jvLY It, 1903.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
tt is urged that the various laws enacted by the Legisla- 
ture, with respect to the time and manner of taking 
various kinds of fish and game, are inconsistent with this 
interpretatioh of the law. 
There is nothing inconsistent between this public regu- 
lation and the rights of individual owners. The power 
resides in the several States to regulate and control the 
right of fishing in the public waters within their respective 
jurisdictions. (Lawton vs. Steele, iig N. Y., 234.) Fish 
and game are migratory, and those which may now be on 
private lands may quickly change their location to pub- 
lic lands and public waters. No man owns wild game or 
fish, even though they be on his land, unless he has re- 
duced them to his possession by capture. If they wander 
from his premises to those of the public or another, he 
may not complain of their taking. In public waters and 
on public lands, this right is open to all alike, and no 
individual right is trespassed upon by so doing. Fish, 
especially, form a large source of food supply, and those 
which propagate upon private property and migrate to 
public waters may constitute a considerable proportion. 
That they may riot be disturbed in propagation, the regu- 
lation of the manner and time of their killing is, there- 
fore, a proper subject of legislative action. As was said 
bv Chief Justice Spencer, in tlooker vs. Ciimrnings, 
supra: "These acts prove nothing; for the Legislature 
have, confessedly, the right of regulating the taking of 
fish in private waters; and do, every year, pass laws for 
that purpose, as to rivers not navigable in any sense, and 
which are unquestionably private property." 
We have not overlooked the case of the people vs. Hall 
(8 App. Div., IS), urged upon our consideration by the 
defendant's counsel. There were many reasons in that 
case which called for a reversal of the judgment convict- 
ing the defendant of the misdemeanor provided by the 
game law, and the determination of the court could have 
well been put on those grounds alone. We are forced to 
disagree with that portion of the opinion which intimates 
that a private park cannot be maintained under the statute 
unless proof is given that animals and fish were actually 
bred and propagated thereon. The language of the 
statute is, "devote such lands or lands and water, to the 
propagation or protection of fish, birds or game." It is 
well -known that when fish and game are protected they 
propagate rapidly. In the present case the proof is that 
both have very largely increased since the establishment 
of the park. A protection which alloAvs natural propaga- 
tion, we think, meets the requirement of the statute. 
We are mindful that this interpretation deprives the 
public at large, by the infliction of severe penalties for in- 
fraction of the law, of the pleasure and profit of fishing 
and hunting in a very large portion of the Adirondack 
forest, and gives to men of great wealth, who can buy 
vast tracts of land, great protection in the enjoyment of 
their private privileges. The wisdom of the Legislature 
in prescribing exemplary damages,^ and making fishing 
and hunting upon private parks^ a misdemeanor, is not for 
the court to review, tt was within its province to do so 
if it saw fit. Exemplary damages are no new thing for 
wilful conduct, and the Legislature is constantly enacting 
that certain wilful injuries shall be deemed midemeanors. 
The burden was on the defendant to show that the 
stream in which he fished had been dedicated to the pub- 
lic. The plaintiff being the owner of the land through 
which it flowed, it was prima facie private property; and 
upon the plaintii? sliowing compliance with the statute 
he was presumptively entitled to recover. 
Tliere was no proof that the stream in which the de- 
fendant was fishing had been, in contemplation of law, 
stocked by the State. He failed, therefore, to justify his 
acts, and by them incurred liability for the penalty in 
the form of exemplary damages, provided by statute. 
The judgment must be reversed and a new trial granted, 
with costs to abide the event. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
Ttoot ia White Rivef. 
Chicago, 111., July i.— Mr. F. W. Pickard, of the 
Oriental Powder Mills, of Cincinnati, Ohio, whom I re- 
ferred to Benjamin's place on the White River, Waushara 
county, AVisconsin, at an earlier date in the season, is 
good enough to drop a line reporting the results of his 
trip in that vicinity. He writes as follows: "Personally 
I fished ten days, some of them short ones, and took about 
100 trout, the best being iji, i^ and 1% pounds, all three 
on fly, all rainbow. The largest rainbow caught in the 
White was 2^ pounds (on grasshopper). The average 
string was in the neighborhood of 7 or 8. I think, with 
the exception of my record day of 23, all on fly, and some 
12 or 14 (about one-half on fly) taken by a Dr. Williams, 
no one exceeded 10 or 11 fish. 
"I put in one day on the McCann with a friend, and 
together we took five. I took a iJ4-pound speckled and 
ii'2-pound rainbow, and my friend took a i-pound rain- 
bow. The others were small The McCann fish were 
taken on club bait. There seems to be comparatively few 
in the McCann, but the average weight runs high. 
"The White is being greatly overfished this year. By 
actual count one meadow was fished fourteen times be- 
tween 10 A. M. and 8 P. M., and certain portions of the 
stream are fished from five to ten times practically every 
day in the week. An eight-inch limit on the stream would 
do a great deal of good. 
"At Benjamin's place their accommodations are very 
limited, and they have been turning away many people 
this season. It was rather a disappointment to several 
parties who came while I was there to find no accommo- 
dations ready for them, and I may add that during the 
rest of the summer practically no one will be taken in 
unless they have letters from some of the people who 
have stopped there in other years. They are nice people 
and all there are finely served." 
Hearing what I have regarding the numbers of anglers 
who have been in this district recently, I am inclined to 
think that Mr. Pickard was rather fortunate than other- 
wise. His trout are among the best in weights which I 
have heard reported from that vicinity. It takes a fisher- 
fiian to catch trout. 
Good Muscallunge. 
'The impre,«!sjpn is growing among the angling fraternity 
that Mayor Harrison is what is known as a shine fisher- 
man. On his recent trip to Minocqua he allowed his 
brother, Mr. Preston Harrison, to catch the biggest mus- 
callunge of the expedition, a 22-pounder, taken in Carroll 
Lake. This fish was served up in due state at a Wish- 
ininne banquet in Chicago, on Tuesday last, June 30, the 
affair being patronized with great vehemence and gusto 
by all loyal Wishininnes at present in town and able to 
attend. 
The Passfng of the Kankakee, 
Some fourteen years or so ago, when I first began to send 
notes from this district to the Forest and Stream^, the 
marsh country on the Kankakee, in Indiana, was very 
much in evidence. At that time and for some years there- 
after a number of prosperous club houses were maintained 
at different points on the Kankakee marsh, and few lo- 
calities in the country offered more attractions to the 
lover of wildfowl shooting. The abundance of ducks, 
snipe, plover and the like for a long time overshadowed 
fishing attractions, although there was a time when the 
members of some of the clubs, for instance the Maksawba 
Club, paid a good deal of attention to bass fishing, some 
very good catches being made on the artificial fly by some 
of the devotees of the gentler side of angling. For the 
past few years all these things have been changing. The 
threatened ditching and draining of the old marshes has 
gone on, until to-day they show but a shadow of their 
former quality. To-day I met Mr. Graham H. Harris, 
who made a hurried fishing trip to the Kankakee last 
week, and he tells me that the big ten mile ditch has been 
completed across the old grounds of the Maksawba Club, 
straightening out the former channel of the river and 
leaving all the river proper very little more than a series 
of broken, detached and stagnant pools. In the main 
river, or main ditch as it ought now to be called, they 
found no bass at all, and Mr. Harris doubts if there has 
been a bass taken in that part of the country this season.. 
Of pickerel they took a great many, their success tallying 
with that of others reported at different times in these 
columns throughout the present summer. They had of 
these fish specimens up to six pounds or more. Mr. 
Harris thinks that as the ditch is only completed recently, 
and as, indeed, work still progresses at its lower end, 
there may presently be a time when it will have washed 
out the sediment down to the gravel which underlies all 
this marsh country, in which case the stream ought to be- 
come fit for bass. He says that he doesn't know what has 
been done in regard to the long talked of rock-cut 
through the great ledge at Momence, which constitutes 
the great geological dam which has built the historical 
Kankakee marshes, backing up the mud and silt for more 
than a hundred miles. It is likely, however, that this cut 
will some time be made, and the passing of the ancient 
home of the wildfowl will then be completed. To-day, 
my friend tells me, they are plowing corn where we 
formerly shot jacksnipe or built blinds for mallards. The 
glory of the Kankakee has assuredly departed. 
We have had for three days the first actual warm 
weather of this season, and whether it will be good or 
bad for the bass fishing no one can tell, probably the lat- 
ter. Last week the bass began to bite a little bit in Lake 
Marie, Channel Lake, and one or two waters of that 
vicinity in northern Illinois. Dr. Lund and party took 
sixty odd bass in their trip, and reported the sport very 
satisfactory. 
Moscallonge in Gun Lake. 
Last summer I mentioned Gun Lake, Michigan, which 
can be reached via Shelbyville or Bradley, Michigan, at 
a distance of half a dozen miles or so from the railway 
station. This lake, a good large one and a very sporting 
one, drains neither into Lake Michigan nor Lake Huron, 
so far as my informant can tell me, and yet he says that 
the muscallunge is not unfrequently taken in these waters, 
and that one of the local hotel men has the heads of 
several muscallunge nailed up on trees about his place. 
My friend thinks that the muscallunge were just left there 
when the waters of the flood subsided. Perhaps he will 
find some little creek connecting Gun Lake with some 
river which connects with something else. As to the 
authenticity of the muscallunge story, there w^ould seem 
little doubt, for once there was a cause celebre in regard 
to a muscallunge which was taken in this very lake. An 
angler was out fishing before the opening of the muscal- 
lunge season, and he caught this fish, not so much of his 
own motion as of that of the muscallimge itself. The 
testimony showed that the fish was dead when taken into 
the boat, but it was not shown that the angler killed the 
fish. Neither was it shown that he made any attempt to 
return it to the water after taking it thus against his will. 
In spite of these facts, and in spite of about $7,000 spent 
in pushing the case, the defendant was acquitted by the 
intelligent jurors of Michigan, who said they thought 
it was not his fault if the muscallunge fastened itself to 
any lure which he might perchance be using. 
This is the case as it comes to me, but it seems strange 
law. For the benefit of any who may, without intention, 
take a fish or other animal at any time or in any manner 
prohibited by law, I would saj^ that the correct legal 
thing to do in such case is to restore the fish, bird or beast 
at once to its original environment. 
ChJcago Fly-Casting Clob, 
Mr. Arthur H. Bellows, secretary of the Chicago Fly- 
Coasting Club, issues the following letter of general ad- 
vice and invitation, covering the long deferred visit of the 
club to Grand Rapids : 
"A cordial invitation is extended to all members of the 
Chicago Fly-Casting Club to attend the Interstate tourna- 
ment, to be held at Grand Rapids, Mich., Friday, July 10. 
After the contests at Grand Rapids, members will partci- 
pate in fishing trips, to be arranged by the members of 
the Grand Rapids Club. The fourth club contest scheduled 
for July II has been postponed until July 18, on account 
of conflicting with the Interstate tournament." 
E. Hough. 
Hartford Building, Chicago, 111. 
All communications intended for Fosest and Stream should 
always be addressed to the Forest and Stream Publishing Co., 
New \'^ork, and not to any individual connected with the paper. 
Seimngf Buffalo^'Fish. 
A NEW sport of unusual interest at Okoboji is that of 
watching the men seine for buffalo or seeing the large 
fellows they bring in. Wednesday Elmer Heushur 
brought in a big sixty-nine pounder while seining in East 
Lake. Last fall in oiae day 7,000 pounds were taken out 
of Minnewasta. Some days they get almost no fish, but 
often 1,400 pounds come in. The buffalo seem to have 
no special bed, as often the barge is seen off South 
Beach, Miller's Bay, Hayward's Bay, Minnewasta, or Cen- 
ter Lake. ^They get many small fish and often bring in a 
forty-pounder. The equipment for catching these large 
fish is very different from anything we are accustomed to 
seeing here. The net is from eight to sixteen feet wide 
and T,ooo feet long. At about two feet apart on one of 
the long sides there are large egg-shaped floats and on 
the other side are many sinkers of about a quarter of a 
pound in weight. The flat boat is some fifteen feet long. 
Near the stern are two uprights on which are riveted two 
five-foot solid wood wheels. The net unwinds from these 
wheels. The_ barge is towed by the Hiawatha to the 
ground of action. It takes six men to do the seining. Two 
hold fast one end on the shore while the others row out 
in a circle dragging the weighted side of the net as they 
go. After making this detour the other end of the net 
comes back to shore almost where the first men were. 
Then the net is dragged in, drawing all the fish to land. 
No game fish are allowed to be kept, but must be let free 
again. A deputy attends each party that goes out and sees 
that this is done. Large orders are filled each week and 
shipped away. The buffalo have multiplied many fold in 
the last year, since the law for seining fish has been in 
force. But this last winter many pounds of buffalo were 
captured through the ice. They claim that buffalo eat 
other fish and perhaps that has much to do with the less 
amount of game fish caught here. To-day as the Okoboji 
plowed the waters it divided also a school of large fish, 
both gar and buffalo. One could see the big fellows turn 
and glide away. — Des Moines Register and Leader. 
The Good Record of Protectoi* Williams. 
^ Watertown, N. Y,, July i. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: The prospects for fish and game in Jefferson 
were never better than at the present time. Large 
numbers of wild fowl are nesting. There is a notice- 
able increase in grouse, and the indications are that 
the bass fishing will be better than usual. These condi- 
tions are the result of the active cooperation of the 
law abiding citizens, the State commissioner and the 
protectors, in the enforcement of the laws protecting 
fish and game. It has been stated in Forest and 
Stream by myself and others that no protector could 
do good work in his own immediate vicinity. I wish to 
retract this statement. 
_ In July last Mr. A. P. Williams, of Mannsville, a 
lifelong resident of this county, received his appoint- 
ment. Since then he has had 17 successful prosecu- 
tions, the fines amounting to $468, and has two cases 
not yet settled. Seven of these were for illegal killing 
of game, the rest for illegal fishing. During this time 
he removed from the waters of this county 60 illegal 
nets and 4,000 feet of set lines, valued at $387. He also 
has a collection of 500 snares, which he removed from 
the grouse covers. All this work was done in Jeffei-- 
son. In addition to this he assisted Protectors Matte- 
son, Pearsall and Havvn in clearing Oneida Lake of 
nets, convicting two men for seining, securing the seine 
and a fine of $100, also capturing 16 trap nets, which 
with the seine, were valued at $595. 
All of which goes to prove that a protector can do 
good work if the parties who are interested will give 
him information, and active support in the perform- 
ance of his duties. W. H. Tallett, 
President J. C. S. A. 
San Ffancisco Fly -Casting Club. 
Medal Contests, Series 1903 — Saturday, contest No. 8, 
held at Stow Lake, June 27. Wind, west; weather, fair. 
Event Event Event 
No. 1, No. 2, No. 4, 
iJistance, Accuracy, , Event No. S. v Lure 
Feet. Percent. Acc. > Vel. % Net ){ Casting )t 
C. R. Kenniff.. 117 
88.4 
92.8 
88.4 
90.6 
98 
C. G. Young 
89 
92.4 
83.4 
87.10 
89.8 
T. Brotherton. . .127 
90.8 
91.4 
87.6 
89.7 
95.6 
A. E. Mocker. 104 
86.4 
91.8 
87.6 
89.7 
H. Battu 102 
87.4 
90 
85 
87.6 
84.7 
G. C. Edwards. 98 
88 
90 
87.6 
88.9 
T. C. Kierulff. 115 
86.4 
88. 4 
85 
86.8 
77.2. 
Dr. C. Stephens... 
85.4 
56.8 
71 
P. J. Tormey. . . . 
88.8 
96.3 
Sunday, contest 
No. 8, 
held at 
Stow 
Lake, June 28 
wind, west; weather, fair. 
H. Battu....... 115 
85.8 
87.8 
86.8 
87.2 
92.6 
A. M. Blade... 98 
64.1 
86.4 
78.4 
82.4 
Dr. \V. Brooks. 106 
89.8 
86.4 
86.8 
86.6 
T. Brotherton... 131 
85.4 
89. 4 
93.4 
91.4 
93.2 
H. C. Golcher. 127 
89.4 
89. 4 
88.4 
88.10 
F. M. Haight. 99 
87 
91 
77.6 
84.8 
C. Huyck 112 
87. 8 
90 
75 
82.6 
C. R. Kenniff.. 122 
92.4 
90. S 
93.4 
92 
98 
J. B. Kenniff.. 123 
89.8 
91.4 
90 
90.8 
96.8 
T. C. Kierulff. 98 
90.8 
82.8 
81.8 
82.2 
90.1 
H. B. Sperry,. 97 
76.4 
8S.4 
72.6 
80.5 
91.8 
P. J. Tormev. . . . . 
88.8 
87.5 
C. G. Young... ... 
87.8 
87.4 
87.6 
88 
u. loung.. ... 01.0 01.1 oi.v iji .1/ 
Judges— T. C. Kierulff and Dr. W. E. Brooks. Referee 
— C. R. Kenniff. Clerk— T. W. Brotherton. 
Not All of Fishing: to Fish* 
George Henshall, Thomas Henshall, James McGrath, 
William Thompson, Augustus Hains and Thomas Lyons 
hired the sloOp yacht Florrie B. at Fort Hamilton last 
Sunday morning , for a fishing trip. The boat, an open 
30-footer, was caught in a squall off Sandy Hook, and to 
save themselves the crew had to put out to the open sea. 
An attempt was made to reach the Atlantic Highlands, 
but ended in failure. The men managed to get the boat 
to the pier at' Coney Island Thursday morning. Accord- 
ing to the men's story they landed at a deserted strip of 
sand off the Jersey coast on Tuesday, and managed to 
purchase some raw eggs from a lonely fisherman who 
lived on the beach. This, together with some bread, was 
the only thing the men had to eat. — New York Evening 
Post. _ i 
