Dec. io, 1904.I 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
496 
occasion, I myself had the good fortune to come across 
a big fellow which I could reasonably judge to weigh 
at least ten or twelve pounds, but which has invariably 
broken the tackle of every one who has hooked on to 
him. I judge the fish will weigh twelve pounds at 
least, and I have been told of other fish seen lying at 
the bottom of one of my ponds, at least quite as large. 
A three-pounder hooked by me in one of the ponds 
from a boat, near dusk, one evening, occupied all my 
attention for three hours, when he kindly leaped into 
the boat and was safely secured. This was my last 
fishing, having been in Chicago for some time past, and 
giving but little attention to the sport when at home 
in Highlands, N. C. I expect to spend some time in 
North Carolina the coming summer, and will renew 
my acquaintance with these grand fish and tell you 
more about their condition. 
No other fish can take better care of itself than this. 
Some fish planted from my waters into the head of the 
Tennessee, a few miles from here, have appeared far 
down, and are now taken abundantly in the main river. 
Doubtless the waters on that side of the mountains 
are now well stocked, and probably the fish are all the 
way down the big Tennessee and probably further. 
There is no gamier fish than this; it takes the fly 
greedily. And the most favorite one is the white miller, 
as I should judge from seeing the water actually foam- 
ing fiom the hundreds of fish rising as these moth 
dipped into the water to drop their eggs at the season. 
It is easy to find schools of these fish lying apparently 
dozing on the bottom of the deeper parts of the ponds, 
and treating a bait dropped down to them with the 
utmost neglect. Having no time to give my waters 
any protection, they are poached very freely, and oc- 
casionally I hear of wonderfully large fish being 
speared as they lie in shoals on the bottom, where the 
deep holes are. _ Readers of the Forest and Stream 
are cordially invited to try their luck in my streams, and 
they will not only get some first-rate fishing, but enjoy 
the pleasure of spending a few pleasant days and really 
cool nights here, at the elevation of 4,000 feet; and 
they will see the woods filled with our abundant flowers 
all the summer through, walk on the shady roads and 
enjoy the cool, bracing air, sleep soundly under the 
needed blankets during the cool nights, and free from 
mosquitos or other annoying flies, really rest in the 
pleasantest mountain region in the whole broad expanse 
of the United States. No need to ask leave to fish 
down the waters for six miles down the stream, and 
two up it from the town; and no questions are asked 
of any stranger who may shed his benignant counten- 
ance on our pleasant, quiet forest-shaded and flower- 
spangled mountain country, for I own all the stream. 
It is the healthfulest locality in the whole Union. 
There are hundreds of cool springs; one of lithia 
water, and doubtless more not yet discovered; and a 
sort of procession of strangers, seeking rest and health 
here, tread the shady road from the village to this 
particular spring to get their morning and evening 
inspiration from it, cool and fresh as it flows down a 
shaded ravine in which the sun never shines, and thus 
the water is nearly ice-cold at all times. 
We have abundant feathered game — wild turkeys, 
pheasant and quail in abundance. And as the Forest 
and Stream folks are all my friends, they will be wel- 
comed and well treated. We have excellent hotels and 
private boarding houses, where trout are cooked to 
perfection, and a climate free from all taint of malaria, 
and a specific cure for all disorders of the lungs and 
heart — a region in which every tree, native to the 
United States but one, is growing, and one which is 
found nowhere else. There are no swamps or wet 
places, and our waters are pure and soft. The woods 
are brilliant with flowers from the early spring to the 
late fall, and then they are gorgeous with all shades 
of yellow and red; and the Indian summer lasts until 
spring. Henry Stewart. 
Fish Chat. 
BY EDWARD A. SAMUELS. 
The Striped Bass is Not a Weakfish. 
In Forest and Stream for November 19 I had a short 
paper on "A Study of Fish Markets," in which, in treat- 
ing of the striped bass, I was made by the types to use the 
expression,, "the striped bass, or weakfish, as it is often 
called." " When I wrote that paper I thought I wrote 
"rockfish," and wrote it very plainly, but if I did not, I 
stand ready to be forgiven; that a man who killed his 
30-pound bass before most of the present generation of 
anglers was born, and therefore ought to know something 
of what the characteristics of the fish are, surely ought 
not to be supposed to write such a thing, but when he 
receives letters like the following, he begins to lose confi- 
dence in his penmanship or in his mental condition when 
the writing was done. The letter is from Newport, R. I., 
and reads thus : 
"My Dear Sir— I find in Forest and Stream of 
November 19, 1904, in an article written by you the state- 
ment, 'The striped bass, or weakfish, as it is often called.' 
Is not this a misprint for 'rockfish?' If not, could you 
kindly tell me where it is called 'weakfish,' and your 
authority for the same. Thanking you in advance for 
your reply, I am yours faithfully, " ." 
. Now, as a reply to this, and to head off all letters of 
similar import, I will say right here that the expression 
was a misprint pure et simple, and that no man could 
by any stretch of his imagination, unless he had absorbed 
a dozen or two "high balls," think of classing the bass 
with the weakfish. 
The types, first and last, and I have for upward of fifty 
years been keeping them moving, have made some curious 
messes for me. One of the drollest happened not many 
months ago. I had written, as I thought, a rather in- 
teresting description of the charms of salmon fishing, and 
m it I gave as one of the requisites the salmon angler 
should possess was "a great lung capacity." The types 
dropped out the word "lung," making as a desideratum 
for the angler "a great capacity." 
The chaffing I had to endure for that slip was among 
the worst I ever experienced, and I had no idea there 
were so many people who read Forest and Stseam sg 
carefully. I wonder how many times I was requested to 
state "for what the salmon angler should have a great 
capacity," and I was asked if I was darkly hinting at 
"Rhumb," or any of the other precious liquids, to absorb 
which many fishermen consider it to be a necessity in their 
outings. I made my peace with some of the more turbu- 
lent, but at what a cost ! 
"Sea Trout" Again. 
I had hoped that the discussion regarding the identity 
of the so-called sea trout would be dropped from the 
columns of Forest and Stream until I could get my 
monograph on that fish, which I now have in preparation, 
completed; but the topic will not down, and, after all, it 
is perhaps best that all possible light should be thrown 
upon it, and from every available source. In Forest and 
Stream for November 19, Mr. Chambers has something 
in relation to the silvery beauties, which, although written 
in a most interesting manner, is not entirely free from 
error, or which will not, at any rate, excite some 
discussion. 
In treating of the sea trout fishing near Charlottetown, 
he states that a very large run of these beautiful fish is 
often met, and among other catches on record is one of 
16 trout weighing over 80 pounds. Now I know some- 
thing of the fishing around Prince Edward Island, and I 
think I can truthfully say that neither near Charlottetown 
nor in St. Peter's Bay, nor anywhere else on the coast of 
the island, may be had anything like such fishing as he 
describes. The largest "sea trout" I ever took in any of 
the waters around the island were killed near Malpeque, 
and none of them overrun two pounds weight. 
So far as my experience goes, large runs of these beau- 
tiful fish do not now occur in many of the waters in 
which they were formerly abundant. The catch of sixteen 
trout weighing eighty pounds occurred nearly fifty years 
ago, and the story is told by Mr. Perley, of St. John, 
N. B., in Frank Forrester's book on "Fish and Fishing," 
page 123; but condit ions have changed since then, the 
average size of game fishes has decreased very consider- 
ably, and I doubt if there have been many 5-pound "sea 
trout" taken near the island during the last twenty years. It 
was Mr. ^Perley's glowing account, as printed in Frank 
Forrester's book, which first led me to visit their homes 
and become acquainted with the merits of the- fish, and I 
have for the last forty years kept up the acquaintance 
most assiduously and faithfully. During that period I 
have taken them in many of the rivers of Quebec, all 
around Prince Edward Island, and practically every river 
in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in which they are 
found, and I do not believe I exaggerate when I say I 
have probably handled as many specimens as any angler 
now living. With this long experience I cannot refrain 
from putting on record here the fact that I never knew 
of one being taken in the sea "out of sight of land," as 
Mr. Chambers asserts is done; nor that they will rise to 
the fly li trailed behind a yacht or other sailboat in deep 
water "with a mackerel breeze and often with a heavy 
ground swell." If Mr. Perley did not draw on his im- 
agination when he wrote that account of "sea trout" fish- 
ing, the fish must have changed very Considerably in their 
habits during the last half century. Thad. Norris in 
The American Angler's Book," printed in 1864, reprints 
Perley s account and criticises it rather freely. 
Mr Chambers' account of the gaminess of the trout is 
not a bit overdrawn, and the story is charmingly written; 
but the degrees of the gaminess of the fish vary con- 
siderably with the locality, length of time they have been 
m the river, and with different conditions of water. In 
a deep, broad pool the trout does not begin to give as 
much play as it does in shoaler pools and in moving 
streams. I have often had a two or three-pound fish in 
live water leap above the surface and make long, sharp 
runs which caused my reel to sing right merrily; when 
others of similar size, hooked in deep, still water, rarely 
come to the surface until they are ready for the landing 
net; they insisted on "sagging down," just as a salmon 
otten does in deep water. A 10-pound salmon in the 
Kangeley lakes, sometimes when the water is five or six 
iathoms in depth, does not begin to vie in activity with 
one of equal weight in quick water. 
Like the salmon, the "sea trout," if long in the river 
has not a moiety of the gaminess it has when just up 
from the salt water. I will not say just up from the sea, 
.Vj J have been able t0 learn > an d I have 
studied the fish very carefully, it never goes to the sea 
nor even very far from the estuaries of the river in which 
it makes its home. I reside in the heart of one of the 
best sea trout" countries on the Atlantic Coast, every 
river northwest and south of me teeming with them, and 
1 am daily thrown in contact with men who depend upon 
deep sea fishing for a livelihood; they ply their calling 
all the way trom "the banks" to the inshore fishing 
grounds; that is to say, fishing grounds which are not 
more than two or three miles from the mainland, and not 
one of all whom I have questioned has said that he has 
ever seen or heard of a "sea trout" being taken, either in 
mackerel or herring nets or in any other manner what- 
ever, at any distance from the entrance of rivers which 
they descend for food in the late autumn and in the 
spring Occasionally one is captured in a herring net 
when drawn close to the shore, but in the deep water of 
the ocean not one has ever been seen. 
The trout is not, therefore, in any sense a sea trout: 
and it does not remain in the salt water very long after 
the spring run of smelts have ascended the streams to 
spawn. In my articles on this fish printed in Forest and 
bTREAM January 24, 1903, and August 6, 1904, I have dis- 
cussed this habit of the fish at considerable length, and 
will not further enlarge upon it here 
Now a few words on the breeding habits of this fish, 
it has been stated in Forest and Stream that "it is 
brought up m the sea, better fed, and developed under 
conditions which make it larger, fatter, more rangy, and 
without the peculiar colors which characterize the brook 
w?wi * •' £ resumabI y the young of any brook trout 
hatched out in the sea and fed m the sea would be the 
f*™£ t ( , Tbe '"ference to be drawn from this statement 
h„ tw % . s eatrout" isnot only "brought up in the sea," 
but that it is hatched there also; this is an error of no 
small magnitude for as the fish is never seen in the sea 
and is never taken there, it is evident that it does not 
depart from the usual habits of our salmonida; by spawn- 
ing there. On the contrary, it always passes the season 
of reproduction in fresh water streams, ascending them if 
possible to their very heads, and in such waters we always 
find the young from the condition of fryhood to the finger- 
ling stage, and from that up to the mature fish. 
It has been my custom to devote every moment of my 
spare time to nature studies, and in these I have never 
lost an opportunity when by the seaside to investigate the 
various kinds of fry that are found among the weeds, 
sand and pebbles at the edge of salt water and in the 
pools which have been left by the receding tide. I have 
exceptional facilities for this line of work, for my home 
is located within five rods of the bay shore. I have never 
in all my investigations found in salt or even brackish 
water either fry or fingerlings of any of the salmonida*. 
Young herring, pollock, mackerel, and a number of other 
marine species were abundant, but not a single troutling. 
My experience in this respect is not exceptional, for of 
the many intelligent fishermen and anglers with whom 
I have conversed, not one has said he had ever seen the 
fry or other young of trout in salt water. No, the so- 
called "sea trout" cast their ova in fresh-water streams 
and the fry, instinctively for self-preservation, work their 
way up- the little rills which empty into the streams, often 
for considerable distances. 
On one occasion as I stooped to obtain a drink of cold 
water from a living spring which was at least twenty rods 
distant from one of the famous sea trout rivers of New 
Brunswick, I discovered in the water a number of fry, of 
which, after the expenditure of considerable perseverance, 
I captured three or four, which on examination proved to 
be the fry of trout. That those tiny creatures could have 
wriggled their way up the little rill, which barely trickled 
among the stones, mosses and water plants, for that long 
distance, was astonishing to me. That they had dove so 
there could be no doubt, for adult trout could not possibly 
ascend to the spring to deposit their spawn in it. 
Now with regard to the size of "sea trout." The article 
referred to states that owing to being "brought up in 
the sea they are better fed, grow larger and fatter * * * 
than those in the brook form." This statement is also 
capable of qualification, for in many localities where food 
is abundant the trout which do not descend to the salt 
water attain much greater size, plumpness and weight 
than do the others which go to salt water periodically. 
For example, the spotted trout in the Rangeley lakes, 
Maine, where there is the greatest abundance of minnows 
and other food, grow to a size such as is never attained 
by the "sea trout." 
I have known of trout being taken at the Upper Dam 
which weighed 10, 11 to 12 pounds, and fish weighing 
from 6 to 8 pounds used to be brought into camp every 
day. I have taken my share of the large ones, having 
killed in one week one which weighed 7 J / 2 pounds, two of 
6 pounds, one of 5 pounds, and two winch overran four 
pounds, and my catch on one occasion was seven fish 
which weighed 32^ pounds, and this is something I have 
never equalled or even approached among "salters," as 
they are called in Massachusetts. 
I have been informed by fishermen that the "sea trout" 
are so abundant in many of the small bays of Labrador 
and Newfoundland that they are caught by barrehful 
in herring sweep nets and cut up and used for cod bait. 
But none of my informants ever saw one among those 
immense numbers which exceeded five pounds in weight. 
In the various rivers I have fished, I have found the 
average weight of the trout to be no greater than about 
three-fourths of a pound; that is, taking them as they 
came. I have found that two-pounders were not uncom- 
mon and larger ones were often taken. In Musquedoloit 
Harbor, about twenty-five miles northeast of Halifax, I 
have killed them of five pounds weight. The largest I 
ever killed in the Margaree River, Cape Breton, weighed 
a trifle over five pounds, and is figured in my "With Fly- 
Rod and Camera." At Prince Edward Island I never took 
one that exceeded two pounds in weight. In the various 
New Brunswick rivers one does not kill a large propor- 
tion of very heavy fish. In the Nepisiquit my largest was 
a pound and a half; in the Miramichi I have killed 
several which weighed over two and a half pounds each. 
u ^ J ac 1 uet ' which is one of the best trout rivers in 
the Province, I have taken many fish which weighed over 
three pounds. In the Restigouche and its tributaries the 
average of "sea trout" is, I think, not over, or much over, 
a pound. We used to get a lot of big ones near what is 
now the Restigouche club house, when the house was 
kept by dear old Col. Fraser. Ah, those were jolly days, 
indeed, and what a treat the old man's genial nature was ' 
1 have seen many hundreds of the fish caught near 
Campbellton and offered for sale in the town by the In- 
dians, which did not average a half pound each Very 
large sea trout" are taken in the Big, or Grand, Casca- 
pedia, and the little Cascapedia rivers, and in the other 
streams along the Quebec shore of the Baie des Chaleurs 
to and even beyond Gaspe. 
If my memory serves me correctly I think the largest 
catch of these beautiful fish I ever made was on the great 
Bonaventura River, which used to be, and for aught I 
know, now is, famous for large sized trout ; the catch 
numbered thirty and their weight was over sixty pounds 
the fish were all silvery bright, just up from the Bav, and 
m their eagerness to take the fly often leaped clear of 
the water: 
Yes, Mr. Chambers is right, the "sea trout" is one of 
the most gamy of fish. Although not as active as the 
grilse, nor indulging m such saltatory performances, nor 
as strong and vigorous a fighter as the salmon is, it gives 
m the absence of these nobler game, a sport well worth 
the following. As I before stated, it changes its garb 
of silvery sheep after a brief sojourn in the river to the 
normal coloration of the spotted trout, fontinalis. As 
to its identity with that fish and non-identity of the 
Luropean sea or salmon trout, I will not take space to 
dicuss at length in this article. I will say, however, that 
twlJ great m ^ y , years a § 0 ' with the conviction 
that the sea trout, sp-called, was, if not the European fish 
?r,3 eCle t qU i t£ ? 1Stinct % ot ? our oId darIin g> the spotted 
1 u. j , l y , was 1 lm Pressed with this belief I 
thought I would have no difficulty in proving that it Was 
correct; but, after all these years, and after examinTnl 
hundreds upon hundreds of specimens taken in most of 
the Canadian waters it frequents, and comparing them 
anatomically m the most careful manner possible with nn- 
doubted specimens of fontinalis, I have been forced \n 
abandon the idea I held and settle down to the r a ization 
of the fact that it is not a distinct species, or even a 
