rULY IS, IpOS-] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
4 7 
Jugging on the Mississippi. 
I don’t know as this can be classed as game fishing; 
It when the water was clear and low and the channm 
tfish were hungry it was very exciting sport, which 
my younger days I often indulged in with the keenest 
ijoyment. But it is too hard work for an old man, 
id our great river has been so thoroughly drained by 
e market men with their bait and trammel nets, trot 
les and drag seines, it promises very uncertain re- 
rns now. 
About thirty-five years ago I was so unfortunate as 
' be obliged to remain a month at Hamburg, Calhoun 
mnty, Illinois, a small landing some fifty miles north 
St. Louis, containing two trading stores, whose chief 
les were tobacco, sugar and calico, and about a dozen 
veilings. To this day this country is designated as 
;e “Kingdom of Calhoun,” owing to its isolated and 
iculiar condition. While the surrounding territory is 
;ry populous and fertile with all the usual facilities_ of 
isiness and intercourse, this is isolated by being 
junded on the east, west and south by the Mississippi 
ad Illinois rivers. 
It is a long narrow strip of hilly land, thereby un- 
ted for the usual agricultural products, sparsely popu- 
ted by the old-timers, who have always exhibited the 
■eatest antipathy to the negro, not one of whom has 
ien allowed to locate there, and they even object to 
leir traveling across their district. Formally this 
Duntry was heavily timbered and its chief products 
ere cord wood and the best oak barrel stuff and rail- 
aad ties that were carted to the river landings and 
Dated to St. Louis; but these trees were cleared out 
renty-five years ago, and the hills being well adapted 
>r fruit culture they introduced numerous orchards, 
ad now export large quantities of our Ben Davis or 
Red Missouri” apples. Up to ten years ago the 
Kingdom of Calhoun” did not contain a telephone, 
degraph or express office, and to-day has no railroad, 
hile the bounding countries are netted with them, 
[either does it afford any game fishing streams or 
ikes. For this reason, having nothing to do but wait 
ar the slow tow of a heavily loaded barge of machin- 
ry up the river, I grew very weary until I thought of 
jgging, for which the stage of the Mississippi was 
articularly favorable at that time. 
It will be understood, as the name implies, that this 
port simply requires a dozen or so of corked jugs to 
he handle of each of which is secured a stout cotton 
ine about No. 36 three feet long, and a catfish hook 
laited with almost anything from old meat to spoilt 
heese rind. Marketmen generally use tin cans or dry 
rhite pine floats for this purpose. I found this tackle 
;t one of the stores and from that time until my de- 
larture I supplied free of cost all the town of Ham- 
mrg with the finest channel catfish, which, by the way, 
s excellent eating, especially for people who enjoy 
L buffalo or even “Dutch” carp. “German” is too re- 
pectable a name for this contemptible class of the finny 
ribe. 
To illustrate the details of this sport I will give an 
iccount of one of my most successful trips, explaining 
hat for fast and comparatively easy work it is best for 
ane to be accompanied by a helper, but not being in- 
dined to the companionship of any of the loafing 
aatives, a brier root was enough company. 
Taking my skiff, I rowed up the river about three 
Tiiles, then baiting the hooks, I dropped the jugs across 
:he channel about twenty-five feet apart and dropped 
Dehind waiting results. In calm weather, when the 
water is smooth, a one-pounder will bob the floats 
Derceptibly and larger ones will yank them around at a 
dvely rate, but it requires a big fish to sink them for 
Tiore than half a minute, and another thing is that the 
?ame seldom escapes; once hooked, they are there for 
good. 
I had only had time to pipe up and regain my wind 
after the arduous exercise of rowing until the fun corn- 
tnenced. A jug bobbed, and after it I went, pulling in 
about a three-pound catfish. By the time the hook was 
rebaited and thrown back into the water, two jugs were 
jumping around, so the sport was growing exciting and 
somewhat laborious. 
This continued for about an hour, while I was float- 
ing down stream, securing more than a dozen fish of 
from two to fifteen pounds, when something surprising 
occurred. One of the jugs went down as a black bass 
takes a cork. Presently it appeared some distance 
away, sliding rapidly over the water. Grabbing the 
oars I put after it, running bow on and jumping to the 
front only to see it sink quickly and scoot off_ under 
the surface. Again and again I went for it with the 
same results. Noticing that the disappearances were 
growing shorter, which indicate that the cat was getting 
tired, as well as myself, I rested, 'while the fish still 
kept going with less efforts until the float was nearly 
stationary. Then I quietly paddled alongside _ and 
grabbed it with both hands, when down it went with a 
rush that caused the boat to take a tub of water and 
pull me nearly overboard. 
Talk about your game fish — my experience with the 
rod and throw line is that the cat pulls more and dies 
harder than any other fish of equal size. When a boy 
I caught an eight-pounder at noon and carried it upon 
the bank, as I was afraid to string it with our bass and 
crappy, where we could hear if flopping around for 
some ' time. Nearly five hours later, when well started 
home, my elder brother, finding our big fish apparently 
dead and covered with dirt and leaves, walked out on 
the fallen treetop to wash it off. As soon as, he gave 
it a swish in the water, it suddenly revived, pulling him 
into the stream; and although he was an expert swim- 
mer and had it by tbe giU§, it escaped, to opr great 
I disappointment. 
To resume. Seeing that the job was rather difficult 
for one person, I used more caution, so as I grabbed 
the jug again and gave the line a quick turn around the 
oar lock and sat down until my game was completely- 
exhausted, then dexterously pulled him aboard. I he 
scale weight was 70 pounds. , , • 
By this time the floats were badly scattered, and being 
below my port I began gathering them in, when my 
only two-gallon float went down like a flash, and al- 
though I stood and closely scanned the water in all 
directions for about fifteen minutes, it never appeared. 
The fish must have been a whopper. 
Formerly we had some very large fish of this class.- 
Nearly fifty years ago a market man caught one I saw 
at Quincy, 111 ., that weighed 220 pounds._ It is very ex- 
ceotional now to hook one over half this size. 
S. E. Worrell, 
As to Pompano. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Will you or some of your readers kindly tell me some- 
thing as to the fish pompino, or pompano? It is on- the 
market here, San Francisco, quoted retail at $2 per 
pound. I bought two pounds in January at fifteen cents 
per pound and found it a very fine fish. It is 
broad and as long as a man’s hand, small, blunt head, 
very little waste in dressing, comparatively free of bones 
as fish go. Is silvery white on the belly and gradually 
.shades on the sides to a dark gray or bluish black at 
the back. In taste, texture, flavor, etc., it is as fine a fish 
as I ever ate. By some people it is called the butter 
fish.” But others tell me it is not the butter-fish of the 
Atlantic. I have consulted dictionaries and encyclopae- 
dias, but such as I have gave me no light as to the pom- 
pano or pompino. What I did find under the head of 
“butter-fish” did not seem to apply to the fish I am 
curious about. One authority said the flesh of the butter- 
fish was not in high esteem. Here, however, the pom- 
pino is considered the bonne bouche of the finny tribe 
by gourmets and epicures. The price for years here has 
run between 50 cents and $1.50. The dropping to 15 
cents last January was on account of an extraordinary 
catch. Within a few days, however, the price went to 
35 cents, and has now got up to $2. 
A fresh fish that will command $2 gold for sixteen 
ounces avordupois at a seaport must, have other merit 
than rarity or scarcity. I found a man (professional) 
who said he used to get pompino from Pensacola Bay, 
at New Orleans restaurants, and that they were con- 
sidered a luxury there. His pompino dinner began with 
a Swiss ess followed by turtle soup and sherry ; then a 
salad, then the pompino and^ fried potatoes, with a red 
wine, closing the luncheon with fruit, black coffee and a 
cigar. His description of the fish corresponds with mine 
except that he said those in the New Orleans market 
were from six to twelve inches long. I have never seen 
any here longer than six inches. These come from 
southern California seas around San Diego, San Pedro 
and the Catalina Islands. 
Also please tell me whether there are any true turbot 
in American waters, I often see the turbot spoken of 
in English papers as something evidently superfine. My 
encyclopaedia says that what 'S known in this country as 
spotted turbot is New York plaice. ■ Soyer, in one of 
his stories anent the Crimea, speaks of clout, or knotted 
turbot, “a peculiar kind of turbot found in the Black 
Sea, leaving the inference open that there are several 
kinds of turbot, all of excellence. 
Goodholme declares Spanish mackerel to be the 
choicest of all fish, “perhaps.” I used to think that the 
small-mouth black bass of Michigan and other Eastern 
States waters were the finest table fish in existence, with 
mountain trout second on the list. But I hear people 
dispute my claim as to the bass being superior to turbot. 
I was practically raised on black bass and for many a 
one did I troll from a catamaran on Detroit River and 
Lake St. Clair, and I might be prejudiced in their favor 
on that account. I have eaten all kinds of salt and sweet 
water fish on the Pacific coast, and I must say that I 
found the pompino a delectable rnorsel, I _ and a friend 
making a dish of them — the piece de resistance — at an 
Italian table. That is, the auxiliary dishes were Italian 
— the vegetable soup, chicory salad, Italian_ bread 
(white), m.ashed potatoes, stuffed French artichokes, 
stewed calf’s head, were all from Italian recipes, and 
winding up with Swiss cheese, California fruits and a 
champoreau. The beverage was California dry Sau- 
terne, a bottle between the, two of us. That menu, in- 
cluding the two pounds of pompino, cost $1.30 all told. 
This was at a modest Italian restaurant in the fish mar- 
ket district. The cooking was perfect. At the swell 
restaurants and grills it could not now be duplicated for 
less than $10 or $15, that, of course, including cham- 
pagne. So I feel that buying pompino in San Francisco 
at IS cents per pound was the seizing of one of those 
opportunities that so rarely present themselves. I had 
previously looked upon pompino with longing eyes, but 
deemed it a sin to expend upward of half a dollar a 
pound for them. That 15-cent day is a red letter one in 
my diary of gustatory experiences. It certainly was a 
superb luncheon. I have paid 50 cents a pound here for 
L^ke Tahoe and Truckee River trout and did not con- 
sider that excessive. 
But I do want to know more about the pompano — its 
scientific name, habits, natural history, etc., and will 
thank anyone who will gratify my curiosity through 
Forest and Stream. 
A gentleman tells me that he has eaten pompano in 
New York city which he had purchased under the name 
of butter-fish at ten cents per pound. They were the 
true pompano, he said, but were to be had so 'cheap be- 
cause very few people appreciated the excellence of the 
fish. He said they sometimes were caught as far_ north 
as Connecticut, having evidently taken an excursion or 
exploring trip up from Florida or Caribbean waters. I he 
public, he said, were not educated up in the merits of 
fish, or there would be more discrimination shown, and 
the wealthy would be making such a demand for pom- 
pino as to keep the price way up. 
In my investigations in quest of knowledge as to pom- 
pino I ran across the word “pompilos” in Ainsworth s. 
Pompilos was defined as “a kind of fish which swims 
with its belly upward.” „ /r 
In the Century Dictionary I find “pornpilus,^^ (from 
the Greek, meaning a fish that follows ships), a genus 
of stromateoid fishes: same as centrolophus.” 
The said dictionary also contains “pomfret” ^^(appar- 
ently corrupted from the equivalent Portuguese “pombo’ 
or “pampo”). “In the East Indies a fish of the genus 
Stromateoides, distinguished from the other stromateoids 
by the restricted lateral branchial apertures. The white 
pomfret is Stromateoides sinensis, having no distinct 
free spines betw'een the dorsal and anal fins, and tlae 
caudal lobes sub-equal. It is highly esteemed for its 
flesh. The gray pomfret is Stromateoides cinereus, which 
has free truncated spines before the dorsal and anal fins, 
and the lower caudal lobe much longer than the upper; 
young specimens are called silver pomfrets.” 
There is seemingly some connection of pompino or 
pompano with pomfret, pombo, pampo, pompilos and 
pompilus. Are any of your readers able to_ trace _ it 
through? I’ve heard sailors wffio have been in Chilian 
waters speak of a fish called the pampanito down there, 
and from, their description it corresponds with the Cali- 
fornia pompino. Pampanito, however, appears to me to 
be more of an Italian word than Spanish, but as the 
other words are apparently of Creek and Portuguese 
derivation, they are all suggestive of the Mediterranean, 
and I’ve an idea that the pompino may be a well known 
fish in Italy and other Mediterraiiean countries, but un- 
der a different name now. It is, seemingly, a fish that 
belongs to tropical salt waters, and the seas immediately 
contiguous to the north and south, sallying forth, per- 
haps, periodically, in schools from their natural geo- 
graphical habitat in a spirit of adventure to foreign 
waters. 
Since writing the foregoing I was told by the clerk 
of a fish stall that twenty years ago a pompino was 
caught in Monterey Bay, -California, that weighed 12 
pounds (192 ounces), and that the fish was sold to the 
Mercantile Lunch, in San Francisco, for $25 _ spot cash. 
I have had no opportunity, before this writing, to at- 
tempt to get this story corroborated, though I have no 
reason to doubt it, and tell it here to show that the pom- 
pino may grow into a goodly-sized fish. The same clerk 
told me that nowadays the pompino that could more 
than cover a man’s hand is a rari avis. He could not 
explain the discrepancy in the sizes of twenty years ago 
and of to-day, except that, possibly, the fish were being 
fi.shed out too closely. He also says that the pompino 
and the so-called butter-fish, are two different fishes, and 
should not be confounded, although they look alike._ 
I have written to Dr. D. Starr Jordan, ichthyologist of 
the Leland Stanford, Jr., University, for information, 
but in the meantime I should like to hear from your 
readers in the Southern and Atlantic States as to what 
they know about pompino. I shall take pleasure in 
reciprocating in a like manner any time in the future. 
Wm. Fitzmuggins. 
San Francisco. 
Since my former letter as to pompino I have con- 
tinued my search for knowledge as to this high priced 
fish, and got a clue in Good Housekeeping which, in an 
essay on the preparation of fish, spoke of the pompano. 
The spelling made a difference, and going ba.ck to the 
dictionaries and encyclopaedias I found some interesting 
information in the Century on the pompano. Evidently 
that is the correct spelling, ■ although in the rnarket re- 
ports of the San, Francisco daily papers it is spelled 
habitually with an “i” instead of an “a”. Some people 
say there isn’t much in a name, but in this name the 
spelling of it sent me oft' on a sort of wild goose chase 
for information, and caused me to consume considerable 
midnight oil in pouring over ponderous tomes, and 
spreading much writing fluid over white paper in mak- 
ing memoranda or penning questions as to the identity, 
habits and history of a fish. My bump of curiosity had 
got fevered, and nothing but facts and truth would allay 
the. fever. But no harm is done if it all results in some- 
body being made more wise as to pompano. “You must 
have pompano on the brain,” said a friend to me who 
was witness of my efforts at the library to get at the 
information. I admitted that I had, and that I would 
not be cured of the malady except by knowledge. So I 
am feeling better to-day after having found a few re- 
marks on pompano in tlae Century. That authority says 
the name is applied to “the fish Stromateus Hatola. A 
cangaroid fish of the West Indies and South Atlantic 
and Gulf States, Trachynotus carolinus, attaining a length 
of eighteen inches and highly esteemed as a food. 
* * * name also extends to other members of 
the same genus as the ovate, round or short pompano, 
Tovatus, of tropical seas (and north as far as "Yirginia), 
and the glaucous or long-finned pompano, Tovatus glau- 
cus, of tropical seas (and north as far as "Virginia or 
Lower California). In Florida along the western coast 
of Florida, a geroid fish, Gerres olisthostoma, specifically 
known as the Irish pompano. In California, the Stroma- 
teus simillinius, quite different from the fore-named, and 
is closely related to the harvest fish, and to the butter- 
fish or dollar-fish.” Anyway, that establishes a standing 
for the pompano with me. ■ ■ 
In the Young Folks’ Cyclopaedia I am told that the 
pompano is common in the West dndies and in the South 
Atlantic and Gulf States, is eighteen inches long, has a 
