FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Jan. 23, 1909. 
M2 
experienced so far this season. The best lure 
for the fish proved to be No. 4 whirling spoons 
and these were used almost exclusively by the 
anglers who met with any success. J. B. Ken- 
niff took the largest fish, a ten-pounder, and also 
secured several lacking but a few pounds of 
reaching this weight. W. R. Chambers, fishing 
with a six-ounce rod, took a nine-pound fish and 
experienced one of the stubbornest fights he re¬ 
members from a steelhead. It took thirty 
minutes to land the fish. The stream was 
rapidly clearing at this time and it was hoped 
that the sport would soon be at its height, but 
since then heavy rains have been falling, and it 
will now be some time before fishing will be 
good again. The bar at the mouth of the river 
is now out and the fish will have no difficulty 
in ascending the stream. A number of mem¬ 
bers of the Anglers’ Club have been trying the 
fishing in the vicinity of Point Reyes, but have 
met with little success there so far. There are 
a few fish in the White House pool, but they 
seem to be indifferent to lures and few were 
taken. These were of very small size. 
The fish commission deputies are keeping a 
close lookout for illegal fishing in the Russian 
River and several large nets have been taken 
by Deputy Cross. The officers of the California 
Anglers’ Association, assisted by the fishermen 
of the Russian River, have recently planted in 
that stream 100,000 salmon fry from the Sisson 
hatchery. This is the first time that salmon 
have been planted in the Russian River and the 
success of the venture will be closely watched. 
The California Anglers’ Association held its 
fifth annual meeting and smoker in this city on 
Jan. 5, over a hundred members being present. 
The reports showed that the association is in 
strong financial condition and has about 200 
members on the active list. The organization 
decided to propose to the present Legislature a 
constitutional amendment preventing the whole¬ 
sale pre-empting of fishing streams in the State. 
The following directors were elected for the 
coming year: Charles F. Breidenstein, W. A. 
L. Miller, L. Levy, James Lynch, Hugh Cope¬ 
land, P. W. Shattuck, H. H. Baker and A. 
Rochefort. A. P. B. 
Anglers’ Club of New York. 
The annual meeting and dinner of the Ang¬ 
lers’ Club of New York was held at Burns’ 
Hotel the night of Jan. 12. The business meet¬ 
ing, which was held early in the evening, was 
brief. The election of officers consisted in an 
endorsement of the selections made by the nomi¬ 
nating committee, the secretary casting a single 
ballot for the entire ticket. The new officers 
are as follows: President, Harold G. Hender¬ 
son ; Vice-President, G. M. L. LaBranche; 
Secretary, Edward Farnham Todd; Treasurer, 
Edward B. Rice; Directors, in addition to those 
named above, John L. Kirk, Perry D. Frazer 
and Nathaniel S. Smith; Committee on Admis¬ 
sions, E. H. Myers, Tobias A. Wright, William 
J. Ehrich, E. C. Evans and W. G. Geety. 
At the dinner which followed, two tables, ex¬ 
tending the full length of the long banquet hall, 
were required to seat the members and their 
guests. The club roll contains nearly 100 names, 
and each annual dinner finds the number of 
anglers present—members and guests—much 
larger than the previous year. 
The presentation of a bait-casting rod to John 
L. Kirk, the retiring president, was made by ex- 
President Robert B. Lawrence, who also distri¬ 
buted the gold medals awarded by the club to 
members who had broken records during the 
year. These follow: 
King Smith, fly-casting for distance with a 
five-ounce rod, 9354 feet. 
Perry D. Frazer, fly-casting for distance with 
single-hand rod, no feet. 
George LaBranche, dry-fly casting for accu¬ 
racy, 98 3-5 per cent. 
R. J. Held, distance bait-casting, half-ounce 
weight; longest cast, 187 feet; average of five 
casts, 181 4-5 feet. 
Edward B. Rice, surf-casting with 2l4-ounce 
weight, 269 feet. 
R. J. Held, distance bait-casting with quarter- 
ounce weight; longest cast, 161 feet; average 
of five casts, 137 3-5 feet. 
Perry D. Frazer, salmon fly-casting for dis¬ 
tance with fifteen-foot rod, 122 feet. 
An exhibition of moving pictures was given 
by R. E. Follett, of the New England Forest, 
Fish and Game Association. These comprised 
salmon fishing scenes and were very fine. W. 
T. Morrison exhibited a series of lantern slides 
from pictures made by himself during fishing 
trips in the French River and Lake Nipissing 
regions of Canada. 
The committees, which will have charge of 
the national tournament, which is to be held 
under the auspices of this club and the National 
Association next August, will be appointed 
shortly. These will also manage the tournament 
to be held in Madison Square Garden next 
month. 
Trout and Irrigating Ditches. 
Bozeman, Mont., Jan. 16 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: Adverting to the destruction of fish 
through the instrumentality of irrigating canals 
as stated in my article on the subject in Forest 
AND Stream of Jan. 2, the following is to the 
point: 
North Yakima Correspondence of the Seattle Post- 
Intelligencer: 
Game Warden Thomas Mullen, of Yakima county, has 
called the sportsmen of this district together to devise 
some way of protecting the game fish, which are now 
being slaughtered in thousands by being dumped on 
the orchards and alfalfa fields from the irrigation ditches. 
The trout and salmon enter the ditches and then turn 
off into the laterals, finally ending their life in the grass, 
where the water has played out and left them. Attorney 
Edward Parker, a few days ago, caught a six-pound rain¬ 
bow trout in his pear orchard. Clinton Shannon found 
several trout in his orchard, and numerous others have 
reported similar finds. 
Small boys catch long strings of small trout by scoop¬ 
ing them from the pools with their hands. Game Warden 
Mullen says that in some sections of the valley the 
ranchmen who want fish angle for them in the irrigation 
ditches in preference to the streams, the ditches being 
more accessible and the water slower and therefore better. 
The same lamentable conditions as related 
above prevail wherever irrigation is practiced, 
where fish are still somewhat plentiful in the 
streams, and where no provision is made to keep 
the fish from entering .the ditches. 
Not only in the State of Washington, but in 
all of the Northwestern States the destruction 
of salmon, trout, grayling and whitefish, from 
fingerlings to adults, from this cause, is simply 
awful to contemplate. 
There are unscrupulous ranchers in Montana 
who “angle” for the fish by throwing them out 
of the ditches with shovel or pitchfork for fer¬ 
tilizing purposes. I am glad to say, however, 
that most of the Western farmers are law-abid¬ 
ing sportsmen, who would welcome a law com¬ 
pelling the installation of some device to keep 
the fish out of the ditches. Such a law would 
mostly affect the canal companies who furnish 
water to the ranches. 
A device placed at the intake of the main canal 
would obviate the necessity of screening the 
laterals and distributing ditches. This being the 
fact, it is the commercial canal corporations, and 
not the farmers, that have so far defeated the 
enactment of laws looking to the conservation 
of fish by keeping them out of the canals. 
There is universal objection to the use of 
small-meshed screens at the intake of canals and 
ditches, and not without reason, for some care 
is necessary to keep them clean. Owing to this 
widespread objection I devised a simple under¬ 
shot wheel to be placed at the intake, which re¬ 
quires no looking after, and is more effective 
than any screen; no fish large or small will 
pass it. 
It is simply an octagon shaft with four or 
eight paddles nailed on and placed in a short, 
close-fitting box or flume at the mouth or in¬ 
take of the ditch. There must be fall enough 
to create a current sufficient to cause the wheel 
to revolve. The bearings of the shaft, two large 
nails or spikes, are set in a V-shaped slot open¬ 
ing vertically, so that any trash or hard sub¬ 
stances can raise the wheel and pass under. 
There is no patent on the device, a description 
of which, with illustrations, was published in 
Forest and Stream, Nov. 30, 1907. I will be 
pleased to furnish any additional information 
to anyone desiring to construct it. It can also 
