July i, 1911.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
11 
this time from a point a little in front and be¬ 
low me, and looking over the top of a bush I 
made out the tips of his antlers, the rest of h.m 
being hidden. There was nothing for it, there¬ 
fore, but to get into a better position, and I pro¬ 
ceeded to work down to a point below him. A 
moment later I heard a stick snap off to my 
right, then sighted my quarry fairly, but at the 
same instant he saw me. I threw up my rifle, 
and though I was too late for his shoulder, 1 
managed by a snapshot to cripple his hind quar¬ 
ters. He ran a couple of hundred yards, how¬ 
ever, before I got in another shot as he dashed 
across an opening in the thicket, but that shot 
brought him down with a crash. I went and 
stood looking down at him proudly, for he was 
by far the biggest and finest elk I had ever 
killed, and certainly quite as large as any I had 
seen killed by others. His head was a great one. 
Actual measurement gave the length of the main 
beam as four feet nine inches, and there were 
sixteen points, the whole making a head of al¬ 
most perfect symmetry. 
At camp I met my friend just coming in with 
the head and skin of a mountain lion the dogs 
had treed. While looking for elk he had come 
on the lion feeding on the body of a deer, but 
We secured three more elk, two^ grizzlies, an¬ 
other pair of rams, and on the last day of our 
stay in the valley two more lions, which the dogs 
treed and held till we came up. The first one, 
a rather small female, we dispatched at the first 
shot; the second, a large old male, gave us a 
T HERE are many species of game fish 
captured in beach fishing, but channel 
bass are considered by those who have 
captured them the gamest of all, and odd to 
say, but nevertheless it is a fact, that when a 
lover of the fishing has captured his first chan¬ 
nel bass, he becomes an enthusiast on the sub¬ 
ject, and can sit with fellow enthusiasts and talk 
on their favorite subject, channel bass, for 
hours, as it is considered and justly so, the par 
excellence of the sport. 
There must be a reason for it, and there is; 
good deal of trouble. I have shot a good many 
mountain lions, and have seen many more shot 
by others, but I never saw one that wanted so 
much killing. Finally a shot from my friend’s 
rifle shatered its spine and he gave up the ghost 
with nine bullets in various parts of his anatomy. 
series of maneuvers you manage to get him 
close to the undertow when lie has the habit of 
sticking his head in the sand and his tail out of 
water and invariably makes a half-dozen plunges 
of this character, before being landed on the 
beach. Great skill is required at this stage, in¬ 
asmuch as if too much strain is put on the line 
as the surf recedes, something has to give, 
sometimes the line, but in nine cases out of ten 
the fish manages to get away, unless the right 
amount of leeway is allowed for wave action. 
The favorite feeding places for channel bass 
Channel Bass Fishing 
By HARTIE I. PHILLIPS 
A BEACH SCENE. 
it got away. My friend went back for the dogs, 
and returning with them and one of the men the 
lion was pursued for four miles before it took 
refuge in a tree. When my friend came up, the 
lion was crouching in a fork forty feet from the 
ground and the dogs were on guard. One shot 
from a .35 repeater brought him down, appar¬ 
ently dead. The dogs closed in and began worry¬ 
ing him, but the lion was only stunned, and in 
a minute he was making dogs fly in every direc¬ 
tion. One dog was killed and two others hurt 
before another shot in the lion’s neck finished 
him. It was rather an old lion and just under 
the hide of the shoulder was a .45-405 Govern¬ 
ment bullet, which appeared to have been there 
many years. Anyone laying claim to the bullet 
and proving property may have it, but the lion 
skin remains ours. 
During the next two weeks we hunted dili¬ 
gently. The weather continued glorious, the 
mountain air was stimulating, and the scenery 
such as to gladden the heart of the sportsman. 
Photographs by Hartie I. Phillips. 
more than one. As a comparison take a striped 
bass of equal weight, and, although his first 
rush after being hooked is swifter and longer, 
he gives in sooner, and after a few rushes is 
ready to give up. Not so the bulldog fighter, 
the channel bass. After being hooked he will 
probably take 250 to 300 feet of line in his first 
rush, and, if checked too quickly, snap goes 
the line, as many novices have experienced. 
After the fish comes to a standstill the real 
sport commences; the fisherman by persistent 
but still delicate efforts must bring his head 
toward him, from which point the bass will 
start to swim up or down, and many a fisher¬ 
man is pretty well exhausted after trudging 
nearly a mile in order to keep his fish in front 
of him. One of the prettiest sights that de¬ 
lights the fisherman is that if there happens to 
be much curve to the surf waves, to see your 
fish outlined in the advancing comber 200 to 
250 feet off shore. 
After a time by a gradual and persistent 
PLENTY TO CARRY. 
are on the edges of a flat or bar, which can be 
best located at low water. The best fishing 
tides are generally from half flood back to half 
ebb. The fish range from 25 to 60 pounds, and 
generally take from half an hour to an hour 
and a half from time of being hooked until 
beached, and lucky is the fisherman that can 
land over one-half of those he hooks. One of 
the greatest means of losing them is through 
sharks, which often attack them, and many a 
head of a channel bass has been pulled ashore 
while the shark is feasting gleefully on the rest 
of him. 
The record channel bass taken up to date was 
captured by Joe Cawthorn, the actor, at Car¬ 
son’s Inlet, N. J., in 1909, and weighed 63 
pounds. 
The vitality of the channel bass is remarkable, 
and authentic tales are told, when after lying 
on the beach in the sun for an hour after 
capture, they have been given an opportunity 
to go free, and although apparently with very 
