370 
FOREST AND STREAM 
March 23, 1912 
Five Days Trouting in New Brunswick 
By CHARLES L. BARKER 
O NE da}' about the first of last June I re¬ 
ceived a telegram from H. N. Straus, 
of New York city, asking if I could take 
care of himself and friend, H. W. Endicott, and 
give them a few days' fishing. Replying that I 
could, I met them some days later and we pro¬ 
ceeded to the fishing grounds, where luck was 
with us and we caught all the trout we wanted 
in a short time. This we could do at any time 
we felt like casting a fly. However, in the in¬ 
tervals we watched moose feeding in the ponds 
and the deer around the shores in the early 
morning and evening. 
One day while Mr. Straus and I were paddling 
up a long deadwater looking for a bear, for 
there were some around, we heard something 
splashing in the water ahead of. us. We 
paddled softly around a point and almost ran 
the canoe on an old cow moose that was feed¬ 
ing in the deadwater. When we rounded the 
point she was entirely under water, and we 
were almost as much surprised as she was, when 
cow MOOSE FEEDING IN A DEADWATER. 
she suddenly raised her head and shoulders 
above the surface about six feet in front of the 
canoe. She surely was a ludicrous-looking old 
thing as she stood staring at us .with her mouth 
full of weeds from the bottom and the water 
pouring from her ears and head in streams. 
She seemed too much surprised to move and 
stood stupidly staring at what she no doubt 
took to be some strange monster that had sud¬ 
denly appeared and which she could not quite 
make out. We determined to surprise her still 
more, so I gently shoved the canoe still nearer, 
and Mr. Straus, who was in the bow, leaned 
forward and fired his heavy rifle as near her ear 
as he could without actually hitting her. A 
monster that made such a tremendous noise 
was too much for her nerves, and she made a 
wild break for dry land, splashing us with mud 
and water as she did so. Scrambling out on 
the bank, she turned, with one ear hanging 
down, and took a look at us, and seeing that 
we were still there, she let out a roar of in¬ 
dignation and made for the woods at top speed, 
looking round just before disappearing in the 
alders, to see if we were chasing her. 
Another day Mr. Straus and I got tired of 
fishing and visited a nearby salt lick, where we 
saw eight deer and a caribou. We also saw 
where a bear had dragged out the carcass of 
a deer that had gotten fast in the mud and 
drowned. He had been feeding on the carcass 
very recently, and no doubt we had scared him 
away when we approached the lick, for he- had 
dragged the remains for some distance, along 
the game trail that we were traveling on until 
he came to a thicket and there he was dining 
at his leisure. 
Mr. Endicott and my brother Arthur also put 
in a lot of time watching the wild animals. 
They told us how they had watched a family of 
beaver at play one afternoon, flow the old one 
would dive, giving a slap . ojft, the water with 
her tail as she did so that sounded like the re¬ 
port of a gun, and how the small ones would 
follow in succession, each seeming to strive to 
make a louder noise than his pi^edecessor, only 
to reappear on the surface and go through the 
same performance again. They also told us how 
they had watched a big moose feeding in a 
pond. How he would disappear entirely beneath 
the water and stay down longer than they 
thought possible for any land animal to do 
without air. and finally coming up with his 
mouth full of weeds from the bottom, which 
he would eat and then go down again for more. 
One day we went over to another lake, where 
we had great luck with the trout, getting some 
good ones. On our way home it began to rain 
hard, and as we had left our coats at the camp, 
it looked as if we were in for a good wetting, 
but we each pealed a large sheet of bark from 
a white birch and cut a round hole in the center, 
through which we put our heads, letting the 
bark rest on our shoulders. This kept us, per¬ 
fectly dry, with the exception of our legs and 
feet, which were bound to get wet anyway in 
the grass and leaves. 
During the five days we were in the woods Mr. 
Straus and Mr. Endicott caught about 400 trout, 
some of which weighed three pounds. Need¬ 
less to say we returned most of them to the 
water, only keeping what we wanted to eat. 
Joe, our cook, said that this was too many, as 
he felt that he had cooked and eaten so many 
that he would be ashamed to look a trout in the 
face again for a year. The day before we left 
the woods Mr. Endicott caught 135 trout, keep¬ 
ing enough of the best ones so that we could 
take a few panfuls home with us. 
On our way in to camp, we had found that 
some beavers had built a dam across a small 
A RUFFED grouse's. NEST. 
brook, flooding the wagon road to a depth of 
about four feet, and we had to dig out a section 
of the dam and let the water drain off before 
we could get the wagon through with the con¬ 
tents dry. Knowing that they would rebuild it 
and not liking the work of digging it out again 
on our way out, we told the teamster to bring 
a stick of dynamite when he came back for us,. 
Having only the empty wagon on his return, 
he waded through the pond. But the next 
morning on our way out we tied the dynamite 
to a pole -with a suitable length of fuse, which 
we lit, and then pushed the pole with the dyna¬ 
mite on the end well down under the dam, run¬ 
ning to a safe distance to await the results. 
Soon with a bang a large section of the dam 
was lifted high in the air. scattering mud and 
sticks in great shape and letting the water 
drain off in a short time, so that we got our 
outfit through dry and reached home safely that 
afternoon. 
Coming. 
BY J. G. MILLS. 
Fishing time is coming! 
Hear the bullfrogs sing! 
See! the pussy willow’s budding! 
Sure sign of spring. 
Fishing time is coming! 
Fix up your lines and bait; 
Have your fish-pole handy; 
You won’t have long to wait! 
Fishing time is coming! 
The south wind warms the air; 
Brooks and streams are calling — 
Calling, everywhere! 
