May 29, 1909.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
^59 
MinnesoU Fishing Notes. 
Minneapolis, Minn., May 15 .— Editor Forest 
and Stream: The Federal Government will as¬ 
sist Minnesota to enforce the new State law 
against the killing of game in forest reserves. 
The new Superior National Forest, consisting of 
900,000 acres in Northeastern Minnesota, near 
the boundary, will be patrolled by a staff of 
forest rangers under J. A. Baird, who has been 
assigned to this reserve as chief ranger, with 
headquarters at Ely. It has already been agreed 
that Mr. Baird and all of his rangers shall be 
appointed deputy game wardens to serve with¬ 
out expense to the State. While patrolling the 
forest to save it from fire and trespassers, they 
will also see to protection of moose and deer 
from the hunters. Carlos Avery, executive agent 
of the State Game and Fish Commission, is in 
correspondence with Mr. Baird on the subject. 
Hook and line fishing has opened in Min¬ 
nesota. May I the bars to all kinds of fishing, 
with the exception of that for black bass, went 
down and the lakes and streams of this section 
will soon swarm with enthusiasts who love to 
hook a walleye or two. Sand pike and crappies 
are also on the open list, and with the coming 
of hot weather, fishing will get better and better 
until the time for the hunt of the great black 
bass arrives. Up to this week the temperature 
has been so low and the waters so cold that 
there has been no good fishing. The State Game 
and Fish Commission has been troubled lately 
with men and boys using spears and torches to 
catch bass. Late in April eight men were ar¬ 
rested around Minneapolis for spearing fish by 
artificial light. Six of these paid a fine of $10 
each. 
The use of a torch or other artificial light 
is prohibited by law during May and June on 
all fish. Pickerel and coarse fish can be speared, 
but not by light, during those two months. The 
warden at Lake Minnetonka has reported that 
he has never seen so many bass in that body 
of water. At present they are small, but by the 
time the season opens, fishing will probably be 
excellent. 
The number of dead fish that have.come to 
the surface of Lura Lake at Mankato and drifted 
to shore is surprising. The town board of Ster¬ 
ling has had men and teams at work burying 
them, and so great is the task that only those 
near dwellings are being picked up. In a single 
half mile the chairman of the town board esti¬ 
mated that there were between forty and fifty 
tons of dead fish, mostly carp, and weighing 
as much as ten pounds apiece. The same re¬ 
port of dead fish comes from all the shallow 
lakes. 
Wall-eyed pike are biting in the lakes of. 
Northern Minnesota and the bass fisherman is 
oiling his reel and looking over his tackle in 
readiness for May 29, for the oldest fisherman 
knows that when the pike bite in early May, the 
bass will bite on the first day of the bass sea¬ 
son, which is May 29 in Minnesota. The black 
bass is the most popular game fish in Minnesota 
and for a majority of rod fishermen the fishing 
season does not begin until May 29. This year 
it comes on Saturday and this fact will add in¬ 
terest to the opening of the bass season. In 
Minneapolis many parties already have been 
made up for trips to the bass lakes. Practically 
every lake in Minnesota is a bass lake, and as 
a general rule good ones in every sense of the 
word. Minnesota has a growing reputation as 
being a veritable sportsman’s paradise, and my 
opinion is that it cannot be beaten for good fish¬ 
ing and fun. Even Lake Minneatonka, which 
has been fished more than any other large lake 
in the State, has many bass, and millions of bass 
fry are placed in the lakes each year by the game 
and fish commission. 
The wall-eyed pike is the best table fish caught 
in Minnesota lakes, and although he is not so 
TUNA HARPOONED IN NOVA SCOTIA WATERS. 
gamy a fighter as the bass, he is the more valu¬ 
able fish for market. The game and fish com¬ 
mission will this season plant more than 150,- 
000,000 pike fry in the spring lakes. 
Among the best known fishing lakes in Min¬ 
nesota are Big Stone, Mille Lacs, Cass, Leach, 
Detroit, Clearwater, Pulaski, Koronis, Inde¬ 
pendence, Charlotte, White Fish, etc., all famous 
for gray as well as black bass. Bass are caught 
in Mille Lacs and in Clearwater, but these two 
lakes are classed as pike lakes. Big Harbor 
Lake is famous for its bass fishing, while the 
northern lakes, Cass and Leach, like most of the 
other northern lakes, harbor all the varieties of 
lake fish. It is in the northern lakes that the 
muskalonge is the leaping tuna of Minnesota, 
and he can be caught within seventy-five miles 
of Minnesota in the Mille Lacs Lake. A 
muskalonge weighing 49 pounds was caught at 
Isle Flarbor, Mille Lacs, in June last. The Cass 
and Leach lake region is famous for muskalonge 
fishing and Wisconsin lakes also afford excel¬ 
lent fishing. 
A muskalonge weighing 42J4 pounds was 
caught last week by a 12-year-old boy with a 
light rod and line and was brought to St. Paul 
by Charles Olsen and Oswald Hoffman, of 
Taylor’s Falls, and placed on exhibition in a 
sporting goods store. The fish is a magnificent 
specimen, forty-nine inches long, but the real 
wonder is in the surrender of such a finny Goliath 
to the stripling fisherman. The boy landed the 
fish without help, with a light rod, a five-ply 
line and No. 5 spoon hook while fishing at the 
foot of the large power dam at Taylor’s Falls. 
A late spring has had its usual effect on trout 
fishing, as the trout are taking neither flies nor 
bait. Parties of Minnesota fishermen, who have 
gone to the streams near St. Cloud and to the 
Wisconsin streams, have returned with few fish 
and are praying for a warming rain. 
Robert Page Lincoln. 
Atlantic Tuna. 
Washington, D. C., May 22. — Editor Forest 
and Stream: Some six years ago you published 
a communication of mine in which I pointed out 
the existence of tuna in the Atlantic, especially 
on the coasts of Nova Scotia and Newfound¬ 
land, and stated that, so far as I know, no one 
had ever tried landing one there with rod and 
reel. I also told how I was starting several 
sportsmen of Sydney and one of Newfoundland 
after the great fish. 
Lately I have learned that many of them 
have been hung, but not one has yet been landed, 
consequently the honor of capturing with rod 
and reel the first tuna in the Atlantic is still 
open to fishermen. 
My friend, J. K. L. Ross, of Montreal and 
Sydney, has had some exciting experiences with 
these monster game fishes and has promised to 
tell about them in a letter to your paper, hence 
I shall not spoil his story by relating herein 
anything that he told me. 
The Atlantic tuna certainly are much larger 
on the average than those near Catalina. I 
judge this to be the case not only from the 
experiences that I have heard related by Nova 
Scotia fishermen, but also from the photograph 
and record which I am sending. This fish* was 
caught by harpooning in Mira Bay, in August, 
1908. It measured 8 feet 6 inches in length by 
6 feet 6 inches in maximum girth, and weighed 
462^^ pounds. Its tail spread was 35 inches. 
The standard formula for weight of fish evi¬ 
dently does not apply to tuna, for it would make 
this specimen weigh 776 pounds. A glance at 
the photograph will explain the reason for this, 
because the lower half of the fish is exceedingly 
slender. The formula works all right for tarpon 
and several other game fishes, both large and 
small, upon which I have tested it. 
If Jack Ross writes one half as interestingly 
as he talks, I can assure your readers that they 
have a treat in store for them. 
J. A. L. Waddell. 
*Evidently the same specimen referred to in our issue 
of May 22. 
