42 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Jan. io, 1914. 
ting the muzzle of the gun to its head, killed it 
on the spot. In this adventure he had not only 
the skin of the panther to carry home, but the 
crippled dog also, which was too badly wounded 
to walk. 
About the year 1845 Bill Long and two of 
Kahle’s boys, John and Jacob, caught eight young 
wolves in a den. This den was on Mill Creek, 
that empties into the Clarion about three or four 
miles from where Siegel now is. John Kahle, 
on going in the ninth time, as he had done eight 
times before, armed with a torch, a stick four or 
five feet long with a hook on it to fasten into 
the wolves, and a rope tied to his foot, to pull 
him out by, caught the old one. Long and the 
Kahles thought she was not in. When young 
Kahle saw the wolf he pulled the rope and Long- 
pulled Kahle out, but Kahle was not able to 
bring the wolf with him. When he told his story, 
Long tried to hire him for ten dollars to go in 
again, but Kahle would not. Long then tried to 
hire his brother, and he would not go in. Then 
Long whetted his knife, fixed his gun, and started 
in, but the way being too narrow for him, he 
came back before getting out of sight. After 
the fourth trial by Long, he came out and said 
he had seen the wolf, but could not shoot her. 
As I remember Long, he was about five feet 
and four inches high, chubby, strongly built, ac¬ 
tive, athletic, and a great dancer—danced what 
he called the “chippers” and the “crack”—was 
cheerful, lively, and good-natured. He carried a 
heavy single-barreled, muzzle-loading rifle. His 
belief was that he could shoot better with a 
heavy rifle than with a light one. Although there 
were dozens of professional hunters in this wil¬ 
derness, this man was the king. He had an 
enduring frame, a catlike step, a steady nerve, 
keen eyesight, and a ripe knowledge of all the 
laws governing “still hunts for deer and bears.” 
To reach the great skill he attained in mature 
life required natural talents, perseverance, saga¬ 
city, and habits of thought, as well as complete 
self-poise, self-control, and quickness of execu¬ 
tion. 
In these woods Long had great opportunities 
for perfecting himself in all that pertained to 
proficiency in a great hunter. Of the other hunt¬ 
ers that approached him, I only recall his brothers, 
the Knapps, the three Vastbinders, the Lucases, 
the Bells, the Nolfs, Sibley, Fred. Hetrick, Indian 
Russell, and George Smith. 
The professional hunter was created by the 
law of 1705 under the dynasty of William Penn. 
This act was repealed by the acts of 1782 
and 1819. 
Long’s early dress was a coon-skin cap, moc¬ 
casin shoes, a hunting-shirt, and generally buck¬ 
skin breeches. The hunting-shirt was worn by 
all these early hunters, and sometimes in militia 
drill. It was a kind of frock, reached down to 
the thighs, had large sleeves, was open before, 
and lapped over a foot or so when belted. This 
shirt was made of linsey, coarse linen, or of 
dressed buckskin. The deer-skin shirt was cold 
and uncomfortable in wet and cold rains. The 
bosom of the shirt served as a receptacle for 
rye bread, wheat cakes, tow for cleaning the rifle, 
jerk, punk, flint and knocker to strike fire with, 
etc. The belt was tied behind; it usually held 
the mittens, bullet-bag, tomahawk, and scalping- 
knife in its long buckskin sheath. The moccasin 
in cold weather was sometimes stuffed with 
feathers, wool, and dry'leaves. The heavy early 
rifles carried about fo'rty-five bullets to a pound 
of lead. 
The hand-to-hand conflicts of this noted 
hunter with panthers, bears, catamounts, wolves, 
elks, and bucks, both on the land and in the 
streams, if written out in full, would make a 
large volume. Elk and deer frequently took to 
the creeks, and a battle royal with knife and 
horns would have to be fought in the water 
Long was several times mistaken while in a 
thicket for a wild animal, and careless hunters 
shot at him. Once his cheek was rubbed with 
a ball. Dozens of Indians and pale-faced men 
hunted in this wilderness as well as he, and the 
table giving an exhibit of the aggregate number 
of animals killed by Long during his life as a 
hunter only goes to show what a great zoological 
garden of wild animals this wilderness must have 
been. 
William Long died in Hickory Kingdam, 
Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, in May, 1880, 
and was buried in the Conway Cemetery, leaving 
two sons—Jack, a mighty hunter, and a younger 
son, William. 
Peace to his ashes. In the haunts of this 
wilderness, scorched by the summer sun, pinched 
by the winds of winter wailing their voices like 
woe, separated for weeks at a time in his lonely 
cabins from the society of men and women, and 
then, too, awakened in the dark and dreary nights 
by the howl of the wolf, the panther’s scream, 
and the owl’s to-hoo! to-hoo! Long steadily, year 
in and year out, for sixty years pursued this 
wild, romantic life. 
(To be continued.) 
Winter Sports and Pastimes 
By ROBERT PAGE LINCOLN 
F ISHING through the ice in the snow-bound 
winter months has an undeniable charm. 
It is not the poetry of fishing, and it is 
not necessarily needing of very much skillful 
manipulation on the part of the angler, or fisher¬ 
man, to assure success, in small measure, or big. 
But this does not mean that every man is 
able to go out, cut a hole through the crystal 
water blanket, drop in his hooks, and catch fish. 
In fact, where there is one actually successful 
fisherman, there are ten that come home practi¬ 
cally as fishless as when they went forth, proving 
that a little native shrewdness is not out of 
place. The fish most generally coming the way 
of the ice fisher are the perch, the well-known 
crappies, some sunfish, and that aggressive fellow, 
the pickerel. The man who has fished in famous 
waters, in the most up-to-date and time-honored 
manners, and methods, of angling, will be content 
to stay at home with his photos of past excur¬ 
sions into the wild, with his rods, beside his fire, 
perhaps scorning this still fishing stunt, but he 
assuredly belongs to the minority. For hard in¬ 
deed it is for even the most critical to stay at 
home, with such glories beckoning to them. To 
feed their blood with inspiration even the most 
aloof will gladly sit beside a hole in the ice, 
with hook and minnow on duty, taking his lot 
with the average with the utmost grace and 
content. When, above the ice, in the world that 
we face, everything is frozen stiff and crackling 
■—the thermometer registering sometimes 30 be¬ 
low, in the underwater kingdom everything seems 
the same as ever. The fish swim about much the 
same as they do in the summer months, ever 
alert for something to prey upon, the waters 
never so clear and sparkling. Cut a hole in the 
ice, and peer down into the depths below. It is 
much the same as again returning to some glori¬ 
fied June day; a mystery of mysteries, truly, 
always welcoming a meed of pure thought and 
reverie. Ice fishing in the midst of the winter 
has one singular feature, and that is that min¬ 
nows alone seem most readily to be seized upon 
by the fish below. Given a proper number of 
these, and striking a bed, or school, of crappies, 
one will be rewarded, sometimes far beyond his 
wildest notion. We shall see if there is any skill 
needed in capturing these fish, by this method. 
The first problem, then, is to obtain minnows. 
And it is a problem. When an elaborate mantle 
of ice has been woven over all available minnow 
waters, one will often scratch his head, in doubt 
and perplexity. How shall he obtain them? 
Those there are who have an eye out for the 
winter fishing—who lay in a stock of minnows 
in a tank, in the summer, but these are in the 
minority. The majority have to search them 
out of the creeks, sometimes meeting with poor 
success, spending a whole day on certain occa¬ 
sions to obtain fifty or more. Swamp minnows 
often solve the problem to hundreds of men. 
Some lakes swarm with seeming millions of these 
spites, and are scooped out in countless numbers 
for use. But they are poor, indeed, in compari¬ 
son with minnows taken from creeks and lakes. 
Such minnows are shining, many of them, in 
fact, bearing the name of shiners. These are the 
most attractive for a lure that there is, and any 
one striking a school of crappies, with a minnow 
bucket-full of these may be certain that he will 
not go home empty handed. Swamp minnows 
are unattractive, but in a pinch they will do fine, 
as many a man has proven, who has gone out. 
when the fish have taken bait with out of 
the ordinary avidity. I fully disagree with a 
certain man who has said that you are able to 
catch sunfish, and crappies, in all sorts of weather 
and at any time of the day. Judging from ex¬ 
perience in this line, I am called upon to make 
the assertion that our most common fishes are 
at times as hard to understand as is the quixotic 
bass; and I do not doubt but that I will be 
backed up by the many still fishers who read 
this, and know, having especially followed this 
branch of fishing. 
In the middle of the rigid, shackled-up win¬ 
ter you pay about thirty cents a dozen in the 
sporting goods stores, for likely minnows. That’s 
money. How to get them? The creek is a 
mystery; but it is solved. Observations have 
been taken in the summer where the creek min¬ 
nows held out in large schools. A variety of 
net is now made, of a hooped wire, with netting 
in between, stretched so that it will hang down 
just slightly. Four cords at balancing intervals 
are connected to the hoop; these cords are to be 
used to pull up the net. A hole the size of the 
hoop is then cut in the creek, and perhaps there 
will be a foot of water below. The round hoop 
net is dropped to the bottom, and corn meal and 
other attractive bait is scattered in the water 
over it. The minnows are thus lured out and 
over the net, more and more coming as no 
alarming disturbance arises to drive them back. 
When a swarm is over the net, the four cords 
are taken in hand, and the affair is pulled up. 
The minnows will be chubs, shiners, and a dis¬ 
tinct variety, the horn-pout, if I am not mistaken. 
These are directly dumped into the minnow pail, 
which has its water in it. This water must be 
changed often, and every precaution put forth to 
keep them alive. A dead minnow on a hook is 
prolific of very few catches. One minnow may 
catch one fish, or four, if hooked on rightly. A 
pinch of salt in the water helps immeasurably 
to keep the fish alive, and alert. Thus the min¬ 
nows are obtained, foiling the efforts of King- 
Winter to shut you away from the treasure you 
need. 
