February, 1920 
FOREST AND STREAM 
77 
a gem of the first water, deep, clear as 
crystal, with hundreds of rocky spruce- 
clad islets, and lake trout running by 
actual testing to 32 pounds in weight, and 
by report to 80 pounds at least. After 
this you may go north, or east, or west 
for hundreds of miles with but few car- 
ries or up-stream polings. 
During the few weeks I was in the 
country I saw but five moose, and it is 
evident the timber wolves, of which there 
are many, play havoc with the cows and 
calves ; the number killed by hunters 
would not account for the scarcity. Cari- 
bou were absent, though in winter they 
are often there by the thousands, having 
drifted down from the frozen north. An- 
other winter visitant is the willow grouse, 
which is snared in large numbers by the 
Indian boys at Cumberland House, using 
old sturgeon nets as traps. The birds 
are said to be exceedingly tame and easily 
driven into the nets. 
On Goose Lake we saw numerous Cana- 
da geese, and as I was coming out I saw 
something I had not expected; a migra- 
tion of Mergansers. These fish-eaters 
are never seen in large flocks during the 
summer, perhaps a pair of old ones and a 
dozen of so of their young in a bunch, to- 
ward the end of the summer, but rarely 
more. I saw them in flocks of hundreds, 
gathered together from all the rivers of 
the northern part of Manitoba, flying 
round the lake preparatory to their mi- 
gration. Two days later the cold came 
and they must have left. The geese, as is 
well known, do not drop into any sheet 
of water, but have their regular halting 
places, and of these Goose Lake is one. 
Just before leaving for this trip I had 
finished for the third time Colonel Whal- 
en’s admirable book on the rifle, i do not 
see how any sportsman’s library can do 
without it, and he deserves a lot of credit 
for giving us this really trustworthy 
work, but I cannot quite agree with his 
remarks on hunting weapons. I am a 
30-30 man, dyed-in-the-wool. Why? Be- 
cause I find it does the business and has 
many advantages. I own several rifles, 
one a .405, another an 8-mm, and so on, 
but my favorite and the one I would keep 
were I tied down to just a single rifle 
would undoubtedly be the 30-30 in car- 
bine form. It will kill moose with one 
shot if that one shot is well placed and 
will usually put a bullet pretty near the 
place you want it to go, at 50 to 120 
yards, and it is rarely necessary to fire at 
any longer range. The two rifles that 
kill 99 per cent, of the moose, caribou and 
bear of the forested regions of Canada 
are the .44 and the 30-30. 
Then, again, I do not find any difficulty 
with the .22 long rifle for chicken or part- 
ridge. Certainly with a hollow fronted 
bullet, the .22 long rifle should satisfy any 
man. Other bores I regard as quite un- 
desirable on account of their effect upon 
the game ; however, these are matters of 
experience and opinion. Each must de- 
cide for himself. 
In regard to cleaning a rifle, if a man 
confines his shooting to big game, letting 
stumps, tins, and empty bottles alone, I 
do not think he will be troubled with 
much metallic or acid fouling if he ad- 
ministers a generous dose of soap after 
using his rifle, and then treats it to a 
coating of the purest vaseline he can lay 
his hands on. 
Charles A. Bramble, 
Winnipeg, Manitoba. 
TARPON FISHING IN THE 
ST. JOHNS RIVER 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream: 
jl HAD always prided myself as a 
*■ fisherman and thought I had expe- 
rienced all the thrills of fishing. I had 
fished for perch and bream in the little 
streams and mill ponds as a small boy; 
I had sat on the river banks with my 
grandfather on freezing days and caught 
suckers; I had killed pike with a bow 
and arrow along mill streams as a bare- 
foot boy in South Carolina; I had rowed 
a boat at nights and seen experts gig or 
spear fish in some of Florida’s streams 
that were too clear to catch fish with a 
hook and line and as I grew older I had 
considered it great sport to catch War- 
mouth perch and bream in some of our 
lakes and bobbing with a Buell spinner 
'We* 
The end of a royal battle 
for J ack and black bass I thought was 
the acme of sports and I have not lost 
my taste for these yet, although I cast 
for them now. 
I have fished in the Gulf of Mexico 
and off the mouth of the St. John’s River 
for salt water fish, so I thought I was 
some fisherman. 
So when Ed Spear came in and said 
that a minister had discovered tarpon 
in large schools in our river only eight 
miles from our city I naturally sat up 
and took notice. Now Ed had caught 
tarpon all along the Atlantic coast of 
Florida and all around the Gulf from 
Key West to Jamaica and when he in- 
vited me to go with him next day, I 
hardly slept that night, so anxious was 
I to get after them. Ed had two tarpon 
rigs which consisted of a twelve ounce 
tip greenheart or lancewood rod, a three 
hundred yard Vam Hoff Reel with a 
twenty-one Cuddy-hunk line. 
We used a Wilson oo spoon for trawl- 
ing with a six-foot piano wire lead, or 
a hand forged hook for casting, or still- 
fishing; for this we used a shiner for 
casting or a small mullet for still-fishing. 
We got to the fishing grounds about day 
break and were at it before sun up. 
The river was alive with tarpon rolling 
everywhere. We usually fish on the in- 
coming tide or the high-water slack. We 
were still-fishing that morning and Ed 
fixed my bait, threw out my hook and 
handed it to me before fixing his own. 
I did not have long to wait before I 
realized my line was playing out, but I 
was wholly unprepared for the sudden 
whr-r-r-r of my reel. Ed shouted to me 
to set my hook. I did so and was nearly 
jerked out of the boat by the pull on 
my line when there flashed out of the 
water the most beautiful fish I ever saw. 
Ed reeled in his line and instructed me 
to keep a tight line. I did so and my 
beauty went down to the bottom to 
sulk while I stood there trembling with 
excitement, not knowing what to expect 
next. Ed yelled to pump him which was 
a new term to me. He explained it was 
to pull up on my rod and reel in as I 
lowered the tip of my rod. 
I did so and again my beauty came to 
the top and jumped about fifteen feet 
in the air. The sun had gotten up by 
now and I realized why the tarpon is 
called the Silver King; polished silver 
will not glisten more in the sun than a 
tarpon. He shook his head like a bull 
dog, and woe to the man who gives the 
least slack line when he jumps for he 
will be gone. Fortunately I had him 
well hooked and kept my line taunt and 
tried to carry out instructions as Ed 
shouted them to me. I pulled as Mr. 
Tarpon was in the air and with a slap 
that would knock the breath out of any 
thing he hit the water broadside. Down 
he went to the bottom, I pumped him 
again and he broke for a run, straight 
away. “Put on your drag,” yelled Ed. 
On went the drag. “Press on your 
brakes.” Down went the brake and Mr. 
Tarpon’s speed was checked just before 
all my line was gone. Then he swerved 
and circled and I began to reel in. 
Ed hauled up the anchor and began to 
row me toward my reluctant victim. 
When I had him up to about ten yards 
he glimpsed the boat and away he went 
again, the handle on the reel knocking 
about half an acre of skin off my 
knuckles. I bore down on the brake and 
checked him, up and out he came for an- 
other jump. I was getting pretty badly 
fagged out but kept a taunt line and 
gave him an awful wallop when he 
struck the water and he began to bleed 
from the gills. Ed yelled to me to keep 
it up, and made lots of encouraging re- 
marks and I soon began to need all the 
encouragement he could give. I even 
asked him if he did not want to play 
him some, but Ed was too old a fisher- 
man to fall for that and instructed me 
to hang on. I did and after forty-five 
minutes, according to Ed, but I am sure 
it was two or three hours, I had him 
belly up and alongside of the boat and 
Ed yanked him in with the gaff. Now it 
seemed we were to have more trouble 
for he nearly knocked the boat to pieces 
with his tail but we slipped him under a 
seat so he could not flap so hard and I 
was a tired but happy fellow. He 
weighed one hundred and thirty pounds 
and was just six feet three inches long. 
