March i6, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
337 
Bass Seasons and Stocking. 
Paterson, N. J., March 5—Editor Forest and 
Stream: Every year I read a great many argu¬ 
ments in Forest and Stream and other publica¬ 
tions honestly devoted to the preservation of 
fish in favor of a late season for the taking of 
bass and other fish. The underlying principle 
of these arguments is that fish should be per¬ 
mitted to spawn, and that consequently they 
should not be taken during the spawning season. 
Yet in most of the States the bass season opens 
in the middle of the spawning period. May I 
suggest that arguments, perhaps specious, may 
be found in favor of the prevailing condition of 
affairs ? 
Fly-fishing is regarded by a great many as the 
most exalted department of the sport of angling. 
In order to take fish with a fly, it is necessary 
that we should do so while the fish are rising 
to the fly. The fishing I have done has been 
confined almost altogether to ponds within a 
short distance of New York, mainly Greenwood 
Lake, and my experience has been that if I had 
waited until every bass had been through spawn¬ 
ing, I should have taken few, in many years none, 
on the fly. Bass rise to the fly while they are 
in shallow water; the close of the spawning sea¬ 
son means warm weather, when the bass seek 
the deeper water, and when it will be necessary 
to go after them with bait, frequently laziness 
with little justification in the way of sport. 
I fail to see a great deal of difference between 
the taking of bass in November and in the fol¬ 
lowing May; yet the former is regarded as al¬ 
most laudable, whereas the latter is criminal. In 
the former the eggs and milt are destroyed be¬ 
fore exudation; in the latter the eggs have 
passed an infinitesimal portion of the road to¬ 
ward becoming proper victims for the angler’s 
lure. Why should the egg be a negligible quan¬ 
tity at one time and a jewel a few months later? 
In a recent editorial in Forest and Stream 
it was suggested that perhaps we do altogether 
too much stocking, and that we pay little or no 
attention to the welfare of what follows the 
stocking. I think that is excellent gospel. We 
should consider a fruit grower very foolish if 
he were to plant ten million apple seeds in a 
ten-acre lot after he had reaped a very limited 
crop of apples, yet that is the principle frequently 
resorted to in stocking with fish and in the pro¬ 
tection of fish during the spawning period. We 
stock and stock and stock regardless of the fact 
that the food supply for the young fish is not 
sufficient for a millionth part of the fish to be 
produced. If we were farmers, we should cover 
a field with wheat two feet thick, in order to 
have a more abundant harvest, and we should 
prevent the gathering of chestnuts in order that 
there may be chestnut trees a few years hence. 
I have frequently inquird as to the number of 
black bass that were placed in Greenwood Lake 
when that sheet of water was first stocked with 
those fish. I have conversed with men who-claim- 
ed to have been present when the fish were first 
placed in the lake, and not one of them put the 
figure higher than twenty, this number includ¬ 
ing both large and small-mouthed. Four or five 
years after this stocking there was better bass 
fishing in Greenwood Lake than there has been 
ever since. There is no doubt that the young 
bass found an abundance of food, and there is 
also no doubt that this food did not increase in 
proportion to the increase of the bass. If a score 
of bass were sufficient to stock Greenwood Lake 
when the food supply was abundant, would not 
a far smaller number be sufficient now that this 
food supply has been materially reduced? Yet 
we are informed that every year large numbers 
of bass have been placed in Greenwood Lake, 
the number placed in the lake in any one year 
being sufficient to stock a lake many times the 
size of Greenwood. 
Another fact frequently overlooked in our wild 
desire to stock is that the fecundity of fish 
reaches its greatest virility the year after the fish 
has attained maturity, and that from that period 
on its goes rapidly down until it reaches zero. 
In one of the Western hatcheries as high as 98 
per cent, has been reported in the artificial propa¬ 
gation of trout, these fish being two and one- 
half years of age. The following year the get 
of these same fish went down to 70 per cent. 
What is true of trout, and of all fish with which 
fish culturists have been able to make the ex¬ 
periment, is also in all likelihood true of the 
bass, yet bass weighing three pounds and over 
are placed in Greenwood Lake every year, the 
presumption being that these bass will aid in 
stocking the lake, when as a matter of fact they 
are probably an injury, destroying food neces¬ 
sary for the feeding of spawning fish. To re¬ 
move these fish would be a benefit to the lake, 
yet our laws make it criminal. 
Charles A. Shriner. 
Fishing in California. 
San Francisco, March 7 . — Editor Forest and 
Stream: Ideal spring weather during the past 
month has drawn great crowds to fishing 
places in the bay district, and catches of striped 
bass and steelhead trout have been very heavy 
for the season. Extremely high water was the 
rule last year, but this year the snowfall in the 
Sierras is only about one-fourth the normal 
and streams will be low late in the season, with 
the best fishing much earlier than usual. 
Deputy A. M. Fairfield, for many years with 
the Fish and Game Commission, has been ap¬ 
pointed supervisor of the operations of the 
many oil refineries on the bay to see that the 
waters are not polluted by escaping oil. 
The supervisors of Santa Cruz county have 
made a proposition to the State authorities for 
turning over to the latter the hatchery that has 
been maintained by the county at Brookdale. 
It is proposed that Santa Cruz county be given 
500,000 fry each year, the balance of the output 
of the hatchery to be distributed in other sec¬ 
tions of the State. 
The experimental fish hatchery established 
near Sacramento this season is believed to be 
a great success, and in the future most of the 
salmon will be liberated in the lower Sacra¬ 
mento River. Under present conditions less 
than one per cent, of the fish become full sized, 
owing to the fact that they get lost in the many 
irrigation ditches further up the river. 
Golden Gate. 
Casting at the Sportsmen’s Show. 
Great interest was displayed in the casting 
contests held in connection with the Sportsmen’s 
Show in Madison Square Garden, March 1-9, in¬ 
clusive, and good casting was done under the 
circumstances, for there were no opportunities 
for practice until the show opened, and then 
only when the trapshooting was not in progress. 
There was insufficient space for the long dis¬ 
tance casting that many anglers are fond of, but 
all of the light tackle events were interesting. 
The scores follow, event 7 being omitted, as 
it was not cast. Gold, silver and bronze medals 
were won as follows: 
Event 1.—Trout fly, distance, 5-ounce rods, 70-foot class: 
Feet. Feet. 
Saunders . 68 E. F. Todd. 61 
Willeck . 62% 
Event 2.—Accuracy bait, t4-ounce: 
Per C’t. Per C’t. 
A. J. Marsh. 97.3 Chas. T. Champion.. 95.3 
F. T. Mapes. 96.6 
Event 3.—Distance bait, %-ounce, 115-foot class: 
Av. feet. Av. feet. 
Fred. T. Mapes. 67% W. C. Metcalfe. 43% 
John Doughty . 67 
Event 4.—Distance fly, 5-ounce rods, 85-foot class: 
Feet. ' Feet. 
Perry D. Frazer. 78 8 F. T. Mapes. 73 
A. B. Hubbell. 74 
Event 5.—Accuracy bait, 97 per cent, class: 
. Per C’t. Per C’t. 
E. M. Gill. 97.0 Walter McGuckin_ 96.3 
C. H. Higby. 96.4 
Event 6.—^Accuracy fly, 98 per cent, class: 
Per C’t. Per C’t. 
W. C. Metcalfe.99.12 C. H. Higby. 97.07 
A. B. Hubbell. 98.67 J. G. Lamison. 96.80 
A. R. Hanners. 98.33 Woodward . 94.73 
D. T. Abercrombie.. 98.07 
Event 8.—Obstacle accuracy fly, open: 
A. J. Marsh. 98% R. J. Held. 
C. T. Champion. 94% 
Event 9.—Obstacle distance fly, open: Darling 
Held second; Hubbell third. 
93% 
won; 
Event 10.—Dry-fly accuracy: Marsh won; E. B. Rice 
second; L. S. Darling third. 
Event 11.—Distance fly, 5-ounce, open: 
Feet. Feet. 
L. S. Darling . 76 8 D. T. Abercrombie... 75 
Event 12.-—Accuracy bait-casting at a moving target. 
Demerits. Demerits. 
A. J. Marsh. 9 E.- B. Rice. 22 
A. J. Neu. 18 
Event 13.—Accuracy flv, under a bush: 
Points. Points. 
A. J. Marsh. 68 John Doughty. 54 
L. S. Darling. 54 
Event 14.—Four-our'-e rods, 60-foot class: 
Feet. Feet. 
Perry D. Frazer. 82 N. T. Towns. 67 2 
G. P. Cutler. 67 6 
Event 15.—Same, 75-fnot class: 
W. Willeck . 71 D. T. Abercrombie.. 68 
John Doughty . 69 
Event 16, same, open: 
Feet. Feet. 
Harry Friedman _ 83 5 Walter McGuckin .. 78 
L. S. Darling. 79 7 
Event 17.—Switch casting: 
Feet. Feet. 
I.. S. Darling. 82 1 D. T. Abercrom.bie.. 58 
John Doughty . 59 6 
Event 18.—Accuracy bait, %-ounce: 
Demerits. Demerits. 
A. J. Marsh. 28 A. J. Neu. 47 
E. B. Rice. 36 
Event 19.—Accuracy flv: W. B. Gano won; A. J. 
Marsh second; Fred. T. Mapes third. 
Illinois Casting Club. 
Chicago, Ill., March 8 . — Editor Forest and 
Stream: Our club’s opening dinner of the 1912 
season will be held Saturday evening, March 16, 
at the restaurant at 424 South Wabash avenue, 
at 7 p. M. 
The hour between 6 and 7 o’clock will be de¬ 
voted to an exchange of friendly greetings and 
social intercourse. A. F. Swisher, Sec’y. 
