S44 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept. 26, 1903. 
quotes, with much approval, the following words from a 
letter to him by a noted American fish propagator: 
"When I go a-fishing I go fishing. I don't hear the 
babble of the brook; I don't see the fluttering bird, nor 
the silvery leaves, nor the beautiful sky. * * * J am 
just as sure of a rise, too, as the fond mother is that the 
child will roll its loving eyes to her face with an expres- 
sion that says to her, 'I am yours !' " 
That letter showed its writer to be a mere fish-butcher. 
He is a murder-mother when he hooks and kills the fish 
that he feels and states is like a child that rolls its loving 
eyes to its m.other's face. But the fish has no such 
thought, desire or expression. Instead of saying, "I am 
yours," that darting fish is saying "That fly is mine!'' 
His eyes are fierce, fixed on the supposed insect; and they 
do not "roll." 
Such arrant nonsense and drivel about Nature and 
sport too often find vogue in our best sporting papers. 
The game fishes, notably the bluefish, black bass and 
maskallonge, are not water-babies, but burly water- 
pirates, game to the core, and spoiling for a fight. He 
who angles for them with best results, the expert who- 
really sees and hears and loves beauty of his environ- 
ment while angling, is the truest sportsman. For he also 
well Icnows the haunts, habits and moods of the lurking 
trout, salmon, pike, pickerel and ouananiche. But shut 
away from him all capacity and wish to see, while 
angling, the blue glory and miracle of sky by day, or the 
silvery cloud-domes through which stars and moon are 
peeping as he casts "white-miller" flies at night; remove 
from his sight and heart all joy in the beauty and grace 
of water as it sings and talks to itself, and all music of 
leaves and birds, sough of wind in pines and hemlocks, 
exquisite curvature of rushing streams, or oncoming, 
white-capped waves ; take away all fresh, novel odors 
and hues of woods and wild flowers, and that sportsman 
will say: "I do not care to go a-fishing. Catch my fish 
for me with a silver hook, in a dark, malodorous corner 
of some fish-market. I shall not joint my rod if it cannot 
be a wand that not only helps me to catch fish, but also 
summons Nature enchantments as I cast flies, wade the 
brook, ride the waves in my careening canoe, listen, hear, 
love, and rejoice. Far less will I boast of my blindness, 
and leave it to be inferred that nature-lovers like Walton, 
V'anDyke, Hallock, Jordan, Chambers, Rhead and Kent 
are not expert anglers. They are iny fellow sportsmen, in- 
stead of the men who cannot see, hear, or feel — men who 
fish to kill, and make a business of angling, instead of a 
recreaticn. To proclaim such diseased pursuit a quest 
where fish "roll their loving eyes" up to the slayer's face 
as her own baby, would to a mother, and then parade 
one's self as a model sportsman, is outrageous. And to 
place such degenerate stuff in the columns of a sporting 
magazine as stating something admirable and worthy of 
emulation, is being untrue to proper standards of sport- 
ing taste. 
And he might add that it was also an affront to the 
expert anglers who not only have most skill, hnt most 
enjoyment in knowing where fish lurk, and how to hook 
and land them. For those real sportsmen revel in a 
myriad of delights other than the actual fights with their 
fish. They bring back a thousand raptures which they 
cannot show. They joy in the nameless charm and 
hypnotism of the camp, and its outdoor fire with its 
dancing flames and column of smoke; they note and love 
the sunshine, shadows and darkness, the fireflies, the de- 
lightful sense of remoteness and wildness, the hooting of 
owls, calling of whippoorwills, and the strange, weird 
laughter and yelling of unseen wildfowls concealed in 
reedy fastnesses. They are men who rejoice as they feel 
the leap and glide of the boat shooting the rapids, and 
watch the rainbow effects in mist and sunshine over the 
silvery water-breaks. And they sleep under sombre pines 
in a wilderness, inside a tent pitched on a carpet of 
brown pine needles, and say with gladness : "It is not all 
of fishing to fish !" L. F. Brown. 
Santa Catalina. 
AvALON, Santa Catalina Island. CaL, Aug.' 27.— If 
the Tuna Club decides that the big jewfish caught by 
Mr. Edward Llewellyn yesterday was taken fair and 
that the gentleman is eligible to compete, the black sea 
bass record has again been broken. The fish taken 
Wednesday weighed 425 pounds and was brought to 
gaff in the short time of forty minutes. These figures 
.show that the jewfish really falls far short as a game 
fish. Mr. Llewellyn's tackle came within the restric- 
tions imposed by the Tuna Club's rules as to rod and 
line, but there may be some question as to his eligi- 
bility. According to the rules of the club those who 
are connected with the "allied industries" of the island 
are debarred from coinpetition with sportsmen. This, 
of course, as it should do, cuts out the boatmen, who, 
however, are provided for by a special class. Mr. 
Llewellyn is a member of the Catalina Band, and for 
that reason some one has suggested the possibility of 
a protest against allowing the record. As the fish was 
taken fair, it would seem an injustice to deny the lucky 
man full honors. Perhaps Mr. Llewellyn may come 
in under the plea that playing in the marine band is 
not an industry; that he is exempt under the claim that 
his music is his art. I hope the record may be allowed. 
All the better for those of us who have hopes of break- 
ing the record this or next season. 
Another record has gone down and the event has 
been of considerable interest here. Boatman George 
Michaelis had a party out in his launch Thursday, and 
some one caught a yellowtail that weighed less than 
2 pounds. Fortunately Michaelis recognized the value 
of the silvery beauty and handled him so skillfully and 
carefully that the baby yellowtail is now on exhibition 
in a tank of his own at the Avalon Aquarium. Man- 
ager Phelps reports him doing well. Previous to this 
season the smallest yellowtail taken liere weighed 8 
pounds. About a month ago one was taken which was 
estimated to weigh about 3 pounds. 
There are no tuna being taken, and the spoi (S still 
confined to yellowtail and jewfish. The former are 
gamy enough, and if taken on fair tackle offer excellent 
sport. The more experience I have with them the 
more I admire them. 
If the yellowtail would come out of the water on the 
gtrike fiiifd WQMi4 Wftke his lurio^s rushes near the 
surface and leap as the salmon does, he would be 
given a more euphonious name and would be hailed as 
the king of salt water game fish. Instead of this his 
rushes are made to a great depth, and though he is 
inclined at times to sulk, it requires but little to stir 
him up, and then one needs give him his head or ex- 
pect something to go by the board. 
I witnessed a battle between Mr. Lewis Crisler, of 
Los A.ngeles, and a yellowtail one morning last week. 
The sight never fails to interest me deeply, awd on 
■this occasion, as on many others, I rested and watched 
the fight. Mr. Crisler's tackle was rather lighter than 
that used on these waters, and that made things more 
interesting, and in addition to this he was handicapped 
Iby being in a light rowboat, where he had not the ad- 
vantage of the angler in a launch, where he has the 
liigh freeboard and a chair to aid him. This par- 
ticular yellowtail had a great reluctance to come in to- 
ward the boat, and all the line the angler gained was 
■earned. In fact, few of the fish run toward the boat, 
■and there is seldom any rapid reeling. Crisler's fish 
fought twenty-three minutes, and made over a dozen 
hard, long rushes, taking out a couple of hundred feet 
of line on several of his soundings. The sight of the 
hoat seemed to drive the fish to a frenzy, and time and 
again he took out the line each time, to be lifted out 
■of his sulk and reeled in inch by inch. We could see 
liim down deep in the marvelously clear water and, 
to me, he looked much like a land-locked salmon, his 
-movements were slower, but he had great power. We 
■could watch him cruising back and forth down there 
thirty feet from the surface, yielding only an inch at a 
time, to the constant strain. I was astonished to learn 
that this yellowtail weighed but iS pounds. Doubtless 
some of those who were fishing from the launches with 
hired tackle and a good, strong cross seat to hook the 
Tjutt of the rod under; a reel with a ratchet lock and 
a chance for a two-arm lift, would have brought the 
•fish in much less time, in to a point where the boatman 
takes the line and pulls him hand over hand for such 
fishermen, and gaffs him carelessly and throws him to 
the box in the bow. But that sort of men would never 
have been as content as was Mr. Crisler to call it 
"sport enough" and turn to the bass for an hour's 
pleasure with the lighter and more savory bass. 
Some day the yellowtail will be valued at his full 
worth, and then anglers will find a limit placed on the 
number they may take in a day, since common decency 
seems to set no limit for a large number of people who 
•come here for numerical and photographic records, 
I was delighted to sec Forest and Stream reprint 
Mr. Charles Lummis' excellent editorial on Avalon 
fish destroyers. It has attracted much attention here. 
Epithets do not appeal to the man who kills fish for 
photographic purposes, but such articl^.s as Mr. Lum- 
mis has written has started many peo;;le in California 
to thinking. Some day our salt water game fish will 
have some legal protection. 
Frank E. Wolfe. 
Massachusetts Fish and G«m<. 
Boston, September 19. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
The righteous work of punishing evil doers still goes 
•on. One of the commissioners informs me that Mr. 
Viator, a Portuguese lobsterman, who has made his 
boasts that he would continue in the business he has 
followed for years of catching and marketing .short 
lobsters in Massachusetts Bay, and that the officers 
could not catch him, has been brought to court for 
having in possession eighty-five "shorts." 
This has been done by Warden Thayer, who runs 
the new launch, the Scater. 
Other deputies in various parts of the State are mak- 
ing many prosecutions, and generally securing convic- 
tions. The New Hampshire Commissioners, too, are 
on the alert, and are not respecters of person in ap- 
plying the law, having recently caused the arrest of 
no less a personage than Senator Proctor for illegal 
shooting of a 'coon in Blue Mountain Park. He paid 
his fine, of course, but is reported to have said he 
was ignorant of the law. That might be a palliation 
in case of an illiterate foreigner who is unable to read 
the English language, but if you or I were going out 
of our own State for game we should have with us a 
copy of the Game Lazvs in Brief and post up on the laws. 
Another case in Maine within a few days. A Boston 
lawyer (Mr. George W. Morse) and his two sons were 
prosecuted for killing deer out of season near the 
Katahdin Iron Works, and were convicted. This sort 
of game law enforcement by those in authority is 
worthy of the highest commendation. 
Lobsters. 
In view of the conference of commissioners from 
lobster producing States, and the Provinces, to be held 
on the 23d of this month in Boston, your readers may 
be interested to know that Prof. Field, of the Institute 
of Technology, who has been at Wood's Holl this 
summer, has advanced a theory that if dogfish could 
be got rid of it would be a great advantage in saving 
lobsters, and he has had dogfish served as food in 
several instances to persons who did not know_ what 
kind of fish they were eating, and as a result it has 
been declared excellent. 
AS your readers know, the Professor two years ago 
advanced a theory that the law should protect the 
mature lobsters rather than the small ones, and there 
are those who think he is right. Now, as a further 
safeguard, he would have the public eat dogfish. Never 
having eaten them, I have no opinion as to their edible 
qualities, neither am I able to judge as to what rank 
that species of fish takes among the various enemies 
that prey on the lobster, although I do know it to be 
a great pirate among the denizens of the ocean. But 
then, of course, there are many others, and I fear the 
public never can devour them all. What next? Well, 
as a sure thing, I am frank to say, I sec nothing short 
of a close, time, either for two or three months of 
each year or for several consecutive years. This would 
be a hardship for the time, not only upon those en- 
gaged in the business of catching or selling lobsters, 
\>\\^ ^ipon the consumer? ,9,s well. But is it, not ^ 
choice between two evils, deprivation for a limited 
time on the one hand, or deprivation indefinitely (per- 
haps forever) on the other? The present law is said to 
be impossible of enforcement — certainly it is a very 
difficult one to enforce, while one providing a close 
season, thus shutting the markets for a time, could be 
easily enforced. We are awaiting with great interest the 
result of the interchange of views and the action taken 
at the conference of next Wednesday. 
Reports from the sporting camps in Maine show that 
the trout and salmon fishing has continued good, and 
with cool weather promises to be even better for the 
balance of the month, and the law being off partridges, 
those birds afford sport and help out the menu. 
Among the many Massachusetts visitors to the Range- 
leys are ex-Secretary and ex-Governor John D. Long 
and son, with Col. E. B. Haskell. 
' The matter of a fish-way on Rangeley stream, which 
has caused quite a stir among those specially inter- 
ested, the commissioners say now rests with the peo- 
ple, and is not in any way complicated by the action 
of the board in establishing the hatchery. 
By invitation of Adjutant-General Dalton, Governor 
Bates and staff have gone to the Commodore club 
house in Maine, leaving Boston on Thursday to cele- 
brate the day following as the Governor's birthday. 
Mr. J. J. Raymond, the Washington street merchant, 
has just returned from a trip to the Megantic Pre- 
serve. Another member of the State Association, 
James H. Young, Esq,, with Mr. Fred Guild, left this 
week for big game hunting in New Brunswick. 
Dr. Heber Bishop, with several friends, left on 
Monday for the same Province. Others are going a 
little later. 
To-day the Boston papers announced the engage- 
ment of Mr. Elery H. Clark, a Boston sportsman, 
known the country over as the champion American 
all-round amateur athlete and the star performer at 
the Olympian games in Greece in 1896. But all do 
not know that he is the son of the distinguished 
sportsman and philanthropist, Mr. Benjamin C. Clark, 
of Boston, who was for three years the honored presi- 
dent of the State Association. Central. 
Fish and Fishing. 
1 
Are Ouananiche Simply Sea Trout? 
An enthusiastic Scottish angler called to see me the 
other day on his return from a fishing excursion to the 
Grand Discharge of Lake St. John, and in the course 
ot conversation about the excitement of ouananiche 
fishing, expressed his firm conviction that the so-called 
fresh water salmon of Lake St. John were not salmon 
of any kind, but simply sea trout. This is exactly 
the claim made for these fish by my good friend, 
Lieut. -Col. Andrew C. P. Haggard, D. S. O.. several 
years ago. and repeated in his latest book, "Sporting- 
Yarns Spun Off the Reel." In his chaiining introduc- 
tion to "The Ouananiche and its Canadian Environ- 
ment," the Colonel explains that it is chiefly upon the 
habits of the fish when hooked m the Lake St. John 
waters that he bases his opinion of the ounaniche be- 
ing a salmon trout and not a salmon at all. The rea- 
sons given in the Colonel's new book for claiming the 
ouananiche to be a sea trout are no better than that 
already referred to. If habit alone could be considered 
a varietal distinction, into how many different varie- 
ties and even species might we not separate the peo- 
ple of any one nationality and origin? The Colonel 
describes the ouananiche as being exactly of the same 
appearance as the sea trout of Sutherlandshire, and 
referring to his fishing in the Gambo River of New- 
foundland, he says: "If anything had been wanting to 
convince me that there is not the slightest connection 
between the ouananiche and the salmon, that the 
former is a mere salmon trout, and that those Ameri- 
can and Canadian fish students who classify him as 
Sahno salar (ouananiche) are wrong, it would have 
been supplied by my catching the two fish together in 
the very same rapid on the Gambo, and by observing 
both their great difference of behavior and appearance 
when hooked. The ouananiche seemed more than ever 
like a salmon trout, one who had been- a long time in 
the fresh 'water, and more than ever unlike a salmon 
when I had an opportunity, as now, of comparing sev- 
eral specimens of each on the grass side by side." 
It does not appear to have occurred to Colonel Hag- 
gard that the differences which he notes in the appear- 
ance of the two fish are due to different habits, and 
that different habits do not constitute a different 
variety. The Colonel has returned to the subject in a 
recent letter to the London Field, and a new con- 
tributor to the discussion has arisen in the person of 
the Avell-known British authority, Mr. Fielding, in reply 
to whose curious contentions I may have something 
to say later. 
Meanwhile, it will be interesting news to lovers of 
the fish, who have not been to Lake St. John this 
year, to learn that during the open season, which is 
now fast drawing to a close, the ouananiche have been 
more plentiful than in any previous year. 
Another encouraging piece of intelligence in connec- 
tion with the ouananiche waters, is that young salmon, 
whose capture in some of the streams near Lake St. 
John has been recorded during the last two seasons, 
have recently been taken in the River Aleck, which 
flows into the Peribonca, the largest feeder of Lake 
St. John, many miles from its mouth. This fact would 
seem to promise a very wide distribution in the near 
future for the newly introduced fish. 
Trout fishermen are flocking here in large numbers 
from all parts of the United States and Canada for the 
fall fishing, and the sport, which has been poor during 
the months of July and August, is now at its best. Thte' 
members of the Metabetchouan Fish and Game Club 
report fish more plentiful upon their preserve than for 
three years past. The TouriUi Club has about seventy: 
anglers and hunters upon its limits. Mr. R. H. Brown,' 
of New Haven, president of the Nonantum Club, is 
now on his preserves at Lake Commissaire, with a| 
party of friends, and Mr. A. W. Hooper, of Boston, 
who ha,s lately returned from the club waters, took 
