844 
FOREST AND STREAM 
channel, just outside the weed patches, from a 
moving boat, with a line of thirty to fifty yards. 
The tackle may be same as used for lake trout, 
though many anglers troll with hand lines of 
heavy braided linen, but the use of a rod is of 
much greater service in playing large fish, should 
you succeed in getting them. A fish of such ex¬ 
cellent game qualities deserves treatment of a 
better kind. 
The range of these three splendid game fishes 
is so wide as to be impossible to give even a short 
list of places. Both lake trout, togue, salmon 
trout may be caught in any of the thousands of 
big lakes throughout the northern hemisphere. 
The Pacific salmon does not take the fly, but 
magnificent fishing may be had in the salt water 
of Monterey, Santa Cruz and Carmel Bays where 
the method is to troll in thirty feet of water with 
smelt bait, of which this minnow is an excellent 
imitation. Fish of fifty pounds weight are fre¬ 
quently caught and their game qualities are equal 
to the salmon of eastern waters. The muscalonge 
is well distributed throughout the Middle West 
and Canada, and is a worthy brother to the 
salmon. 
If anglers will only give these nature lures 
half the effort they expend on live baits they will 
enjoy sport enough to please the most fastidious. 
A small amount of good judgement as to where 
to get them, how to get them, when to get them, 
and with what to get them, is certain to succeed, 
even better than with live bait—very surely than 
with artificial lures heretofore tried. There is 
no need for this big minnow to be made to re¬ 
volve or spin—it glides along, or can be made to 
suddenly dart just as the living shiner or smelt 
would do in its natural habitat. 
Do we owe it to the coming generations to 
keep our streams stocked with eatable fish? In 
the majority of our inland streams, especially 
in the manufacturing and mining districts, you 
find very few fish of any kind. It is the excep¬ 
tion for a man to take a mess of good fish from 
one of these streams within a reasonable length 
of time. And often when he does, the flavor of 
the fish is such that they can not be eaten. The 
government and many of the states spend mil¬ 
lions of dollars in propagating fish, but our in¬ 
land streams are almost “fishless.” 
In the first place, many of our rivers and 
creeks are so filthy that good fish do not ma¬ 
ture readily—in fact, die. Now, practically all 
of the larger rivers are under the jurisdiction 
of the government—this includes many of the 
smaller streams tributary thereto. Millions of 
dollars are expended each year in making im¬ 
provements on those rivers, but scarcely a penny 
finds its way to the purification of their waters. 
Cities, particularly the small ones, run their sew¬ 
age and the mills, factories, and coal mines dis¬ 
charge poisonous liquids into the rivers. It is 
not uncommon to find oil and grease floating 
on their surfaces. In fact, almost all kinds of 
refuse finds its way into our streams. 
Distance Between Lines from Six to Ten Feet—- 
Leaders Are Four, Three and Two Feet— 
Note That the Sinker Is Attached by 
a Weaker Line. 
There is absolutely no need for this state of 
affairs. There is not a city, town, or village that 
could not take care of its refuse without dump¬ 
ing it into the rivers. No city should be per¬ 
mitted to run its sewage into any stream, and 
the states and government should co-operate in 
putting a stop to the practice. Under present 
conditions, those officials in charge of the river 
improvements should be required to assist in 
preventing the contamination of the waters. 
While we are improving rivers at immense cost, 
let us have every benefit to be derived there¬ 
from. Anyhow, the money spent on river im¬ 
provements brings us mighty little in return. 
Congress should pass an act that whenever the 
government has a river under improvement the 
state or states through or along which the river 
flows must make it a punishable crime for any¬ 
one to dump, throw, or discharge any matter 
(which should include everything likely to make 
the water unfit for domestic use) into rivers 
improved or under improvement. The many 
government employes connected with the im¬ 
provements should be required to use every ef¬ 
fort to abate the nuisance. States should be 
held responsible by the federal government for 
To repeat what was stated in a previous arti¬ 
cle—“make a lifeless object a living thing,” make 
the bait act alive by the ingenious manipulation 
of your line. If you are familiar with deep 
water fishing you will know of many little dodges 
used when live bait fishing. Do the same with 
these lures—-in fact, imagine you are using a live 
bait—force the fish by your ingenuity to think 
the same, then it will go for it quick. 
I do not believe a spoon attachment of any 
make or size will add to this minnow’s useful¬ 
ness, though I know many anglers place spoons 
along with their live bait—which, by the way, is 
more often dead. For that reason they have to 
make it spin. But this minnow swims along as 
if alive, and the brilliant sheen of the gold and 
silver bellies are sufficiently attractive. 
Finally in placing this giant minnow before 
brothers of the craft, I claim for it to be a kind¬ 
ly, sportsmanlike lure, in place of what one of 
my correspondents terms “those murderous grap¬ 
pling irons offered to the multitude which should 
be relegated to the use of municipal morgues.” 
No one living can feel more grief than I at the 
loss of a very large fish. Last season I played 
a four-pound trout for half an hour, wilder than 
a captive wolf, in leaps and lunges, when I fairly 
screemed with pain to see my leader snap like a 
bow-string on his last leap for freedom. Two 
days following I got it safe ashore, slowly and 
carefully working, till thoroughly exhausted to 
slide it on the sandy shore. 
While making an examination of the contents 
of its stomach I found nine hooks in various 
parts of its body, only on two of which were 
artificial flies. 
the contamination of navigable rivers or their 
tributaries. 
This would give, in time, fit steams for fish; 
it would also help solve the water-supply prob¬ 
lem for many towns. And this brings us to the 
distribution of fish from our hatcheries. At 
present, our congressmen have too much author¬ 
ity in this matter. It seems that even this minor 
branch of the public service is used to further 
the political ambitions of our lawmakers. Dis¬ 
tribution should be left entirely in the hands 
of the bureau of fisheries, and allotments made 
only after careful study of the conditions in 
each specific case. Haven’t we men big enough 
mentally to see the folly of our present meth¬ 
ods? Isn’t it time to call a halt on the use of 
government money to re-elect congressmen and 
other officials? What are our public seed, fish, 
and documentary distribution and the promis¬ 
cuous franking privilege as carried on at pres¬ 
ent, but a wanton waste of government money? 
Now comes the question, would the benefits 
to be derived from such fish propagation offset 
the cost. At present, large projects have no ter¬ 
ror for us. Why? Simply, because we go ahead 
and do without considering the consequences. 
That method is all wrong, and especially so in 
public business. Every detail should be carefully 
studied before action is taken on any important 
subject. The benefits to be derived from purer 
water can not be estimated; and the benefits 
from fresh fish to those living inland would un¬ 
doubtedly be worth the cost—it would really be 
a godsend. It would also promote a mighty 
good sport. 
Eatable Fish for Our Inland Streams and Lakes 
Millions of Dollars are Expended Annually in Making Improvements 
For Navigation, but Nothing for Purification 
By Percival Fassig. 
