408 
FOREST AND STREAM 
These are the color of mother-of-pearl, ranging 
from the size of a penny to a silver half-dollar. 
They are square in shape, concave on one face 
and convex on the other, the latter surface often 
being marked with strange figures. The writer 
has a “lucky bone” somewhere in his “kit” which 
contains a wonderfully accurate outline of a 
human head and neck, showing the profile and 
shoulders. These bones when polished and suit¬ 
ably mounted, make a most acceptable pair of 
cuff buttons for an angler. Perhaps this article 
will start a new interest in the sheephead, which 
is a hard fighter and requires much skill to cap¬ 
ture. These markings on the stones remind the 
writer of the black periods, colons, semicolons 
and “quotes” printed by nature on the egg shells 
of the red-wing blackbird of our marshes. 
Like the wall-eyed pike or pike perch, the 
sheephead is quite an epicure in his choice of 
food. He absolutely abjures the fresh-water 
clam, and is no lover of shell fish like his salt 
water namesake, the sheepshead, which crushes 
them between his powerful jaws. Indeed, our 
silvery game fish could make very little impres¬ 
sion upon these local bivalves which, although 
edible, are rather tough and tasteless, unless care¬ 
fully prepared for the camp table by an experi¬ 
enced cook. It is the omnipresent “mushrat” 
that relies upon the “clam" for food, and piles 
up the shores with shells in the vicinity of his 
mound-shaped house of reeds, sticks and water 
grass, dotting the marshes just above high water 
mark. 
In Champlain there is only one kind of “pike,” 
the wall-eyed. The great northern pike is called 
“pickerel” there, as are the small green speci¬ 
mens, and those with markings on the side. So, 
if it is “pike” that you are after, he is best found 
in the narrow channel between Ft. Frederick and 
Chimney Point on the Vermont side of the lake. 
You must leave “the Lee Hotel” at Port Henry 
by three A. M. with Rabitoy, or some other 
guide, and row three miles across the light¬ 
house before your best pike grounds are reached. 
But this is not a pike fishing story, and I will 
only say that if your brook dace or chubs are 
lively and the wind fair you will land some fish 
there, from three to eight pounds, that will de¬ 
light your heart. As soon as Lafe’s beacon light 
goes out the fish will refuse to touch another 
thing. 
The day continues cloudy, and Billy thinks the 
sheephead will bite down at the rocks in Bul- 
wagga Bay. So you drift along the shores by 
the old fortress and round Sandy Point, famous 
for its fall duck and goose shooting, picking up 
on the way several big pickerel on the spoons, 
which have been whirling during the journey. It 
is raining slightly, but your guide tells you it is 
just right for them, so you don rubber coat and 
boots and munch your sandwiches, while you wait 
for Mr. Shepaug to take the hooks baited with 
several angle worms and resting on or near the 
bottom of the lake. There are also four cane 
poles out, baited for pickerel in mid-water, with 
large bobs attached, and which float about you 
in a large circle. 
At firse the hand lines are untouched, and you 
grow a little uneasy and glance rather reproach¬ 
fully at Billy when you think of the good things 
that “Pop” has in the hotel far, far away over 
those leaden waters. Suddenly one of the poles 
goes out of that boat like an arrow from the 
bow, and is dragged under water until only a foot 
or so of the handle is left in sight. Surely that 
was a monster, and you drop everything to seize 
the old “cornstalk” when the rod begins to 
emerge. You are sure there is a leviathan at the 
end of the line, and brace yourself for the com¬ 
ing struggle. But no; the pole is raised, you 
find the dace chewed up, and Billy grunts “big 
pickerel gone.” Then a shout from the guide 
tells you to watch the hand-line, which is run¬ 
ning out rapidly. 
“Let him have it,” shouts Billy, which you ac¬ 
cordingly do, until you think it time to feel of 
him. A good tug sends the strong hook home, 
and you soon have a fight on your hands, which 
would be instantly blistered by the running line 
were they not protected by finger gloves. That 
heavy, downward, boring pull continues for sev¬ 
eral minutes before you can force the heavy ob¬ 
ject to the surface, where the guide’s eagle eye, 
noting the silvery flash down deep in the lake, 
proclaims, “A thunderin’ big sheephead! Be 
careful; give no slack line and we’ll have him.” 
“Where’s that net?” is queried. “Never mind; 
I’ve something better,” says your confident com¬ 
panion. “Just swing him around on this side 
once more and I’ll fix him.” A little cough, a 
puff of smoke from the 32 revolver, and the 
splendid fish, seen for the first time, lies belly 
The greatest planting of trout fry in the his¬ 
tory of California will be commenced early in 
June and will be continued until the close of the 
year. During this time fully eighteen million fry 
will be handled by the deputies of the Fish and 
Game Commission, as compared with an average 
season’s planting of from ten to twelve million 
fish. The heavy planting that is to be made is 
intended to compensate, in a measure, for the 
enforced reductions made during the past two 
seasons, when so many streams, especially in the 
coast section, were practically dry. The fish 
car will be loaded to capacity during the season 
and will be sent into sections of the state rarely 
reached. The Fish and Game Commission is also 
preparing to increase the number of hatcheries, 
and work will be commenced this year on a 
large station in the southern part of the state, 
the first to be established there. Cithers will be 
erected in the northern district, and enlargements 
of those now in operation will be made. 
The announcement that has been made by 
Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane to 
the effect that funds will be available this sea¬ 
son for the construction of a fishway at the 
Derby dam in the Truckee River is one of the 
most interesting bits of news that has been re¬ 
ceived in a long time by California and Nevada 
anglers interested in the Lake Tahoe section. 
This dam has always interfered with the passage 
of fish to the spawning beds on the Truckee and 
its many tributaries, and last season fully one 
hundred tons of trout perished in the shallow 
water below this structure. A makeshift fish¬ 
way was put in a year ago, but it did not prove 
to be a success. Plans were completed some 
time ago for a splendid reinforced concrete fish¬ 
way to cost, together with screens at the True- 
upward on the surface. The scales tell the 
story at eight pounds. 
“We will go up through Main street on the 
way home to-night,” says Billy. “Let’s see how 
many different sorts we can get. We’ve a sheep¬ 
head for top of the string, and those pike and 
pickerel will help a lot.” 
You again set to work, and soon feel tugs on 
the hand lines while the bobs go under water 
until you both agree that you have taken enough. 
There is always a freak catch or two on each 
trip. Billy pulls in a big eel that runs all over 
the boat and nearly escapes over the side before 
he is dispatched. A good sized hump-backed 
perch is dragged in, nearly swallowed by an¬ 
other perch of his own size, which came along 
held by the spines of his victim. 
No fishing trip would be complete without a 
shore visit and a fine fish fry to keep off the 
cold. There follows a great feast in the old pine 
woods where, espying a big nest in the top of a 
tall pine, the guide makes a climb and brings 
down two young horned owls which had just 
breakfasted on a “bullhead” in their lofty home. 
The return home is safely accomplished, but 
it is hard work to make the incredulous “chair 
boarders” believe that a seine has not been 
drawn. 
kee-Carson canal, about $12,000, but as consider¬ 
able time would be lost in securing an appropria¬ 
tion from Congress for the work, it has been 
decided to substitute lumber for concrete and 
use funds available in the reclamation service. 
The fishway will be about 150 feet in length, with 
several pools eight feet wide, ten feet long and 
four feet deep. Over the structure will be 
placed a wooden screen to prevent birds or per¬ 
sons from taking the fish, and to provide shade. 
When this fishway is completed the big trout in 
Pyramid Lake, many of which weigh more than 
twenty pounds each, will be enabled to reach 
their natural spawning beds. 
The splendid weather that has followed the 
recent storms in the San Francisco Bay section 
has brought out the striped bass enthusiasts in 
great numbers, and some splendid catches of big 
fish have been made. A number of bass have 
been taken this season weighing over fifty 
pounds, and thirty and forty pounders are com¬ 
mon. One of the largest striped bass that has 
been taken recently was a fifty-seven pound fish 
captured by Joe Olcise, with the assistance of 
Inciana Ferari. An unusual run of bass is now 
being experienced in Lake Merritt, in the center 
of the city of Oakland, and almost any day one 
can see from one to three hundred anglers try¬ 
ing their luck there. The fish enter the lake 
through a narrow channel that connects with the 
estuary and is at least two miles from the Bay of 
San Francisco. The fish appear there at irregu¬ 
lar intervals and fishermen declare that they are 
driven into the quiet waters of the lake by 
sharks, large fish and whales, which at times 
appear in the bay. It is more likely, however, 
that the run is caused by the extremely high 
tides that occasionally occur. 
Fishing Notes from California 
By “Golden Gate.” 
