148 
FOREST AND STREAM: 
[Aug. 22, 1903. 
lake is a fine bass lake, and has for years furnished the 
residents of Calais and vicinity an abundant supply of the 
gamest_ and largest bass to be found in that part of the 
State, if, indeed, it can be surpassed within Maine's bor- 
ders. Almost immediately after he reached the lake, Mr. 
Cleveland got out his tackle and made a cast from the 
landing, a four-pound bass rising to it and furnishing a 
good bit of sport. It was an auspicious beginning, and 
showed the veteran angler what he might have been en- 
jojdng long ago if he had but listened to the true stories 
of Maine fishing which do not need any amplifying to 
give them zest. The truth about Maine trout, Maine sal- 
mon, Maine togue, and Maine bass is big enough as it is. 
Visitors to those lakes and ponds where white perch 
abound, report that the big fellows are coming to the 
surface these August days, and if one is quick and watch- 
ful he can secure some splendid pan fish and have a taste of 
lively if short sport by casting for them with the fly. They 
will take almost anything in the way of a fly if they'll take 
it at all, and perch weighing a pound and a half to two 
pounds and even larger are not unusual when caught in 
this waj'. For some reason it seems to be only the very 
large perch, usually caught only on the troll, that rise to 
the fly, consequent]}' the fly-caster is right in the swim 
when he comes across a school of perch waiting for his 
first cast. Herbert W. Rowe. 
Massachusetts Fish and Game, 
Boston, August 15. — Editor Forest mid Stream: The 
new boat which the Massachusetts Commissioners have 
had built for enforcing the game laws was launched at 
East Boston a few days since, and named the Scoter. 
It is a naphtha launch 30 feet long and is capable of 
making 12 knots an hour. Warden Otis Thayer, ot 
Quincey, is in command, and he will make her a terror 
to catchers of short lobsters and violaters of the laws 
against wildfowl shooting on water. 
As a result of a competitive examination to test the fit- 
ness of candidates for the office of paid deputy, Mr. H. 
A. Bent, of Franklin, was appointed a few days ago, and 
while in the discharge of his duties in enforcing the lob- 
ster law in the market of F. E. Shennan, of Fall River, 
on Tuesda3% he was set upon by several men and driven 
from the place. He, however, succeeded in taking with 
him several .shorts and caused the proprietor to be 
brought into court. ; 
In company with Warden G. C. Paradis he has caused 
the arrest of six men for illegal fishing in Watuppa Pond. 
Several complaints have come to the writer during the 
past year of violations on that lake, and it is to be hoped 
"the game is up" with the vandals who have been guilty 
of breaking the law. 
Mr. Herljert E. Tuck, of Haverhill, one of the tireless 
workers of the Central Committee representing the 
Haverhill Gun Club, writes that from reports which haye 
come to him from man.v sportsmen in his section there are 
indications of good fall shooting of both quail and 
partridge. Similar reports are coming in from some other 
sections of the State. , 
Cleveland and Jeffersoo. 
The ex-President and the actor have been having sport 
at Lake Meddybemps, Maine. The former is reported to 
have landed a 6-pound salmon, the largest ever taken 
from the lake at one fishing. They also took the finest 
string of bass ever taken from the lake at one fishing. 
Mr. Charles B. Jefferson, son of the actor, has a camp 
on this lake, which, by the way, furnishes good sport in 
the proper season for bird shooting. Both ex-President 
Cleveland and Mr. Jefferson are expected to be present at 
the annual dinner of the Old Colony Club to occur on 
August 28. 
A large number of sportsmen from the cities of New 
York, Philadelphia, and Boston are taking a vacation with 
its pleasant accompaniment of angling on the great lakes 
of the Rangeleys and Moosehead, and fly-fishing has been 
improving of late. 
The writer has found the last half of August to be a 
good time for woods life. The black flies are gone, and 
as for mosquitoes, one must go provided with an antidote 
for them at all times till the frosts come. Inquiries are 
being made as to where and how to obtain the hunting 
licenses in Maine and New Hampshire. To all such my 
reply has been write to Hon. L. T. Carleton, Augusta, 
Me., or Hon. N. Wentworth, Hudson Centre. N. H., they 
being chairmen of the commissioners of their respective 
States. " Central. 
Pleasant Hours at Tracadie. 
The northern coast of Prince Edward Island, which 
borders upon the Gulf of St. Lawrence, is justly cele- 
brated for its fisheries. 
While it must be extremely cold and bleak in winter, 
yet in summer the residents of the capital, Charlottetown, 
and of other southern and inland towns flock to the north 
for the sailing, bathing, and fishing, and the hotels are 
filled for their brief season. 
Near one of these hotels, beside an almost landlocked 
harbor, I had the good fortune to be located the past 
month. 
I said good fortune advisedly, as by great good luck I 
got domiciled in the home of a hospitable well-to-do 
farmer, who was also personally interested in the deep 
sea fisheries, and in consequence I saw far more of the 
native life than had I put up at a hostelry. 
The people of this particular hamlet were descendants 
of the Scotch Highlanders, their ancestors having been 
loyal followers of "Prince Charlie," and they themselves 
remain good, honest, faithful Catholics to this day. Pro- 
ceeding along the coast one also comes upon settlements 
of French, for this whole region was formerly a part of 
the celebrated Acadia. Sailing necessarily took up much 
of the time, as we went from ten to twenty-five miles 
each trip, sometimes getting becalmed, and often pre- 
vented from venturing out at all ; consequently it was only 
upon six daj^s that I had any deep-sea fishing, and then 
mostly in the intervals when my host and his mate were 
attending their nets and securing the mackerel, so beauti- 
fully iridescent when first caught. 
To silence a "Doubting Thomas" who had spent the 
evening wit]*} mp J)rior to my departurg from New yorlc. 
1 kept a record of each day's catch, and also of the actual 
time .spent in fishing. In the dozen hours my line was out, 
I had the good luck to secure 102 cod, 8 haddock, and i 
hake. 
These ran from two to twenty pounds, and afforded 
good sport, for although I necessarily used a hand line 
for the average depth of twenty fathoms, still it was of 
braided linen and as light as could be utilized without 
cutting the fingers, while the hook was a Sproat, about 
two-thii'ds the size of a regular cod hook, and the sinker 
just one-quarter the weight ordinarily used. The cod 
run larger in the autumn, and I saw some of forty 
pounds caught in trawling at this season, though I think 
these larger fish run mainly at night. 
It is needless to add that the pleasure and health of the 
.sport were greatly enhanced by the delightful sails under 
the guidance of so good a skipper as Capt McDonald, 
and the appetite made short work of the bountiful 
luncheons prepared by his excellent wife. 
Such times as it was expedient to venture out upon the 
Gulf, I fished in the harbor for flounders and blue perch 
(TautogoJahrus adspcrsiis), the latter averaging three- 
quarters of a pound, the largest a pound and a quarter, 
and one morning I succeeded in catching over a hundred 
of these very fair pan-fish. 
Four days I spent on fresh water at Campbell's Pond, 
a picturesque sheet where the privilege of fishing could 
be obtained from its genial owner for a small stipend. 
In this small landlocked pond I basketed forty-eight 
white perch (Moroiic mnericana) and thirt3'--five speckled 
trout. 
These white perch proved excellent fighters on a light 
rod and the trout i-esembled their kindred everywhere, a 
]oy to catch and to behold. The latter were lighter 
colored than the ordinary run of lake trout, as they could 
visit the sea at intervals, and, like other anadromous 
parrs, were silvery as well as golden. 
The largest I caught weighed exactly two pounds, but 
the smaller ones proved by far the better pan-fish, the 
larger ones being chippy and dr3'-. The nine days I spent 
in fishing will always afford me pleasant recollections of 
the "Garden of the Gulf," as the island is often called. 
W. H. R. 
New Vork, August, 1903. 
Nebraska Waters. 
Frank Parmelee — the old Omaha champion wing shot 
— writes that the tarpon fishing in the Gulf this season is 
better than it has been for years. "It is the greatest 
sport in the world," goes on Frank. "The tarpon is as 
game a big sea fish as lives, and right here they range 
from five to seven and one-half feet in length, and it is 
easy to imagine the excitement they can kick up when 
they once get on. I ain sending Walter Kinnear, of the 
Omaha Gun Company, a mounted six-footer, the second 
one I ever caught" 
A Missouri Valley correspondent writes me to know 
whether fish sleep, and perhaps the Forest and Stream 
may feel inclined to answer the question. As for 
myself, I will boldly say that during my long ex- 
perience as a rover of the woods and waters I have spent 
much time in studying the character and habits of our 
dumb creatures, and I have often caught asleep many 
species of fish. It is no uncommon thing to catch black 
bass asleep, as any of our old local anglers Avill verify. 
State Game Warden George L. Carter and his deputies 
are having hot old times with the illegal prairie chicken 
shooters, and hardh^ a day passes but what they make an 
arrest or two. The difficulty so far is in securing con- 
victions, but Warden Carter has done fairly well in this 
line, and is determined to keep the good work up until a 
healthy respect for the law is established throughout the 
State. The warden says, owing to the multiplicity of 
new bills presented to the Legislature last Avinter, that the 
impression got abroad that one of these had become a 
law changing the date of opening the chicken season from 
October i to September i. But there was no change made 
in the game laws whatever, and the open season begins as 
heretofore on October I. A big effort was made, how- 
ever, and urged by the warden and his subordinates, to 
bring about this very change, but, happily, through my 
own persistent endeavor, this was prevented. October i 
is plenty early enough to begin shooting chicken in this 
State. By that time they are in simply perfect condition 
for the table, and are strong of wing, and in a measure 
able to cope with the all-devastating gunner. 
Superintendent O'Brien of the State hatcheries, is now 
upon a trip along the Missouri River catching the young 
fish in the overflowed and backwater districts. He has 
saved many thousand sand pike of this year's hatch, be- 
sides a vast number of croppies and a good mam^ black 
bass, all of which have been transported and deposited in 
likely waters throughout the State. While down in Cass 
county the superintendent caught a fifty-five pound white 
catfish in the Missouri, which is the largest specimen of 
this variety ever caught in Nebraska, and it will be for- 
warded to the World's Fair at St. Louis for exhibition 
during the big show next summer. 
W. W. Bingham writes me from Long Pine, this State, 
that the trout fishing— both rainbow and speckled— was 
never so good in Pine Creek as it is this summer. On 
Sunday afternoon, between the honrs of 3 and 4, he 
caught 29 rainbows, the largest tipping the scales at 
3?4 pounds. Mr. B. added: "I am a tyro with the cast- 
ing rod. and am willing to stake my reputation for 
veracitv that an expert could have more than tripled my 
catch in the same length of time. As it was, I would have 
landed a number more had I not been driven in by a ter- 
rific electrical storm." 
Long Pine Creek is one of the prettiest, most pictur- 
esque and peculiar little streams in the world, dash- 
ing, as it does, like a wild horse through a rift in the 
earth that was probably made in prehistoric days by some 
awful seismic disturbance. The water is cold, sparkling, 
and of matchless quality, and roars and tumbles and leaps 
along down through this rocky rent in the earth between 
wild ragged walls out of which the fork pine and dwarf 
oaks and cottonwoods thrust their scrubby arms and give 
to (he reel and gray rock? a 4fil.ig^^tfuJ tinge p.| guimW, 
In all my travels from the Aroostook to the Columbia I 
have never encountered a wilder and more entrancing 
revelation of nature's wonders than in this self-same 
roaring little torrent tearing through the bowels of the 
earth like something demoniacal. ^ Fifty yards from the 
edge of the escarpment looking down upon this thrill- 
ing conglomeration of water, rock and verdure, no one 
v/ould suspect that there was any sort of a water way 
v/ithin one hundred miles. There is nothing to forewarn 
one of its existence. It cuts right through the level 
desert, with no upheavals of earth or line of surface vege- 
tation to indicate its presence. A few steps and you are 
upon its very brink, there to halt, to gaze, and to wonder. 
Strange as it is, it has only been of late that the outers 
and sportsmen out here have began to realize the boon 
this wondrous little stream affords them; a surfeit of 
wild and rhythmous beauties in a scenic way, and as 
magnificent trout fishing as can be obtained in the distant 
mountains. Camping parties this summer are more fre- 
quent than ever before, and in the years to come it is 
bound to prove the resort de resistance of all this re- 
sourceful country. The most interesting points and 
stretches of Pine Creek are pleasingly accessible from 
either Long Pine or Bassett, where all necessary supplies 
and the best of living can be secured at reasonable rates. 
And the trout are not the one attraction here for the 
sportsman, for the adjacent country is one of the best 
prairie chicken grounds in the world, and fall and spring 
the near by sloughs and marshes swarm with wildfowl. 
Black bass are again rising encoui-agingly at Lake 
Washington and other near by waters, and local anglers 
are again in clover. Just now the best bait for casting is 
the big green crawfish, although the grass frog is always 
tempting, and the shiner is never bad. Care should be 
taken, however, not to use too heavy a sinker when cast- 
ing with a crawfish or minnow; the latter being the most 
easily attained here, is generally used. If hooked properly 
through the back and not weighted too heavily, the min- 
now will try to get out of the way the instant he sees 
a big bass bearing down upon him. An important char- 
acteristic of the bass is that he will head up or down the 
lake by the hour with all kinds of little fish swimming 
complacently around him and not show the slightest incli- 
nation to take a gulp at them, but the moment he sees a 
little fellow trying to get out of his reach he immediately 
recollects that he wants something to cat and he goes for 
his victim like a streak of lightning. That is the reason 
that a good many anglers who go fishing day after day 
with their live bait loaded down with too much sinker 
rarely get a strike and more rarely a fish. Of course, 
this rule about the minnow does not always work in the 
same way, for oftentimes old Micvoptertls is out for 
gore after having fasted for an unusual period, then he 
will go anywheres and to any ends to satisfy his wants, 
and will sink his teeth into anything within reach. Our 
bass out here, however, seldom get into that condition. 
The trouble is they get too nmch to eat. 
George Giacomni, one of our wealthy young sportsmen, 
is encamped with a party of Eastern friends up on Hack- 
berrj' Lake in Cherry county, near the famous ducking 
grounds of E. Stilwell. They are having great sport with 
the bass in Hackberrj^, and the best kind of sicklebifled 
curlew and upland plover. I am indebted to Mr. Gia- 
comni for a half dozen young curlew, and when I say 
that they beat young chicken a block I am expressing it 
mildly. By the way-, this sand hills lake country is one of 
the greatest breeding grounds for sicklebilled curlew 
there is in the country, and in any part of it throughout 
the month of August the shooting on the young birds is 
unsurpassed. This year the crop is proving a big one. 
The opposite, however, is the case with the uplands. 
Since the first day I was afield with the Barrister and we 
bagged seventeen, I have been out a number of times 
and found the birds exceedingly scarce. In this connec- 
tion the following note from one of Nebraska's best 
known sportsmen will not come amiss : 
"Shelby, Neb., Aug. 8.^ — Sandy Griswold : tiave delayed 
writing you, hoping I would be able to ask you up to en- 
joy a good old time plover shooting, but up to date the 
birds are almost absolutely minus. The ranchers north 
of here tell me that the extreme wet and backward 
weather has almost wholly destroyed the hatch. 
"H. C. Beebe." 
Roundabout Shelby has always been a famous resort 
for the birds en route south for their August condition- 
ing grounds. In the past one hundred a day to a single 
gun was nothing particularly worthy of mention. 
A letter to the writer from General Manderson, ex- 
United States Senator from Nebraska, says that the 
pleasure of good trout fishing is known only to the ini- 
tiated. The capture of the confiding bass, some think, is 
easy compared with the landing of a full grown and ex- 
perienced trout. No member of tha finny tribe makes a 
bolder or more vigorous fight for life than these game 
denizens of our mountain lakes and streams. In most oi 
the trout streams of the country a trout weighing from a 
half to two pounds is the only experience, and men who 
whip the Eastern streams feel proud of a basket con- 
taining trout of from six to eight inches in length. Up 
in this, the Big Horn country, such insignificant members 
of the trout species are not taken from the water, but 
thrown back unharmed to grow to respectable dimensions. 
The fishing in all the streams of northwestern Wyoming 
that flow from^ the mountains to the plains below is of an 
extraordinary character, and up in the heart of the moun- 
tains are numerous lakes where trout of the largest dimen- 
sions are to be found. Years ago, through the exertions 
of the members of the Dome Lake Club very largely, 
these streams were stocked with several species of trout, 
the native trout being crossed with the rainbow and 
salmon trout. The result has been a very gamy fish run- 
ning to a large size. 
One of the most expert fishermen, and perhaps the 
champion fly-caster of the United States, is Heyward G. 
Leavitt. He caught a very large number of trout, rang- 
ing from 4 to 5?4 pounds in weight, in some of the small 
streams back of Sheridan. All of these trout resorts, T 
will say for the benefit of Onrdha and anglers in general, 
are easy of access from the Billings line of the Burling 
Ion railroad. To fish in the streams ruuning through the 
Crow reservation a permit ninst b? obtaiticd from the 
