676 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Nov. 4, 1911. 
Our Camping Trip for Brook Trout 
By WILLIAM H. HOLDEN 
T HERE were three of us—father, son and 
grandson—who left Chicago in the evening, 
arriving in camp within twenty-four hours, 
the son catching twenty-three fine trout in about 
the last hour of the twenty-four, these trout 
weighing from three-quarters of a pound to a 
pound and a half — quite satisfactory for 
Chicago. 
Our cook and two guides had gone in before 
us and had camp in order, and we now had trout 
enough for Sunday, enabling us to spend that 
day in putting things where they could easily be 
found. The small lake at the head of our river 
had been invaded by the numerous beavers, and 
a dam at the outlet raised the water about three 
feet above normal. 
Supposing that it wou’d improve the fishing 
and to enable us to get to our raft easi'y, our 
men removed the dam. In the morning it was 
partially rebuilt; again we tore out the work, 
and in two days had lowered the water about 
two feet. 
We learned the methods the beaver used in 
building a dam in swift water. They cut, from 
below the dam, alders and small trees about two 
inches at the butt, cutting off most of the 
branches, eating the tender ones and hauling the 
tree by its butt up stream in place, so that the 
short branches of the denuded tops engaged in 
the bottom of the stream and held the tree in 
place. In this way they had in one night filled 
a space twelve feet long and four feet deep, 
which we had torn out of the dam. The water 
was rushing through this brush. They then went 
above the dam and dug up clumps of moss and 
grass by the roots and placed it above the dam 
and where the swift water would engage it with 
the butts of the underbrush, and then they car¬ 
ried mud from above and placed it where the 
swift water would hold it in place against the 
moss, grass and brush, thus making the dam and 
swift water do a large part of the work. 
We stopped at this lake three days, and then 
moved down river for our usual river fishing. 
Later we walked back and found the water in 
the lake at the former level of three feet above 
normal. The beavers had restored the dam and 
the springs had again filled the lake. The pro¬ 
tection of beavers has a ! lowed them to increase 
so fast that they are a nuisance. They flood the 
roads, cut the trees and brush and overflow many 
otherwise good fishing places. 
The stream running out of this lake is about 
six miles loner from its source to the main river, 
and it is sard to have seventeen beaver dams 
upon it. Lakes that have been free from beavers 
for twenty-five years are now obstructed at their 
outlet with dams, and as there is no necessity 
for them, the beavers seem to build the dams 
for about the same reason that a boy will build 
hills in the sand. Our river is sixty miles long 
with many creeks coming into it, and I estimate 
2.000 as being the number of beavers on the 
river and its branches. 
Many trappers have located along the river 
to be on hand when the open season arrives, and 
many indications point to the fact that they have 
not refrained from taking some, and, in fact, 
many beavers during the eight years of alleged 
protection. 
After three days at the lake our teams arrived 
to move us to the river. We had caught 105 
trout, only one of us fishing at a time, as we 
used a raft. 
Our first camp was a temporary one at an 
old dam, and from there we soon found an ex¬ 
cellent bluff down river where, on cutting off 
the overhanging grass with a shovel, we cut off 
the opening of a turtle’s nest, recently completed, 
containing forty-one eggs about the size of a 
pigeon egg. This nest was about twenty-five feet 
above the water and eighteen inches below the 
top of the bluff, which was so steep that we could 
climb it with difficulty, and we cou’d not conceive 
how a turtle large enough to lay that large bunch 
of eggs could dig the hole in the hard sand, de¬ 
posit the eggs, close the opening and leave them 
to their fate. We placed them in sand in a box 
and kept them for about four weeks, occasionally 
opening one, and we finally left them at one of 
our camps, convinced that they had not been fer¬ 
tilized and would not hatch. 
At this camp muskrats appeared quite often in 
the river, deer snorted at our tents in the night, 
beaver sign was abundant and they were often 
seen on the river. We also had a colony of 
seven skunks that nested in our vicinity and 
visited us nightly and often in the day time. 
They consisted of the parents and five young 
ones, four of which were observed in the early 
morning mauling each other and wrestling like 
kittens. They did not disturb us, although one 
of them slept one day in our supply tent. Once 
when the male, an enormous fellow, was investi¬ 
gating our sleeping tent in the night, hearing his 
feet patter on the canvas carpet outside, we 
undertook to investigate with a hand electric 
light. A tab’e was fixed about two feet in front 
of the tent under a fly, and we threw the light 
around one side and then the other side of the 
tent, and finding no skunk, were retiring again 
when the light was projected out of the tent 
under the table, and there was the skunk, meas¬ 
uring with his large tail nearly three feet long. 
We threw the light in his eyes and he at once 
retired. 
While at this camp our experiences with deer 
were quite interesting, and we were disappointed 
to have them all occur when our camera was in 
camp. On our way back to the lake we passed 
through an old over-grown road which, in the 
open places, was full of brakes about three feet 
high. As we came to a straight piece of road, 
one of our guides discovered a deer’s ears in 
the far end of the opening, about 200 yards 
away. He called a halt, and while we all stood 
as quietly as we could, a doe emerged, feeding 
toward us along the road. About twenty feet 
behind her a fawn appeared feeding along. We 
remained quiet and the doe came up to with'n 
about forty feet of us before she saw us, and 
then she raised her head, her ears erect and 
opened toward us. She would apparently stamp 
her front feet and move her head as though 
saying: “What is that?” and trying to adjust 
her eyes as though she might be mistaken, and 
that the strange objects were only tree stubs. 
While she was doing this the fawn came up to 
her and stood quietly at her rear, as a hunting 
dog will stand at heel. A sudden movement was 
made, and the doe rushed off to one side, tail 
up, making long leaps over the brakes and into 
the woods. The fawn took his back track, leap¬ 
ing over the brakes like a porpoise over the 
waves in the water. 
In fishing down stream, on rounding a corner 
in the river, we came upon a handsome buck 
standing broadside on, drinking. He did not 
observe us at once, as we quietly floated down 
with the current to see how close we could get 
to him. When he did see us his head went up, 
and for an instant he looked at us, and then 
made three great bounds across the river and 
into the thick alders and sneaked away noiseless¬ 
ly. I told my guide that the sight of that buck 
was worth the whole cost of the trip. 
Afterward we were moving down river and 
I had a loaded boat to manage, and was in front 
of the boats and raft. At an opening on the 
bank of the river and at its upper end, two 
bucks were awakened out of their beds. They 
started with a jump and ran along the opening 
about one hundred yards. At half the distance 
one of them concluded to see what had given 
them the fright. He stood broadside on for a 
few seconds, and then bounded away over the 
brakes, making another beautiful sight. We saw 
many other deer, but have never had so many 
interesting views of them. 
While at this camp our cook discovered what 
he called fire wood, a rotten root that did not 
burn, but looked, in the dark, as though it was 
burning, much like a piece of hard coal that is 
burning without flame. It was not warm and 
was probably impregnated with phosphorus. Our 
guide in cutting a dry fallen tree for fire wood 
cut through a home built somewhat on the plan 
of a modern apartment house. The piece taken 
out of the center of the tree was about a foot 
long, being only part of the original length, and 
about six inches in diameter. It had many apart¬ 
ments in which were numerous ant eggs, which 
upon investigation were found to be hatching. 
Ltp and down through the apartments was an 
opening, so that the ants could pass from one 
story to another. Some of the eggs hatched out 
while we had the piece upon the wash stand. 
Others were put into alcohol for preservation. 
The remarkable thing about these apartments 
was the fact that the floor of each, being the 
roof of the partment below, was about the thick¬ 
ness of cardboard, showing where there were 
so many floors that the ants had some system in 
their work. This must be true because in the 
place that we had there were seven or eight apart¬ 
ments, one above the other, and all connected by an 
opening through the roof to the apartment above. 
After we had been at this camp about three 
weeks, the son and grandson went out and an¬ 
other sportsman came in. Our total catch of 
good trout was now 545, besides many returned 
to the water on account of being too small. After 
remaining another week we made a raft, and 
with that and three boats moved down river 
about twenty miles to one of our old camping 
places, where another sportsman came in un¬ 
expectedly, and we then moved down river with 
a team and the boats to our final camp about 
twenty miles above the mouth of the river and 
about a mile from Lake Superior. 
