108 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Aug. 8, 1903. 
east from the west end of the lake. When he got to 
be a man he might fish there. Yes, the slow years 
would bring relief from the stern injunction of his 
father: "Keep off and away from that lake or get 
thrashed with a blue beech gad!" The gad was already 
cut and laid in plain view for his benefit; but as the boy 
looked at it, he knew the time was near when its ter- 
rors would be braved for the sake of fishing on Devil's 
Lake. 
For he was fifteen years old— a big man. Why 
should he not fish there? Weeks followed full of se- 
cret plans with a boy comrade of fainter heart. Inde- 
pendence Day became only a week oflf. Stealthy di,g- 
ging of earth-worms at the edge of the straw-stack 
behind the barn! Stolen trips to town, and furtive 
purchases of "big" hooks and lines, and cork floats. 
Piratical exploration of the tamarack swarnp west of 
Tom Lewin's, where "poles" were cut, trimmed and 
peeled, and surreptitiously dried. Precious days, more 
precious because of the sure punishment to follow 
transgression. But we aided each other's courage by 
the frequent cry of "Goin' a-fishin', lickin' or no lickin'." 
And on July 4th, Liberty Day! How we saved and 
planned "riding horse to plow com" at 15 cents a day 
to get the dollar we would have to pay for the boat on 
that holiday! We paid it late on the night of the 3d 
and secured the boat-key from the admonishing Mr. 
Pattison, the boat-keeper at the "landing," who is rent- 
ing boats there yet after almost fortj-^ years, and \vho 
has furnished the means for enjoying more real angling 
and from Marshall and Jackson, Mich., by various divi- 
sions of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Rail- 
way, and from Cincinnati by the Cincinnati Northern 
Road, and has comfortable cottages and hotels, notably 
the Lakeview, Devil's Lake and Pleasant Grove hostel- 
ries, where anglers, alone or with their families, can 
be comfortable at very moderate rates. Its railroad 
stations are Manitou Beach and Devil's Lake. It is a 
singularly wild and beautiful sheet of water; but no 
attempt Avill be made here to describe its beauties. 
Many writers have given fanciful accounts of the al- 
leged events that gave the lake its name of Michi Mani- 
tou, or Devil's Lake. But the "legend" and "tradition" 
are imaginative. Here is a sample of such stories, 
taken from an elaborately written book about the lake: 
"Many hundred moons ago, long before the paleface 
came to destroy the forests and lay waste the land, a 
tribe of Mohawks had their home here." Of course 
the chief had an only daughter (he always does in such 
stories), and "her eyes were like the forest pool where 
the trout hide, and" her hair was matched only by a 
moonless night in November. Her cheek was the 
brown hue of the partridge wing, save where the tint 
of the wild rose glowed in its duslcy shadows; and her 
laugh was like the ripple of the waterfall when the 
south wind blows upon its surface." 
A young Wyandotte from the shores of Lake Erie 
"whispered in her ear a story told iii all climes and 
translated into all languages." And her cruel papa 
fought little Dan Cupid, and hustled the dusky maid 
DEVIL S LAKE. 
sport than any other dozen men in Lenawee County. 
And yet some of his patrons grumble when he charges 
them "a quarter" for a whole day's use of a boat, with 
oars and rods, lines and hooks! 
We rose long before daylight, and walked four miles 
to the landing. That was July 4, 1865. At lastl How 
glad the sky and sunlight, and water and freedom. The 
lake stretched away for miles, solemn, joyful, its little 
billows hardly an inch high. But it was rather fear- 
some to row from the shore as shown in the fore- 
ground of the picture, northeast over the bar that runs 
across the lake to the southeast from Darlington's 
P'int, and on over more blue water, two miles to the 
edge of the light clay bar on the east side, at the south 
point of Saunders' Cove. There the water deepens 
from six feet to fifty, right over a shelf. And we an- 
chored, and fished over that edge. We were only, ex- 
pecting to get sunfish, perch and bluegills. I can see 
yet, just how that bobber looked, and how excited I 
was as it. bobbed, and swiftly went down two feet be- 
fore I pulled! My boy comrade had a like bite at the 
same time, and the next instant a couple of three- 
pound black bass were leaping and scaring us, and 
were gone, leaving us to look at each other in fright 
and dismay! 
Substituting larger hooks, we even yet lost the 
largest fish; but by nine o'clock that morning a dozen 
splendid bass lay in the boat. Glory enough! We 
were back home to a late dinner, and took that pun- 
ishment, and knew that we were buying our fun cheap. 
We met in a fence corner that evening, midway be- 
tween our homes, and talked and lived over again all 
the joys of that tremendous day. 
Never again, in all the years of camping and trolling 
and use of modern tackle, did such luck come to me — 
the cup of joy was full and ran over in richest measure, 
that very first three hours of fishing for black bass on 
Devil's Lake. . 
This lake is ■ remarkable for the number and size of 
its fish. It is in a very fine and thickly settled farming 
country, and is fished by from four to thirty boats daily 
from early spring until late fall; yet it is sure to 
yield a "mess" of fish for the crudest anglers with 
clumsy tackle. It is reached from Chicago and Toledo 
back home to the lake. But a "plaintive note of a 
seeming whippoorwill used to convey a signal to her 
that was full of meaning." Stolen interviews in forest 
dinglesr flight, pursuit, a canoe, a storm, an upset, a 
drowning; and the lovers were buried in one grave. 
All the account lacks is the couplet from Lord Lovel: 
"And from her bosom there grew a red rose. 
And from her lover's a briar." 
All this is absurd. No young Indian would have 
been upset from a canoe in any storm there; if the 
couple had been spilled into the water, they would have 
swam ashore. The writer once swam across the whole 
lake from the house we^t of DarHngton's P'int to 
Green's woods. 
The real story is as follows: 
A sub-tribe of the Mohawks had a "village" at Cedar 
Point, on the east shore of the north part of the lake. 
About 1740 two squaws tried to cross the lake on thin 
ice, and were drowned. Three braves who tried to 
rescue them were also drowned. The five bodies were 
buried somewhere on the shore between Cedar Point 
and the innermost curve of what old-time anglers there 
know as Saunders' Cove. No trace of those graves 
has existed since about 1800. 
The above story, as well as a fanciful "legend." was 
told to me in 1875 by Joseph Beal, a resident then 
eighty years old. He said it was related to his father 
by old trappers and hunters, and by some old Mohawk 
Indians, the story being thus carried back to 1740. 
There was no formal naming of the lake by the In- 
dians; but they at once designated it as the Lake of the 
Evil Spirit, and there is a present feeling of restiveness 
that so very beautiful a lake should bear such a name. 
There is a farmers' picnic on its shores once a' year, 
after the harvest, and from forty to fifty thousand 
people gather. This annual picnic was first held about 
thirty years ago, and each one brings together a larger 
crowd than its predecessor. 
Almost anywhere along the lines of blue water there 
is fair fishing. Many of the very best fishing spots can 
only be located by "ranges" — getting certain trees or 
objects on shore in line with other objects farther in- 
land, and rowing, keeping the objects in line until 
the special bar, patch of fishweeds or sunken stake 
is located. The writer knows about a dozen of these 
ranges; but they could not be described in these col- 
umns so a reader would recognize them when search- 
ing for them on the lake. 
Here are some of the better known places that are 
favorite fishing places with many local fishermen: 
There is a "circle" in the bulrushes northeast from 
the tip of Darlington's P'int about fifty rods. This is 
a basin about eight or ten rods across, free from 
rushes, and with many fishweeds eight or ten feer high, 
whose tops are near the surface of the water. Perch, 
sunfish, bluegills, rock bass and sometimes a black bass 
can be hooked and landed there. 
For much better fishing, row from the "circle" 
northeast to where the bulrushes of the bar terminate 
in a point at the edge of blue water. Eight rods fur- 
ther to the northeast, over blue water, and the boat 
will be over a bar four or five rods across and under 
water about eighteen feet. There the angler should 
find excellent midsummer bass and perch fishing. Not 
over a half dozen residents of that region know of that 
little bar. 
Two hundred rods northward is the south point of 
Willett's Cove. Row right east from that over what 
you suppose is blue water, and suddenly you will be 
going across the point of a curving bar, with the usual 
tall weeds whose "buttons" will show on the surface. 
Excellent fishing for sunfish and bluegills should be 
found there, and all along the east edge of the bar, to 
the point of rushes thirty rods north. 
A similar narrow bar, with like weeds, lies northeast 
of the north point of the Cove. If the day is still and 
sunny, possibly the buttons of the weeds may be seen 
on the surface of the water, otherwise the angler will 
need the tree-range to locate the spot; and one of the 
trees cannot be described here so it would be recog- 
nized from five or six others close to the shore. The 
angler might place each of them in line with the tree 
on the top of the low hill eighty rods north from shore, 
and row across that bar at last. It furnishes the sec- 
ond-best fishing at the lake. 
At the point of the bar southwe.st from Cedar Point, 
on the east side of the lake, is another excellent fishing 
place, marked with a like patch of fishweeds. 
South of the shallow white bar running south_ from 
the south point of Saunders' Cove, on the east side of 
the north lake, is a bar that extends forty rods out 
from a line of rushes, and gradually growing deeper, 
with very tall occasional weeds with a pair or two of 
leaves on their tops, near the surface. At the point of 
that bar is excellent fishing for perch and black baas. 
South by east from that bar point twenty rods, and 
the rower will pass over a circular bar about six or 
eight rods across, and it is edged with fishweeds. It 
is a capital place for bluegills and bass fishing, as is 
also the north side of the ten-acre bar that lies across 
eight rods of blue water to the south of the circular 
bar. 
Finally I mention a fishing location whose existence 
cannot be known to but two or three men in all that 
region, and they could scarcely find it in a cloudy and 
windy day. 
Ten rods directly west from the smaller, circular bar, 
surrounded by stretches of blue, deep water, is a bar 
twenty feet down, and about three rods across. It is 
nearly round. The fisherman who can find that bar 
will not only take very large bluegills and perch, but 
both large and small mouth black bass. It is the 
choicest fishing ground at Devil's Lake. It can hardly 
be located even with these directions, except when the 
lake is still. Then the angler who expects to revisit 
the spot should study the shores and mark the exact 
spot by far tree-ranges, as he can do from both the 
east and west shores. It will seem absurdly easy to 
find again when the day is sunny and the water is 
smooth, and the anchor is actually cast there. But it 
will be a far different matter when waves are running 
and skies are overcast. L. F. Brown. 
Without Wetting the Hook. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Coming back from the Pacific Coast a few weeks ago 
I heard a pretty good fish story. It was in the smok- 
ing compartment of the Pullman sleeper that leaves 
St. Paul early in the evening over the Northwestern 
road. I hope I am not violating a confidence, but it 
was too good to keep, and I believe it to be abso- 
lutely true. 
A man from Eau Claire, Wis., whom from his con- 
versation I judged to be lumberman and one also who 
dabbled in mining properties, was the man who told 
the story, and he imparted it to a friend who was 
coming East to buy machinery for a new saw mill he 
was building near Everitt, Wash. The scene of the 
story was laid a short distance north of Bonner's 
Ferry, on the Great Northern Railroad, and I was 
particularly interested because I had just passed 
through that country and had been disappointed in not 
being able to stop near there for some fishing myself. 
The Eau Claire man had some new fishing gear in his 
vahse that he had just been trying and found very 
killing, and this started him on his story. 
"Talk about good fishing," he said, "have I seen you 
since I made that trip up into Idaho to settle the bet 
I made with Bailey?" 
"No," replied the other. 
. "I never had any fishing like that before, and I am 
going up again this season. You know Bailey of Du- 
luth, the man who is a good deal interested in Western 
mining properties? Well, I run up to Duluth occa- 
sionally and I frequently see Bailey there. He is a 
royal good fellow and he can tell as big a story as any 
man I know of — in fact, he rather has the reputation 
of being particularly artistic Avhen it comes to putting 
fine touches, on a good story, fish or otherwise. I was 
talking there with Bailey one day about fishing and he 
iDcgan to tell a tale about the prodigious number and 
immense size of the trout he had caught in a little 
stream near his mine in Idaho, the Iast_ time he vis- 
ited it. The whole thing sounded so ridiculous that I 
had to laugh. I was surprised to find that this time 
instead of expecting to be laughed at, Bailey got rather 
indignant. 
