594 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Nov. 8, 1913. 
‘‘Seven dollars!” said the man whose name 
wasn’t Schmalz. 
Cohen drew out of his pocket a $20 bill. 
“Put it back, Meyer,” he said; “I was only 
joshing you. You owe $4.10.” 
Cohen paid in one dollar bills and silver. 
When he arrived on shore, the $20 bill had 
disappeared. Either it slipped from his pocket 
into the boat among the weakfish, or it blew 
overboard like the hat—it went somewhere. 
When Cohen brought the fish home, the 
family refused to receive the fish, for they had 
a dinner engagement that evening. 
He rang for the janitor. “Jim,” he said to 
the man with the cloth cap, “I went fishing to¬ 
day; here’s some fresh fish. They cost me a 
dollar a pound. Have the wife cook them for 
you to-night. And—Jim, here’s a straw hat. 
Take that, too.” 
And then Cohen went out to buy another 
straw hat and to keep the dinner engagement. 
Last Sunday, Mike (the rest of his name is 
not necessary to the story) went fishing. He 
arose at 5 a. m. and purchased some ham, cheese, 
corned beef and bread. He took the train for 
Gifford’s, Staten Island. 
He sat in a boat all day and only got sun¬ 
burned.. 
His friend got three weakfish weighing three, 
four and five pounds respectively. 
Mike says he will hand someone a lemon 
who asks him to go fishing again. 
Two Germans were fishing in Raritan Bay, 
Staten Island, according to Richard Ottersted, 
one August day in 1905. “Bites were few,” says 
Mr. Ottersted, “and one of the men laid his 
pole down and was cutting bait, when suddenly 
there was a jerk on his line and his entire out¬ 
fit went overboard. 
“The bottom is very level and sandy in 
Raritan Bay, and the fisherman rigged up a 
drop line with a very heavy sinker, intending 
to throw out and draw the sinker along the 
bottom in the hope that he might be able to get 
hold of his pole and line in this way. 
“But in the excitement of the moment he 
omitted to fasten the drop line to the boat, and 
this went overboard also. He then gave up all 
hopes of ever regaining his lost tackle. 
“Having an extra pole with him he set to 
fishing again. He was unsuccessful for a time. 
Finally he thought his hook was “skinned,” and 
as he was reeling in his line it seemed to drag. 
It became heavier and heavier, and his pole al¬ 
most bent double. With a puzzled look on his 
face he kept turning the reel, when, to his sur¬ 
prise, he saw the butt of his lost pole appear 
above the surface. His hook had caught in the 
reel of his lost pole. 
“The next fish he caught was the fish that 
pulled his rod overboard. He recovered both 
the lost fish and the rod. I never heard or saw 
the like of this before. Captain Skidmore that 
day got twenty-seven weakfish and I got eleven.” 
Hans Peterson was quietly angling for weak¬ 
fish one day last season when a man and a 
woman approached him in a rowboat. When 
within a hundred yards they ran into a school 
of mossbunkers, little fish that serve their high¬ 
est mission in the water by being used for bait 
for bigger fish, and fulfilling their highest en¬ 
deavors on land by being ground up for oil. 
Immediately the man dropped the oars and 
fell all over himself in trying to get the anchor 
out quickly. As soon as the boat was anchored, 
without waiting for the tide to swing the boat 
they baited and cast into the school of fish. 
“We’ve got ’em! We’ve got ’em!” they 
cried to Peterson, but Peterson merely continued 
fishing. In their excitement both the man and 
the woman stood up so as to be nearer action. 
But the mossbunkers never touched the bait, 
playing about the boat unmindful of the eager¬ 
ness of the occupants. After ten minutes of 
casting without results the mossbunkers started 
toward Peterson’s boat. 
“They’re coming your way!” cried the man 
and the woman in unison to Peterson. But 
Peterson continued angling for weakfish. 
"They’re coming your way!” cried the man 
while pulling up the anchor preparing to follow 
the fish. 
“All right,” said Peterson in an it-doesn’t- 
matter-anyway tone, without taking the pipe from 
his mouth. And as they passed Peterson’s boat 
they looked at him with angry glances. Surely 
he was no fisherman, any man who couldn’t get 
up enough enthusiasm to follow a whole school 
of fish. 
The last Peterson saw of the man and the 
woman was the man pulling hard on the oars 
and the woman encouraging him by telling him 
the fish were just ahead. 
It might be added for the enlightenment of 
those who do not fish that mossbunkers do not 
take the bait of the angler. 
At Broad Channel, Jamaica Bay, on Sunday 
afternoon, an ardent disciple of Izaak Walton 
looked out upon the ice of Jamaica Bay and 
looked sad. To him the sun shedding its beams 
of light upon the ice as it drifted out to sea 
had no effect. He wanted to fish. He felt the 
cold and decided he’d better warm up in one 
of the boat houses. 
Instead of getting close to the stove, as good 
old Izaak would have done, he found more 
warmth in a bottle that the barkeeper had in 
the ice chest. For some hours he sat there, 
taking warmth from the ice chest, until finally 
he said he didn’t care how cold it was out there; 
he was goin’ a fishin’. 
Attempts to dissuade him were out of the 
question. He had his rod and tackle in the 
house, and what good was it doing there, any¬ 
way? The place for a fishing rod was in the 
hands of a man “who knew how to fish” and 
wasn’t “skeered at a little bit of weather.” 
He got out his rod and then he wanted 
some bait. Fiddlers, soft shell crabs, sandworms 
or shrimp would do. 
Wasn’t there anybody who would for money 
get him bait and chop a hole in the ice? He 
would prove he was a fisherman and a gentle¬ 
man, and everybody must know it by waiting 
for a weakfish supper. Oh, no, the fish they 
had on the ice wouldn’t do; they were caught 
a long time ago. He would give them a real, 
fresh weakfish supper. 
Finally the hole was dug; he could see that 
from the window. He put his clam bait on the 
hook and brought a stool along. Inside the stool 
he put some warmth from the ice chest in a 
bottle. 
“Wait, gentlemen,” was all he said. 
Toward evening on a Sunday night a lone 
fisherman was seen sitting on a stool with a fish¬ 
ing rod in his hand, the wind swaying the line 
from side to side. Occasionally he pulled up 
and remarked that he “guessed he was skinned.” 
He rebaited and before he threw the sinker into 
the hole he took some more warmth from the 
old bottle. 
When darkness came the proprietor of the 
place sent the general handy man out to bring 
in Izaak Walton’s strenuous disciple. The dis¬ 
ciple was still holding the rod and saying, “All 
right, my boy; just another minute; I think I 
have a bite.” 
Reluctantly he accompanied the general 
handy man to the boat house, and then they 
put Izaak Walton’s strenuous disciple to bed. 
Book Review. 
The eleventh annual edition of Lloyd’s 
Register of American Yachts is a mighty in¬ 
teresting volume. It contains the particulars of 
3.557 power and sailing yachts distributed in all 
parts of the United States and Canada, Mexico 
and the West Indies, located as far north as 
Nova Scotia and British Columbia, and as far 
South as Mexico, Bermuda and Cuba. The 526 
yacht clubs of this same territory with thirty- 
six yachting associations, are also included with 
the full list of officers for the current year. The 
yacht owners number 3,550, the address of each 
being given. 
The new yachts of the year, somewhat over 
300, are made up mainly of cruising launches 
of 30 to 50 feet length, the majority of the 
raised deck and trunk cabin type. There are 
also a number of cruising yachts of about too 
feet, driven by gasolene engines. The steam 
division has been increased by several large 
cruising yachts and a few of medium size. 
The most interesting development of the 
year in building is the new one-design class of 
50-footers, wooden yachts 72 feet over all, 50 
feet load water line, 14 feet 6 inches breadth and 
9 feet 9 inches draft, rigged as knockabout 
sloops, no bowsprit, single headsail and pole 
mast carrying a large club topsail. Another in¬ 
teresting class includes five one-design schooners 
of 40 feet load water line, fostered by the Stam¬ 
ford Y. C. A still smaller class of four one- 
design auxiliary yawls of 32 feet load water line 
has been built for the south side of Long Island. 
The largest of the sailing yachts is the new 
Vagrant, built for Harold Vanderbilt, a com¬ 
posite schooner of 78 feet load water line, while 
Max Agassiz has replaced the old Kirin by a 
steel auxiliary schooner with an engine of the 
Diesel type, 82 feet load water line, for cruising. 
A goodly number of sailing yachts have been 
added in the smaller classes. 
This year’s Register contains a total of 506 
pages, including the American Yachting Trade 
Directory, which has become a very valuable 
feature; the forty-six color plates show the 
burgees of 548 yacht clubs and associations, and 
the private signals of 1,822 yacht owners, to¬ 
gether with national ensigns, weather signals and 
the international code flags. It is issued in the 
two standard bindings, blue cloth with gilt edges 
and owner’s name on the cover, and plain yacht 
canvas. It is published by Lloyd’s Register of 
Shipping, 17 Battery place, New York city. 
