April 29, 1905.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
337 
Captain seems to hesitate about going out. Fear we 
may. lose our kingfishing, with which we had hoped to 
end the trip gloriously. Fished off boat before break- 
fast, but caught nothing. Captain fussed over a lot of trifles 
and was evidently afraid to venture out, but about 9 
o'clock other boats came along bound for the grounds, 
and we finally started. Found some swell outside^ but 
nothing to speak of, and could see the white sails of 
quite a fleet of boats on the grounds several miles to 
the north. When we got near the southernmost we 
A SHARK, HOOKED. 
put out our lines, I using tarpon rod, 21-thread line and 
a sin. block tin squid, and Trask trying lighter tackle. 
Trask gave his rod to Roberts for a moment when the 
first fish struck his squid, was reeled in pretty close, and 
then broke the line. I had a number of strikes, the 
fish leaping 5ft. or 6ft. into the air and knocking the 
squid high above the water. Presently there came a 
mighty jerk, and the line ran out 50yds. in spite of my 
fullest pressure on the brake pad. Then I checked him, 
reeled in a little, lost it and more in another dash, and 
finally got the fish near the boat and Roberts hoisted 
A SHARK, LANDED. 
him in and swung him into the big fish box, getting 
one finger badly gashed by the sharp teeth in trying to 
free the squid; blue and silver, a yard or more long, 
15 pounds. Now we were in the middle of the fleet, 
and the fish were striking every minute or oftener, 
jumping loft. straight up, knocking the squids into the 
air, and every now and then being hooked. I seemed 
to generally land them, while Trask's lighter tackle lost 
fish after fish. Presently he struck something which, in 
steady successive surges, ran out his whole 200yds. of 
line and broke it at the end, doubtless a heavy shark, 
of which we could see a number about. Twice sharks 
seized my hooked fish, and were hooked themselves, 
broke my line at or near the swivel, so I did not lose 
much. Trask rigged out with heavier tackle, and we 
both caught fish, from 10 to 15 pounds- eac"h, until we 
had a dozen or more. Then I reeled in the line short 
arid held the squid within 20ft. of the stern, and got 
strike after strike, the fish showing no caution • what- 
ever, and could not avoid hooking one every now and 
then. Then we took oUr cameras, trying to get a snap 
of a leaping fish, arid made several exposures, which 
liiay turn out good, though the best leaps . were gen- 
erally just when we were not ready or the sun was 
wrong. 
At noon we had about twenty fisji and started back 
for Bear's Cut,, being fully satisfied. On the way 1 
hooked and landed, after a great fight, much the largest 
kingfish we took, 4ft. Qin. long, and weighing 35 pounds. 
His first rush took out nearly my whole line. Came in 
to Bear's Cut, had luncheon, shifted into civilized garb 
ana started for Miami, and the end of our trip. Got 
aground on the bank near the cut, but got off in 
half an hour. 
The kingfish, in combined power, dash, vigor, beauty 
and grace, surpasses any fish I have ever known. His 
numbers, on certain very restricted grounds, seem un- 
limited. There must have been' at least forty boats out 
to-day, and the hand-line fishermen caught an enor- 
mous number. Even with our rods, which are very 
much slower than hand lines, we could certainly have 
taken many times our catch had we been willing to do 
so. We have had a delightful experience with a most 
noble fish, have taken discreetly of his bounty, and none 
of our trophies will be wasted. 
A. St. J. Newberry. 
CtEvsi.AND, Feb. 21. 
Canadian Waters. 
The Spring Fishing Prospects. 
QuEBECKERS, with a recent ice jam at their doors 
which even the new Clyde-built Dominion ice-breakers 
could not move, know very well that it must be some 
time yet before they can expect to successfully allure the 
unsuspecting trout with the counterfeit presentment of a 
natural fly. At the same time it is not perhaps to be 
wondered at that American anglers who come to Canada 
for their fishing should be a little impatient at the late 
opening of the season here, when open water has shown 
itself for some time past in their own particular bailiwick. 
■ Many days before the high tide of the 20th inst. broke 
up the big ice jam in the St. Lawrence, six miles above 
Quebec, letters had been received here from many of the 
New England States, as well as from New York, in- 
quiring concerning the prospects for the opening of the 
Canadian fishing season. Having learned from the ex- 
perience of former years, the uncertainty of the Canadian 
spring, and taking into consideration the number of the 
inquiries received, I have promised all my questioners to 
endeavor to keep them posted in regard to the progress 
of the season, by the medium of Forest and Stream. 
While I shall not attempt to make any prophecy at 
present as to the probabihty of an early season, which 
altogether depends upon the weather conditions of the 
next week or two, there' are a few facts respecting the 
recent winter and the present outlook which will be of 
interest to fishermen. In the first place, the winter 
through which we have just passed has been the most 
severe in the rriemory of any living Canadians. Stonns 
of any magnitude have been notable by their absence in 
the, Quebec and Lake St. John districts, as also in the 
Gaspe country and in eastern New Brunswick. In north- 
ern New Brunswick, in Nova Scotia and in Cape Breton, 
on the other hand, the' snow blockades have been tre- 
mendous. The extreme and continuous cold throughout 
the province of Quebec caused the accumulation of ice 
of unusual thickness over the lakes and rivers. Much of 
this ice is from two to three feet in thickness. It will 
require considerable warmth or rain to remove this thick 
covering from our fishing waters, and up to the present 
writing, with the exception -of a few mild days at the end 
of March and in the first week of April, the weather has 
continued quite cold and wintry. The last of the snow- 
drifts in the vicinity of Quebec had barely disappeared 
on Easter Sunday. Unless bright sun and warm rains 
take the place very soon of the present raw winds, it is 
likely to be well on toward the middle of May before our 
northern lakes will be clear of their icy fetters. 
Good Fishing Anticipated. 
Those local fishermen who enjoy the reputation of 
knowing how to read the signs of the times, in conse- 
quence of many long years of experience in comparative 
study of the seasons, are promising themselves and their 
angling friends an unusually satisfactory fishing season 
this year. ^ Not only do they hold that fish are always 
m.ore plentiful and better risers after a very severe win- 
ter, but it is also claimed by them, as it is likewise by 
Mr. p. G. Smith, Fishery Commissioner of New Bruns- 
wjck, that the best fishing seasons repeat themselves only 
once in four years, and that one of these quadrennial 
periods of pre-eminent success in angling operations is 
that upon which we are now entering. 
There is another side to the story of severe cold and 
thick_ ice in respect to their influence upon, fish and fish- 
ing, if any importance is to be attached to a statement 
which recently appeared in a daily newspaper, to the ef- 
fect that a considerable loss of fish was feared through 
the freezing from top to bottom of small streams and 
shallow lakes inhabited by thern. It is more reasonable, 
however, to believe, that as the winter advances, fishes in 
the streams and ponds seek the deeper places and live 
well under the ice, and that if this latter should envelop 
them, by reason of an excess of cold, they then remain 
in a frozen, torpid condition, and suffer no harm if gradu- 
ally and naturally thawed out in the spring. 
Good News for Nepigon Fishers. . 
It will be good news for all who take an interest in 
the fishing in Nepigon waters, and, in fact, for all friends 
of fish protection, that the fishing monopoly accorded 
some time ago by the Ontario Government for the net- 
ting of fish for commercial purposes out of Lake Nepigon 
is about to be cancelled. The granting of this contract or 
lease was vigorously opposed at the time, arid yet the 
lease was made for a period of twenty years. Violation 
of the contract by non-payment of rent is the reason given 
for its cancellation by the Government. 
The Federal Government, on the other hand, is unfortu- 
nately continuing the leasing of commercial fishery rights 
in some of the best of its northern waters. How absurdly 
it is acting in this matter may be seen from the fact that 
for -the sum of ten dollars a year for nine years it has 
awarded the exclusive franchise to fish in the rich waters 
of Lesser Slave Lake. The company to which the politi- 
cal favorite who secured it subleased this valuable privi- 
lege, is said to have taken four hundred tons of whitefish 
alone out of the lake during the last winter, and to have 
made arrangements for taking seven hundred tons next 
winter. It may easily be seen that at this rate the lake 
will soon be depleted. A Montreal lawyer has teen given 
another concession for twenty-one years, at the rate of a 
nominal ten dollars a year, to take fish for commercial 
purposes in the Nelson and other rivers in the district of 
Keewatin and Great Slave Lake. Still another individual 
is said to have secured for a nominal price the exclusive 
fishing rights in James Bay. E. T. D. Chambers. 
Trout in Pennsylvania and 
New York. 
Sayre, Pa., April 21. — The trout season opened in 
this section of country under adverse conditions. 
Alternate snow,' sunshine and rain were the prevailing 
weather factors to be reckoned with, and only the' 
hardiest anglers were abroad the first few days. Most 
of the streams were "running above normal water and, 
all in all, the disadvantages were about as numerous 
as the early trout fisherman encounters. In this 
immediate vicinity comparatively few trout have been 
taken and none of a size worthy of special mention. 
In the more remote trout-inhabited localities — reached 
from Binghamton, Elmira, Ithaca and Cortland, for 
instance — -I have heard of some fine creels of trout be- 
ing taken. Many of the streams about Ithaca are 
yielding some nice sized California brown trout, a 
local paper stating that a youth of. the University City 
last Sunday caught a brown trout 22 inches in length. 
Some years ago nearly all of the most promising trout 
streams of Tompkins county were stocked with Cali- 
fornia trout and the fish have evidently thrived. 
Probably the trout angler is likely to find as good 
sport along the streams encircling Cortland, as he will 
find anywhere in the more southern New York counties. 
And what is particularly pleasing to the angler, these 
streams are easy ones, for the most part, to fish. To 
be sure, one will not get a great many trout, as not 
a few men in these latter days define the term, but he 
will get enough to satisfy a conservative appetite, be- 
sides looking upon an exceedingly pretty country and 
enjoying something that money nor the sordid am- 
bitions of the city cannot buy. 
The pleasantest trout fishing experiences, which the 
vyriter calls to mind, centered around Cortland, some 
twelve years ago, and each springtime as the grass 
comes to its color and the bluebird flits from post to 
post, "the call of the wild," as one hears it from the 
dear old Cortland county streams, arouses the spirit 
that is sweet to commune with. And because of this 
I like to tell my angling friends to go to the town of 
buggies and screen factories and outfit for a thoroughly 
delightful experience. 
The prophecy has again and again been repeated in 
local papers that by reason of prolonged and unusually 
cold "spells" the past winter the smaller streams would 
be found devoid of trout, the fish having been frozen 
in the shallow water. It remains to be determined to 
what extent, if any, the freezing solid of these streams 
has had upon the trout supply. It is to be hoped that in 
this instance, at least, the prophet has erred in his pre- 
diction, for the little streams across which one may 
step at a stride really furnish some of the fishing that 
is best remembered. Many a boy now grown to man- 
hood, and even to old age, can recall the little silver 
thread of water singing across the meadow below the 
red farmhouse, and the orange-splashed trout he yanked 
in plenty therefrom. Monuments crumble, 'but these 
memories live on. M, Chill. 
Maine Angling Waters. 
Bangor, Me., April 22. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
What the anglers at the Bangor salmon pool, or, in 
fact, at any pool, do not know about the why and 
wherefore of salmon fishing, its streaks of plenty and 
streaks of scarcity, lean and fat, but, like the Irishman's 
pig, all lean most of the time, would fill a very large 
volume — and they're very well informed fishermen, too. 
Of one thing they are certain, and the knowledge is 
general, that no salmon are being lured to action by 
the beautiful flies being cast on the surface of the 
Penobscot, be they ever so attractive or artistically 
cast. With the exception of the fish reported in the last 
letter, not a salmon has been taken at the pool in the 
twenty-two days of open season. A very few fish have 
been seen at the pool, and more have been reported as 
seen at the Veazie dam above, so that they have not en- 
tirely forsaken the river, but why they won't get into the 
down river weirs or take the fly at the pool, is an un- 
answered question. 
The high winds prevailing during the week just past have 
had their effect on the lakes, and several are reported 
as open and opening. Sebago, usually the first to clear, 
began to break up on Thursday, and is now practically 
clear throughout its length, and is furnishing some mag- 
nificent sport to the early trollers. 
Lake Auburn has begun to break up, and is probably 
by this time clear of ice, and the first of the week will 
see crowds of anxious anglers trolling for some of those 
big salmon. Clearwater pond is expected to be open 
for anglers by to-morrow or early in the week, and 
those ponds and lakes lying nearer the sea coast, like 
Tunk, Green Lake, Phillips and others, will open one 
after another during the next week, and perhaps less 
time than that. Moosehead Lake residents in the city 
tq-day say that there is still a great deal of ice in that lake. 
,and that it may last until the Sth, although various 
opinions fix the opening date all the way from the ist 
to the Sth of May. Sebec usually opens a day or two, 
perhaps three- days, ahead of Moosehead and the 
Rangeleys, which are apt to be close together in this 
regard. The fishing in Sebec, which is one of the 
original salmon basins, is apt to be at its very best 
for the first ten days or a fortnight after the leaving of 
the ice, and sometimes the first day records great luck. 
In general, however, the angler who waits so as to be 
on the water a week or ten days after the breaking up 
of the ice, gets the best results. 
Reports from the Belgrade lakes say that those lakes 
will break up by to-morrow, and the fact that Marana- 
cook and Cobbossecontee are already clear is promise 
of early sport in the lakes made famous as bass waters, 
but where of late years there has be^n steadily iro' 
