fORESt AND STREAM. 
July 8, 1905.] 
.56 express, the .44 and buckshot have essentially left our 
field to the .22 peashooter and mustard-seed shot. Doves, 
robins, peewees and snowbirds! Truly it is a shame to 
deprive the people of that which is theirs. Game laws 
are monarchical and tyrannical. They are made so that 
the sportsman can get the game away from the people. 
Tolerate fools and dunces, but there is no creditable rea- 
son why they should govern the United States. This is 
a supremely optimistic declaration. 
The journals of the rod and gun twenty years hence 
will be devoted to the maintenance of forest reservations, 
if there are any, game refuges and protection, the_ en- 
couragement of parks, public and private, wild animal 
and bird propagation, the establishment and improvement 
of lakes, ponds and waters for fish ; and the supervision 
of wild birds and all the numerous creatures that make 
.nature worthy praise and a land habitable to enlightened 
or unenlightened people. Without such journalism to en- 
courage and support the right kind of legislators and 
laws, let us all go to Germany and look at the Emperor’s 
parks, or reside near the zoological gardens in London 
or New York. 
I live in the sequestered shadows of the Shasta Moun- 
tains, where there is little left to shoot and little to fish 
for. I therefore sometimes discharge words and toss 
bait at random. _ _ _ . 
Yours, without qualification. 
Ransacker. 
Shasta Mountains, California, June, 1905. 
Fresh and High Game. 
' In the Year Book of the Department of Agriculture, 
George K. Holmes writes : 
“The epicure goes to certain high-nriced hotels and 
restaurants, where he pays well for the birds which he 
says have at once that peculiar gamy flavor and tender- 
ness which he can get nowhere else, but he rarely knows 
that such game has, by order of the steward, been re- 
tained in storage until it has become partially decom- 
posed and has an odor before cooking which would pre- 
vent many people from eating it if seen and smelled in 
this condition.” 
All communications intended for Forest and Stream should 
always be addressed to the Forest and Stream Publishing Co., 
New York,, and not to any individual connected with the paper. 
Tennessee Game for Tennesseans. 
Hon. Overton Lee, of Tennessee, w'rites of the new 
game law of his State, which requires game dealers to 
be licensed : 
“Honest dealers will strongly favor this feature of the 
law, but it will naturally be opposed by those who have 
made it a practice to collect our game in cold storage 
and ship it to the Northern and Eastern markets. What 
has tended more than anything else to deplete our State 
of game is exportation from the State. The underlying 
principles upon which our game law rests is the preser- 
vation of our game for the benefit and use of our own 
citizens. This can never be effectively accomplished until 
such restrictions are thrown around dealers in game as 
render the violation of our non-export law _ well-nigh 
impossible. The license is a wise step in the right direc- 
tion, and has proved more effective in other States as a 
restriction upon export than any other class of legislation. 
It enables the department and the various wardens to 
‘get a line’ on those who are handling our game, and in 
this way to better confine its sale to our own people and 
not permit it to be shipped to the great cities of the East 
and North, where prices obtain that our people cannot 
afford to pay. 
“The evil of exportation of game from Southern and 
Western States to the Eastern markets has grown so 
great of recent years as to cause serious alarm among the 
well informed. A great game trust, with headquarters 
at Chicago and branches throughout the South and West, 
seeks to control the game supply for the rich cities of the 
North and East and to evade the non-export laws of the 
different States, every device that money and able legal 
talent can secure is employed. Some States have, in the 
hope to stop a traffic that threatens to soon entirely de- 
stroy all their game, passed laws absolutely prohibiting 
the sale of any game even within the State. This is 
wrong in principle. Game is the property of the people 
of the State and should be preserved for their use and 
benefit. The rights of the consumer within the State 
should be considered and respected. 
“The principle upon which our Tennessee game law 
is framed is the preservation of our game for the use of 
Tennesseans, and by confining its sale exclusively tO' the 
home market, our own people are enabled to obtain it at 
reasonable prices. The price of game, like any other 
article, is what it will bring in the highest market less 
the expense of getting it there and commissions for hand- 
ling. Not many years ago quail, our principal game bird, 
could be bought at from five to ten cents each, but after 
the trust took charge the price rose to twenty-five cents, 
and so great was the Northern demand, where the price 
is forty and fifty cents, that local consumers found it diffi- 
cult to obtain any quail in the home market. The profit 
to the game dealers is so large that t hey take long 
chances to evade the non-export law. All sorts of ruses 
are resorted to. Game is often shipped out of the State 
marked rabbits or domestic fowls. In a recent case at 
Chicago a shipment from Tennessee was marked eggs, 
and in another, as I am informed, the skins of rabbits 
were stuffed with quail to conceal the real nature of the 
shipment.” 
Spoftsmen of Northern Iowa to Protect 
Fish and Game. 
Sportsmen of the State who visit Clear Lake and 
vicinity yearly have formed a club for the protection of 
game birds and fish of Clear Lake. Several rumors 
which might be called facts have come to the attention 
of sportsmen as to the matter of the slaughter of ducks 
now nesting about the lake shore. Many fishermen are 
also using young bass for bait, which is against the law, 
and should be prevented. The club has raised a fund 
and undertaken to stop all such illegal work and to bring 
about the prosecution of guilty parties. Deputy Fish 
Commissioner Waterbury, of Nora Springs, la., heartily 
approves of the acts of the club, and has been at Clear 
Lake investigating, the situation. It is most sincerely 
hoped that he can bring about some change that will pro- 
tect our native game. 
Iowa has only a few lakes in the northern part as com- 
pared with the large number of lakes in Minnesota and 
Wisconsin. Many people from Des Moines . and other 
parts of the State go tO' these small lakes each season, 
and they could be made much more valuable to the citi- 
zens of the State if some little attention would be paid 
to the regulating of hunting and fishing. It is hoped that 
other clubs like this one formed at Mason City will be 
formed at Okoboji, Spirit Lake, Swan Lake and others, 
so that many of the sportsmen who now go to Wisconsin, 
Michigan and the West may remain in our own State. 
H. P. Baker, 
Forester Iowa State College. 
The Record Salmon. 
The Story of How we Saved Him. 
“Well, yes, he’s a noble fish, and I guess about the 
record salmon for this season anyway, but what’s puzzl- 
ing me is how you managed to save him in all that riot 
of wind and water,” said a veteran in the group of 
fishermen about me as I laid out the big fish on the 
grass before the camp. 
“Come inside about the fire-place, for I’m drenched 
with spray, and I’ll try to describe what happened.” 
So you, my readers, if you are interested, had better 
draw up, too, and get the story while it’s fresh and 
(to so critical an audience) has retained at least some 
suspicion of probability in the narrating. 
I must go a little into preliminaries to get you in 
touch with the situation. The fishing had been good, 
unusually good, but it was by trolling entirely, and 
though some very fine fish, both trout and salmon, had 
been taken, yet many of the party at the Upper Dam 
were, by preference, fly-fishermen and had been longing 
for a week to get at the connecting stream between 
the Great Lake and Upper Richardson and try a cast 
for some of the grand fish that would assemble there if 
the water ever dropped to the proper pitch. 
But it was a hopeless wait. With a favorable wind 
for towing, boom after boom of logs was brought down 
the Great Lake and an immense quantity collected 
above the dam, with fifteen or more large booms still 
to come. The gates were all up and a night and day 
crew constantly sluicing, with the result that the river 
below the dam was a raging torrent of white water and 
logs, where not even a salmon could have held his 
own a minute without a power anchor. So as that was 
the only water easily accessible for the purpose, fly- 
fishing under such conditions was, naturally, impossible. 
Consequently evei-y one had to resort to lake trolling, 
if he wished to fish, and if it was rather infra dig for 
some of the more eminent exemplifiers of the art, it 
was nevertheless Hobson’s choice — that or nothing. 
The Upper Richardson was the favorite rendezvous 
for trollers, both because it was right at hand and again 
because the logs after passing the dam and river were 
collected there in booms for towing to the Middle Dam. 
About these booms, which were right off the mouth of 
the river, the fish congregated in large numbers for 
feeding on the grubs and worms frorn the logs, and 
preparatory to running up into the quick water when 
they could get the chance. 
The trolling therefore in the lake, outside of and 
quite close to these booms, was bound to be prolific in 
results, and it was. Good fish, four, five and even six 
pounds, were by no means rare and the favors were 
pretty fairly distributed, but no one had actually 
captured anything very unusual, till the Bemis steamer 
one day brought in an applicant for honors, whose gen- 
eral air and equipment instantly suggested the genus 
novtis homo in a pronounced degree. 
He arrived by the afternoon boat and after supper 
gave us a very elaborate exploitation of the scientific 
well as practical methods of successful angling. It 
was not an opportune occasion for inaugurating a 
kindergarten, but the array of past masters in the art, 
to whom he was addressing his theories, listened 
courteously but without audible comment, and all un- 
consciously, with the usual results when “Fools rush in, 
etc.,” he got into very deep water, tangled up, so to 
speak, in his own tackle. It is hardly necessary to say 
that in the next half hour he succeeded in thoroughly 
convincing his listeners that he “knew an awful lot of 
things that weren’t so,” and the display of his rod and 
tackle outfit when he started out next morning dissi- 
pated any lingering doubt on the subject that might 
have weathered the night. 
If his pretensions had been characterized by_ even a 
trace of modesty, or toleration for others’ opinion, 1 
think he would have readily been forgiven his absurdi- 
ties of theory; but his unbounded conceit was repelling 
to any attempt at well intended suggestion, c9nsequently 
no one offered advice relative to his projected pro- 
gramme for the day. Well, to accord him simple 
justice, perhaps he did not need it. However that may 
be, he came back to camp four or five hours later with 
a magnificent 8-pound salmon and three smaller fish, 
one a 5^-pbund trout. It was evidently a legitimate 
capture and accomplished, ^as was subsequently known, 
within the observation of the occupants of another boat 
who were trolling over the same water, and, except in 
handling the boat and net, his guide had no part in it. 
The astonishment and chagrin of the P. M.s aforesaid 
was really pathetic. Their facial expression was very 
eloquent of their thoughts. The loss of prestige as 
authorities on the art piscatorial, with the ruthless an- 
nihilation of their pet dogmas, was humiliating and un- 
bearable, and must be regained by an effort heroic, 
otherwise, as the irate Queen of the Gods soliloquized 
in an equally trying situation, ‘Tf my purpose now 
falters, who .henceforth will supplicate Juno, or bow at 
her altars.” 
The N. H., however, was wonderfully self-possessed. 
He exhibited but very pardonable and moderate en- 
thusiasm, and still less of braggadocio, received the 
congratulations of the lesser lights with a rather well- 
assumed air of conscious merit, announced that he had 
accomplished his purpose satisfactorily, should return 
tO' New York immediately, and departed, as he had 
co-me, by the afternoon steamer that day, having been 
in camp just twenty-four hours. At the evening sym- 
posium, the rechaufement of this incident was the one 
topic, naturally, and the resultant consensus of opinion 
of professors and laymen alike, might have been en- 
tered on the records as a general proposition to which 
all could subscribe, thus: 
Any novice may possibly rise and hook a salmon 
(and it’s the proverbial luck of tyros to fasten on to 
the big ones) ; but the handling, fair killing and capture 
of a powerful fish, whether with light or heavy rods, 
is never a matter of chance or accident (trust the wiles 
and vagaries of a big salmon to avert that climax), but 
of patient, experienced skillful method. I have a well 
grounded suspicion that the N. H. was masquerading. 
If I am correct in that, his portrayal of an assumed 
character was sublime. 
But to get back to that fish I left laid out bn the 
grass. For two or three days after this incident it was 
very uncomfortable weather. The wind was easterly 
and northerly most of the time and it was cold, wet 
and dispiriting. The few of us who ventured to leave 
the cosiness of the fire, didn’t desert it for long at a 
time, and very few fish were taken. 
On the third day, as we returned from the lake, I 
said to my guide: “I’m infernally tired of lying about 
camp so much, and to-morrow we’ll put in the whole 
day, whatever the weather, go up to Mill Brook and 
try the trolling about the head of the lake. Have a 
luncheon put up and we’ll .start breakfast.” 
By 6:30 next morning we got off. ' The sky had 
cleared, but it was cold and the wind northwest. With 
the gates up at the dam for five successive days, such a 
volume of water had come down river that the pitch 
of the Upper Richardson Lake was fully six feet above 
its usual level. This rise of water had floated old logs, 
windfalls, dead timber and the indescribable debris that 
line the shores of a lake in a densely wooded country, 
and the east wind of the preceding days had driven it 
far out into the lake and well clear of the usual fishing 
grounds. The change of wind into the northwest was 
now driving it all back, and it would interfere seriously 
with the trolling, unless we struck directly across the 
lake and worked the windward shore. 
This plan w^as open to two objections — it would take 
us five miles out of our direct course to Mill Brook, 
a,nd if we crossed we should eventually have to re- 
cross probably in a heavy wind, if it should come on 
to blow as hard as it seemed to promise at that time. 
So to avoid unnecessary risks I decided to hug the 
leeward shore, trusting we should reach the head of 
the lake and shelter, before the wind increased. 
As far as we could see up the lake, the water was 
littered with great patches of the floating driftwood 
that was rapidly breaking up and singling out for our 
entertainment a little later. It was anything but pleas- 
ant attempting to troll in that tangle, but by dodging 
and cutting corners we got over about three miles of 
the course without having my tackle hung up more than 
twenty times with -the necessity of backing up to free it. 
I had not struck a fish thus far and the prospect, with the 
ever-increasing wind and snags, was dismal. 
We had been running about fifty feet off shore and a 
little quartering to the eye of the wind, whose force 
was so strong that Twitchell had quite enough to do 
to keep us off the rocks, and the seas dashing against 
the sides of the boat were drenching us with spray. It 
had grown somewhat warmer as the day advance^ but 
the wind was chilly and the water decidedly cold, and 
everything considered, the weather conditions were not 
exactly ideal. 
This, however, did not annoy us unduly, but the 
snags did. We were on excellent fishing ground that 
had not been visited much of late, and that should ordi- 
narily have afforded good sport. 
The disappointment of encountering such a bar to 
success as these derelicts offered, did not diminish as 
my allowance of patience ran out, but I kept on trolling 
and fighting the driftwood while Twitchell fought the 
wind and sea. Twitchell is not an athlete of celebrity, 
is a little undersized, but muscular and wiry, particu- 
