is apt to snap off at the head of the 
hook. Another great detriment is that one can hardly 
buy two sets of hooks mounted on the same thickness 
of gut, or the same color. When one looks through 
his book of snelled flies he finds all sorts and con- 
ditions, and rarely any fly so mounted that it matches 
perfectly with the leader which he purposes to use. 
With the eyed hook one can build his leader to suit 
himself and so insure uniformity in his scheme. If 
there be anything different in the color or thickness of 
gut then certainly there is something desirable in hav- 
ing one's leader, clear down to the head of his fly, of 
the same color and general appearance. It is a little 
more troublesome to attach ej-ed flies in ordinary fish- 
ing, but this is something to which one soon becomes 
used, and it tends toward that very desirable form of 
sport, fishing with the single fly, which is neater, clean- 
er and perhaps fully as deadly as using two or more 
flics on the cast. The single fly and the eyed fly are 
both coming into very rapid Favor here. 
The Bass Anglers. 
A parly, between 20 or 30 in number, left for Bass 
Lake, Ind., lo-day, taking advantage of a good excur- 
sion rate. This lake was formerly known as Cedar 
Lake, but the name conflicted with Cedar Lake on the 
Monon, and was changed to Bass Lake. The fish have 
been rising well there for a week or so, mostly in the 
evening. 
The Lauderdale chain of Wisconsin reports good 
bass catches this week, fog in the evening being the 
key thereto. 
For the Coast. 
Dr. R. B. Miller starts to-day for a long trip in Cali- 
fornia and Washington, rainbow trout being his reason 
therefor. 
Tip for Trout. 
The mouth of the Batchewan River, via Laurel, from 
Sault Stc. Marie, is a good trip for big brook trout. 
Mr. Marriott, of the Park Hotel, at the Soo, will make 
proper camping arrangements. One party just in 
showed a dozen trout, 3 lbs. up to 41^, and the sport is 
thought to be fine. E. Hough. 
Ashland Blcck, Chicago. 
The Crescent Moon. 
Among the various things which children ought to 
learn is the art of seeing. It is astonishing how much 
we see without really being able to report what we 
have seen. We are very familiar with objects and 
scenes which we recognize when they come again under 
our eye, but which we could not describe when they 
are out of sight. Let me illustrate by reference to one 
of the most familiar of all sights — the phases of the 
moon. I have often taken pains to inquire of young 
children, say, of 10 years of age, what they have ob- 
served about the moon, with the result that, while they 
have noticed that it changes its apparent form, they 
not only could not explain the cause of the change, 
but never even had had the question, why the changes 
take place, suggested to their minds. And, not only 
that, but they will seldom be found to have noticed any 
law in the changes. If asked, for example, at what 
time of the day, ^nd in what part of the sky the new 
moon is to be seen, they will seldom, if ever, be able 
to tell. If the new moon should suddenly begin to ap- 
pear at evening in the east, and the full moon in the 
west, I venture to conjecture that few children would 
think that anything strange had happened. And I 
should not wonder if it should in such a case turn out 
that a very large proportion of adults also would fail 
to observe the miracle. 
More particularly, how many, whether children or 
adults, could tell, except when they are looking at it, 
what position the horns of the crescent moon hold 
with reference to the sun or to the earth's horizon? 
Here again I venture to guess that, if, from now on, 
the concave side of the crescent should be directed to- 
ward the sun, the great majority of men would never 
notice the abnormity, unless their attention were called 
to it by the more intelligent observers. If this seems, 
to any one a questionable suspicion, I may fortify my 
opinion by the fact that even many artists have act- 
ually represented the new moon as standing in this 
impossible fashion. And artists surely, of all men, 
should be those who accurately observe the things 
which they try to reproduce on the canvas. Not to in- 
dulge merely in generalities, I may remark that in the 
large window of the new Old South Church in Bos- 
ton, in the picture of the Nativity, may be seen the 
new moon with its horns pointing downward. This 
is bad enough in itself; but this is not all that is ques- 
tionable respecting the phenomena. For doubtless the 
artist meant to represent the song of the angels as tak- 
ing place by night, probably about midnight; certainly 
not during the evening twilight. But at midnight no 
new moon was ever yet seen; and what motive can the 
artist have had for introducing such an impossibility 
into a work of art, whose only legitimate object can be 
to represent what has been, or might have been, a fact? 
Doubtless he had no idea that it was an impossibility, 
and had never observed that the new moon is seen 
only in the evening, and is never seen with its con- 
vex side turned away from the sun. If there is any 
comfort to be derived from having distinguished com- 
panions in his ignorance, the artist can get it by learn- 
ing that even Walter Scott shared it; for in his "Bridal 
of Triermain" (canto III., stanza V.) he says: 
And now the moon her orb has hid, 
And dwindled to a silver thread, 
Dim seen in middle heaven; 
Wliile o'er its curve careering fast, 
Before the fury of the blast. 
The midnight clouds are driven. 
This is said, it is true, not of the new moon, but of the 
old moon, after it has "dwindled" from a "full orb" to 
a "silver thread." But the blunder is essentially the 
same; for the old moon, when it has dwindled to this 
extent, can be seen distinctly only in the early morning 
before sunrise, not at midnight. It is to be foimd "in 
rniddle heaven" only a little before midday. It cannot 
be supposed that Scott is here indulging in poetic 
license; there is no poetic gain in thus distorting the 
facts of nature. Minute and accurate as he was in his 
observation in general, we must assume that in this 
case he was misled by "ignorance, pure ignorance." 
Should an apologist of the artist of the Old South 
picture imagine that he intended to represent the 
angelic song as sung in the morning twilight, when the 
old moon might have been seen in its slender form., 
it can only be said that this suggestion, improbable in 
itself, still does not justify making the horns point 
downward — a representation as needlessly false to fact 
as it would be to picture the sun as square instead of 
round. — C. M. Mead in Springfield Republican. 
The Ever<^ lades. 
Florida Letter in Chicago Advance. 
As YOU look out over the everglades there is no limit 
but the horizon. They s( retch from ocean to gulf. There 
are 4,000 square miles of them. In every direction they 
seem the .same open spaces filled with sawgrass or pools 
of water, clumps of small trees ; more sawgrass, more 
water, more clumps of trees — hammocks they call them. 
Thus they spread, so I am told, from ocean to gulf, and 
from the great Lake Okeechobee down to the tip end of 
the State. The everglades are one of nature's peculiar 
experiments in Florida — for there was much experiment- 
ing here countless ages before men and women from the 
North began to scatter superfluous wealth in this direc- 
tion. In those ages when nature was long on time, it 
had an old sea where the everglades now are, and for 
some reason it tired of the old thing and concluded to fill 
it up and make something else. So it turned to and 
dumped into it all the refuse of the watersheds or table- 
lands further north, the drift, alluvium, sand, leaves, logs, 
grass, muck, faded lilies, worn-out alligators, frogs, etc. 
And this filling up process was possible, because of the 
peculiar formation of the basin. Set a saucer on a table 
and consider the east side of the table the Atlantic Ocean 
and the west side the Gulf of Mexico, and yoti will have 
a figure of the old basin which was turned into the ever- 
glades. The bottom is higher than the surface of the 
ocean and the gulf, and the rim of the saucer, which is 
composed of coraline limestone, kept the water within 
until the flood of deposits coming from the higher land 
of the great lake region of the State filled it up and forced 
it over the sides. In seeking outlets the overflowing 
water made such rivers as the Miami, Snook, Arch, 
Shark, and others. 
Instead, therefore, of being a very low swamp, the ever- 
glades are some 15 or 20 feet higher than the Atlantic. 
This feature makes drainage quite possible. It is a 
matter of money, and the Government seems to be aching 
to put a lot of money into ditches. Once drained there 
would be lands there with the richest soil this side of 
Egypt, lands which would produce vast crops of sugar 
and early vegetables for all northern markets. It was 
during the first days of March that I visited the fields 
which have been reclaimed by drainage, and I found 
sweet corn in ear and tomatoes and other vegetables ripe. 
Of the 3,000,000 acres of land covered by the everglades, 
it is thought that at least one-third might readily be 
turned into the most valuable of farms. 
The only people now in the everglades are the Seminole 
