FOREST AND STREAM 
707 
that if you remain seven days you have to pay 
a tourist or cure tax, which latter is collected 
by your landlord who turns taxes over to author¬ 
ities. I had to pay the nominal sum of 5 
marks ($1.25). This money collected from tour¬ 
ists defrays expenses of keeping roads in good 
condition and also pays for rustic benches placed 
along the side of walks and mountain roads. Let 
me state that I never saw better kept roads any ■ 
where than I found in the Hartz Mountains. Some 
of the party picked mushrooms, and in the woods, 
a little way off the road, we picked flowers called 
Waldmeister. The latter is noted for its wonder¬ 
ful fragrancy, and Germans often use this flower 
to flavor punches. After leaving the forest we 
passed through a large tree nursery, or govern¬ 
ment institution. Trees grown in these nurseries 
are being used for reforestration purposes. All 
through this country I saw the cultivation of 
small trees. Here we met a uniformed game- 
warden. He was a fine specimen of a man. I 
noticed he had a double-barrel shotgun slung 
over his shoulder, and he was followed by two 
beautiful hounds. After leaving the tree nursery 
we again passed into forest and after a half- 
mile walk and a short, up hill climb we came 
in sight of Wiesenbecker Teich, and its limpid 
water looked charming, seen through the trees. 
All of us made for the only hotel here, a large 
structure with a wide veranda running along its 
entire front and here, on the veranda, we had 
lunch served us. The situation of this hotel was 
simply superb. Sitting on a knoll, about a hun¬ 
dred feet from the lake front, it was surrounded 
by magnificent great trees. In front of the 
hotel were large beds of flowers, the latter in 
full bloom, a feast for the eye. Everywhere 
among the trees were tables and chairs and at 
this hour, 11 A. M-, quite a number of tourists 
were present. From where I sat I could see 
trout leap in great shape; it made me anxious to 
wet my line. Mr. J. turned to me and informed 
me that this lake was the property of the hotel 
proprietor, and further, stated that we could 
fish to our hearts’ content, providing we used 
nothing but artificial flies; but that we would 
have to pay the hotel owner 60 pfennig (15c.) 
for every pound of trout we caught. Mr. J. 
also said that, if we kept our trout alive, the 
hotel owner would buy the trout from us at the 
rate of 40 pfennig (10c.) and at that rate it 
would cost us but 20 pfennig (5c.) for every 
pound of trout we caught. Pretty cheap sport, 
don’t you think? Lunch over, our party made 
for the lake, and boat-landing where I saw five 
rowboats. The latter looking rather ancient and 
clumsy. I did not fancy them very much and 
told Mr. J. as much and he remarked, “You are 
right. I ventured out in one of those boa^s the 
other day, but it was so hard to manage that 
I’ll never try again. Might as well be out in 
a scow. We can have good sport fishing from 
shore, although there are but few places around 
this lake where one can cast decently, because 
the trees are so close together.” After crossing 
a bridge over a beautiful brook which emptied 
into the lake (the latter looked clear as crystal 
and seemed to be absolutely devoid of weeds), 
we separated. I found conditions just as Mr. 
J. had described them, and casting, with me, was 
out of the question. All I could do was to poke 
my rod through the branches of the trees and 
use about 5 to 6 feet of line, and then dance my 
flies over the water. But that was good enough 
as I soon learned, for the moment my flies 
touched the water the end fly was taken by a 
trout and then a good fight was on, with me 
at a disadvantage, because most of the time I 
could not see my line at all and I had to re¬ 
main on one spot because the trees were very 
close together, and 'besides too they, the trees, 
were leaning way over toward the water. Pretty 
soon I felt that everything was not alright; 
there seemed to be a twofold pressure on my rod 
and it puzzled me quite some, so taking hold 
of an overhanging branch, to steady myself, be¬ 
cause the bank was steep, I stooped to get sight 
of my line and then it dawned upon me that a 
second trout had taken my other fly. Well, 
I felt I was up against it because not being an 
expert angler and using exceptionally light 
tackle I was very doubtful of being able to land 
my fish. But my usual good luck did not desert 
me on this occasion, and after a good fight I 
landed both trout. They were beauties, and 
measured 9 and 10% inches, respectively. I was 
very proud of my feat because I have always 
been more or less of a dub where trout fishing 
is concerned. Now I had the fever worse than 
ever, could not get my line out fast enough, and 
right there happened what usually occurs on 
such occasions, namely, one of my flies got caught 
in a branch of a tree and all the coaxing and— 
well, anyway, I lost it, the fly remained up the 
tree. I had become so engrossed in my en¬ 
deavor to recover my fly that I had not heard 
any one approaching and a loud peal of laughter 
fairly startled me, more so when on looking 
around I learned it had emanated from a lady 
of our party, Miss R., who had quietly come 
up behind me. There was no doubt in my mind 
but that this lady had witnessed all that had 
occurred and had heard all I had said. Well, 
you know, I had been talking in plain English 
to that fly up in the tree and felt embarrassed 
to think somebody had heard me. I did not 
know if Miss R. had understood my language, 
but feeling guilty I apologized, thereby making 
it appear worse. However, I was glad to learn 
that Miss R. did not understand English, al¬ 
though she laughingly told me she could not 
understand why anyone should use such forcible 
language to a little, inoffensive fly? After re¬ 
placing my lost fly with another I offered the 
rod to Miss R. but she declined, saying she 
would rather try when we got to a more open 
place. During the following two houjs, fishing 
from place to place, I caught 7 more nice trout 
and we then reached the southern end of the 
lake, where for a stretch of about two hundred 
yards the shore line was devoid of trees and 
bushes, and here I handed the rod to Miss R. 
Contrary to expectation Miss R. could handle 
the rod and was a good caster, and when I 
showed my surprise and praised her dexterity 
she informed me that her brother had taught 
her, said the latter had spent several years in 
England and there had learned how to handle 
a rod. Miss R. had landed two trout when we 
were joined by some of our party, who had 
fished around the other side of the lake. When 
we took stock of the total catch of our party 
we counted 61 trout, and not one measured less 
than 7% inches. Mr. J. had come out best, in¬ 
dividually, he had 32 trout to his credit. It 
was now five o’clock and all of us returned to 
the hotel, where we had dinner, settled for our 
fish and then started our return walk to Bad- 
Lauterberg. I for one shall never forget that 
walk through the woods. It was an ideal even¬ 
ing, clear sky and balmy air. Every one of us 
was happy and thoroughly satisfied with the day’s 
outing. It was after nine P. M. when we reached 
Bad-Lauterberg where we separated, but not 
before we had arranged for another such outing 
in the near future. That night, when, in com¬ 
pany of my dearest and best friends, my parents, 
I sat on the veranda of my hotel enjoying a 
good glass of beer and listening to the wonder¬ 
fully sweet and plaintive song of the night¬ 
ingale, I felt contented and at peace with the 
whole world. A few days later, my parents and 
I took a trip to St- Andreasberg, a hamlet 
named after the mountain on whose summit it 
is located. This place is famous for its canary 
bird hatcheries. We inspected several of them 
and it was very interesting to me, never having 
seen anything like it 'before. Wish I could de¬ 
scribe what I saw but my pen is not equal to 
the task. The methods employed for develop¬ 
ing and training warblers are to say the least, 
unique and ingenious. The price of these birds 
ranges from one to five dollars. At St. Andreas¬ 
berg we had dinner at the Hotel Schutzenhaus. 
I mention this because of the splendid collection 
of trophies of the chase that was displayed in 
the dining and sitting rooms of this hotel. I 
fished for trout in different places in the Hertz 
Mountains, and always met with fair success. 
Also saw quite some game here, such as deer, 
rabbits and partridge. Some days after my 
parents and I had returned home (Bremen) I 
received and accepted an invitation to visit a 
cousin in Geestemunde and while at the latter 
place I fished a number of times for pickerel 
in the ship canal. But 'before I could fish I had 
to procure a fishing license from the city autho¬ 
rities for which license I was charged 3 marks 
(75c.). The water in the ship canal is brackish 
and the pickerel were game and ran to good size, 
caught a few that weighed 5 pounds, and over. 
The pickerel here would not take anything but 
live shiners. Artificial lure was permitted 
providing the lures had not more than one 
hook attached. Good law! Here I also fished 
for the much despised carp in a pond owned 
by a Mr. F. Busse. The latter is a prominent 
fish dealer, owns and operates from ten to 
twelve large fishing steamers. Some of these 
steamers go as far as Iceland to catch fish. I 
never had much use for carp fishing but as the 
latter ran to great size in this pond and were 
unusually lively for carp, I enjoyed fair sport, 
using light rod and tackle. I used dough for 
bait. The water in this pond is brackish, due, 
no doubt, to its near proximity to the River 
Weser, it being only ten feet away from the 
shore of the latter. From Geestemunde I went 
to visit some relatives in Brake, a town situated 
about eight miles up the River Weser. Here 
I caught some of the largest pickerel I ever saw, 
some of them tipped the scales at 9 and 11 lbs. 
respectively, and they were very game. The 
canals and ponds fairly teemed with these fish. 
I found small, live frogs to be the killing bait 
for pickerel at this place. Here too I had very 
good sport fishing in the River Weser for fish 
called “Schnepel.” This fish greatly resembles 
our shad and tastes almost as good. Schnepel 
are quite game and furnish excellent sport on 
light tackle. Some that I caught weighed from 
one to six pounds. Dirt worms were best bait 
