June 3, 1905.] . 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
437 
tation in the water in summer, weedless hooks will be 
necessary. This is Lake Meahock. 
■Not far away and accessible from Fort Montgomery 
by way of a road that follows Popolopen Creek, is Popol- 
open Pond, where a goodly bass can be taken now and 
then in season, as well as pickerel and small fry. Not 
far away is Cranberry Pond, Bog Meadow Pond, Suth- 
erland's Pond and Long Pond. 
Rockland Lake, near the town of Rockland, is still 
nearer this city, and anglers go there frequently. A few 
bass are taken now and then, and pickerel and smaller 
fish, but too many persons go there for this to be the 
good water it was years ago. 
Orange Lake, near Newburgh, contains black bass, 
pickerel and yellow perch, and occasionally some large 
bass are taken. From this city one can take the New- 
burgh boats, and trolley car from Newburgh to the lake, 
a distance of about seventy miles in all. Nearer the town 
is Washington Lake, to fish which a permit must be ob- 
tained from the water-works commissioner. Twelve 
miles from town, and also reached by trolley, is the Wall- 
kill River, containing bass and pickerel. 
Glenmere Lake, in Orange county, New York, is known 
as good pickerel water, but it also contains bass. It is 
three miles from Chester, which is fifty-five miles from 
this city ; and less than two miles from Florida, the latter 
village being about sixty-five miles from New York city. 
The best success is had early in the season and again in 
the autumn by trolling, and by casting during the sum- 
mer. 
Poetry and Prose of Angling. 
BY CHARLES HALLOCK. 
[Being another chapter from Mr. Hallock's "Fishing Tourist," 
here reprinted by courtesy of the publishers, Messrs. Harper 
& Bros.] 
Some gentlemen, by no means pretentious or opinion- 
ated, delight to assert that since they became recognized 
anglers they have never taken a trout or a salmon ex- 
cept with a fly. I doif my hat in reverence to the senti- 
ment; it is the honest utterance of a justifiable pride. It 
is the spirit of the sangre azul, which dignifies the culti- 
vated sportsman above the mere fisherman; the man of 
honor above the assassin, the Herod among the small 
fry, the filler of pots and defier of close seasons. Never- 
theless, I cannot admit the implication that the man who^ 
habitually uses bait is consequently a creel-stuffer, or 
deficient in the scientific accomplishments of the craft. 
Fly-fishing and bait-fishing are co-ordinate branches of 
the same study, and each must be thoroughly learned to 
qualify the aspirant to honors for the sublime degree of 
Master of the Art. 
Grant that fly-fishing transcendently illustrates the 
poetry of the gentle calling; is it becoming or wise to 
despise the sterner prose, the metaphysics of the more 
practical school? The most dazzling accomplishment, 
that one which most enhances individual charms, is not 
necessarily of the greatest practical or substantial worth. 
Each method of fishing has its advantages ; one may be 
made available where the other is wholly impracticable. 
The deftly-tossed fly, taking wing on the nerve of a 
masterly cast, will drop gracefully far out in the stream 
where the heavier gear of the bait rod would never aspire 
to reach. On the other hand, the bait must supersede 
the fly on densely overgrown streams, and wherever the 
locality precludes proper casting-room. Moreover, fish 
do not always prefer the same diet. They have their 
times to eat and their choice of food, whether red worms, 
small fry, maggots, or flies. They will take bait when 
they will not rise to a fly. The red worm is notoriously 
the most acceptable food of the lordly salmon. The 
Salmo family do not feed upon insects and flies ; they 
make no hearty meal of such. These are merely the 
souffles and whipped syllabub of their tabl0 d'hote — their 
superficial dessert, which they gracefully rise to accept. 
Has it become the law of Piscator that professional 
anglers shall pander to the pampered epicure alone? that 
they shall never tempt the trout or salmon except when 
in his most fastidious mood? I might even strain a point 
in favor of the bait-fisher, and hold that, inasmuch as 
fishes, like men, have their five senses, and since in fly- 
fishing the sense of sight alone is tested, such kind of 
angling is a mean imposition upon the creatures' credulity, 
and not fair play at all. 
I utter no' plea for the bait-fisher who angles stolidly 
from boat or stump ; there is neither sport nor science 
nor sense in his method. But to the man who can handle 
his rod properly and with successful result in an im- 
petuous river or tumbling mountain stream (I care not 
whether he uses fly or bait), I must in justice concede 
a claim to high rank in the angling fraternity. A thor- 
ough knowledge of the habits of the fish is requisite in 
either case ; and without that knowledge which the prac- 
ticed bait-fisher must acquire of their haunts and breed- 
ing-places, their exits and their entrances, their food and 
times for feeding, and the seasons when they are in con- 
dition, no man can be regarded a perfect angler,, no mat- 
ter whether he handle his fly with the skill of Arachne 
herself. (Joke intended.) 
Exhausted with my attempt to legitimate the habitual 
bait-fisher into the family of sportsmen (for which he 
will doubtless thank me), I am fain tO' assert that the 
acquisition of the artificial fly to the angler's portfolio 
has measurably increased the charms of his sport. Fly- 
fishing gives more varied play and greater exercise to the 
muscles; it bestows a keener excitement; it intensifies the 
perceptive faculties; it requires nicer judgment than 
bait-fishing, quicker and more delicate manipulation, and 
greater promptness in emergencies ; it is more human- 
izing in its influences ; it is beautiful in its associations, 
and poetic in the fancies it begets. Light as a thistle's 
down the little waif of a fly flits hither and yon, dancing 
upon the ripples, coursing over the foam, breasting the 
impetuous current, leaving its tiny trail where the sur- 
face is smoothest, but always glancing, gleaming, coquet- 
ting like the eye of a maiden, and as fatally ensnaring. 
It woos no groundlings; it is not "of the earth earthy"; 
it is all ethereal, vitalizing, elevating. There is nothing 
groveling in fly-fishing — nothing gross or demoralizing. 
But bait-fishing? Well — it is cruel to impale a min- 
now or a frog. It is vulgar and revolting to thread a 
worm. Worms ! bah ! let them go to the bottom. I drop 
my line just here. I have gained a terriporary vantage 
for my bait-fishing friend. If he loses the campaign, he 
deserves to be beaten with his own rod. For myself, I 
boldly avow an unqualified preference for the fly in all 
cases where its use is practicable. I have said as much 
already. Let it be recorded. 
Upon one other point I shall make issue with these 
anglers par excellence — this select coterie of soi disant 
professioitals ; not because they are not really the ex- 
perts they assume to be, but because of the very com- 
placent manner in which they fold their arms upon the 
tip-top pinnacle of cumulative knowledge, and super- 
ciliously look dpwn upon their fellow-crafts below. These 
eminent gentry ailfect to despise trout-flshing. "Oh !" 
they say, "we never trouble such small game. We've got 
past that sort of thing. All very well for those who 
have never had a hack at a salmon — very decent sort of 
sport, you know ; but as for us, we couldn't look at a 
trout when salmon are running." 
"But, sir, consider — " 
"My dear fellow, it's no use talking, you never can 
have an idea of real genuine sport until you get hung of 
a forty-pound salmon !" 
Such positive assurances, coming from such high au- 
thority, ought to be convincing and concllisive. Sir 
Oracle's estimate of sport is evidently as between a half- 
pound trout and a forty-pound salmon, all other condi- 
tions being equal. 
Now, in truth, the quality of sport is in the ratio of the 
delicacy of the tackle to the strength and play of the 
fish. A four-pound trout on a 8-ounce rod is equal to a 
sixteen-pound salmon on a 32-ounce rod. "But." urges 
the salmon-fisher, "the nobler the game the nobler the 
sport." Granted, provided the relative conditions are 
maintained — not otherwise. If forty-pound salmon are 
to be hauled in hand over hand on a cod line, or if whit- 
ling trout are tO' be whipped out on a twenty-feet salmon 
rod — if size and weight alone are to determine the qual- 
ity of the sport, and the value of the captive as a game 
fish, why, one might as ^vvell troll for Mackinaw trout, 
or drag the East River for dead bodies. I have had more 
positive, continuous enjoyment with a three-pound trout 
on a one-handed Andrew Gierke split bamboo (I never 
drop a fly from any other rod) than I experienced from 
the biggest salmon I ever took in the Restigouche. It 
was in the East River, near Chester, Nova Scotia. But 
especially shall I remember the chase a lively grilse led 
me on that self-same day. The larger salmon had 
stopped running for the season, and the chances were 
so small of taking on my delicate trouting tackle any de- 
scription of fish other than the trout I angled for, that 
I felt little risk iii casting my line over the waters where 
salmon would be likely to lie. I -had just recuperated 
from my laborious contest with the big trout; and when 
the grilse struck the hook smartly, I had reason to believe 
that I had my trout's big brother in hand. But I was 
undeceived "in a jifl^y." The instant the fellow felt him- 
self hooked, he shot up a rapid with my whole seventy- 
five feet of line, and when he was snubbed leaped a 
boulder three feet high, and ran back again to the pool 
he started from, where he stopped to consider the situa- 
tion. Doubtless he felt it to be ridiculous. I certainly 
so regarded my own position. I was standing on a slip- 
pery shelf, which I had attained with difficulty in order 
to get a decent cast, with a dense thicket of alders over 
my head and an inky pool of unknown depth directly 
below my feet. I had hooked the fellow just at the foot 
of the pool beside which I stood. The angler will ap- 
preciate the situation. I had either to break tackle, lose 
fish, or perchance drown myself. The rapid return of 
the fish made a frightful sag in my line, and I was "taking 
in slack" as rapidly as possible, when the extra strain of 
the line drawing down the current wakened up his ideas ; 
and, giving a short leap clear of the water, he darted 
down stream like a rocket. How the hook kept fast in 
his jaws all this time was a mystery. Zip went the reel 
with a velocity that almost struck fire ; into the water 
leaped the rod, following the fish ; and after the rod floun- 
dered I, still clinging to the butt. I did not say my pray- 
ers, but I had just time to think how much it would cost 
to repair my Baguelin watch, when my feet touched 
gravel at the head of the rapid, and one risk was can- 
celed. If you had seen me follow that fish down stream, 
ypu would have been delighted at my good fortune in 
circumventing obstacles. The river was full of boulders, 
and there was great and immediate danger of getting my 
line fouled. But I presently got control of my game, and 
gave him the butt handsomely — and after that he didn't 
run faster than I wished. The fellow had me at a dis- 
advantage, and the wonder was how I ever got him at 
all; but when I emptied the water out of my long boots, 
I felt glad that I had bagged that fish. But I have always 
worn low shoes since, when fishing. 
Doubtless there is an exultant, pulse-compelling pride 
in landing a monster salmon of indefinite weight, which 
does not pertain to ordinary or extraordinary trout-fish- 
.ing; but as to the comparative merits of the two species, 
it is a question in my mind which should be voted the 
nobler game. Their habits, haunts and characteristics are 
identical in many respects ; and excepting in size, one 
may be justly regarded the peer of the other. This single 
difl^erence may be adjusted, as I have shown, by a proper 
adaptation of the tackle employed to capture them. It is 
certainly rougher work to kill a salmon, and vastly more 
fatiguing; and at times the sport is positively dangerous. 
As respects collateral pleasures derived from natural sur- 
roundings and associations, it may be remarked that trout 
streams are generally more romantic than those localities 
where salmon are caught; because being tributaries of 
the larger rivers, they are situated higher up among the 
mountain sources; they are farther from the salt air of 
the ocean, and in a rarer and purer atmosphere; they are 
generally more accessible to civilization; and they tra- 
verse regions more hospitable, where game is found in 
greater variety and abundance, where the forests are 
denser and teem with bird and insect life. And finally, 
as regards those ambidextrous experts who affect to re- 
gard trout-fishing _ as the inferior art and beneath their 
attention. I will simply revenge myself by quoting from 
Francis Francis, the astute observer, who says : "A good 
trout-fisher will easily become an expert at salmon-fish- 
ing; but a very respectable practitioner with the salmon- 
rod will often have all his schooling to do afresh, should 
he descend to trout-fishing, before he can take rapk as 
a rnaster pf the art." ' ' ' 
Fish Chat. 
BY EDWARD A. SAMUELS. 
Sea-Going and Landlocked Salmon. 
It is fortunate that the efforts of the Maine Commis- 
sioners on Fisheries to stock the lakes of the old "Pine 
Tree State" with landlocked salmon have met with suc- 
cess which, in some respects, may be considered almost 
phenomenal. 
It is not so very many years ago that many of the 
anglers and others who witnessed the first attempts of 
the Commissioner to plant the young salmon, viewed the 
operation with scepticism and distrust; scepticism as to 
the feasibility of the undertaking, and distrust at the out- 
come should their efforts be crowned with success. 
Anglers in Maine waters in those days were trout fish- 
ermen, pure and simple. The spotted beauties, those 
royal, great fish such as we used to get thirty or more 
years ago, were to them the greatest attraction those 
lakes could offer, and the fact that they were to be 
stocked with salmon seemed a menace to the beautiful 
fish whose pursuit had been to them a delight which 
might well be called incomparable. They all believed, or 
at any rate, most of them did, that a liberal distribution 
of the salmon in the waters in which the trout had for 
many years made their home would gradually bring about 
the extermination of the other fish, for the reason that 
the salmon because of its greater strength and activity 
seems able to conquer and replace other species with 
which it is thrown, in contact. 
I happened to be present on the occasion when Mr. 
Stanley put out one of the first lots of fry that were put 
out in the Rangeley lakes ; it was a great many years ago, 
but I remember the incident quite distinctly, and the 
short conversation we had in which I asked him if he 
did not believe that ultimately the salmon would sup- 
plant the trout in those waters. If I remember correctly 
he replied that there was not very much danger of it, 
but that if by any possibility there should be such an 
outcome it would only be the ascendancy of a magnificent 
game fish over one less grand. 
I had long before that period become acquainted with 
the gamy qualities of the landlocked, and I was not as 
averse as some were tO' the introduction of those fish 
in waters in which we had sought and found our old 
darlings, the spotted trout; but as I recall my feelings 
at the time, I confess I had some misgivings, for I knew 
perfectly well how quickly a given body of water may be 
depleted of trout by another and more voracious species. 
As for example, the destruction that was wrought in 
a very few years in Lake Umbagog, the lower of the 
Androscoggin system. In the early sixties trout were as 
abundant in that lake as they were in either of the others, 
but by some mischance pickerel were introduced in its 
waters, and so soeedy was their work of destruction it 
was next to impossible ten years later to find a trout 
either in Umbagog or the Magalloway River as far up 
as the Aziscohos falls, to which point the pickerel as- 
cended. The salmon were introduced and the antici- 
pated 
Supplanting is Now Going On. 
In the early seventies the trout fishing in the Rangeley 
lakes was simply magnificent, and more beautiful fish 
than those we used to take in those years never came 
to the fly. 
Here are a few records of catches that were then made : 
In 1876 one rod, one day, seven trout that weighed 
thirty-six pounds ; several rods in one day took trout 
weighing seven pounds, 7^ pounds, 8>2 pounds, 
pounds and 9V2 potmds. 
One angler took in a few days' fishing eighty-eight 
pounds of trout, the smallest of which weighed three 
pounds and the largest g% pounds. 
In 1877 some of the catches made at the Upper Dam 
were as follows : Six trout weighing 3j4, 4%, 5, 4^, 7^ 
and 5^ pounds. Two anglers killed twenty-seven which 
weighed 108 pounds, an average of four pounds each. One 
rod at a single cast took two fish which weighed Sj4 and 
7^2 pounds. 
In 1878 the Commissioners captured for hatching pur- 
poses 159 trout, the average weight of which was 4^ 
potmds. Of these three weighed eight pounds, two 
weighed nine pounds, one g% pounds and two ten pounds. 
In 1881 the writer took, in one day, seven trout at the 
Middle Dam which weighed 36^ pounds. Another angler 
took in two hours five trout which weighed 23^ pounds. 
Yes,_that was grand fishing, but the leviathans are now 
becoming scarce, and the number of small ones grows 
appreciably less. 
In speaking of the change that has been brought about, 
one of my correspondents in a recent letter, says: "At 
the Upper_ Dam the giant beauties still congregate, but, 
alas, not in such numbers as formerly— the landlocked 
salmon predominate there now in sizable fish." 
Now, of course it will be very many years before the 
salmon supplant the trout in the Maine lakes, and the 
present generation of trout anglers need not despair; but 
when salmon are as abundant in those waters as the trout 
in old times were, what magnificent sport coming genera- 
tions of anglers will enjoy. The idea of salmon fishing, 
grand salmon fishing, obtairiable at will ought to send 
an exultant thrill through every angler. 
Of late years salmon, anglers who were not lessees of 
Canadian rivers or members of clubs have been obliged 
to forego their favorite sport, for almost every foot of 
desirable salmon water is covered by leases, and to be- 
come a member of one of the clubs means the outlay 
sometimies of several thousands of dollars, and even such 
membership has not always furnished the anglers with 
satisfactory sport, for the Atlantic salmon, by reason of 
the excessive netting that is now carried on in all waters 
frequented by the fish, even to the head of tidewater in 
the rivers, together with the scandalous extent to which 
poaching is prosecuted, are so rapidly reducing the num- 
bers of the fish, many anglers and others who are in vari- • 
cus ways interested in our noble game fish regard with 
anxiety and alarm its extirpation which, to them, seems 
ominously near. 
If then salmon anglers are in the near future to be 
enabled to obtain a fair share of their favorite sport in 
^ome waters at a mere trifle pf expense comparecj with 
