112 FOREST AND STREAM March, 1922 ' 
THE HOODOO OF FRENCH RIVER; 
i 
HOW A MIGHTY MUSCALLUNGE KEPT TWO FISHERMEN BUSY i 
TRYING TO THINK UP NEW SCHEMES FOR HIS CAPTURE [ 
Bv DR. THOMAS TRAVIS \ 
T he Ti^er is a great, green-eyed ter 
ror of a fighting muscallnnge that 
kept me on the hard trail of the 
wilderness for over a month, and 
nearly sent two of us over the foaming 
rim-rapids of the Cireat Di\ide. He is 
the Hoodoo of French River. 
Of course you will laugh — every man 
with a keen mind laughs when one talks 
of hoodoos; at least nearly every man. 
But just the same, isn't there something 
in this hoodoo business, after all? 
I know a keen hunter and good shot. 
I’ve seen him more than once make a 
hundred per cent, record on duck, on 
woodcock and even on the ruffed grouse. 
Yet he simply can’t hit a pheasant. 
. . . That is to say, he can, once in a 
great while, but always there is some 
sorry episode tagged on to his rare hits. 
Another of my chums has a hoodoo on 
hear. Every other kind of big game 
comes right to his bag. But bear? Only 
tracks. 
Still another of my outdoor chums is 
hoodooed on tarpon. He gets big bags 
of about eA'ery fish Florida holds. He 
hooks tarpon after tarpon. One night 
T was with him when he ran down and 
killed a huge one with his motor boat, 
at night. But whenever he hooks a real 
tarpon, something happens — the line 
parts, the hook fouls, a shark gets it, 
or — with a swirl of foam and spray the 
Silver King just shakes his massive jaw 
and spits out the hook. Not yet has this 
man caught a real tarpon. 
Each of these men smile as you smile, 
hut underneath the smile I have seen a 
look of bewilderment at times, when the 
hoodoo gets up at clear and deadly 
range, and with a .grunt, whirr of wings 
or mighty splash as the case may he, 
midst the ‘‘hlim, blam, wow, wow of 
eager gun, goes merrily on without leav- 
ing either feather, or fin, tmy drop of 
blood, or fuzz of fur on the trail. But 
let me tell you about the Tiger and the 
Hoodoo of French River. 
know the French River? It’s a 
deep, clear green, lazy river that 
rolls from the East into Georgian Bay; 
also it is a little quiet railway station 
and charmin,g villa, ge of six cabins, of 
the C. P. R. located on the river of the 
French, about nine eas}" hours by train 
north of Toronto. The river curls lazily 
between great rocks and gorges, pine- 
and-spruce-clad. It swells out into lovely 
lakes. It twists quietly around windy 
headlands of bald rock. It foams over 
white-toothed rapids, it turns nurnle and 
black under weird storm clouds, and 
turns to pale fury under the lashing of 
a swift gale. It lies there smiling and 
alluring, chuckling to itself in tinkling 
laughter under a warm sun, and kissed 
by the fragrant lips of the balsam. 
My first real sight of it was at the 
We took the trail by canoe 
rapids just below the village. An old, 
gray-haired man was whooping like a 
child at a circus. He had a twenty-five 
pound muscallunge fast on a little bass 
hook and was yelling for help. After 
an hour’s fight he landed his fish, and 
as it broke through the swirl of the 
rapids, heaving up and up above the 
white foam, shakin.g red-gilled head and 
spike-filled maw in fury, 1 got the A'ision 
that sent me on the trail of the Hoodoo 
and the Tiger. 
"^HE next morning I was out at day- 
light after the mate of the lunge. 
But being alone I could not handle rap- 
ids and tackle too, so fished in a quiet, 
grass-filled bay." Great thunder clouds 
rolled up, and rain came down in tor- 
rents. Hour after hour I fished, pulling 
in great pike till I had fifteen of them 
the smallest three and the biggest twelve 
pounds . . . but not a lunge in the lot. 
Hardly had I landed, tired and happy 
at my camp on- the French, when a jolly 
Canuck hailed the fire, and lifted a big 
gray-blue warrior lunge, just to show 
me . . . caught right in the bay where 
I had fished all day! Hoodoo? Oh, not 
yet — only fisherman’s luck. 
The next day I was out again, and the 
next and the next — from dawn to dark; 
happy days by swirl and backwater, on 
rapid’s edge and in silent coves. Rich 
trove of bass and pike I got each day, 
and gave to the eager friends about,- but 
still no lunge. 
Then Joe came along with his smile 
and his good cheer, Joe Lavoisier, the 
.guide of the French. Could Joe show 
me a real musky ? He could — he most 
certainly could. And he did, but catch- 
ing him was another story. 
We took the trail, the far trail to 
Gordon’s Bay, by canoe, and day after 
day we drifted over the green water, or 
toiled up grim rapids, camping at night 
at the edge of the forest. 
Deer were plentiful in the ruddy coat 
of summer, usually does with two fawns 
apiece. Loons raised their shrill cry as 
we stole along. Savage bass struck and 
fought gamely till we had more than we 
could use. Porcupines were plentiful. 1 
One we played witli and talked to, herd- ; 
ing him down to the Ijeach to takfe his j 
photo in the sun — and we paid for it, 
too, at least Joe did, with a dozen quills f 
neatly and efficiently stuck half-inch i 
deep in his palm. i 
One day we ran into a lot of duck, i 
another day we found grouse, tame al- | 
most as chickens, in that quiet wilder- 
ness. Again we ran into a loon conven- , 
tion, a dozen of them, apparently all | 
young cocks, holdin.g some sort of meet- 
ing, perhaps a fish com-ention, and hold- i 
ing it with hilarious bachelor’s noise. I 
And that day, after toiling up rapid after j 
rapid, we saw the Tiger. ■ 
TPIST where the ri\-er breaks into rap- ^ 
ids on the west end of the bay, by the j 
so-called canal, where five weary por- | 
tages have to he made, we saw him lying j 
there, serenely sucking in the sweet, cool j 
water, and dreaming his dream, an | 
eighty - pound tiger muscallunge, gray- | 
green, red-gilled with his huge jaw un- 
dershot till we could see one or two of j- 
the great spike teeth protruding. 
We had seen others before t’nis, a ; 
twenty-two pounder, caught neatly; a ! 
ten-pounder that took the little copper i 
spoon and shot up in the air at the 
strike, but this — we had seen nothing : 
like this in all our trip. j 
We had speared at night wdth flash- ji 
light and prong, seen huge sturgeon 
lazily swirl away from the light; seen 
packed masses of bass in the tunnel of 
green light poured over the canoe side 
by the lamp ; seen huge pike and little 
ones lurking for their prey. But noth- 
ing like this. Wq could see him clearly, ij 
every scale and mark and .detail, sixty- 
two inches long we made him by careful 
eye measurement as he lay there on the j 
surface. We could have speared him or 
shot him without doubt, for there lay 
spear and pistol at hand, but we wanted i 
to catch the tiger right and so we qui- = 
etly drifted back and held a council of ' 
war. 
We tried first the big muscallunge i 
spoon bought at a famous sporting goods 
house in New York. Oh, so lurin.gly we ; 
cast it and trolled it along. Not the ; 
slightest notice did he take of it. We | 
put on plugs, red-dotted and wobbling 
like a golliwog. Surely they would ; 
make him sit up and take notice. But j 
not a ripple or a movement did he make. l! 
“Funny, ain’t it,’’ said Joe with a grin. .| 
But it did not appeal to me as comical, ' 
as we toiled at paddle, silently circling 1| 
the blue-gray ghost. j 
“Try my lucky spoon,” said Joe again i 
after we had circled and circled in vain. || 
And indeed it seemed a good hunch, for i| 
Joe’s four-inch soft copper spoon, fish- J 
bitten, featherless, disreputable, had | 
brought us more strikes than any bait j 
