FOREST AND STREAM 
1141 
other side that told me in the language of the 
forest of the tragedy that was being enacted 
over there. 
The sandbars were pitted with the tracks of 
deer and bob-cat and the eagles that I saw made 
me know that wild turkeys were plentiful, for 
the cats and the eagles are both the natural 
enemies of the wild turkey. 
There were signs of fish everywhere—especi¬ 
ally the blue brim, that split the waters in every 
shallow eddy, and often in their flight would 
bound clean over our canoe. Blue brim, in my 
judgment, are the gamest small fish that inhabit 
these waters. They go in schools 
which often run into thousands, and 
I have often with a 7-ounce tackle 
caught as many as one hundred 
and over. To get the best results in 
fishing for these fish is to use a 14- 
foot mutton cane rod, very small 
and light, not over seven or eight 
ounces, and a 12-foot sea-grass line 
with a goose-quill float about four 
inches long, that on casting will fall 
light on the water; using a number 
five Carlisle hook, and almost any 
kind of small bug for bait, for they 
are strictly bug eaters, rarely ever 
striking at a minnow of any kind. 
They are hard strikers and range in 
size from three-fourths to one and a 
half pounds, rarely ever going over 
this size. These waters are literally 
teeming with black bass, trout, brim 
and white perch'. The woods with 
small game of all native kind- 
cranes, Indian hens, woodducks and 
sandpipers are everywhere. The 
swoop and cackle of the king-fisher 
is heard almost every moment in the 
day. Cowslip vines were in full 
bloom with their large red bell 
shape blossoms. The copper-throat¬ 
ed humming bird was flitting and 
whirling with his soft purring hum, 
the wild honey bees filled the aii 
with music from their tiny wings. 
Across the river and back some dis¬ 
tance in a cypress brake two horned 
owls were hooting. Down the river 
in some tall pines the “T-kay, T-kay” 
of the chick hawk was heard. Would 
that I could stay the rifle bullets for 
a few years so that your children and 
my children might visit such places 
as this and see wild life in all of its 
glory. This vast valley of virgin 
forest has not yet been touched by 
the woodman’s axe and I hope it will 
never be. I understand it belongs to 
the Interior Lumber Company, or the 
largest acreage of it does, and they 
are contemplating building a railroad 
along its route to remove their tim¬ 
ber. If they do it will be a death¬ 
blow to wild game life in this part 
of the Mississippi, for now as it is 
it is nature’s home; the home of 
thousands of song birds, the brown thrush,, the 
oriole, the linnet and the wren, the nesting place 
of thousands of small water birds. 
After spending several days here we broke 
camp for our next run down the river. The 
morning was fine with its perfume-laden breeze, 
from the wild flowers that grew in profusion, 
everywhere. We had hardly gotten started be¬ 
fore we ran plump into another bunch of deer 
that were taking their morning drink from the 
river. They broke away at sight, going down 
the river for several hundred yards in plain 
view before turning over the banks and out of 
sight. There were four in this bunch, one buck. 
a doe and two young ones about half grown. 
I saw several flocks of woodducks passing up 
and down stream. The young ones were about 
half grown. The chicken hawks are their worst 
enemies, and wherever you find woodducks you 
will find the hawks. It reminds me of the old 
adage: ‘Wherever the hen scratches you will 
find the bug also.” Squirrels were still plentiful 
and wild turkey tracks were on every bar. I 
saw several single turkeys fly across the river. 
They had been scattered that morning by an 
eagle or a bob-cat, and were getting together on 
the other side. : 
Having tired of game fishing, I thought I 
would pay my respects to the channel cat, so 
with a bucket of spot tail minnows Courtney 
soon put me over to mid-stream where the chan¬ 
nel was deep and swift, and the fun was on. 
These fish are quite game and strike live min¬ 
nows readily. They range from one to five 
pounds and put up a fight that has some ginger 
in it. After taking four of these we had dinner 
and a rest of several hours. 
One meets some queer characters on a trip 
like this. I met one man here who told me he 
was looking for white oak timber to make gun 
carriages for the English army and I thought he 
was “a long way from Tipperary,” for we were 
forty miles from the nearest railway station at 
that time. 
Pearl River undoubtedly was named for its 
pearl bearing mussels that you find all along its 
sandbars, from the size of a silver dollar to 
six inches long and about four inches wide. I 
did not see any that would measure larger or 
wider than those. I have seen several pearls 
that were taken from these mussels that ranged 
in value from $10 to $100, so I am told. 
As Courtney fixed camp for the night I was 
taking some observation. Just below camp an 
enormous eagle perched on the top of 
a giant cypress. He looked as if he 
was studying the Mexican situation, 
but I knew he had Mississippi wild 
turkeys on his mind. Bob-cat tracks 
were plentiful; that told me in un¬ 
spoken language that wild turkeys 
were here. Black bass and trout 
were lunging in the mouth of the 
creek and a school of minnows were 
scurrying back and forth and in 
their frantic effort to keep out of 
the way would often flounce clean 
out on the sand. Just across the 
river a kingfisher with his charac¬ 
teristic cackle flushed a drove of 
woodducks that sailed up the creek 
and settled down for the night. Next 
morning we were off for Duck Pond 
Lake, once the stopping place of mi¬ 
gratory birds. I am told that at 
night they would come in so thick to 
roost that you could kill as many 
ducks as you wanted with a boat 
paddle, but somehow I doubt this. 
This was once a lake that covered 
forty acres of ground that was a 
great roosting place for ducks and 
geese, but it is fast filling up and in 
course of time will disappear. It is 
yet a great place for small water 
birds of all kinds and still an ideal 
fishing ground, and especially for 
blue brim. Pete Lake, just below 
here, made its appearance over night, 
and I am told by the old settlers that 
there was a man whose surname was 
Pete, had settled here and owned 
quite a number oL negro slaves, and 
herds of sheep that used to graze 
over the wild open land in those 
days. Wild pea-vines covered the 
whole country and one day one of 
his slave sheep herders told him that 
a lake of water had made its ap¬ 
pearance there that was not there 
the evening before. Pete Lake has 
no connection with Pearl River. It 
is more than a mile out from the 
river in the flat pine woods, and one 
of the most peculiar things of it is 
the water stands at one height in it 
the year round. Here is an ideal 
fishing and camping ground. 
I have seen spoon-bill cats that measured 
six feet long caught on a set line, alligator 
gars that measured five feet long that were 
shot from the bank with high power rifles, 
and would have weighed close around one hun¬ 
dred pounds; and white perch that tipped the 
scales at three pounds caught with the rod and 
line; black bass that weighed eight pounds and 
nine ounces taken with the reel and rod with a 
rainbow minnow, and blue brim caught by the 
hundreds. This is truly Mississippi’s best in¬ 
land fishing ground and an ideal camping place. 
After two weeks spent on this beautiful stream 
we crossed the Old Natchez Trace, and then home. 
Breakfast in Camp-A Ceremony That Requires Devout Attention, 
Attitude and State of Mind. 
