530 
FOREST AND STREAM 
April 26, 1913 
docile. I got him into the stern of the boat, 
shoved off and pulled for dear life to the 
nearest shore, talking to him all the while to 
keep him steady in the boat. When I got so 
near that I could beach her at the least sign 
of danger, I made all haste for the landing 
place at the foot of the lake. 
I do not know to-day whether it is a 
physical fact or the result of an excited imagi¬ 
nation, but I am under the impression that 
there were more curves and coves and bays in 
that pond than there are to be found all along 
the Atlantic sea coast. After ages of hard 
paddling, we at last arrived at the starting 
place, and I got Sam ashore. He suddenly 
sighed heavily, his whole body seemed to be 
convulsed; he looked around in evident sur¬ 
prise; the vacant look left his eyes and he said 
quite rationally: “What’s the matter? What’s 
happened? Why aren’t we fishing up at the 
mouth of the brook?” I explained to him that 
he had fainted and fallen into the water, and 
that I had just caught him in time. He had 
not the least notion of anything that had 
happened for hours. 
As he was the only son of a widowed 
mother, who was also a great friend of my 
own, I promised not to breathe a word of our 
W HAT constitutes a game fish? Is it the 
fish iself; the fishing tackle or the view¬ 
point of the angler? The question as 
to where the line shall be drawn separating 
those which shall properly be classified as be¬ 
longing to that aristocratic circle of game 
fighters among the fishes and those that are 
not, is somewhat analogous to the difference be¬ 
tween a weed and a plant, as explained by a 
writer on botanical lore. “A weed is simply a 
plant out of place. Almost any useful plant 
may become a weed if it grows in the wrong 
place; and conversely, almost any weed may be 
valued as a garden plant under some circum¬ 
stances.” 
Drawing our conclusions from this illus¬ 
tration and applying them to fish, it might 
justly be claimed that under certain circum¬ 
stances and conditions almost any kind of a 
fish might be called a game fish. The late Prof. 
G. Brown Goode says, in his valuable work, en¬ 
titled “American Fishes”: “Game fishes are 
those which by reason of courage, strength, 
beauty and solidity of their flesh are sought by 
those who angle for sport with delicate fishing 
tackle”; and again he says relative to the sub¬ 
ject: “A game fish is a choice fish; a fish not 
readily obtained by wholesale methods at all 
seasons of the year, nor constantly to be had 
in the markets; a fish, furthermore, which has 
some degree of intelligence and cunning, and 
matches its own wits against those of the 
angler, requiring skill, forethought and in¬ 
genuity to compass its capture.” 
Another writer makes this logical asser¬ 
tion: “And it may be generally asserted that 
any fish is most game when fished for in the 
misadventure. When he took off his coat and 
vest we found that his singlet was quite dry, 
except on the collar, so that instead of his be¬ 
ing in the water for ages, as I had imagined 
at the time, he could not have been immersed 
for many seconds. 
When I got home late that night and got 
to bed, I was still suffering from jangled nerves. 
Every time that I would doze, the picture of 
the man in a fit going out over the stern of 
the dory would come vividly before me, and be¬ 
fore I knew what I was doing, I had sprung 
right out of bed on the floor three or four 
times, every nerve in my body tingling with ex¬ 
citement. 
At last, my mother, hearing me. came into 
the room, sat on the side of the bed and got 
the whole story out of me. This seemed to 
soothe and relieve me, and I soon fell into a 
deep sleep and rested easily for the remainder 
of the night; but for weeks after, it so affected 
me that I used to start in my sleep nearly every 
night. And even now, after the lapse of a 
quarter of a century, when all the parties con¬ 
cerned have been long gathered to'their fathers, 
I often conjure up the picture of that beautiful 
summer day and think how near poor Sam was 
to a tragic ending. 
way which gives the greatest chance of re¬ 
sistance and of escape, and which demands the 
greatest skill and delicacy on the part of the 
fisherman.” 
In the Smithsonian Institution at Wash¬ 
ington will be found a case of mounted fishes 
bearing the inscription, “American Game 
Fishes.” This case contains the following 
specimens: Brook trout, grayling, yellow 
perch, white perch, sunfish or bream, land¬ 
locked salmon, sea bass or black will, pike- 
perch or wall-eyed pike, Columbia River sal¬ 
mon, quinnat, large-mouthed black bass, small¬ 
mouthed black bass, calico bass, Atlantic sal¬ 
mon, lake trout, bluefish, sheepshead, scup or 
Porgy, Spanish mackerel, weakfish or sea trout, 
cero, spotted weakfish, pickerel, horse-cavalle, 
channel bass or red drum. 
In reading over this list of specimens it 
is very clear to be seen that it is not intended 
to convey the impression that the case contains 
a complete representation of all the so-called 
game fishes of this country, as many familiar 
varieties are missing; but they are given to 
show the kind of fish which certain authorities 
have named to designate them as such by plac¬ 
ing them in a case under the above mentioned 
heading. 
From the opinions expressed above and the 
list given, it can be safely asserted that it 
would be a difficult task for one to clearly de¬ 
fine the question as to what are and what are 
not game fishes at all times. It, therefore, ap¬ 
pears that the tackle used and the mode of 
capture have infinitely more to do with the 
matter than the fish itself. All fish are 
tenacious of life, and when on the hook, as a 
rule, exert all their energy to free themselves; 
some more than others, owing to their superior 
strength and activity and also by reason of a 
higher grade of intelligence with which some 
varieties are endowed. 
The fish fauna of North and Middle Amer¬ 
ica embraces 3 classes, 30 orders, 225 families, 
1,113 genera, 325 sub-genera, 3,263 species and 
133 sub-species as compiled in Bulletin No. 47 
of the United States National Museum under 
the authorship of our leading ichthyologists, 
Jordan and Evermann. In view of this great 
number and variety of fishes to select from, it 
is not strange that there should be a wide di¬ 
versity of opinion among those who have 
given the game fish question careful consider¬ 
ation. 
We are all agreed in that the brook or 
speckled trout {Salvelimis fontinalis) is in every 
sense of the word a game fish; but I well re¬ 
member hearing an old angler relate the man¬ 
ner in which the largest brook trout he ever 
had known of being taken from the streams of 
Western New York, in which this game fish 
par excellence had no opportunity of showing 
his fighting qualities. The incident related was 
substantially as follows: “The largest genuine 
speckled trout I have ever known to be caught 
in this section weighed four pounds and two 
ounces. It was taken many years ago by a 
small boy, using a cut pole, heavy line and hook, 
in the upper waters of Caledonia Creek, N. Y. 
I knew where this old settler lay, and had 
hooked on to him two or three times with light 
tackle, but was unable to hold him. The small 
boy referred to sneaked up to the bank with 
his heavy pole, with a worm for bait, and in a 
twinkling yanked him out over his head, high 
and dry on the bank. I secured the fish for 
five dollars, with which the youngster was well 
pleased.” 
There are anglers by whom it is claimed 
that the carp possesses game qualities which 
would astonish many who are prone to deride 
his ability along this line, and last summer, 
while angling for black bass on the St. 
Lawrence River, I caught a six-pound catfish 
on light tackle which gave me a wonderful fight, 
and a fair-sized eel has sometimes convinced 
me, for a while, that I had hooked the record 
bass. 
The idea is entertained by many people 
that game fish are not, strictly speaking, food 
fish, while the truth of the matter is, that a 
large number of the better class of food fishes 
are principally those classified as game fish; 
particularly is this true of the fresh-water 
varieties. 
All waters are not adapted to the produc¬ 
tion of the most highly regarded food fishes, 
and attempts to stock waters with fish not suit¬ 
able for them must always result in disappoint¬ 
ment and failure. Fortunately there are com¬ 
paratively few bodies of water in this country 
in which some good edible variety will not 
thrive. They may not be game' fish in accord¬ 
ance with the generally accepted understanding 
of the term, but at the same time they are cap¬ 
able of affording sport and recreation of a 
quality sufficient to satisfy the average angler. 
It is absolutely useless to undertake to ac¬ 
climatize fish in waters which do not possess 
the natural qualifications to meet the require¬ 
ments of their physical organization. 
The Game Fishes 
By CHESTER K. GREEN 
