June 3, 1893] 
THE FISHING GAZETTE 
409 
.AfORE FISHERY NOTES FROM 
OHJCAOO. 
(Extracts from “ Red Spinner's ” article in the 
Field, May 27.) 
“It is claimed here that the inventor of the 
process of making split bamboo rods in lengths 
was Samuel Phillippe of Easton, Pennsylvania. 
Dr. Hen.shall spent many months in tracing back 
the history of the process, aTid so decides, though 
he admits that Aldred of London was the fir.st to 
join short pieces together, generally in three 
sections. A portrait of old Phillippe hangs in 
pie angling annexe of the Fisheries Building, and 
it is that of a strong, clear-headed man in the 
advanced years of his life, and with a decidedly 
ieutonic cast of countenance. He was a gun¬ 
smith, but a man of all-round mechanical 
ingenuity, and withal a noted angler, who, in the 
sea.son, set apart every Saturday religiously for 
hshing the trout streams of his neighbourhood. 
The leisure hours of his evenings he employed in 
the manufacture of rods and reels, and violins. 
He was born on Izaak Walton’s birthday 1801, 
died about twenty years ago, and made the first 
coinplete split cane rod joint in six sections about 
1815. One of his latest productions is an exhibit, 
lent by his son, to whom he bequeathed it. It is 
elaborately mounted in solid silver, and was no 
doubt the old man’s chef d'oeuvre. The butt is 
beautifully carved by his own hand ; the work is 
a copy of one of the illustrations in Oenio Scott’s 
now almost forgotten work on American angling. 
It depicts a fly-fisher with bent rod and lowered 
lanpng net in the attitude to which all anglers 
aspire, and a lad is bait-fishing from an adjoining 
bank. The rods, lines, creels, and foliage of 
trees are beautifully carved, the necessarily 
limited space demanding the most delicate handi¬ 
craft. His first reel is another exhibit; this also 
is of solid silver, but the sides are discs of pearl 
fixed in the silver rim. A home-made rod-case 
of walnut, lined with blue silk, contains oue of 
his favourite rods before he had thoroughly 
mastered the glueing together of cane sections. 
The first rod which Phillippe ever made is in the 
collection; a strong, heavy implement, with 
s'ained ash butt and middle and . top of split 
bamboo. The butt tapers to a point below the 
reel, like the Multum in Parvo pattern of Ogden. 
*• On my way to the Central Hall I learned 
that there will be fly-casting tournaments, on a 
Slidable pond in the gronnds during the summer, 
but that the great event—the Derby of the series 
—will be on Aug. P, when the Dovedale fishing 
hr.iue of Izaak Walton will bo ceremoniously 
dedira'ed. Dr. Henshall lives in hopes that 
English anglers will enter in these contests, 
and to that 1 may add my own hope that some 
V 01 thy member of our English brotherhood will 
bo at the Pair on the day when trhe dedication 
takes place. To my surprise T have, since my 
last contribution, discovered that, although there 
is a distinct fisheries building, with an angling 
annexe nnder a specially appointed chief, exhibits 
which ought to be classified. there are scattered 
about. Away in the corner of the Women’s 
Building, devoted to the work of British women, 
I, for example, found a case of Mrs. Brocas’s 
beautiful flies. It is lost there, where it is a sort 
of sheep among the goats. The lady managi rs, 
however, cannot afford to part with any of their 
treasures, and so Mrs. Brocas will not reap the 
full advantage of her enterprise. In the general 
fuheries department, among fish curers, and 
near the model of the Baltimore School of Fishery 
in Ireland, are two exhibits distinctly angling in 
character, and .an effort is being made to get 
them removed to Dr. Henshall’s domain. The 
first is a case of eight grand salmon flies, by 
Turnbull of Edinburgh. It is framed like a 
jiicture, and placed upon a richly carved easel of 
walnut wood.' The entire conceit is happily and 
artistically worked out, and as, so far, there are 
r.o artificial flies to compare with them, it is 
r idiculous to house them where they are. The 
same remark applies to the exhibit of Bartleet 
of Redditch. It is insufficiently catalogued as 
‘ fish hooks,’ but the combination of cases make 
a goodly structure, and it is furnished with 
excellent taste. Beside fish hooks of every kind, 
from the shark machine to the trout hooks of 
midge size, there are winches, lines, flies, spinning 
baits, floats, and, in short, every angling appliance 
used by the British angler. There are some 
needle trophies in one of the cases, but the general 
collection is one of angling appliances pure and 
simple. Negotiations are in progress for the 
extradition of this exhibit also, though the 
prospects, I fear, are doubtful. These three 
exhibits would do us credit anywhere, and they 
are really wanted in the angling annexe. 
“ On the wall was a method of preserving a 
specimen fish which some friends at home may 
like to know. It was new to me, and may be 
so to them. You skin your trout, and just paste 
one side of it upon a wooden plaque rounded 
just sufficiently to take the shape. The fins and 
tail are picked out in the most natural manner, 
and the trout’s teeth show in the open mouth. 
You have to put in an artificial eye, and touch 
up the spots, and you have an inexpensive record 
that admits of no cavil.” 
notes attir (J^ttortes 
The May-fly season on the Itclien is over ; the 
fish took the fly well between the Ifith and 26th 
of May, nearly three weeks earlier than we have 
ev^r known it. We hope next week to give some 
“ Kodak ” views and notes of the 1893 May-fly 
season. 
Mr. Wm. Senior, the Angling Editor of the 
Field, sends us his photo and these pleasant lines 
frmn Chicago. In any year but this he would 
“ Eed Spinner.” 
(Hr. W.m. Senior of tho Tnken Hay, 189R, at Chicago.) 
have been back in time for the May-fly. “'My 
Dear Marston,—Great country this : but I shailL 
be glad to return. No fishing as yet. Henshall 
is a charming man. Cheney I hope to see on 
my way through New York. Everybody is 
always glad to hear and talk about you, which is 
quite right. I don’t put the check on ; but help 
’em to run Nottingham way. Am in a whirl of 
work, so you will excuse brevity. I, am pretty 
sick of writing I can tell j’ou. Shall be home first 
week' in June (D.V.)—flours always, Willi.vh 
Senior.'’ 
Mr. Irwin E. B. Con informs us that he never 
had a better May-fly season than this now nearly 
over. _ 
WE are glad to hear that a man named Withers 
has killed a large pike in the Test. Withers was 
doing some repairs to a punt in Broadlands 
Park, and saw the fish on the shallows, and with 
a rye-peck cleverly speared the fish and brought 
it to the bank; its weight was 2 l 3 lb. and length 
42in. What a mass of trout such a fish must 
have consumed in his day. 
AN AFTERNOON IN LABRADOR. 
By R. L. B. 
Froh Liverpool, travellers to the great 
Canadian ports on the St. Lawrence pass through 
that dangerous channel, the Straits of Belle Isle, 
which separate the island of Newfoundland from 
the great North American Continent. On the 
right hand side, should the day be clear, will be 
seen the coast of Labrador, the Meta Incognita of 
the Elizabethan navigators. A bleak and desolate 
land, it is a very desert, the only inhabitants 
being the migratory fishing population from the 
island of Newfoundland, and a few families who 
remain the whole year, engaged in the fishery 
during the summer, and trapping in the winter. 
Our vessel has crept round in a thick fog through 
a swarm of fishing boats anchored at the mouth 
of the bay, to Blanc Sablon, where we are to 
remain the night. Labrador is the mainstay of 
the Newfoundland fishing industry, which is 
carried on by fleets of schooners fitted out by the 
merchantslof St. John’s, leaving there in the 
early summer, returning with their catch in 
October. Near here we were told there was a 
big river, but we learnt from a fisherman who 
came alongside that it was nine miles off, and 
therefore was out of the. question, but that there 
was a small stream about a mile and a half away 
where a few trout might be got. L. and I agree 
it is worth a try, and soon start off. As we think 
there is no chance of a salmon we each take a 
12-foot trout rod, and L. takes a gaff more as 
a walking stick. We landed at one of the large 
cod rooms, and have a look at the piles of drying 
fidi, and the butts in which there is a viscid 
nauseous liquid,-which we discover is the raw 
cod liver oil. Our path leads past the drying 
ground for nets, to a fiat marshy “ barren,” 
thrtUgh which runs Our stream, tidal for a couple 
of miles, flowing over a sandy bottom between 
high grass-covered banks. We were told by an 
inhabitant that the river was no good until we 
came to a bluff which jutted out from the hills 
into the plain. This is the point we make for 
through the marsh, and on the higher ground 
get a birdseye view of the country. Not a tree 
is to be seen, rock and barren everywhere. Across 
the stream are a quantity of swampy pools which 
should be good for black duck later on in the 
year. Away to the right is a large lake 
which is drained by our stream. Prom 
the lake the stream runs over some falls, 
then rumbling over a rocky bed reaches the 
plain at our feet, forming a series of still shallow 
pools and delightful “stickle^,” as they are called 
in the West Oountree. “ Well, we may as well 
begin at the fall and work towards home,” says 
L., so we turn off the path and strike through the 
juniper scrub, through the “ mesh,” to the bank of 
the river, if we may call it so, as it is only the 
size of a moorland stream, with grassy banl s 
and pebbly bottom, rocks here and there breaking 
the current and forming little pools and shelteis 
for trout. W'e soon put our rods together and 
take our usual precaution against black flies 
and mosquitoes. I put up a stoutish trout 
cast' (b.ing the only light one I have) with too 
flies, the!firstasmall“ Jenny Lind” tiedon very fine 
gut, and as tail fly an old “ Silver Doctor” rather 
the worse for wear, as I hope to get a sea-trout 
or two, but expect to get mostly brown trout. 
So it turns out, as the sea-trout have gone right 
up into the lake, but my basket soon begins to 
fill with nice little brown chaps, about four to 
six in the pound. L. begins some way further 
down, and I follow, getting a good number, and 
catching a quantity of parr, which I take to be 
the young of sea-trout, never thinking that the 
stream would hold salmon or grilse. 
After working about half a mile I arrived at a 
fine pool—there is a good run into it as it is just 
where the hill meets the level ground. I try one 
or two casts but get nothing, as previously I had 
risen a fish nearly every cast, but, by Jove, what’s 
that rise?—a sea-trout, and a good one, too. 
Hullo! AVhat? a salmon?—as a bright silver 
fish leaps out from the pool just where the cur¬ 
rent begins to slacken. Well, I may as well try 
the same cast anyway, and throw out just above 
where he rose. A swirl, and I am in him. Off 
he goes with several jumps. Oh, horror! my 
reel is all anyhow (it is an old one), and I have 
