236 
FOREST AND STREAM 
In the Itaska Park region of Minnesota there 
has always been good fishing, and there always 
will be, i'f the fish supply is kept away from the 
hands of the spoilers. Here in the Pine Belt 
of the state the lakes have a beauty that es¬ 
pecially identifies them in the eyes of an outdoor 
man; as a rule they are very transparent, with 
sanded bottoms and wonderfully smooth beaches. 
Park Rapids, situated on the Great Northern 
Railroad, furnishes the means of a notable des¬ 
tination for the angler. Starting from this point, 
with boat and tent one may reach any number 
of fishable lakes, where pike, pickerel, muskies, 
perch and other fish may be found in abundance. 
Slightly north of Park Rapids you hit upon 
the Great Mantrap Valley of the north, and you 
(have practically at your finger-tips something 
like forty or fifty lakes, as good fishing lakes as 
are found anywhere in this state. In this valley 
are located three lake systems, or chains of lakes, 
lying parallel with each other, which all indirect¬ 
ly unite and flow into the Mississippi River. 
The Sand Lake chain embraces sixteen lakes; 
the Crow Wing chain to the eastward, has twelve 
lakes, and the Fish-hook chain has ten lakes, 
lying to the westward. Herein are found good- 
sized muscallonge, some thirty pounders having 
been taken upon occasion; but as a rule the aver¬ 
age muscallonge taken is much smaller, despite 
reports to the contrary. The Great Northern 
pike is found here and is a fighter, equal in my 
estimation to the muscallonge. Little Sand 
Lake has fine muscalloge fishing; as has Big 
Sand, a remarkably picturesque lake with well 
sanded bottom and perfectly sanded beaches. 
Lake Ida is one of the most beautiful lakes of 
the group, and offers excellent bass fishing in 
season. Lake Emma has good muscallonge fish¬ 
ing; as has Lower Bottle Lake and Upper Bot¬ 
tle, not forgetting the “Pork Barrel” of fisher¬ 
men’s fame. Stocking Lake, and the Upper 
Mantraps furnish good bass fishing. Elbow 
and Dead Lakes, reached by a one mile portage 
from the Sand Lake chain offers some of the 
best bass fishing one can expect anywhere. The 
Potato Lakes have some fine wall-eyed perch 
fishing. This is also reached by a comparatively 
short portage. Twelve miles south from Big 
Sand Lake is found the Crow Wing Lakes. Here 
there is a chain, or string of lakes, that list: 
Fourth, Fifth, Sixth. Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, 
Tenth and Eleventh Lakes. Fourth and Fifth 
Lakes have a remarkable abundance of wall-eyed 
pike, perch and pickerel. The pickerel in the 
north is considered a prime nuisance. 
The Mantrap Valley is beautifully situated, 
close to the height of land in Minnesota. It 
is in places heavily thicketed with jack-pine, with 
a mingling of poplars and universal and custom¬ 
ary underbrush. The lakes are wonderfully 
transparent as a rule; the scenery unequalled: 
the atmosphere healthful and invigorating; and 
taken all in all it makes a fine place to spend a 
week or two a-fishing and nature-absorbing. The 
muscallonge are, as a rule, dull at taking the lure 
in the early part of the season. September and 
October are high times of the year for these 
fish; and then record catches are often made. 
Pike fishing along the Mississippi River be¬ 
tween Fort Snelling and St. Cloud is of the best 
along about in the month of September, and till 
freeze-up. They lie along the sand-bars; the 
are healthy, vigorous fellows and the pleasurable 
thing about it is that in river fishing you are 
always sure, sometime, to land a great big fel¬ 
low, with just as much fight to him as a great 
northern pike. Usually the pike run pretty small 
in the lakes; but the river is quite another propo¬ 
sition. A twelve and fifteen pound wall-eyed 
perch is always a possibility. In arranging for 
a fall trip into Minnesota do not fail to put “pike 
fishing in the Mississippi,” at the head of your 
list, add some lake- fishing to it, and then some 
duck and squirrel hunting and with this variety 
to your credit you will surely go home happy and 
thankful. And do not forget that pike fishing 
is good way up to the time that snow flies thick 
and fast in the bleak and wintry air. 
Use a Skinner four and three quarters spoon 
for musky and pickerel; is seems to be the best 
all-around spoon out of a various collection. 
Add strips of red flannel to make things more 
attractive. Use frog or a large minnow on a 
bare hook for pike-perch. 
Minnesota to be appreciated in her fullness of 
charm, the wonderfulness of contour, her in¬ 
dividuality and freedom, must be seen in her va¬ 
rious moods; and those who realize her offer¬ 
ings the most are those who live right down 
close to the mother breast of her. A self-con¬ 
ducted camp upon the shores of a free and wild 
lake, away from the stiff and conventional, is 
what one needs, and actually craves for. 
“The State of Minnesota is so emphatically 
the land of lakes that this designation should be¬ 
come peculiarly its own. No other region on the 
face of the globe can compare with it in this 
respect. In its central portion the greater area 
is water. The state geologist enumerates ten 
thousand. In aggregation and arrangement they 
seem the very counterpart of the galaxy across 
the sky. There are lakes of every conceivable 
conformation and outline; round lakes with peb¬ 
bly shores; oblong lakes, margined with wild rice 
and reeds; lakes spangled with pond-lily-pods 
in June; lakes with deeply indented bays and 
projecting points half submerged and bristling 
with rushes; lakes with shores wooded to the 
brink and filled with wooded islands; lakes with 
flat shores, bold shores, sloping shores, lakes 
with confronting bluffs and promontories. There 
are lakes detached and isolated; lonesome lakes; 
lakes in clusters and in pairs; spectacle lakes 
and lakes in connecting chains, stretching far 
across the country and forming uninterrupted 
thoroughfares for canoes for a hundred miles or 
more.” 
A REPLY TO MR. W1NANS. 
Washington, July, 24. 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream: 
Referring to Mr. Winans’ “Corrections” con¬ 
tained on page 78 of Forest and Stream for 
July 18, 1914, I trust I may be allowed to make 
reply as follows. 
In the first place, I beg to be pardoned for 
making use of the personal and possessive pro¬ 
nouns, first person singular, wherever necessary. 
This is done only in order to avoid a more 
labored and affected style which, moreover, would 
imply none of the merits of modesty. 
Mr. Winans says: “One ought always to be 
sure of facts before correcting any one else, 
otherwise one is apt to argue from false con¬ 
clusions.” Of course, one does not argue from 
conclusions, but from premises, arriving at con¬ 
clusions. But this is merely a point of logic 
which, .as Mr. Winans has shown, has little to 
do with his side of the question. 
Above all, there was no intention whatsoever 
on my part to belittle Mr. Winans’ accomplish¬ 
ment in slaying the record “Aurochs” on Count 
Potocki’s* estate, at Pilawin in Russian Poland, 
■but an objection was simply made to the manner 
in which that remarkable exploit was announced 
to the world. In making this objection, attention 
was primarily called to the fact that no such an 
animal as an “Oroch” or “Orochs” now exists 
cr ever existed, and incidentally also to the fact 
that even the name “Aurochs” which the writer 
evidently intended to use, would be improper in 
this case. It was a European Bison, and not 
an Aurochs, that Mr. Winans killed. Why an 
exception was taken to the terms “Oroch” and 
“Orochs,” which are simply preposterous, but 
even to the name “Aurochs” in this instance, had 
Mr. Winans’ fullsome eulogist known enough 
to apply it, will appear from the following cita¬ 
tion from “Murray’s New English Dictionary,” 
Vol. I, p. 567, (some of the italics are mine) : 
Aurochs XXXXX. Historically and properly, 
the name of an extinct species of Wild Ox ( Bos 
Urus Owen, B. primigenius Boj.), described by 
Caesar as Urus which formerly inhabited Europe, 
including the British Isles, and survived until 
comparatively recent times in Prussia, Poland 
and Lithuania. Since this became extinct, the 
name has often been erroneously applied to an¬ 
other species, t’he European Bison ( Bos Bison 
Gesn., B. bonasas Linn.), still extant in the for¬ 
ests of Lithuania, in which sense it is used by 
some English naturalists. In early mod. G. aurox, 
aurochs, was still applied to the Urus, and only 
since its disappearance (in 17th C.) has been 
popularly misapplied to the Bison, in which sense 
it was unfortunately adopted by some naturalists, 
before the facts were known. More recent 
authors have sought to remedy the mistake by 
introducing the form Urox (M.H.G. ur-ochse 
for the Urus, while retaining Aurochs for t’ 
Bison; but as Urox and Aurochs are only ^ 
earlier and later forms of the same name, th .is 
historically indefensible, and the only acc - . .ate 
nomenclature is to distinguish the tw*o animals 
as Urus (or Urox) and Bison ( improperly called 
Aurochs). 
As the last Aurochs was probably slain in the 
forest of Jaktozowka, w.s.w. of Warsaw, about 
the year 1627, or at any rate in the course of 
the 17th century, and if it be true that Mr. 
Winans really killed an Aurochs, as he says, Mr. 
Winans must long ago have reached a patriarchal 
age far in excess of that allotted to most men, 
or he must otherwise have made a most re¬ 
markable discovery. But, leaving joke aside, it 
should be repeated that the animal killed by Mr. 
Winans was a European Bison (Bos bonasus), 
and not a true Aurochs ( Bos primigenius, not 
B. primigenus, nor B. primogenus). A reference 
to reproductions of the rock paintings of an¬ 
cient wild cattle found at Altamira, Spain, and 
at Font-de-Gaume, La Greze (Dordogne), La 
Mairie, Teyjat, and other places in southern 
France, which are all entitled “Bisons,” will con¬ 
vince any one that they were really Bisons, and 
not the Aurochs. This Mr. Winans himself ad¬ 
mits, although he calls them “Buffaloes.” I 
think that an article on this subject was pub¬ 
lished in Forest and Stream some time ago, and 
it may easily be found in a complete file for the 
last four or five years. 
Again, the “Zubre,” Germ. “Wisent,” or Euro¬ 
pean Bison in all probability was hunted by the 
