236 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
the. trout : “Their bodies are adorned with such red spots 
as give them such an additional natural beauty as I think 
was never given to any woman by the artificial paints and 
patches in which they so much pride themselves in this 
age. * =>< * Trust me, scholar, I have caught many a 
trout in a particular meadow, that the very shape and the 
enameld color of him hath Ijeen such as hath joyed me 
to look on him, and I have then with much pleasure con- 
cluded with Solomon, ‘everything is beautiful in his sea- 
son.’ ” 
It is to be expected that a man with so much artistic 
feeling had great appreciation of music and poetry. Song 
is one of the chief enjoyments of “The Compleat Angler,” 
and its pages overflow with the quaint and beautiful verse 
of Herrick, Marlowe, Raleigh, Bonn, Davison, Dra3flon 
and Wotton, some of these poets whose lines would never 
be known to us to-day had they not been preserved in 
the amber of Izaak Walton’s classic book. 
Through the dust of changing centuries there has 
trickled dowm to us a brook of purest water — sometimes 
meandering and doubling itself in green meadows and 
sometimes dashing over rocks and plunging over falls. 
From this brook many a weary soul has quaffed a refresh- 
ing drink, and has paused to hear the throstle sing, and 
see the graceful creatures that people it. It is a brook 
that has gained as the years went on, and has lost none 
of its waters or its freshness. It is the brook on whose 
banks wanders a man whom we lovingly call old Izaak 
Walton— old because he is eternally young, and always a 
happy and delightful companion. 
Where Anadromous Fishes Winter, 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The question has been put to me by parties engaged in 
the tedious sea trout controversy (which seems to have 
been happily shifted from Forest and Stream to other 
publications) as to whether these much disputed fish, the 
sea trout, do not in part winter at sea while another part 
admittedly remain in the rivers, as salmon are known 
to do. 
Now, it occurs to me that a general statement which 
wdll cover the known movements of several species of 
migratory and anadromous fishes will help most decid- 
edly to settle this mooted point. To begin with, we know 
for instance, that in the distribution of marine fish fauna 
a great many species are found south of Cape Hatteras 
which are seldom seen north of it. The same may be 
said of the ichthye representation between Cape Hatteras 
and Cape Cod, and between Cape Cod and the Bay of 
Fund}^ while in the higher latitudes the number of 
species is restricted to comparatively few types, of which 
the Salmonidce are the most abundantly represented. Now, 
these various species, wherever found, as soon as their 
seasonal migrations begin, are first seen in the lower lati- 
tudes. The shad, for example, first appears in Florida 
waters, sometimes as early as Jan. i ; then in the 
Savannah River, then in the Cape Fear, then in the 
tributaries of the Chesapeake, then in the Delaware, 
Hudson. Flousatonic, Connecticut, Merrimac, and so on 
up to St. John, N. B. Striped bass show up in like man- 
ner, moving northward, and meeting a run of yearlings 
wdiich have spent the winters in the rivers; in the Hud- 
son River as early as February. 
Bluefish begin to appear in the w'aters between Cape 
Hatteras and Long Island Sound in mid-summer, and in 
July, when shrimp are running, they meet the yearlings, 
locally known as snapping mackerel, coming out of the 
Quinnipiac at New Haven. Weakfish begin to appear in 
North Carolina waters in December (they have been 
caught all through the fall months in the warmer waters 
further south), and by June they are at New Haven, after 
having successively passed the Virginia Capes and New 
Jerse.y coast. Likewise we have the seasonal movements 
of the menhaden, Spanish mackerel, tunas, etc. They all 
come in from the sea first at points below Hatteras, and 
afterward at points north of it successively up to the 
.Maine coast. 
The question would be, where have these fish wintered? 
All fish breeders know by experience how essential 
w'armth is to fecundity, and the fish know it by instinct. 
With the Gulf Stream convenient, is it not reasonable 
to suppose that all these migratory and anadromous fishes 
resort, to it for its agreeable temperature and abundant 
food? It is not onl}’^ a logical hypothesis, but it has been 
sufficiently proven by the presence upon its deep blue sur- 
face of multitudes of fishes of various species which have 
been seen foraging among the beds- of seaweed which 
accumulate in the lateral eddy that sets back along the 
edge of the current. These marine algae carry a great 
variety of minute Crustacea and other forms, and spars 
covered with barnacles are often seen among the drift. 
On one occasion, on a voyage from Halifax to Bermuda, 
a lot of sea bass were noticed which had been tempted 
from the depths below. 
Coming now to .salmon, whose habitat is hyperborean, 
we find that the}'- first appear in the rivers of Maine and 
Nova Scotia while the fluvial ice is yet running; then 
gradually working up the north shore of New Brunswick 
to the Bay Chaleur and onward, finally appear in the rivers 
of the lower St. Lawrence in June. Following these are 
the sea trout, known commercially as such from earliest 
date, and close imitators of the salmon movements, com- 
mencing wdth the “strawberry run” (or when strawberries 
blossom) on the southeastern coast of Nova Scotia and 
moving northward as the season advances until they reach 
the Belle Isle .Strait, detachments dropping off as the 
main body advances, into the numerous rivers along the 
coast, and, like the salmon, shad, bluefish, rockfish and 
other species, encountering a considerable quota of their 
kind, most of them lean, spent, and ill-favored, which 
have wintered under the ice in the rivers after spawning. 
Dp not these fresh-run sea trout likewise come in from 
the sea? or, to be more predfse, from the nurturing -Gulf 
Stream w'hefe their congeners have quartered? Is there 
any negative? 
Mc'm.: It is a wise provision of nature that fish” food 
should not be all in one place at the same time. Boreal 
residents require subsistence as well as those under the 
tropics. The great ichthy armies are divided and appor- 
tioned so as to provide all the inhabitants of the globfe 
with a modicum of provender, and this explains the 
“"Fyness of the what” more 'nearly probably than ^an 
ehstruse scientific paraphrase. CBA8WES HAixocid 
The Gang Hook. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
A gentleman w'rites in the following terms regarding 
the practice of using a gang or a number of gangs in 
connection with angling lures;- “During the past five 
years I have noticed a large increase in the number of 
kinds of lures placed on the market, for the capture ot 
game fish. .Most of them have gangs of hooks on them 
numbering from nine to fifteen hooks. These lures arc 
largely sold to a class of people who go out to see how 
many fish they can catch and then boast of it. Anyone 
who can drag a hand line through the water can catch 
fish with these infernal contraptions. I would rather be 
found derd .at a dog fight than to be caught with one of 
thpe 'ban-' li ay possession.” 
The praciice of using gang hooks seems to have origi- 
nated in England and to have come from that country to 
this. Indeed, I have often found cause for wonderment, 
in perusing the English angling, papers, at the seemingly 
Utter unscrupulousness of the angler of that country as 
to means of catching his quarry. It seems to me that the 
angling tackle of old England is brutal, domineering and 
overbearing. The angler uses, commonly, an extremely 
heavy rod, it being his evident purpose to get fish at any 
cost and to give the fish as little show as possible. One 
frequently reads stories of an angler going out and using 
the fly, worm, live minnow and spinner with gangs, on a 
day’s fishing for trout, each lure being used when it seems 
to be most effective. Some of the English gang baits which 
are advertised are certainly ferocious looking things, 
and I may say that the whole tenor of sport as practiced 
in Great Britain seems to be one in which the animal 
pursued is given as little chance as possible. 
The English idea of sport is one of results, of big bags, 
of large counts, and everything seems to be bent to that 
end both in fishing and in shooting, as witness the slaugh- 
ter of game birds on the English shooting preserves. 
Englishmen who come to this country very often bring 
with them at first this same spirit for unrestricted slaugh- 
ter at any cost and by any means. It takes them a time 
to get used to the new American idea of sportsmanship, 
which concerns, itself with moderate bags and with what 
we call sportsmanlike tools. We do not care to use punt 
guns in duck shooting, i6-ounce rods in trout fishing, or 
8, i6 or 24 hooks in a bass or pike bait. 
Yet, in fact these deadly looking contrivances are not 
so popular as they would seem. Many of our best bass 
fishers in, this country use a single hook below the spoon. 
Many of our best trout fishermen would scorn to use a 
spoon-hook under any consideration, and many go yet 
farther and will not employ bait at all, no matter what 
the conditions, confining themselves to the . use of the 
artificial fly and the employment of a rod suited to the 
weight and power of the fish pursued. 
There is another side to the gang hook question, which 
robs it of much of its sting. Maskinonge, pike and bass 
live, in this part of the country, very largely in waters 
too weedy for the successful use of a flying gang of 
hooks. The man who sticks to a spoon with a single 
hook will fis.h more comfortably and perhaps kill more 
fish, if it comes to that, than the one who greedily wants 
to get hold of everything which comes within sight. As 
a matter of fact, a single hook spoon, baited with frog 
or pork rind, is far more nearly weedless, and about as 
deadly, as the terrible gang, and it is a much sweeter 
thing to fish. Under the circumstances, you cannot blame 
the tackle dealer for selling these many-barbed contriv- 
ances, for the people will not after all do so much de- 
struction with them. And, moreover, they want them, or 
think they want them. 
(A friend who has seen the above begs leave to dis- 
agree with certain of the statements therein. He says 
that, in his opinion, it is fay more sportsmanlike to use 
live bait than to use the artificial lure of any sort, and 
more humane as well. If you catch a fish on a fly or 
spoon, the poor creature gets no run for its money at all, 
says he. Now if you catch him on a worm or a minnow, 
he at least can chew on that while you are playing him 
and until he gets out on the bank. If you are going to 
kill the fish anyhow, at least give him some comfort and 
consolation in his last moments. They do that much for 
a fellow when they are going to hang him.) 
THe Vermont Six-Inch Law. 
Sheldon, Vt., Sept. i. — Editor Forest and Stream: The 
trout season, which has now become a thing of the past, 
\yas on the- whole a very satisfactory one. The long con- 
tinued rains kept the waters well up in the brooks, which 
caused the fish to run up from the larger streams. The 
trout here in northwestern Vermont average small, not 
over one in five run the legal length, six inches. It is 
quite evident that to protect these fish one of two things 
must be done, either pass a law compelling the fisher- 
men to use needle-pointed hooks, so that the small trout 
could be easily removed from the Jiook, or make a law 
giving the county wardens under the supervision of the 
commissioner the power of leasing for a nominal sum 
from the owners of the lands about the head waters and 
tributaries of our streams the fishing rights on these 
streams, then stock and close these streams against all 
fishing. If a person is found near these streams wdth any 
kind of fishing tackle arrest him as a violator of the law; 
then make the waters of the main streams open waters 
and do away with the six-inch law. As it now stands, it 
is making- violators of the protective trout law, for forty- 
nine out of every fifty trout fishers, when they have seen 
that it was alm.ost an impossibility to take a small trout 
off a bearded hook without either killing it outright or 
so injuring! it that it would soon die, have counted the 
fish in with the larger ones. At first they did so wdth 
fear .and^ tfembling, but. they soon became calloused and 
would take .these small fish without any reproach of con- 
science., . iThen it is but one step on to begin to shoot 
ga‘me birds during the close season, and then on to larger 
game,’ deer without horns, etc; 
In the backwoods in this section of the State it is al- 
most impossible for a game warden to catch these trout 
fishers, and in fact most of the w^ardens have given up 
trying to catch them, while they are sharp after the viola- 
tors of the game laws. 
Among those who own land about the headwaters of 
pur trout streanis there are but a very few who would 
[Sept. 16, 1905. 
not -gladly for a mere nominal sum give the State a longs 
lease of the fishing rights on their properties. Now, asj 
the law stands, the six-inch trout law is the most un-^ 
popular law on our statute books, and consequently the 
hardest to enforce. 
Ihe trout season for brook fishing closed Aug. i, or 
rather July 31. and now that the open season is closed 
for pond and lake trout fishing, wm must put away our. 
tackle or use it on coarser fish. Stanstead. 
Courtesies of Salmon Fishing. 
H. M. S, Ringdove. .St. Johns, N. F., Sept. 4. — Editor : 
Forest and Stream: My attention has been drawn to an! 
article in your issue of Aug. 19, signed by Mr. A. St. J. 
Newdierry, and, at the desire of my captain, I beg you to 
insert my reply to it. Mr. Newberry in his article, casts ' 
a .slur on the courtesy of English officers and gentlemen, ‘ 
I wish, for the credit of British naval officers to state the 
tacts of the case in question. 
My captain pitched his camp near the mouth of a river ' 
111 Newfoundland. On the same day he met Mr. New'- 
berry. who had his camp some distance up river. The 
captain not onjy invited Mr. Newberry to fish the pool 
near his camp, but lent him a rod to do so. 
Next day I joined the captain, who informed me that 
there was an American gentleman camped up river, and I . 
started fishing up stream with the idea of paying a visit, 
and talking over the season’s fishing. While in the act 
of landing a fish, Mr. Newberry approached me very 
angrily, and asked me if I considered it fair to fish on his . 
water. When he added that my friend (the captain) had 
agreed to keep below a certain mark, while he kept above, 
1 at once apologized and retired. When I discussed this ‘ 
matter with the captain he informed me that he had made 
no such agreement as Mr. Newberry had mentioned. 
' As to the “cap-sheaf” mentioned in the article under 
discussion, we are clearly not responsible for that, as our 
camp was struck the next morning after my meeting with 
Mr. Newberry. 1 
Now, I deny that anybody establishes a right to the 
.fishing of a whole river by simply -camping upon it. And 
I consider that Mr. Newberry has made a very unfair ^ 
attack upon us, who treated him with the greatest cour- 
tesy, and, as I hoped, parted with him on good terms. I ' 
inclose my card, and beg to remain, 
A. British Naval Officer. 
Salmon on Lake St. John. 
Mr. H. J. Beemer, the well known contractor, who 
built the railway to Lake St. John, and who is the pro- 
prietor of the beautiful summer hotel at Roberval, has 
had the enterprise to establish at his own expense, 
a fish hatchery near that point, similar to the 
Government hatchery at Tadousac. From this hatch- 
ery during the last seven years he has sent out no less 
than 2,625,000 young ouananiche and 1,275,000 sea salmon. 
This year the fruits of this enterprising experiment have 
commenced to make themse'ves apparent, and a few days 
ago a ma.gnificent sea salmon weighing 18 pounds was 
caught in the River Peribonca and another weighing 15 
pounds in Lake St, John. The fame of this will soon 
spread, and the opportunity of catching salmon in a fresh 
water lake will prove an attraction without precedent, 
which will bring to Lake St. John thousands of fishermen 
from all over the world. This will mean a great deal of 
money brought into the Province, because the expenditure 
of sportsmen and the earnings of the army of guides to 
whom the\' give employment are proverbial. It seems 
hardly credible, but we believe it to be true, that while a 
private individual is thus carrying out at his own ex- 
pense an experiment of a kind usually undertaken by a 
Government, which bids fair to be of inestimable value to 
the Province, the Government itself has been giving net- 
ting licenses to catch these fish and thus enabling a hand- 
ful of short-sighted people to undo all the good which 
the hatchery is doing. However, if we may judge from 
the utterances of the new Minister in charge of this de- 
partment, Mr. Prevost, this ill-advised policy will now^ 
cease, and fishing will be restricted to ordinary and legal 
methods. If Mr. Beemer’s hatchery enterprise results in 
the stocking of Lake St. John with sea salmon, it will at- 
tract sportsmen in thousands who will spend unlimited 
money in the district. — Quebec Chronicle. 
Hair Lines. 
Mo-tsTTREAL, Can., Sept, i.- — Editor Forest and Stream: 
Among the numerous fish lines used by the grand army 
of the N. O. F.’s (Noble Order of Fishermen) there is 
one that is at presen); unfashionable and which in these 
times of constant changes in the fashions simply amounts 
to a crime. The hair-line, well made, washed and 
stretched, is 'equal to any in the market. Not by any 
means as strong as that excellent line the Cuttyhunk; it 
possesses the advantage of stretching when wet, virtually 
becoming a rubber string, relieving the strain of the tip 
of- the rod. It also has the advantage of never rotting. 
These lines have been in use for generations on the sea 
coasts of Great Britain and other parts of the world. It 
is a popular superstition that the hair of a mare’s tail is 
inferior to that of the horse. This is quite true, owing 
to the fact that the horse hair is- round, while that of the 
mare is flat. Another argument in the favor of this 
ancient line is the freedom with which it runs through 
the guides. 
The interesting essay on silk woven gut, published in 
yo.ur columns lately, and of w'hich I have made crude 
samples in my younger days, also reminds me that horse 
hair makes most admirable leaders made in five or ten 
feet, wdthout a knot and a loop at each end. Black hair 
alone is tabooed, but white hair wjth a strand or two of 
black makes the line or leader - invisible in the water. 
There is no glitter on a hair leader, which is a fault on 
the polished gut as used. Chestnut and white hair makes 
an exceedingly pretty line, and I used one for seven years, 
captured many a lordly small-mouth black bass, and best 
of all, the line is as good as the day it was made. 
Blenkhorn, ■ 
THE MANY-USE OIL 
It polishes and preserves gtock. Parrel add Cas^.'-A^V.^ 
