Aug. 18, 1906.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
2 57 
From the Beaverkill. 
Apropos of the report on “Shad in the Hud¬ 
son” in Forest and Stream of July 28, I re¬ 
member that shad were no luxury in the vicinity 
of the Hudson only eight or nine years ago. 
In the month of June, 1898, I fished the lower 
Esopus for trout for a few days, then moved up 
the Big Indian, for a day and night, and made 
arrangements for a trip across the country to 
Liberty, by way of Claryville. Shad had been 
taken in such numbers near Kingston that they 
were being peddled through the country at 
twenty and twenty-five cents each. The drivers 
of the hacks carrying the mails made a good 
profit by purchasing considerable numbers of the 
fish and retailing them to the people along their 
routes. This may have been unusual, but I re¬ 
member the facts distinctly. There had been 
a time years before this when the catch of shad 
in the Hudson had greatly fallen off, and the 
return of prosperity to the netsmen was en¬ 
tirely due to artificial propagation by the State 
of New York. There is small reason to doubt 
that if the river was reasonably pure, the an¬ 
nual catch of shad in the Hudson would be 
quite as large at the present day as ever it 
was. 
This is not trout fishing, but the silver sides 
of the many chub I have been catching recently 
remind me a little of the brightness of a fresh 
run shad. After the recent freshet, I spotted a 
number of good trout. By using a fly as a lure 
in the bright sun, I could make them run at 
it, although they would not take it in. It was 
amusing and exciting to see a large trout chase 
the fly for a yard or two, then turn away with a 
contemptuous flirt of the tail, at my shabby 
counterfeit. However, on Friday evening I 
went for those spotted fish, and if the light had 
been a little better or my sight stronger, it would 
have gone hard with them. I would not see the 
rise until almost too late to strike successfully. 
The largest trout of the lot rose very fairly, but 
I left the fly in its mouth. I was using fine gut, 
and the fly was taken like one picks a berry from 
a bush. I killed but four trout, but the chubs 
were in great form and seemed to be really 
fascinated by my attractions. Within fifty yards 
of the house in the gloaming I caught two good 
chub at the mouth of a small brook, where I 
had seen what I supposed was a fair trout. 
The recent freshet has improved the fishing 
situation materially. The water is fresh and 
cool; in fact, it really looks brighter and more 
attractive than it did two weeks ago. Some fine 
sport must have been had on the upper waters 
of all the streams in this vicinity and even in 
the Catskills, at Big Indian, and elsewhere. 
There is no lack of moisture this season. The 
crops are growing like weeds, and the air is 
full of humidity. The climate is not as bracing 
as usual. The common air of this elevated 
region is like wine—sustaining, strengthening 
and refreshing; but we have had a deal of wind 
from the southeast and south to southwest. 
These are great winds for the angler, blowing as 
they do up stream, for nearly all these rivers, 
but they are not best for weak persons who need 
the tonic breeze from the northwest, which com¬ 
monly prevails. 
To return to my fishing. The best basket I 
have heard of this month was one of forty trout, 
taken in a fairly large tributary of the Beaver¬ 
kill. T did not see the fish, but do know the 
successful angler and am sure that he is not one 
who would take, or at least kill, any but trout 
of good size. Such a score is very unusual in 
free water in July, but the numbers of trout this 
year is really wonderful. The streams are full 
of them. If we have a good spawning season, 
followed by a moderate winter, with no great 
floods and ice jams, prospects for the future are 
bright indeed. 
I do not believe that better sport was ever 
enjoyed on the Beaverkill than during May and 
June of 1906. The fish have been in fine con¬ 
dition and have fought desperately. Nearly 
every one has noticed how game the trout were. 
Then they are so much larger than they used to 
be in the old days of exclusive native trout, and 
what a difference this makes to the fisherman! 
Almost any one is satisfied with half a dozen 
trout weighing from half a pound to a pound, or 
a pound and a half, each. We meet few gluttons 
nowadays. I do not blame the man whose op¬ 
portunities are few and far between, for filling 
his basket on the rare occasions when he meets 
with great success, instead of a big disappoint¬ 
ment. Those few hours on one day, when the 
trout rose fast and furious, marks his one great 
day. It will be years probably before he ex¬ 
periences anything like such sport again. He 
never forgets that happy time. It returns in 
grateful recollection again and again through 
all the years that may follow. 
With modern fishculture and the State hatch¬ 
eries in operation, there is not that danger of 
depletion that there was in old times. The 
brown trout as a breeder and grower is superior 
to the brook trout. Some people say that it is 
well to kill off the big fish. I doubt this greatly. 
Think of the number of big. healthy ova which 
will hatch into large, strong fry after the mating 
of a single pair of four-pound fish! There are 
immense quantities of minnows in all these 
streams. Have you ever watched a big trout 
catch minnows? It is done with the greatest 
ease, and the stomach is literally crammed with 
them. I have taken trout up to three pounds 
while they were engaged in this pleasing (to 
them) occupation, and they were loaded to the 
muzzle. One three-pounder disgorged sixteen 
large minnows from mouth and gullet that were 
as fresh as possible. They had been dead but a 
few minutes at most. 
It is strange that a large trout should trouble 
himself to rise at a tiny fly when he has an 
abundance of substantial fare before him. It 
is the delicate quality, the daintiness of the 
morsel that tempts him. I remember reading 
somewhere of an experiment with three tanks, 
or small ponds, of trout. One lot was fed on 
flies and their larva, another on minnows, and 
the last on worms. The first grew much faster 
than the others; minnows came next, and worms 
last. This was with trout of small size, I pre¬ 
sume. Probably as a trout gains in bulk he 
requires minnows, crayfish, etc., to keep on de¬ 
veloping rapidly. 
In Maine lakes where there are no min¬ 
nows, fish over a pound and a half are rarely 
taken, and one never hears of the monsters of 
eight or nine pounds, which have been taken 
in the Rangeleys. 
I hear that grouse have done well. Some 
large strong broods have been seen, and there 
was not a great deal of wet weather during the 
breeding season. There are, apparently, no 
woodcock in Beaverkill, at least near here, but 
there are always a few nests in Neversink and 
Willowemock. I know of some fine breeding 
grounds elsewhere in Sullivan county. 
Theodore Gordon. 
Beaverkill. N. Y. 
Fish for Manure. 
The following order from the records of the 
town of Ipswich, Mass., May 11, 1644. illustrates, 
in a comical way, the custom of using fish for 
manure in those early days: 
“It is ordered that all doggs, for the space of 
three weeks after the publishing hereof, shall 
have one legg tyed up, and if such a dogg shall 
break loose and be found doing any harm, the 
owner of the dogg shall pay damage. If a man 
refuse to tye up his dogg’s legg, and hee bee 
found scrapeing up fish in a cornefield, the owner 
thereof shall pay twelve pence damages beside 
whatever damage the dogg doth. But if any 
fish their house lotts and receive damage by 
doggs, the owners of those house lotts shall bear 
the damage themselves.” 
