Forest and Stream 
$3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy, 
Six Months, fl.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, APRIL 6, 1912. 
VOL. LXXVIIL—No. 14. 
127 Franklin St., New York. 
A Fishing Trip to Lake Wenonah 
P ROBABLY nowhere in the Adirondacks to¬ 
day is there to be found a more perfect 
natural sportsmen's preserve than that sec¬ 
tion embracing Lake Wenonah, in Saratoga 
county, and the surrounding country. Far enough 
removed from the noise and hustle of town life, 
and off the beaten path of the summer boarder, 
it is still easily accessible by a pleasant drive of 
eleven miles from Northville, the terminus of 
the Fonda, Johnstown & Gloversville railway. 
To anyone familiar with the Adirondacks from 
sections like Saranac, Tupper 
Lake or Big Moose, it is almost 
unbelievable that here at the very 
gateway of the North Woods 
stand properties as primitive and 
in many ways as virgin as when 
trodden by our forefathers before 
the Revolution. 
Having occasion to be in that 
vicinity late last summer, I was 
invited by J. W. Olmstead to 
spend a few days at his camp, 
near Lake Wenonah, and inci¬ 
dentally to have a whack at some 
of the big speckled trout that 
lurk in countless numbers in this 
mountain spring. The drive from 
Mr. Olmstead’s home in the busy 
little town of Northville took us 
something like three hours, as my 
host had several stops to make on 
the way—one place after apples, 
another for a jug of maple syrup 
and still another to leave some 
little delicacy for a sick friend. 
The road for the first few miles 
passes through what once must 
have been quite a thrifty farming community, 
but now for the most part abandoned and rapidly 
growing up with underbrush. At one of these 
old homesteads along the way live two elderly 
deaf and dumb ladies, and it seems to be a 
standing joke among many of the parties travel¬ 
ing up to the Olmstead camp to send the un¬ 
initiated in to ask some question, or to leave a 
message, for the old ladies’ methods of com¬ 
munication are indeed wonderful to behold. 
The drive I found to be a steady climb all the 
way, and where we left the main highway and 
turned into the private road, still a mile or so 
from camp, the elevation was about i,8oo feet. 
This is the real beginning of the Adirondacks, 
and is also the southeast boundary of the Adi¬ 
rondack forest preserve. IMr. Olmstead told me 
that no timber had been taken from his proper- 
By W. M. KEIL 
ties here for over twenty-two years, and then 
only the heavy spruce, so that with the hard¬ 
woods still standing and the effacement that 
twenty years’ growth has made, it was no wonder 
that to me it seemed an untrodden wilderness. 
Shortly after turning into the preserve, the 
roadway dips sharply down into a gorge, and 
here and there through the thick foliage I caught 
glimpses of Sand Creek, the outlet of Lake 
Wenonah, as it dashed madly over the boulders 
on its way to the Sacandaga. The Olmstead pre¬ 
serve controls about two and one-half m.les of 
this ideal trout stream, with its successions of 
quick foam-flecked rapids and deep, dark, mys¬ 
terious pools, and it was with great difficulty that 
my companion restrained me from unpacking my 
fly-rod when I caught sight of it. 1 he road 
from there on to the camp clings closely to this 
stream, and with its seductive voice still calling, 
we presently came out into a clearing of about 
twenty acres, containing the log cabin, barn, ice 
house and garden patch and looking for all the 
world like pictures I used to see in my history 
of a colonial homestead. All it lacked was a 
man with a rifle strapped over his back, plowing. 
“Lem,” the caretaker of the camp, met us at 
the stable and helped us lug our duffle over to 
the 'cabin, where I was introduced to a Mr. 
Judson and his guide, “Jerry,” who were stop¬ 
ping at the camp, and to IMrs. Lem, who was 
busily preparing the evening meal. After a good 
old fashioned appetizing supper, all hands ad¬ 
journed to the piazza with their pipes. Mr. Jud¬ 
son I found to be a prince of entertainers with 
a seemingly inexhaustil^le fund of anecdotes and 
tales of Adirondack folk lore. Especially in¬ 
teresting were his stories of how, as a boy, he 
used to start from his home in Johnstown, carry¬ 
ing only his blanket, rifle, hooks and line and a 
few handfuls of salt, and stay for months alone 
in the big woods, traveling hun¬ 
dreds of miles, and depend'ng en¬ 
tirely on his rifle, birch pole, and 
the wild fruits and berries of the 
woods for his subsistence. 
As keeping late hours is not 
much of a success in this balsam¬ 
laden atmosphere, I was soon 
climbing the stairway to the sec¬ 
ond floor of the cabin, which is 
divided into four sleeping apart¬ 
ments, furnished with rustic fur¬ 
niture and the most comfortable 
beds imaginable. Scattered over 
the walls were pieces of birch 
bark upon which former occu¬ 
pants had scrawled original say¬ 
ings, mottos, epigrams, etc. One 
I distinctly remember hung con¬ 
spicuously near the head of my 
bed, and read something like this: 
“Laugh, and the world laughs 
with you; snore, and you sleep 
alone” but from remarks passed 
the next morning at breakfast, it 
was just possible that someone else 
should have occupied that room. 
Although the morning did not appear favor¬ 
able for either lake or stream fishing, we decided 
to try the lake, anyway, with flies first, and if 
with no success, to try trolling with small trout 
spoons. Hurriedly gathering our tackle together 
we took the trail leading to the lake, about 6oo 
yards distant. Never shall I forget the impres¬ 
sive beauty of the scene as I caught my first 
glimpse of Wenonah Lake glistening through the 
narrow wooded aisle. In its forest-rimmed set¬ 
ting it lay like a mirror in the morning still¬ 
ness. Not a ripple distorting the imaged reflec¬ 
tion of the surrounding slopes. With the excep¬ 
tion of the little boathouse at the outlet of the 
lake, the hand of man as yet had not marred the 
natural beauty of the shore line. Here and there 
old fallen and half submerged forest monarchs, 
glistening white in their nakedness, relieved the 
