12 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[July i, 1911. 
little life left, have, when put back in the surf 
for a few minutes, recovered and dashed off 
to the sea as if nothing were the matter with 
them. 
The favorite bait used is shedder crab, but 
when this cannot be obtained, mossbunker and 
mullet will attract them. The tackle consists 
of a strong greenheart or bamboo surf rod; a 
21-thread 900-foot line, and 7/0 forged hook, 
with twisted 2-foot leader and 4-ounce lead. A 
rod belt with bait box attached is necessary. A 
cast of 150 to 200 feet is sufficiently long, as 
the bass swim close to the undertow, lying in 
wait for the small fish and Crustacea that move 
from bar toward the beach. 
Channel bass afford very good eating, tasting 
somewhat like bonita, but one great difficulty 
in cleaning them is to get off their scales, which 
are very closely interlocked. A great many 
fishermen skin them, which is not very difficult 
to accomplish. 
The fish when first caught present a beautiful 
appearance, being a bright reddish gold on top 
and white underneath, with one or more round 
black spots on body and tail, but the colors 
soon fade. An erroneous impression that the 
channel bass and red drum are the same fish* is 
I N the spring of 1910 my friend Carl told me 
a tale one day of a stream in Wisconsin 
where black bass were plenty and large. The 
bass fishing in Northwestern Iowa having be¬ 
come uncertain because our principal stream, the 
Des Moines River, has been ruined by the wash 
from the cultivated fields of black soil along its 
banks, I was interested to learn of new terri¬ 
tory for bass. To me fishing for black bass in 
a clear, swift stream is the most satisfactory 
form of angling. It is superior to lake fishing, 
as there is more freedom of action. One is not 
compelled to sit cramped up in a boat. You can 
fish from shore, from a boat, from a convenient 
log or wade the shallows and fish the deep holes. 
After various confabs on the subject, which 
made anticipation a pleasure, a rainy day in 
August found Carl and myself getting out camp 
equipment and fishing tackle and preparing to 
leave for St. Paul. 
The Chicago & Great Western Railroad kindly 
checked our tent, bedding and grub box as bag¬ 
gage, and at midnight of Aug. 16 we left Ft. 
Dodge, Iowa, for St. Paul, and arrived there at 
7:40 A. M. 
A little later we boarded a Soo Line train on 
the old Wisconsin Central Railroad and at 11:30 
a. m. reached our destination in the jack pine 
country of Wisconsin. Carl’s cousin, Hans Berg, 
met us at the station, and after the necessary 
preparations we set out for Hans’ farm twelve 
miles up the river. 
A drive of two miles from town brought us 
to a stream, the sight of which was worth the 
journey we had made, even if we never caught 
a fish from its waters. The river ran through 
the hills, winding in and out, now under sand¬ 
stone ledges, then between low banks with trees 
emphatically denied by Capt. George W. Feni- 
more, president of the Asbury Park Fishing 
Club, who having captured both species, is ex¬ 
pert in describing the difference between the 
two and is thoroughly qualified to prove to the 
scientific authorities that they are not the same 
fish, although possibly belonging to the same 
family. 
The best fishing resorts are Carson’s Inlet, 
near Ocean Beach, N. J., and vicinity in the 
month of July, and Barnegat City and north¬ 
ward to Seaside Park, N. J., from September to 
November, when they generally depart for 
warmer waters and are subsequently caught in 
Florida. All told, to those who have experi¬ 
enced all kinds of beach fishing, the channel 
bass, for genuine sport and gameness, excels 
any fish that swims along the Atlantic coast. 
*A11 of the ichthyologists agree that red drum, channel 
bass, redfish, pescado Colorado, bull redfish and spotted 
bass are various names for the Scienops ocellatus of 
Linnteus. Of the red drums, Scienops (Gill), Jordan and 
Evermann say: “The group is not well separated from 
Ophioscion on the one hand, or from Scitena [black 
drums] on the other, but its retention seems to be con¬ 
venient.” Individuals vary in coloration, particularly as 
to the black spot at the base of the tail, above. Fre¬ 
quently more than one spot appears, and there may be 
several. From these ocelli the fish were named.— Editor. 
to the water’s edge; raced wildly down long 
gravelly riffles, poured into deep blue pools, 
flowed silent and dark by weed-bordered depths, 
and assured us this was the water of our ex¬ 
pectations. For more than ten miles we fol¬ 
lowed the river on our way to Berg’s. The Nor¬ 
wegian settlers have carved out farms from the 
wilderness they subdued when they were lumber¬ 
men and river drivers, and the river valley is a 
picture of beauty, with its fields of clover, corn, 
tobacco and buckwheat. Fine houses and barns 
on all the farms show that the hard toil and 
privation of those who put their muscles into 
the work have been rewarded. 
1 he day was hot, the road somewhat sandy, 
and our progress slow, but I was content to 
feast my eyes on the scenery, and breathe the 
pure air scented with the odor of the jack pines. 
Occasionally there towered on some inaccessible 
ledge a white pine which had escaped the lum¬ 
berman, and there were mafiy groves of young 
white pine shading the ground above which once 
their monster brethren lifted their crowns to 
the sky. 
We reached Berg’s about 4 p. m. and were 
welcomed by the family; Mrs. Berg had coffee 
and lunch ready, and after we were refreshed, 
Carl and I cut poles for the tents and put every¬ 
thing in shape for the next day, Hans’ father 
aiding us in every way. He still occupied the 
log house which he had built when he first set¬ 
tled on his farm, and his wife being dead, took 
his meals at his son’s house a few steps away. 
It would be hard to find a more sprightly, kind- 
hearted, lovable old man than Mr. Berg, and his 
death last winter impressed me with a sense of 
personal loss. 
The next morning broke dark and threaten¬ 
ing rain, with a decided lowering in tempera¬ 
ture. We loaded Hans’ boat on his wagon, 
piled in the camp stuff, and drove up the river. 
Showers fell occasionally, but we kept on our 
way, and at 4 o’clock had reached a point fifteen 
miles distant by the road and about thirty miles 
by river. We made a fire, cooked grub and ate 
our first meal of the day since breakfast; un¬ 
loaded the boat, stowed our stuff away and 
pushed out into the stream, leaving Hans to re¬ 
turn with the team. 
There is much satisfaction in cruising on new 
waters, and we floated along in great content, 
shaping our course with the pole, and occas¬ 
ionally helping our craft along by the same 
means, when we found the current too slow. 
Twenty minutes after we were afloat the rain 
fell smartly, and we looked for a place to make 
camp. Just above a ford we ran the boat ashore. 
When the tent was up, the rain ceased, and not 
liking our camp ground, we rolled up the tent 
and were once more afloat. 
Two miles further on we found an island, and 
landing discovered we were opposite the mouth 
of a considerable stream coming in from the 
east. We made camp, set up the cooking appa¬ 
ratus, built our fire, and on looking around Carl 
found he was on familiar ground. “The old 
gentleman and I put in about here last year, and 
there is a good fishing hole below the island,” 
he said. So when we had seined some chubs 
and shiners in a small run behind the island, 
Carl set out for the fishing hole to try his luck, 
while I took the boat and went across the river 
to a thicket of Norway and white pines to gather 
browse for the bed. I found the trees very wet 
from the late rain, but cut browse until I had 
a load on the boat like a load of hay. I landed 
at the camp, stripped the browse and made the 
beds, and was just putting on coffee and pota¬ 
toes to cook when Carl returned with six black 
bass. Two of these were soon skinned and in 
the pan with some salt pork, and we sat down to 
supper with appetites which always come with 
work sharpened by the air of the pines. It was 
dark when dishes were washed, wood gathered 
and the fire fitted for night, so we turned in on 
the wet boughs overlaid with blankets, pulled the 
covers over us, discussed the consternation there 
would be in our homes had our wives known we 
were sleeping on wet browse with a wet tent 
over us, and soon fell into sleep undisturbed 
until morning. 
We arose at 6 o’clock, bathed in the clear 
water on the sand bar, dressed two bass for 
breakfast, cooked the meal and enjoyed it 
heartily. The weather promised fair so we car¬ 
ried the beds into the open, improvised a clothes 
line and hung the blankets thereon in the sun, 
shook up the still damp browse and laid it out 
to dry. Our tent was of the Amazon pattern 
with a fly in front forming a porch. This we 
inclosed with mosquito netting made for the pur¬ 
pose, and fastened to the tent at one corner, 
then it passed around the sides and front of the 
fly, and was fastened with safety pins to the 
upper edge. This kept out flies and mosquitoes 
and gave us a shady place for our table. 
Minnows were plenty in the shallow water, 
and a few draws of the seine filled our pail 
with chubs and' shiners, and taking the boat, 
which was heavy and leaked a little, we poled 
up stream about two miles. The river at that 
place ran over a broad shallow with a fall of 
In Jack Pine Country 
By CONOIS 
