Aug. 29, 1903.1 
to prove that the big private preserve is not "foolish 
in policy," simply because "it arouses bitter animosi- 
ties," and "incites the spirit of revenge" in the criminal 
element. It can incite that spirit in no lawful element, 
and no law-abiding citizen can harbor anything but 
feelings of the deepest and most fearless contempt for 
the acts of the criminal. 
Another side to this question is that agitation against 
landowners lawfully doing as they please with their 
land, is surely harming the cause of those who go 
a-field with dog, gun and rifle. As proof of this, I 
point to the law recently enacted by the Connecticut 
Legislature. It is no longer required that land shall 
be posted, whether wild or cultivated. Any trespasser 
may now be taken into custody without warning. And 
this is owing to trampling on the rights of those who 
own the land by those who don't. Agitation which 
steps on the toes of one landowner treads on the corns 
of another. The law reads: 
Every person who shall throw down or leave open any bars, 
gate, or fence upon the land of another, or who shall enter upon 
the land of another without permission of the o\yner, occiipant, or 
person in charge thereof for the purpose of hunting, trapping, fish- 
ing or taking or destroying the nests or eggs of birds, or bee 
hunting, or gathering nuts, fruits, or berries, shall be fined not 
more than fifty dollars, or imprisoned not more than thirty days, 
or both. The possession by any person, while trespassing upon 
the land of another, of a gun, dog, ferret, or fish rod, shall be 
deemed prima facie evidence of his intention of hunting or fishing 
thereon. 
The owner, occupant, or person in charge of the land, or such 
persons as he may command to assist him, may arrest any person 
violating any of the provisions of the preceding section, and forth- 
with take him before some proper authority, who shall, upon com- 
plaint of the proper prosecuting officer, proceed to try such 
person. 
The farmers had more to do with framing that law 
.than any other element. 
"If preserves are necessary let them be State or na- 
tional preserves, and let everybody stand upon an equal 
footing with respect to them." 
Everybody should and would stand upon an equal 
* footing in that case. And I, for one, am heartily in 
favor of such preserves. But this neither argues that 
there should be no private preserves, nor that every- 
body should "stand on an equal footing" with the m- 
dividual who owns, and pays the taxes on, a private 
preserve, in the enjoyment of the same. And no in- 
dividual who is conscientiously working within the 
laws of this land, need or will fear threats of revolu- 
tion, disaster, ruin, etc., etc. Such yarns carry one in 
memory back to the spooky fables of childhood, and 
should be classed with the same. They frighten only 
the imaginations which give them birth. 
William H. Avis. 
HiGHWooo, Conn , Aug. 21. 
Sportsmen And. 
See you now, 
Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth; 
And thus do we of wisdom and of reach, 
With windlaces, and with assays of bias, 
By indirections find directions out — 
You have me, have you not? 
— Polonius. 
Veritatis simplex oratio est. Siet. 
It is dangerous for contributors to Forest and 
Stream to step out of the conventional covers and 
thickets into open ground. Hunters watch so narrow- 
ly. If a fellow makes a little bound or two and kicks 
up his heels, he is not only in danger of being shot 
with foreign phrases, from any corner of the world, 
but sleepy stags all about him prod him with their 
tines to scare him into the bushes again! 
It has taken me a goodly number of years to accu- 
mulate what I consider a few authentic things relating 
to nature and mankind, but when I try to put some 
valued assertion upon record, other fellows shoot Latin, 
and philosophy as old as Latin, my way. Even the 
broad-gauge editor of this journal either fails to under- 
stand me, or he refuses to indorse my philosophy 
without reservations — but diplomacy is quite essential 
to any good captain or pilot. Even sky pilots^ 
"E'en ministers tha' ha' been ken'd 
In holy rapture, 
A rousing whid at times to vend. 
And nail 't wi' Scripture. 
And so, when those of wisdom and of reach do not 
indorse me openly, I lay it all to diplomacy of one 
kind or another, so that I am not jarred. 
The trouble is that if 1 try to make a bland assertion, 
without qualifying it into obscurity, they jump upon 
me under the pretext that I am egotistic, dogmatic, 
or that I am describing an elephant blindly by the 
way it feels! 
As instance, when I indorse Government preserves 
of wilderness and game, as well as private preserves, 
folks persist in advocating State reserves to which the 
public shall have free access (with measures taken 
that no one shall interfere with everj'one taking every- 
thing!), and this with any number of great States des- 
titute of all large game and much wild territory de- 
nuded of everything of value that was capable of being 
taken. 
Does it conform with the motto: "The greatest good 
to the greatest number" that every deer and every 
beaver in a great State like Illinois should be exter- 
minated in a period of forty or fifty years? That many 
of the States having no private preserves or national 
parks are as destitute of game, and forests, too, as 
Illinois, who will deny? Was it this policy to permit 
nearly every buffalo of a vast region to be the sport 
of the "people" until every living animal on the "play- 
ground" was destroyed? 
As instance, when I assert that "in niany cases it is 
the men who kill animals directly who are most active 
in preserving and increasing the animals for a useful 
purpose. The men who shoot game are at the present 
time the most earnest in efforts to protect and provide 
for it." Your correspondent, Mr. Abbott H. Thayer, 
asks if I mean this for a joke! Again, when I write, 
"Whoever hears of any one except sportsmen doing 
anything to protect game animals or birds or fish?" 
]^r. Tjiayer says J shoul4 know about the Biological 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
Survey and naturalists that are at work preserving 
species. 
Now, the difhculty here is the old matter of defining 
that word "sportsman." Mr. Thayer forgets that the 
most active members of the Biological Survey, and 
the wisest naturalists, may be sportsmen also. He 
seems to catalogue sportsmen, as many other people 
do, as "men who kill game," or as Didymus did three 
or four years ago when he wrote "Sportsmen are men 
who shoot, and let it go at that." 
The facts of the topic are that the word "sportsman" 
does not fit the men who contribute substance to these 
columns, for, in the minds of many, a sportsman is a 
sort of pot or market shooter; merely this and nothing 
more. But this is a worn theme. Three or four years 
ago I tried to tell Forest and Stream that the word 
sportsman was a misfit, but I was like the Hollander 
shearing hogs — ^there was a great outcry, little wool. 
As far as the word defines the class of writers who 
contribute to this journal, it would be as explicit to 
leave the "sports" off and call them men, perhaps, bet- 
ter, for they would not then be confused in the minds 
of many with all the .sports in the category of human 
diversity. In the perspective I see, in my mind's eye, . 
as I recall what I can of twenty-five years' reading of 
this journal, I conjure into being many explorers, nat- 
uralists, deep thinkers and students, artists with pen 
and pencil, poets and philosophers, with not a few 
profound scientists. With all my conjuring I cannot 
collect any notable group of real sports. 
Doubtless the old word will stand, for it has stood 
terrific strain. But it chafes like cockle-burrs to have 
a tyroic paragraph like the following fired into us: 
"As a choice of evils it (the Biological Survey) often 
joins ranks with sportsmen, preferring to keep up a 
species even for them to decimate rather than to see it 
vanish altogether." 
Again. "Look at these two forces, side by side, in 
the effort to preserve game. The naturalists striving 
to save it to study and admire, * * * the sports- 
men that they may kill it! Would any disinterested 
judge hesitate as to which of these attitudes is most 
representative of humanity's hopes to-day?" 
The burrs chafe. But it is because Mr. Thayer has 
pot-shooters in his perspective and thinks them sports- 
men. Webster's dictionary of the English language 
helps him to fortify his position while he fires such 
chain shot into us. Ohe! jam satis. 
Charles L. Paige. 
California. 
— • — 
Proprietors of fiishing resorts will find it profitable "to advertise 
them in Forest and Stream. 
Two Scfaago Salmon. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I recently had the opportunity to see two mounted 
specimens of landlocked salmon, such as an angler 
seldom has the chance to land. These were in the 
store of my neighbor in Brighton, which constitutes 
one of the suburban wards in Boston. 
The proud possessor of these fish is Mr. T. F. 
Horrigan, as ardent and enthusiastic an angler as ever 
lived. One of the salmon, a female, weighed 17 pounds, 
as it came from the water, and its mate, a male, 
weighed i^Vz pounds. 
The story of the capture of these is as follows: 
Mr. Horrigan and his wife were spending some days 
at Sebago Lake, Me., in the latter part of July, they 
having gone there for the purpose of salmon fishing. 
When they arrived the reports were somewhat dis- 
couraging, and the outlook gave little promise of suc- 
cess. They were told that people who had fished the 
lake for day after day had failed to latid a single sal- 
mon, and the chances of their return to Boston with 
unfulfilled hopes as their traveling companion were 
more probable than any other result. 
But the true sportsman is seldom balked by adverse 
reports of this kind, and that proved to be true in this 
case. Mr. Horrigan secured the services of Tom Hill 
as a guide, and started out to try his luck late in the 
afternoon of July 23. His wife did not go with him, as 
he expected to do little beyond "trying the ground." 
It chanced, however, that there was an exceptionally 
good run of smelts at the surface that afternoon, and as 
these are the food preferred by landlocked salmon, the 
latter were also higher in the water than they had been 
found for some time previously. It was n'ot long, there- 
fore, before Mr. Horrigan had a strike. And as the 
fish repeatedly sprang high in the air, and he could see 
the bulk of it and also more fully realize its strength 
and fighting capacity, he appreciated the task of bring- 
ing to net, with a six-ounce rod, a salmon of such pro- 
portions. Meanwhile the fish rushed as only "the 
gamest fish that swims" is capable of; it sprang into 
the air and fell splashing into the water, always trying 
to shake itself free from the hook that had pierced its 
lip. But there was a cool, experienced head and a 
steady hand at the other end of the line; also a keen ap- 
preciation of the fact that, with a slight rod and a fish 
not too strongly hooked, nothing short of care and skill 
coidd achieve victory. This was a contest where "giv- 
ing him the butt" and "reeling him right in" could 
not be seriously considered — at least, until the storage 
battery of strength that at first animated the active fish, 
was exhausted to a considerable degree. Finally britte 
force yielded to human skill. The salmon was grad- 
ually brought near the boat, its noble proportions 
showing more plainly as it floated on its side, no 
longer able to struggle, and its dark spots and blue 
back contrasting with the silver iridescence of its 
lower parts. It was a moment of anxiety as well as 
exultation for angler; the moment of all the contest 
when he felt the keenest concern. For as the fish 
floated slowly in, Horrigan's keen eye had noted that 
the hook had only a slight hold, and the smallest error 
in using the landing net might cause the loss of the 
prize, so eagerly longed for. "Be sure and get the net 
167 
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■- ' • 1 
well under him and don't touch the hook," was the 
caution given to the guide, whose long experience had 
taught him what to do. Nevertheless, the net caught 
the hook, which quickly slipped frOm its hold and left . 
the salmon floating — helpless to be sure, as it chanced, 
but with nothing to restrain him if, perchance, he had 
gained sufficient strength just then to move away. 
"Quick! quick! get that net under him!" excitedly 
cried Horrigan, as he thought his treasure was about 
to slip from his grasp. But no sooner said then done, 
for instantly the bowed net was slid under the fish, 
and, before it had a chance to flirt its tail, it was lifted 
into the boat. 
It is unnecessary to go into details about the tri- 
umph that shone in the captor's eyes; every angler 
can guess what it was like, especially if the has won vic- 
tory where he scarcely dared look for it. 
Did he throw in again? No. Great as the tempta- 
tion was he did a manlier thing, he requested his 
guide to row to the shore as soon as could be, so that 
he could get his wife. Shortly thereafter they were all 
back at the same spot, and Mrs. Horrigan was told 
where it was thought she could get a rise. The cast 
was made, when, almost immediately, whiz, whirr, went 
the reel, a big salmon leaped into view and the second 
battle was on. 
It goes without saying that Mr. Horrigan "coached" ' 
his wife with as much zeal and interest as would be 
shown by a professional coach when training a boat's 
crew for a regatta. "Give him the butt, a little. Easy 
on him, now! Don't let him get slack line on you! 
Your sleeves bother you, do they? Then let me roll 
them up. That collar is choking you, is it? I guess 
tain't quite the thing for this kind of exercise. You . 
watch your fish and I'll get that collar off." 
And off it came, with less ceremony, perhaps, than 
might have been observed under other circumstances, 
but the lady's sporting blood was now at high tension 
and she didn't even enter tlie gentlest protest. Her 
eyes shone with the light of battle, as her shapely bare 
arms bent hither and thither, following the movements 
of the struggling fish. 
After one leap the salmon sulked and played deep,' 
but he fought well, nevertheless. It was exciting, and 
the intensity of the sport was evidenced when Mrs. 
Horrigan turned to the guide, saying: "If I land that 
fish I'll give you $5." "And I'll give you another 
fiver," exclaimed her husband. 
It is probable that the guide, whose blood was up, 
too, might have done all possible without the spur of 
this promised reward. However that may be, it is 
not supposable that he felt less satisfied with the result 
when the old "hook-jaw" lay in the bottom of the 
boat, and two crisp bills were laid in his hand. 
"Now, we'll go home," said Horrigan, and both he 
and his wife agreed that their experience was "quite 
enough sport for them at one time." 
But the catching of the fish was not the sole satis- 
faction secured, for this generous sportsman shared 
with his friends the pleasure of eating the fish. The 
writer received a liberal piece of it, and enjoyed the 
gastronomic feast most fully, although ready to con- 
cede that the real edge of zestful appetite is known 
alone to the victorious angler, after he has landed this 
royal game fish. J. W. Collins. 
Camp of the Oak Leaf Club. 
When the latter .part of May came and the pleasant 
weather naturally suggested, to the person who loves 
to live, an outing of some kind during the weeks to 
follow, the Oak Leaf Rod and Gun Club met, making 
final arrangements preparatory to the departure on 
June I. 
The number consisted of two families of two and a 
third family that had in it a third member, a daughter 
about eleven years of ago, who was the "Little Nell" 
of our camp. 
June I. The hour of 8:30 o'clock found us starting 
for Camp Mary Ann on the Rocky Fork of Licking 
River, near the ruins of what once was the Mary Ann 
Furnace, Arriving at i P. M., we pitched our tents 
and prepared to dine. Ever ready for camp life, the 
anglers started to try their luck in Rocky Fork. The 
first great splash was not a great fish, but one of the 
number had already been initiated by falling in. 
Returned toward evening with two black bass, one 
weighing 2 pounds and one 3. 
The saying that you must not question a fisherman 
as to the weight of his fish for the scales may be. 
found wanting, does not apply to the members of our 
club, as they fish for the sport of it and not for pounds 
of fish. If any chance to see the diary kept by us of 
our outing, they can rely upon the truth of it, for it 
is a simple record with the genuineness of the fun left 
out, as that cannot be pictured by the pen. 
June 2 found us all alive and well after a good night's 
rest and ready for another day, which was begun by 
taking a picture just after breakfast. 
Seven black bass, ranging from 3 pounds down, and 
three fine channel catfish were the record of the sec- 
ond day. 
The third day the catch was increased to nine bass, 
and we lost the three cats, stolen, as we supposed, 
while we had trusted to the honesty of our neighbors, 
and left the camp unguarded. 
Investigation revealed the fact that they had escaped 
through a hole in the keep. 
Upon the return of the men in the evening, they . 
were asked to solve a problem, one probably not so 
difficult as the one about the fox, the goose and the 
corn, but how four ladies who wished to buy milk 
and eggs on the other side of the creek had crossed 
with only two pair of rubber boots that had been left 
in the camp. 
June 4, We took some snapshots, fording the 
stream, just before the fish; also a group, including 
our visitors, who had arrived after a ten-mile ride 
and found us at the breakfast table. They were neigh- 
bors at home and had brought us the newspapers, the 
letters from our friends and other mail, with business, 
letters, that reminded us of business cares that we' 
would rather not hear of in ohr present surroundings. 
