328 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oct. 15, 1904, 
utterances, and that the number of contributions of equal 
par value is as small as the aggregate of times when 
Mr. Green has actually indulged himself with fly-casting. 
At last the bait-casters have been properly cham- 
pioned by one who is competent to draw comparisons, 
for has he not "fished with bait and fly?" — yes, side 
by side, worm on one hook, fly on the other, joining 
hands for a common purpose, floating down through 
the ripples. 
"The fly-caster uses his tackle as a whip." How 
wonderfully doth the gentleman of experience deal with 
the subject of fly-casting in this short, weighty sen- 
tence. By this line alone we realize that the hand of 
a master is revealed to us. This pregnant statement 
entitles Mr. Green to the seat in the hall of fame 
rendered vacant by his removal of Izaak Walton there- 
from, and I would respectfully suggest that he at once 
be given a reclining chair therein, and that over his 
head there be emblazoned those soulful words: "The 
fly-caster uses his tackle as a whip." 
Taking the sentence as a text, and inspired and 
spurred on to zealous effort by the rest of Mr. Green's 
heart-burning remarks, I would take up the cudgel 
after him and, in my poor way, follow in the road which 
my brother plugger has already macadamized and illu- 
minated, and attempt to amplify, and bring out the 
hidden wealth and beauty of his remarks. 
"Lay on, old pard." 
Brother fly-caster, even as the rustic with his larch 
pole idly plays it over the back of lean Pegasus, or 
failing to rouse the plodding horse, tickles him gently 
by the withers, or flays him roundly on the ribs, so 
dost thou angle with thy light rod and line and flies, 
using thy tackle as a whip; verily, and in truth dost 
thou whip the water, using the line and the flies there- 
of as a lash, and the most delicious moments of thy 
pleasures are thus spent in snapping the whip. In- 
fancy can ply thy tackle, for is it not but whalebone 
in thy hand? 
That dean of pluggers and sage of all fish craft, Mr. 
Green, of Pittsburg, and myself know that this is the 
epitome of your craft and that the "greater factor" of 
your art "is to swell, strut and vaingloriously boast of 
the fly-caster's superiority over every other class of 
fishermen on earth, the bait-fisherman in particular." 
"The bait-caster has to guide his bait and manipulate 
his reel delicately, at the same time to prevent back- 
lashing." This is much the more difficult. It is a 
mere nothing to get out sixty or seventy feet of enamel 
line smoothly and evenly, so that the flies fall gently 
on the water, and to do it time and time again with 
graceful action and wrist movement; nothing to over- 
come the difficulties of casting where there is no room 
for a back cast. There is no skill displayed in casting 
under obstructions or in dropping the flies at the edge 
of the 'foam. All this and more is merely child's play — 
the using of your tackle as a whip. As you "know nothing 
whatever as to what fly the fish will take, or whether 
they will take it at all" — there is no need for your 
varied assortment of flies — any bunch of poultry down 
on any old hook, annexed in any old way, will do as 
well — the more down on the hook, the merrier the snap 
of the whip — thus says the dean of pluggers, and thus 
say I, his ill-used contemporary. 
But now for the contrast — bait-fishing, the "delicate 
art" — it is much the more difficult, for you must "guide 
the bait" and "manipulate the reel delicately at the 
same time to prevent back-lashing." True, in fly-fishing 
you do a little back-lashing and all around lashing with 
your tackle as a whip; but that is nothing compared 
to the skill employed in thumbing the reel to prevent 
the line from falling over itself in its anxiety to be out 
and doing. Think of the mental calculations to be in- 
dulged in telegraphing to be done by the brain to the 
various voluntary muscles operating the thumb, so that 
the frog may be gently guided in his journey through 
the depths of air, to fall at the precise spot on the 
edge of the lily pads, where his arch enemy awaits the 
splash; a few feet less in the cast or a slight divergence 
from the spot fixed upon would not have brought the 
result, for the splash and the bait are so invisible and 
inaudible. 
Then think of the various baity problems that the tired 
brain must solve; whether to use brook minnows or 
shiners, speckled frogs or green frogs, helgramites or 
crawfish, crickets or grasshoppers, and so down the 
scale; whether to hook the frog in the upper or lower 
lip or in the left floating rib or through the flipper, 
whether to impale the minnow through the lip or by 
the tail and, last, but not least, the knotty problem 
wrapped up in the worm— blood-worm, dug-worm and 
the shifty, lusty night-walker — where to hook him, how 
to hook him, how many to place on the hook and the 
proper amount of squirm and wriggle. Think of the 
patience required to fish beside your neighbor with a 
substantial amount of bait in your boat but no fish, 
and to find that the fish are feeding well on his plan- 
tation but are not even grazing in your pasture-; you 
ask him what bait he is using, and he replies, cock- 
roaches, an animal which heretofore you have left off 
your bait list. Then again, when the fish goes for 
"any old bunch of feathers" he grabs it right before 
your eyes, and you know just when to snap the whip. 
But in bait-fishing, when your frog disappears below 
the surface and strolls over the bottom it takes a past 
master at the art to tell what is doing; whether he has 
tied himself to the bottom or gone to sleep under a 
log, or whether he has been grabbed by a bass. When 
you are sure he has been grabbed, then to determine 
when the phycological moment for the long and strong 
pull has arrived. The delicate sense of touch by which 
the bait-fisherman is able to tell just what his quarry 
is doing, and the deep finesse and false cord play by 
which a timid nibble is nursed into a lusty strike are 
the developments only of much seeking in the field of 
bait-fishing. 
Then again, my brother fly-fishermen, do not^ think 
that it is an easy task to get to that point in bait-fish- 
ing where you can adjust baits of all varieties on your 
hook without a qualm; it is easy with the worm, for 
he is meek and lowly and makes but small appeal to 
humanity, but let me say that you who whip with the 
airy-fairy, inanimate and artificial fly (be it the spinach 
from the bosom of an aged Plymouth Rock or the 
feather of a strutting jungle cock), know nothing of 
the anguish of the soft-hearted bait-fisher, when, with 
hook in hand, he for the first time gazes into the mute 
appealing orbs of a struggling batrachian, while his 
own lachrymal glands threaten a deluge, and a lady 
member of the C. P. C. A. throws a glance that tommy- 
hawks his soul. 
Still, again, fly-fisherman, while a fly-book is the sole 
baggage of your trade, our implements of fishery are 
so multitudinous that we must perforce lug around a 
small tin trunk. I would speak now of the tackle box 
with its lacquered sides and gold-leaf, filled to over- 
flowing with sinkers and a host of needed chattels and 
the disgorger, that saver of life, the bait-fisherman's 
right bower; that revealer of the innermost secrets of 
fish, a saver of hooks; on horn-pouts and pickerel a 
necessity, on bass very useful, especially Jselow the 
epiglottis ; as essential to the bait-fisher as the ax to 
the woodsman. 
And lastly I would present to the fly-fishing fraternity 
the subject of bait-casting with artificial baits, and 
here some absent treatment tells me that I will gain 
a fervent amen from the dean of pluggers. The art 
of bait-casting reached its highest point of develop- 
ment of recent years with the advent of artificial baits, 
or, rather baits which resemble nothing in particular, 
but are creations following the whims of their makers 
or exponents. Even as the first artificial flies fol- 
lowed the colors and form of the natural insects; but 
later-day "killers" resemble no insect on earth, so 
in baits we have progressed by easy stages from arti- 
ficial minnows and frogs to minnows of gorgeous rai- 
ment and goo-goo eyes, and from this point to any 
old doodle-bug, until now the highest achievements of 
the maker's art are exemplified by such wonderful 
baits as the Yellow Kid and the Shifty Sadie, and an- 
imated clothes-pins, bristling with double and treble 
hooks, in bunches and in clusters tied on, glued on and 
stuck on. Baits of tin, aluminum, bronze and boiler 
plate, of glass, celluloid and wood, built on torpedo 
boat lines or following the model of a Havana perfecto, 
all warranted to allure, tempt, attract and arouse all 
the latent ire and fighting qualities of our game fish, 
and guaranteed to hook the fish if he comes within 
six inches of the tentacles, and if he should lucklessly 
close his jaws on any of the tin ware, $1,000 reward 
is offered by the makers for an instance on record 
where a fish has actually escaped and survived the 
ordeal of resisting the hooking qualities of "de gangs." 
Brother fly-fisherman, it takes an artist to cast one 
of these half-pound conglomerates; 'tis easy to whip 
the water with your flies; but think of the muscular 
energy necessarily developed by the good right arm 
when your bait-caster literally swats and trounces the 
water with a quarter section of enervated junk; a 
swing to port, a screeching lunge to starboard, and for 
a few seconds the destroyer pirates over the calm sur- 
face of the lake, on even keel with all guns bristling. 
Woe to the luckless enemy who dares to cross its 
path or even flirt with its rudder; his death is as certain 
as a tax on real estate! While you are content with 
flies of early make, in use for many years, such is the 
strident nature of our art that each spring' brings us 
a coop of new deviltries, thicker and more varied than 
Easter bonnets. For your coachman we have the 
coaxer, for your yellow May the yellow kid, for your 
Parmacheenee-belle the immortal Bedelia (long sug- 
gestive of the undertaker), and a small army of 
lesser lights, among which may be enumerated the 
bugaloo, the soaker, the Cinderella, the killer and the 
Susan nipper, each in its proper sphere, and one and 
all the embodiment of ideas which chase themselves 
in our dreams and disturb the tranquility of our 
slumbers like goats upon a tin roof. 
It has taken much from this flighty pen to attempt a 
portrayal of the beauties of bait-fishing and to assail 
the fly-fisherman in his citadel. Mr. Green has ac- 
complished more by a few short paragraphs. I hope, 
however, that I am not altogether "small change in 
Mamie's scorn." We may some day join hands and 
collaborate on this great subject. 
Kenneth Fowler. 
Square Tails of Pottage Lake* 
South Orange, N. J. — Editor Forest and Stream: I 
thought it might be interesting to< the readers of your 
paper to know that in August, while staying at Oak Point 
Camp, Portage Lake, Me., my brother, Stanley Babson, 
12 years of age, caught on rod and reel a 6^4-pound 
square-tailed brook trout. This fish was the largest of 
that variety ever taken in that vicinity, measuring 26 
inches in length. I was in the boat at the time, and our 
guide was Henry McCormack, of Portage, Me. The fish 
was not particularly gamy, considering his size. There 
are many large trout taken in this locality, but anything 
over 5 pounds is an extreme rarity. I understand that 
further up the line of the B. & A. Railroad, at Square 
Lake, larger trout are sometimes taken. I note a record 
of two square-tailed brook trout, 9 and 7 pounds, 
respectively, taken in this locality. These fish were 
spoken of as the two largest ever taken in northeastern 
Maine. Can you inform me as to the validity of this re- 
port, and whether the fish in question were taken on rod 
and reel? Of course I understand that much larger 
square-tailed trout are taken from the Rangeley Lakes. 
Clifford R. Babson. 
"Of Second Nature." 
Boston, Mass. — I have taken Forest and Stream from the 
first number issued, as well as Rod and Gun from its start to its 
merging with Forest and Stream, and have complete file to date. 
It has become a habit of second nature for me to look for its 
arrival; and I enjoy its columns as of yore. I have a cariosity 
to know if you have many names on your list that have been 
there constantly from first issue of Rod and Gun and Forest 
and Stream? With best wishes for future prosperity of Forest 
and Stream, I am C. W. Chamberlain. 
The Nose as a Bait. 
L. Roy, member of the firm of Roy & Roy, is home 
from a trip to his old home in eastern Canada. Mr. Roy 
says that he had some great fishing while away, catching 
one day several pickerel in the St. John's River, one of 
them being over three feet long. "I can tell you a fish 
story that some people won't believe," said Mr. Roy, "but 
I'll swear it's true. A man and his twelve-year-old son 
were fishing in the St. John's while I was there. The boy 
was leaning over the side of the boat peering into the 
water, when a maskinonge, seeing his nose touching the 
water, and thinking it a bait, made a run for it and 
grabbed the nose. The boy yelled and threw himself back 
into the boat, pulling the fish with him. I saw the fish, 
and it weighed 15 pounds. I saw the boy, too, and he had 
his nose wrapped with bandages and plasters, the fish's 
teeth having lacerated the member badly. Aside from a 
very sore nose and being badly frightened, the boy was 
all right when I saw him last."- — American Lumberman. 
'he Mmnet 
National Beagle Club of Americ a^ 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The Fifteenth Annual Field Trials of the National 
Beagle Club of America will be held at Mineola, Long 
Island, during the week commencing October 31, 1904. 
The headquarters of the club will be at Johrens' Hotel, 
Mineola, L. I. 
Premium lists, entry blanks, and full information relat- 
ing to the trials will be forwarded to anyone upon appli- 
cation to the undersigned. 
Charles R. Stevenson, Secretary. 
Points and Flushes. 
Dr. H. B. Anderson, who a few years ago devoted his 
attention to dog training and handling for a time, and 
then returned to his profession, has decided that, owing 
to the need of a more healthful occupation, he will resume 
training again, a vocation in which he made a distin- 
guished success. He will locate at Girdletree, Md., where 
he will be pleased to receive dogs to train. Dr. Ander- 
son is well and favorably known as an expert trainer and 
reliable gentleman. 
Officers of A. C. A. t J904. 
Commodore— C. F. Wolters, 14 Main St. E., Rochester, N. Y. 
Secretary-Treasurer— John Sears Wright, 519 West Ave., Rochester, 
N. Y. 
ATLANTIC DIVISION. 
Vice-Commodore — W. A. Furman, Trenton, N. J. 
Rear-Commodore — Frank C. Hoyt, New York. 
Purser— Chas. W. Stork, Trenton, N. J. 
Executive Committee— Louis C. Kretzmer, New York, N. Y. ; 
Edward M. Underhill, Yonkers, N. Y. ; J. C. Maclister 
Philadelphia, Pa. 
Board <A Governors— R. J. Wilkin, 164 Montague St., Brooklyn, 
Racing Board— H. L. Quick, Yonkers, N. Y. 
CENTRAL DIVISION. 
Vice-Commodore— H. W. Breitenstein, 511 Market St., Pittsburg, Pa. 
Rear-Commodore— Frank D. Wood, Buffalo, N. Y. 
Purser— Frank C. Demmler, 526 Smithfield St., Pittsburg, Pa. 
Executive Committee — Jesse J. Armstrong, Rome, N. Y. : 
H. C. Hoyt, 26 S. Goodman St., Rochester, N. Y. 
Board of_ Governors— C. P. Forbush, 164 Crescent Ave., Buffalo, 
Racing Board— Harry M. Stewart, 85 Main St. E., Rochester, N.Y. 
EASTERN DIVISION. 
Vice-Commodore — Henri Schaeffer, Manchester, N. H. 
Rear-Commodore— H. M. S. Aiken, 45 Milk St., Boston, Mass. 
Purser — Edw. B. Stearns, Manchester, N. H. 
Executive Committee— B. F. Jacobs, Jr., West Medford, Mass.; 
D. S. Pratr, Jr., Wellesley Hills, Mass.; Marcus Butler, 
Lawrence, Mass.; William W. Crosby, Woburn, Mass. 
Board of Governors— Paul Butler, U. S. Cartridge Co., Lowell, 
Mass. 
Racing Board— Paul Butler, U. S. Cartridge Co., Lowell Mass.; 
H. D. Murphy, alternate. 
NORTHERN DIVISION. 
Vice-Commodore— Chas. W. McLean, 303 St. James St., Montreal, 
Canada. 
Rear-Commodore — J. W. Sparrow, Toronto. 
Purser— J. V. Nutter, Montreal, Canada. 
Executive Committee— C. E. Britton, Gananoque, Ont. ; Harry 
Page, Toronto. 
Board of Governors— J. N. MacKendrick, Gait, Ont. 
Racing Board— E. J. Minet, 125 Vitre St., Montreal, Canada. 
WESTERN DIVISION. 
Vice-Commod ore — Burton D. Munhall, care of Brooks Household 
Art Co., Cleveland, O. 
Rear-Commodore — Chas. J. Stedman, National Lafayette Bank 
Cincinnati, O. 
Purser— Geo. A. Hall, care of Bank of Commerce, Cleveland, O. 
Executive Committee— Thos. P. Eckert, 31 West Court St., Cin- 
cinnati, O. ; Dr. H. L. Frost, 10 Howard St., Cleveland, O. 
Board of Governors — Henry C. Morse, Peoria, 111. 
How to Join the A. C. A. 
From Chapter I., Section 1, of the By-Laws of the A. C. A. : 
"Application for membership shall be made to the Secretary, 
and shall be accompanied b3' the recommendation of an active 
member and by the sum of two dollars, one dollar as entrance 
fee and one dollar as dues for the current year, to be refunded 
in case of non-election of the applicant." 
All communications intended for Forest and Stream should 
always be addressed to the_ Forest and Stream Publishing Co., 
JJew Yorlf, and not to any individual ?oni?epfe§ ^ith the papef, 
A. C. A. Executive Committee Meeting 1 . 
To the Members of the Executive Committee, Board of 
Governors and Racing Board: 
The annual executive meeting of the American Canoe 
Association will be held at Rochester, N. Y., October 15, 
1904. C. F. Wolters, 
Commodore. 
John §. Wright, Sec'y-Treas, 
