Sept. 3, 1904.] 
FOREST AND STREAM 
201 
he has returned to it, and that therefore there is no good 
rason for either giving him line as he leaps or for lower- 
ing the tip of the rod. So far as the actual strain upon 
the tackle is concerned, I am inclined to think that this 
contention is not very far astray, but the more generally 
prevailing practice is no doubt more specially designed 
to prevent the tearing out of the hook from the mouth of 
the fish, especially if he be a lightly hooked one, by the 
strain upon the portion of flesh held by the hook, when 
the weight of the descending fish is exerted upon it if the 
rod is not lowered, during the period that such weight is 
bending the recently straightened rod to the bow which it 
formed when the fish was about to leap, and which it is 
again required to assume as the fish regains the water 
under similar conditions. 
In any case I firmly believe that a great many fisher- 
men altogether overdo the practice of lowering the tip, 
or doing obeisance, as it is sometimes called, to a rising 
fish. Both salmon and ouananiche will often take the 
water and their next run after a leap at right angles to 
the general direction of the line, and in such instances too 
much lowering of the tip when the fish .breaks water sim- 
ply adds to the length and weight of the "bellying" por- 
tion of the line, and makes it so much more the easier 
for it to tear out the hook. E. T. D. Chambers. 
Newfoundland Notes. 
The burden of the cry around the whole island is that 
the weather is too dry. Many of the streams and ponds 
are nearly dried up. The fish are very plentiful, but very 
sluggish. In fact, in many pools the salmon can be plainly 
seen lying in large numbers near the bottom, but no lure, 
however seductive, will make them rise. Hence, many 
anglers have been disappointed. The records show that 
the leading streams are yielding sport enough to retain 
their reputation for good fishing, but nothing in compari- 
son to that to be had in a favorable season. 
We have had a larger number of visiting anglers this 
season, principally Americans, than ever before. The 
number of hunters for caribou heads promises lo be much 
greater than ever. As far as I have learned, all the visit- 
ing sportsmen enjoyed themselves. Of course we have 
had included among our visitors the kicker and the critic. 
'Tis hard to get any large number of men together. (even - 
including sportsmen, who are naturally and proverbially 
good-natured and easy to please) that won't contain some 
grumblers; but, on the whole, the sportsmen enjoyed the 
fishing, scenery, climate, and everything else that was a 
constituent of the trip. Many of them have written glow- 
ing accounts in the American journals, and one at least — 
our genial friend, Mr. L. F. Brown — has burst into song, 
the ordinary prose channels being too dry and sluggish to 
convey or express his feelings. In a musical little quatrain 
of verses entitled, "An Appreciation," published in a local 
paper, a copy of which I send you, occur the following 
lines : 
"And yet the song of the river was there, 
The sigh of wind 'mid the pines, 
The balsam's fragrance, the forest fair, 
And the moonlight — caused these lines, 
For the Red Gods called us, and made us their guests 
In that wilderness far and wild; 
We only obeyed Dame Nature's behests, 
'Twas the mother's call to the child." 
Did I write "red gods?" Please rub it out quickly be- 
fore the author sees it, and substitute "wood gods," which 
was what Mr. Brown wrote. Mr. Brown is not taking 
any red gods in his trip. I would not wilfully tam- 
per with the red gods. One war at a time is my motto ; 
the sturdy little Japs are furnishing excitement enough 
now in the East to satisfy my cravings. I do not want to 
start another war in the West by any fooling with the 
red gods. I know the mere mention of the word is like 
the clarion call to arms to the venerable Old Angler and 
his formidable hosts. "Wood gods" is the word; the 
misquotation is mine. J. W. Carroll. 
Another First Fly Experience. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Some time since, when the myths first began to get 
busted, a correspondent mentioned another myth that he 
thought needed busting— the myth of the bare-footed boy 
armed with a hoop pole with a string tied to one end of it, 
who caught and carried home large strings of fish. The 
correspondent had seen the boy and his fish, but the fish 
had always turned out to be suckers or sunfish; he had 
seen but few trout among them. 
I thought at the time to tell him that had he been 
where I was over fifty years ago, he might have seen three 
barefooted boys carrying home several strings of trout 
that had been caught by rude lines tied to hoop-poles ; 
but it cost me a good deal of thought before we succeeded. 
Catching trout with hoop-poles is much like barking 
squirrels — it can be done, if you only' know how to do it. 
Pine Creek empties into the Allegheny River at Sharps- 
burgh, just above the Allegheny city line. It rises back 
near Butler county, and flows between hills and meadows, 
or it did then ; it flows now between stone quarries, brick- 
yards and rolling mills, until it finally falls into the river. 
This creek was where we did the most of our fishing. 
We caught suckers and perch in the lower pools down 
near the river; the trout were up near the head of the 
creek among the hills. There are none there now, nor has 
there been any for a good many years. I think that we 
got about all of them in our time, and the creek is too 
small to stock again. We could get the common fish with- 
out much trouble, but the trout refused every bait we 
offered them, and we had tried them with about all the 
different ones we knew of — angleworms, grubs out of de- 
cayed logs, minnows, and grasshoppers; the trout did not 
want any of them. 
I noticed that the trout would come to the top of the 
water as we lay watching them hid in the bushes, and 
seize flies and bugs that floated on the surface; and a 
thought struck me. Taking off my bob and sinker, I put 
a grasshopper on the hook, and throwing it in, tried to 
float it on top of the water. The trout would swim 
around it and look at it, then swim off again. My coarse, 
heavy line, no doubt, scared them away. 
Going home to town, I began to think up a plan to get 
those trout. I had heard of artificial flies, but had never 
seen any, and did not know how they were made or used. 
1 hunted through the books in a library which we town 
boys were given the use of, but could not. find anything 
here about them either. Next I asked several old river 
fishermen; only one of them knew anything about those 
flies. He told me that I could not use them if I had 
them; I would have to be taught how to use them first; 
but he told me how they were made. 
I had no colored feathers, hair, nor wool, and had to 
hunt up substitutes for them, to begin with. I got colored 
calico, old red flannel, and some small pieces of silk rib- 
bon, white and brown, the only colors of silk I could get. 
Then I tied them in small bunches, as near like flies as 
I could get them. I have since seen some of these artifi- 
cial flies that did not look much better than mine did. 
I threw my flies into a basin of water and drew them 
through the water by the thread they were tied with, to 
see how they worked, and soon discarded the cotton 
ones; they took up the water too quickly and sank; the 
flannel did better, and the silk best of all ; but I wanted 
a variety of colors, so I retained the flannel to use among 
the silk. I had about a dozen extra hooks — a fortune for 
a boy then. ' I had got these by trading baseballs and bats 
for them. I tied my flies on the hooks just where the old 
fisherman had told me to tie them, then hunted up three 
of the smallest sea grass lines I could find in town, and 
started out after the trout again. 
I and two of my cousins cut three long, slender hickory 
poles. The other boys were rather skeptical about the 
trout biting "them things," so I told them to bring along 
our old lines also ; if the trout did not want these things, 
we could go down stream and catch suckers and perch. 
We began on a quiet pool up among the hills, where 
we knew there were plenty of trout, and after some 
trouble, on account of the bushes that caught our lines 
when we tried to throw them, we at last succeeded in 
dropping the flies on the water without making much of a 
splash. I got the first strike, and landed, away back* on 
the grass, a trout weighing nearly a pound. We just 
jerked them out as soon as we had them hooked; we 
knew nothing about playing them, and would not have 
known how to use a reel if we had had it. 
We all caught trout; they would bite at "them things," 
it seemed, after all ; but a good many that we ought to 
have-got succeeded in getting away; we no doubt caught 
them some other time, though. But the three of us had 
eighteen trout, I think it was, that would weigh in all. 
about as many pounds. The largest caught that day — and 
we never got a larger one after — weighed nearly a pound 
and a half. Cabia Blanco. 
Massachusetts Fish and Game. 
Boston, Aug. 26. — Editor Forest and Stream: Three 
men have recently been prosecuted and fined for taking 
short lobsters in Boston harbor. These were employes of 
the life-saving station at Hull, and being appointed by the 
general Government, the question naturally arises whether 
the federal authorities can afford to keep meen in their 
employ who are not law-abiding citizens. One of the 
three paid a fine of $54, another paid $72, and the third, 
who was fined $285, has appealed his case. 
The commissioners inform me that the number of ar- 
rests for violations of the game laws so far this year is 
considerably in excess of any previous year, being above 
one hundred. Captain Collins has examined fifteen ponds 
the present season, this being a line of work that he 
prosecutes every summer as he has opportunity. 
Deputy Warden F. A. Bent obtained a search warrant 
last week and called at the summer residence of Charles 
Letendre, a wealthy liquor dealer, at Oocean Grove in 
Swansea. The deputy had been told that Mr.. Letendre 
was keeping three wild black ducks among his exhibits 
in a small menagerie which he had started. The case will 
come to trial in a few days. 
This has been an exceptionally good season for blue- 
fishing, from all reports, in Massachusetts waters, and a 
boat that went out from Cottage City last week returned 
with nineteen fine fish taken off Cape Pogue. Visitors at 
Provincetown have witnessed an unusual sight of late, as 
neither city nor country people often have the oppor- 
tunity to look at live halibut, but the past week a local 
fisherman, Mr. Manuel Cook, has captured two, the aggre- 
gate weight of which was 550 pounds. 
New Hampshire continues to hold in her granite hills 
the magnet that attracts many of the prominent men of 
the country. The only surviving ex-President has re- 
cently taken possession of his summer home in Sandwich, 
where he received a royal welcome from the people of 
that and other towns. Among the prominent men who 
assembled in Mr. Cleveland's honor were Gov. Batchelder 
and former Governor Rollins. 
Another man who has been conspicuous in political life 
is ex-Congressman Joseph H. Walker, of Worcester, erst- 
while known as the "Gray Eagle of Quinsigamond," whose 
summer home is at New Hampton, located in the 
geographical centre of the State. This is the ancestral 
home of his wife, and has been for more than a hundred 
years in the family. To the north several ranges of moun- 
tains rise one above the other for more than fifty miles 
to the Franconia Mountains. The woods furnish cover . 
for ruffed grouse and other game. Not many miles to 
the west lies Lake Winnepisseogee, and there are many 
smaller lakes and brooks accessible which abound in trout. 
The Congressman has been a sportsman from early life, 
and your correspondent heard him tell a legislative com- 
mittee how it happened that he was led to seek the recrea- 
tion of rod and gun. Having become worn out by close 
application and overwork, his physician recommended 
him to take such out-of-door exercise as was congenial, 
and. Mr.. Walker declared that, in his opinion, his present 
good physical condition was due to his indulgence in 
field sports. He has stated that he found good grouse 
shooting within easy reach of Worcester for many years, 
but of late has been to New Hampshire for his fall shoot- 
ing. .- ....... 
From my friend, Mr. E. H. Davis, proprietor of the 
Lakeside Hotel, ' on the New Hampshire side of Umba- 
gog, I learn that for several weeks business has been 
rushing. 
Passenger traffic on the lake, has been very heavy the 
present, season. This lake is noted as an excellent place 
for chick shopting, which is one of the inducements that 
led Mr. Harry Dutton to build the camp on Metalluck 
Island, where he has been passing the summer. Among 
the many well-known guests are^Rev. J. W. Suter and 
family, of Winchester; Prof. John F. Dwight and family, 
of Boston, and Dr. J. Hasford Abel and family, of New 
York. 
Mr. Cyrus A. Taft, of Whitinsville, reports seeing a 
flcckof as many as fifteen young quail in the immediate 
vicinity of the place where he liberated the birds we sent 
him last spring. This he regards as very gratifying evi- 
dence that the quail which he liberated are breeding. He 
says this is not a surprise to him, as the birds he received 
were "very large and very lively." 
Dr. W. C. Woodward, secretary of the Middleboro Fish 
and Game Club, is passing the month of August on the 
streams of Newfoundland. 
Within a few days a new club has been organized, 
chiefly by Boston merchants, lawyers, and brokers, unique 
in character, to be called The Rocky Mountain Country 
Club. The sports are to be stalking big game, hunting 
with hounds, polo and golf. Central. 
Susquehanna Rive* Fishing. 
Sayre,, Pa., Aug. 27.— Old river anglers declare that 
the black bass and pike (or yellow bass, as local phrase- 
ology has it) fishing is better at the present time than for 
several years past. The river is in ideal condition, and 
other necessary factors in the economy of angling are 
present, so that fisher folk generally are in fine fettle, and 
getting plenty of black bass and pike, with some lesser 
fishes. Silas Cook, of Waverly, one day recently caught 
a pike in the Susquehanna above the State line that 
weighed gV 2 pounds. Numerous other catches of big pike 
and bass are reported not only along the water from the 
State line up to and beyond Owego, but from Sayre to 
Wyalusing and below that famous angling point. 
M. Chill. 
Massachusetts Black Bass. 
Hopedale, Mass., Aug. 23.— I have had some sport with 
the bass in Lake Nipmuc this summer, and have taken 
quite a number of Oswego bass. Saturday afternoon, 
August 13, I caught eleven, my largest catch so far. I 
have only taken one small-mouth and one rock bass as 
yet; the largest I have seen was about 3 pounds. I have 
heard of 5 pounds, but have not seen them. I have tried all 
kinds of bait and flies, but do best with live shiners. They 
have repealed the law on- black bass, so they may be taken 
at any time not under eight inches in length. There seem 
to be plenty of partridge and quail. I have seen a number 
of broods, and think there will be good sport this fall if 
we can stop the sooners. Q W. A 
"Child, Milk and Snake." 
Little Eliza Sophia Kemper came with her father, 
Jacob, to Philadelphia from Amsterdam in 1741, and went 
with them to her uncle Ernest at Rhinebeck, and then set- 
tled with them at Beekman, sixty miles below Rhinebeck. 
There occurred this parable of the infant and the asp, 
that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. The story is told 
by the wife of the first Mayor Quincy, as related to her 
by her mother, Mrs, John Morton, of New York, at and 
after the Revolution : 
"In this wild country an incident happened to my 
mother, which she has often related. When a child of 
six, she was accustomed to eat her bowl of rice and 
milk seated on the sill of the house-door; and was heard 
to speak of the pretty snake {die schdne Schlange) who 
came and eat her rice. Her mother watched to see what 
this meant, and to her consternation, saw a large rattle- 
snake with its head in the bowl, eating with the child, 
who, when her visitor took more than its share, tapped it 
on the head with her spoon. It went quietly away when 
the meal was finished. But this intimacy was too danger- 
ous, and Mr. Kemper killed the snake ; the rattle, a very 
large one, with eleven or twelve rings, was. preserved for 
some years, but was lost when the family removed from 
the Livingston Patent to New Brunswick, N. J." 
It seems that Priscilla Wakefield in London related this 
tale with some variations in her "Instinct Displaid," and 
that a German engraving perpetuates it under the title of 
"Das Kind mit der Milch und der Schlange"— "Child, 
Milk and Snake." The little heroine grew up, married 
John Morton, a Scotch-Irish commissary in the British 
army, in 1761, and kept his house on Water street, New 
York, where he became a rich merchant by the time the 
Revolution came on. — Springfield Republican. 
A Word of Thanks. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
_ My wife and I are rejoicing in the privilege of follow- 
ing on after Mr. George Bird Grinnell on the "Trails of 
the Pathfinders." 
Surely the readers of Forest and Stream have cause 
for gratitude in the fact that he is impelled to take these 
long journeys for their profit. and pleasure; and the keener 
should be our gratification as we recollect that the one 
member of all the great Forest and Stream family best 
fitted by sympathy and early training for the- difficult task,, 
has undertaken the work for us. 
And is not this just the fit and proper task for our own 
great paper at this particular time? 
To gather the best of the old records of the turbulent- 
days gone by forever, and to put them into presentable 
shape, before they are buried under the driftwood of the 
stream; of time. 
( What would I not give to-day for the old book of my 
boyhood, containing the story of the five years' captivity 
of Col. James Smith, made prisoner just before Brad- 
dock's defeat, and held in caotivity for five years among 
the Indians of the Northwest Territory, together with a 
lot of adventures of similar nature, and illustrated with 
the crude wood cuts of the days of long ago') 
I wish to publicly thank Mr. Grinnell for my own par- 
ticular share of the pleasure and profit I am deriving from 
his labors, and to express the earnest wish that he mav be 
impelled to continue this labor of love until his work shall 
include the best of all the old records -of the westward 
Great Trek" of the Anglo-Saxon race. 
Orin Belknap, 
