596 
FOREST AND STREAM 
afraid to walk abroad for fear of attracting un¬ 
due attention. However, a boy of 17 with a 
Winchester was finally “coralled” to go with 
the Eagle Lake man, who went up on a certain 
beech hill where lie found the ground all torn 
up, showing where a bear had been eating nuts- 
The wind was blowing a gale from the south¬ 
west but Moore threshed about and made a lot 
of noise to frighten the bear into a long narrow 
ravine, through which it must pass to get to 
heavy timber. Crouching behind a hemlock 
bush, the boy heard a heavy animal coming 
down wind straight for him, breaking dry twigs 
and making a prodigious noise. Becoming some¬ 
what “rattled,” the youth opened fire, aiming at 
first in the direction of the sound with the wild 
idea of stopping whatever was coming his way. 
The fusilade had no other effect than to in¬ 
crease the speed of the creature, which proved 
to be an enormous black bear, and emerged 
from the thick foliage less than 40 feet from 
where the young hunter lay. Fearing for his 
life, the boy fired almost in the bear’s face and, 
fortunately, caught the animal fairly between 
the eyes, and there was a dead bear to take to 
the farm house. 
The hunters got a stone-boat, dragged their 
game onto it and soon had it hanging from a 
tree where it was admired by many autoists and 
other travelers passing. The bear, a male, 
weighed just 250 pounds and measured 6 feet 
and six inches from tip to top. The fur was 
a most lustrous black, very thick and fine. The 
hunters took their game to Carson’s Hotel on 
the State Road, where it was sold for $40 in 
cash. This with the county bounty of $10 more, 
paid them pretty well for the time spent, outside 
of the thrilling adventure itself. 
PETER FLINT. 
a 
51VM 
p_ 
CZZZP ( 
fetF’J 
m 
t) D) 1 9 
Jim, il 
Ml 
C=3 
fi 
j»- —jin 
Killing the World’s Record 710 lbs. Great Tunny 
Over night from New York to Tuna Inn at 
Port Medway, Nova Scotia, for the greatest 
game quarry of the immeasurable deeps. Quest— 
quarry and trophy and the last word in deep sea 
-angling in all the reaches from the Hellespont 
to Terra Nova—Florida Keys—Aransas Pass or 
Catalina’s Gulf. 
The great tunnies of the Atlantic, Orcynus 
Thynnus, follow and feed on the great run of 
herring, gaspereaux and mackerel and range 
.along the coast lines of Newfoundland, Cape 
Breton and Nova Scotia as the great schools of 
herring and mackerel move southward and there 
I’ve angled for this last word in the greatest of 
game angling endurance tests. 
We, “The Boy” and I (the glittering tide of 
years rolls between us, for he’s my grandson), 
left the salmon pools on the Newfoundland 
rivers with health in our bodies, red blood in our 
veins and contentment in our souls. 
We slept soundly at the Halifax House where 
I had rested before “The Boy” was born, when 
I was en route on salmon questing, and taking 
the Halifax and Southwestern the next morning 
we met Laurie D. Mitchell at Port Medway and 
were by him taken to Tuna Inn. 
•Once more we sought the great tunny. 
The lifting shadowy darkness of Saturday 
dawn, September 5, 1914, promised a perfect day 
for fishing in “placid ocean plains.” There was 
neither cloud nor smoke in the heavens and not 
even a swaying plume on the pines around the 
Inn. 
The wind had been blowing from the north¬ 
west for several days and the herring had been 
taken in the nets close to the shore the day be¬ 
fore. Breakfast served at break-o’day and the 
motor boat left Tuna Inn towing Mr. Henry in 
one boat with Rob to handle the oars, and Laurie 
D. Mitchell in the other boat with Buzz at the 
sculls. 
The herring fishing fleet were busy hauling 
their nets within a half mile of the Inn and 
kindly voices bawled tidings that tunnies had 
been around the nets but none was then visible- 
By E. J. Myers. 
Impatient of delay Mr. Henry commandeered 
the motor boat and hiked off to Cherry Cove 
while Laurie started trolling through and around 
the nets. Barely had he gone a few hundred 
yards when there was a strike and the tunny 
came to the surface with a mad swirl of water 
lashed into foam and started up the harbor tak¬ 
ing some 200 yards of line off the reel before 
Buzz got the boat following the fish and Laurie 
got the drag on the smoking line. 
Mark that the guide starts the boat in the di¬ 
rection taken by the fish and then checks the 
boat’s momentum so as to make as much drag 
as possible consistent with the saving of the fish. 
With more than human ingenuity and stra- 
getical genius that tunny towed the boat through 
the mazes of the fishing fleet and herring nets as 
he worked up the westerly side of Medway har¬ 
bor until he struck shoal water and then whipped 
and whirled around making a swell like the 
Ankle-Deep and struck a bee line for the mouth 
of the harbor, and like the skipper in the wreck 
of The Hesperus “He steered for the open sea.” 
“Buzz, buzz, row—row like mad for the line 
is almost gone,” despite all drag and snub and 
efforts to get in the line. Slowly oozing out but 
still with seeming magical swiftness the line ran 
off the reel with the cutwater on the boat turn¬ 
ing up a bow-wave of huge proportions. 
Two miles out with little line to spare while 
the tunny ran strong—the line parted. 
Within one-half hour and the first fish of the 
day lost. 
When the line was reeled in it showed the 
break at the double leader of line—a careless, 
cutting, chafing knot where the single line was 
tied to the double lead. 
Not much time was taken to add a double 
length of 75 yards of No. 36 line to 250 yards of 
single No. 39 line. The steel piano fifteen foot 
wire leader and forged hook (Conroy’s tackle), 
was tied with much more caution, and back to 
the nets the boat was rowed. 
How the fishermen, young and old, jeered 
Laurie when he got back: “Don’t you need a 
Railroad Line?” “Is your line long enough to 
reach Queenstown?” “Got a month’s stores 
aboard?” “Got your bunks fixed?” railed across 
the waters, and of course one could only laugh 
back. 
The hook baited with fresh silvery sided her¬ 
ring had scarcely more than trailed astern down 
the tide when a tunny rose to the surface and 
took the bait with a shock that jarred angler, 
sculler and boat alike, and but for keenest vigi¬ 
lance even the double 36 line would have snapped 
like thread. 
This was not even a half mile from the Inn. 
The size of that fish as his length showed 
above water made the fishing fleet cheer as surge 
and swell of the plunging fish rocked the near¬ 
est boats and its first rush took off almost the 
whole line before the uttermost snub check and 
the drag held further giving, and when the boat 
had gotten headway there was barely twenty-five 
yards of line left on the reel. 
Surely this was one of the great tunnies of 
the Atlantic! 
From within hailing call of the Inn, the fish 
tore out of the harbor past Frying Pan Shoal 
bound for the outer seas, and boat and men were 
as a mere tag behind. 
The fishermen called—“That’s no salmon on 
this hitch, Laurie”—“Don’t let him take you 
across”—“Hold him, hold him”—as the boat slid 
by the last net and passed beyond the light-house. 
As though bewitched without oar or motor the 
boat slipped through the placid mirrory waters 
outward bound for none could see the slender 
flaxen thread that barely made a ripple as it cut 
the water, but the bow made swell and the stern 
made wake as Buzz kept the boat on even keel 
and Laurie Mitchell held rod and reel. 
A run of two miles and the fish circled and 
started for the shore towing the boat into 
Ragged Harbor. Through the reefs where there 
was barely two fathoms of water at the deep¬ 
est, and sometimes only a pond’s water, with 
malice aforethought the quarry sped. 
Desperately the line was reeled in until the 
doubled line was on the reel, for not all Buzz’s 
