March 26, 1904.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
288 
Fishing from Galveston Jetties. 
Galveston, Tex., March 14. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
Spring is on us, and the born, not made, fisherman is 
overhauling rods and reels, and trying the waters, al- 
though there will be no really good fishing before April, 
and in fact no mackerel much before May. 
From the middle of May to the first of November 
may be called the Spanish mackerel season of this part 
of the Gulf. I say mackerel, because all other fishing 
is secondary to it; and the only drawback to it is that 
mackerel fishing spoils a fisherman for all other fishing. 
There is the same trouble as to our jetty fishing. 
No salt-water fishing is ever satisfactory to the man 
who has stood on a flat granite rock six miles out in 
the Gulf and fished with rod and reel in 30 feet of water. 
One of the charms of fishing is the uncertainty of 
what the day and the water will bring to our bait, and 
in a cast from the jetty we may draw a shark, a tarpon, 
a june (or jewfish), pompano (or two of them; they 
frequently are caught in pairs), a redfish, sheepshead, 
speckled trout, sea-cat, rockfish (also called the black 
sea bass on the Atlantic coast), or an angel fish, a pig- 
fish (sea perch), or last, but not least, the jackfish (a 
first cousin to the yellow-fin of the Pacific), and occa- 
sionally we draw a kingfish; but we are not fishing for 
any of these; we are after the Spanish mackerel, and 
are disappointed when the lottery gives any other 
prize. . 
I belong to the Tarpon Club — we call it so because 
we do not fish for tarpon. Our waters are teeming 
with tarpon; but our preference is for other fishing, as 
we can get all the sport and exercise we want in land- 
ing fish that are as good to eat as to catch. We get colt- 
hitched-to-the-line business when we don't want it, in 
the sharks and jackfish that we have to fight it out with 
and that are just as gamy, fight just as hard, and the 
jack is just as long as the average tarpon. 
If you never caught a jack it is worth a trip to Gal- 
veston to do so. I say to Galveston, because you 
stand up to it and fish at sea from the rock jetties, and 
you do the work at one end, and the jack at the other 
attends fully to his business, and will give you a sweat 
bath and all the work you want for from ten to thirty 
minutes; and when you find he does not weigh over 
fifteen to twenty-five pounds you can't take it in that it 
was only a jack on the hook. 
We land a tarpon once in a while on the rocks. We 
fish with reels, line and hooks that would hold a tuna 
if the fisherman were in a boat and the fish did nine- 
tenths of the work of hauling the boat along for three 
or four miles. 
It must be borne in mind that when tarpon are fished 
for on the coast of Florida or at Rockport, Tex., it is 
from a boat and in shallow water, say three to six feet. 
It is a different sort of fishing to land a tarpon ni 
twenty or thirty feet of water and standing on the 
rocks. We think we can fish. We have fishermen who 
have averaged three days in the week for seven months 
in the year for the past ten years, who have the best 
tackle, "and we think there is more skill shown in land- 
ing two tarpon in a season on the jetty than in three 
a day from a boat and in shallow water. If you want 
to "mix up" with tarpon, however, come and try them 
from a boat in the shallows of Galveston waters; the 
tarpon are here all right. It is no uncommon thmg to 
lose a half a dozen hooks to tarpon in an afternoon's 
jetty fishing. When other fish are biting and we see a 
tarpon loafing toward our bait we reel in fast; or if he 
hooks himself, we turn down the end of the rod, put 
the brake on, and let him carry off the hook to remuid 
him of the occasion. 
Now, brother angler, do not for a moment suppose 
that the weather always suits, or the fish always bite 
when the wind, tide and water promise great sport. 
We draw blanks enough to make us enjoy the red-letter 
days when we catch mackerel until our arms ache, 
or more fish of other sort than we can carry. 
When mackerel are in season, we do not thmk it 
an average day when a party of six or eight catch less 
than 75 to 125 pounds of mackerel in three hours and a 
sprinkling of other fish. 
Did you ever catch a Spanish mackerel? You have 
to have a float, as he comes along at thirty miles an 
hour within three feet of the surface. When he strikes, 
your cork goes under, out of sight, as if shot out of a 
gun. If you hook, you do not know for a few mo- 
ments whether it is a 3-pound mackerel or a loo-pound 
tarpon that you are "mixed up" with, and once in a 
season you may get an eight or nine-pound mackerel 
that makes you wonder whether you have come up 
against the leviathan of the deep. He is not only 
game to the last in the water, but as savage as a 
Spitz dog when you have him on the rock. 
What the California fisherman call Catalina sea bass 
we call June-fish; they frequent the deep ^yater of our 
jetties, do not grow quite as large as in ItJie Pacific, 
but do' grow to weigh from one to two hundred pounds. 
We never fish for them; we leave them to pot-fisher- 
inen, with a shark hook and a clothes line— main 
strength and awkwardness. We don't care to catch 
fish that have to be jiggered up when they sulk to 
make them move. Any one who thinks there is sport 
in them had better not come to Galveston jetties un- 
less he is willing to lose all taste for June-fish, by 
a knowledge of better things. A Los Angeles paper 
will give a column to every jewfish caught at Catalina, 
when certainly three out of every five times a man goes 
fishing on our jetties he gets better sport than a jewfish 
can give. 
There are many fishermen that would come from 
New York or Chicago, to catch a jackfish from the 
rocks if they only knew the sport the jack will surely 
give them. Come and try it; there are plenty of them. 
We will spare our fellow Waltonians a few. 
The facilities here for the fishing stranger are ex- 
ceptionally good. Half-way out on the North Jetty, 
two miles and a half from land, is a house where ac- 
coinmodations for fishermen can be had at very reason- 
able rates; it is decently kept, and one can spend a 
week or so with a good boat and fish fare. A boat 
plies three times a day to the city, some seven miles 
away. 
The Tarpon Club is a private club; our boat (com- 
bination sail and power) goes to the jetties at daybreak 
every morning that there is a prospect of fishing, re- 
turns at 12, and goes again at I P. M. Nine-tenths of 
the time many of the members of the club are away, 
and a fisherman, right, can nearly always be made a 
visiting member for ten days, with the same privileges 
as the annual member has; and can fish with as dig- 
nified and sober a crowd as ever spun fishing yarns; 
and can eat fish on the boat that will taste as good as 
they did when you were a boy. G. E. Mann. 
Mascalonge or Maskinonge. 
It was far from my intention or inclination to take 
part in the discussion of Mr. Chambers and his Canadian 
friends concerning the proper vernacular name of the 
mascalonge, as that subject has been thoroughly discussed 
m past issues of Forest and Stream. I feel called on, 
however, to take up my flail and do a little threshing of 
this old straw, inasmuch as Mr. Chambers in Forest and 
Stream of March 12, says : 
"Dr. James A. Henshall credits Mr. Fred Mather with 
having investigated the origin and etymology of the word 
to a greater extent than any one else up to his time, and 
with having, as a consequence, deliberately favored the 
Chippeway form of the name — maskinonge, as opposed to 
the French derivation — masque allonge, and its variations. 
Yet in spite of this fact, and of the priority of the Indian 
over the French nomenclature. Dr. Henshall clings to the 
supposition that 'common consent and custom have de- 
creed among the majority of anglers that it is mascalonge, 
and mascalonge it will be for generations to come.' " 
The words are quoted from "American Game Fishes," 
(1892). In "Bass, Pike, Perch and Others" _ (Macmillan 
Co. 1903), I enter quite fully into the scientific and ver- 
nacular nomenclature of the mascalonge, to which I 
would refer any one feeling an interest in the matter. My 
opinion, as quoted by Mr. Chambers, is not a "supposi- 
tion," but is, I think, a fact. Among angling authors who 
use or favor the name "mascalonge" I will mention Dr. 
Tarleton H. Bean, Edward A. Samuels, Charles Hallock, 
A. N. Cheney, Robert B. Roosevelt and Fred Mather, 
while, as stated, it is also used by a majority of anglers 
in the United States. Eugene McCarthy, author of "The 
Leaping Ouananiche," in his "Familiar Fish" (1900), 
favors the Indian derivation of the name but uses the 
form "muskellunge." And notwithstanding Fred Mather 
considered that the proper derivation of the name was 
from the Ojibway, and not from the French, he always 
wrote it "mascalonge," and never "maskinonge." 
Mr. Robert B. Roosevelt, an uncle of the President, 
fished for many years in Canada, and always employed 
Indian or half-breed guides. In his "Superior Fishing" 
(1865), he invariably uses the name "mascallonge," with 
two I's. In his "Game Fish of the North" (1862), he 
says : 
"The name of this fish is derived from Masque allonge, 
long snout, which is a translation from the Canadian 
Indian dialect, of Masca-nonga, words which have the 
same signification; and from corruptions of these two 
designations arise our common names. I took great pains 
to ascertain precisely how the Canadian boatmen, who 
are a cross of the Indian and Frenchman, pronounced 
this name, although in their French patois he is ordin- 
arily zaWtA Br achat, and the best my ears could make 
of it was Mas or Muscallung, the latter syllable being 
guttural. But as the most sonorous, expressive and ap- 
propriate name is Mascallonge, it is desirable that all 
sportsmen should employ it." 
I have fished a good deal in Canadian waters in 
Ontaria, Quebec and New Brunswick, and my experience 
fully agrees with that of Mr. Roosevelt, as I never heard 
the term "maskinonge;" it was either mascalonge or 
muscalonge. 
De Witt Clinton (1815), called it "muscalinga." De 
Kay (1842), used the common name "muskellunge," pre- 
ferring it to maskinonge. Rev. Zadock Thompson was 
the first naturalist to give an accurate description of 
this fish; he conferred on it the specific title nobilior 
(1849), and used the vernacular name of "masquallonge." 
In "Bass, Pike, Perch and Others" I have retained the 
specific name nobilior, as in my opinion the later name 
masquinongy is irrelevant and was bestowed on in- 
sufficient evidence. The generic name Esox, another 
good old name, having been rehabilitated and Lucius rele- 
gated to synonomy, the mascalonge has again come into 
its own name and estate as Esox nobilior. 
Mr. Charnbers bases his claim for "maskinonge" on 
priority, legislative enactment and a resolution of the 
North American Fish and Game Protective Association. 
While the_ law of priority is of necessity an immutable 
one in scientific nomenclature, it can not, for obvious 
reasons, be applied to vernacutar nomenclature. Were 
it to be strictly enforced we would have, according to 
Longfellow (Hiawatha), the Indian names: Kenosha 
for pickerel; maskenozha for pike; sahwa for perch and 
ugudwah for sunfish. We would also have "trout" for 
the large-mouth black bass, as that name was the first to 
be bestowed by the English settlers of the Carolinas, 
though a question of priority might have arisen in favor 
of "salmon" and '.'chub" applied to the same fish by the 
English settlers of Virginia. 
Common names are the result of custom and usage, 
and it is well if they can be made of uniform application, 
but this can not be accomplished by legislative enact- 
ment or resolutions. It will take some generations yet 
to relegate the name "trout" in the Southern States for 
the large-mouth black bass, and to firmly establish the 
name pike-perch for the Canadian names of okow, dore 
and "pickerel." I can join hands with Mr. Chambers 
in endeavoring to secure uniformity of common names 
for our game fishes, but in order to obtain this result we 
must adopt the name most in vogue, and it will be 
fortunate, indeed, should it prove to be both proper and 
distinctive. The Century Dictionary gives twenty varia- 
tions based on the names mascalonge and maskinonge, 
and amid this embarrassment of riches we must choose 
as between mascalonge, maskinonge and muskellunge, 
though in regard to the latter name it is worthy of re- 
mark that the letter "u" has no part or parcel in either 
of the original derivations, Ojibway or French. 
James A. Henshaix. 
Newfound Lake Fishing. 
Newfound Lake, Bristol, N. H., March 5.— In New- 
found Lake landlocked salmon and lake trout fishing 
is good from April to Sept. i. The lake, entirely sur- 
rounded by hills, lies partly in the towns of Bristol, 
Bridgewater, and Hebron. It is fed by numerous 
springs, the water having a general depth of from 
forty to one hundred feet, thus making a cool abiding 
place for the trout and his royal cousin, the landlocked 
salmon. 
Bristol is on a branch road, thirty-two miles north of 
Concord, 107 miles from Boston. The fishing season — 
trolling with live bait— opens about April 15, or as 
soon as the ice clears from the lake. Each year's fish- 
ing record is an improvement over the previous one, 
more fish having been taken last season and a larger 
number per diem, thus the Fish and Game Com- 
missioners' plan of artificial propagation (which was 
so severely criticised and ridiculed here by some local 
.fishermen a few years ago), is now showing good re- 
sults. The lake is kept well stocked with game fish, 
and it is now understood by store-keepers and summer 
boarding houses that it is to their financial advantage 
to see that the fishing shall be along the line that the 
commissioners have laid out. 
It is up to Commissioner Wentworth to answer cer- 
tain allegations made out against him in the local 
paper as to why certain fish that he has put in, or 
caused to be put in, do not bite. In the first place, a 
summer sojourner, writing from Philadelphia, asks 
what species of whitefish were put in Newfound, as he 
has never caught one. Mr. Wentworth answers, "The 
whitefish put into Newfound Lake are the true white- 
fish of Lake Michigan." Then follows the discussion 
whether they will take the bait. One gentleman of 
Laconia writes that the fishermen at Lake Winnis- 
quam take quite a number through the ice with bait, 
one man taking twenty-four in one day's ice fishing. 
The largest known to have been taken weighed 5>^lbs. 
Other fishermen maintain that whitefish were seldom, 
if ever, taken with the hook; so the question is put 
squarely to the Commissioner, Why do not the white- 
fish in Newfound bite? 
The second count is by the same gentleman, as fol- 
lows: "Why are not smelt caught with hook and line 
in summer in Newfound, as I have done in Lake 
Sunapee for bait and pan. Will Mr. Wentworth tell 
me why?" 
Then the third and last count is by a resident on the 
shore of the lake, who in the local paper asks, "Why 
are not the white perch, of which there are a number in 
this lake, caught with hook and line, as the writer has 
seen done in other New England lakes. Will Mr. 
Commissioner tell us why?" 
The reason why smelt are not caught with hook and 
line in this lake is ad^%'nced by our local fishermen as 
being that there are not any to catch, and that's the 
answer. The determination of men and boys to net 
any that run up the brooks in spring to soawn is 
answer enough, SAMUgt Henta^^^ 
