274 
him. But the two shots that he did manage to 
get in served to divert the bear’s course slightly, 
so instead of being bowled over, only his gun 
was knocked from his hands. It exploded with 
the muzzle against the hairy side of his antag¬ 
onist. That was all. The bear, careening madly 
through the alders, finally came to rest; and the 
youth, well—figure it out for yourself. 
This is what the 35-automatic did to the 
Brownie: The first shot entered the shoulder 
well forward, breaking that member, and emerg¬ 
ing on the same side. The second and last were 
within an inch of each other. They entered 
pretty well back of the shoulder, tore the lungs 
to shreds, and came out on the opposite side, one 
about eighteen inches astern of the other. Yet 
the bear, wounded as he was, traveled a distance 
of one hundred yards before he fell! 
There was an incident which came to my notice 
a couple of years ago which illustrated more 
vividly the great tenacity of life exhibited by 
these brutes, and at the same time portrays a 
scene of heroism seldom equaled in the annals 
of Alaska. It was told to me by a trader and, 
knowing the man as I do, I have every reason 
to believe that it is scrupulously true. 
Port Mollar Bay, an indentation of the Ber¬ 
ing Sea coast, is justly famed for the number 
of bears that it supports, and it was at the head 
of this bay that an Eskimo, who was hunting with 
a party of his tribesmen, had the misfortune to 
be attacked by a female bear which erroneously 
thought that she was in defense of her cubs. 
It seems that the gun jammed after the second 
shot, and although the mother was hard hit. she 
kept coming on. The Eskimo, working furi¬ 
ously with the faulty action of his rifle, did not 
notice the close proximity of the bear until it 
was too late. So they tangled. The bear was 
too weak to inflict serious damage, but she had 
the man down and was doing her best to dis¬ 
figure him when another of the party caught 
sight of the mix-up. Without hesitation, this 
man, knowing that it was out of the question 
to shoot, drew a knife from his belt and waded 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Half Inside the Bear—But Safe 
in. After he had hacked the bear with his 
bowie until the animal looked like a moth-eaten 
rug, he succeeded in distracting attention long 
enough for the first man to make good his es¬ 
cape,—and then the fight was on in earnest. 
I don’t remember how long it was that this 
man sawed away on the bear’s anatomy, but the 
trader told me that when they called it off both 
of the participants looked as if they had been 
playing with a mischievous cyclone. I do re¬ 
member this though: that someone slipped the 
old girl a whole gun full of lead before she 
decided that she had had enough. Now, hon¬ 
estly, what chance has a man with a six-gun 
against such a lead-absorbing creature as a full- 
grown brown bear? 
Here is an experiment that was made just to 
see what effect a “hand-iron” would have when 
used under the most favorable conditions. The 
arm employed was a 45-automatic of a popular 
make, and the bear was broken down in the hind¬ 
quarters to insure success. At a distance of 
three feet five shots were carefully placed in 
Bruin’s skull and the result was that a io-bore 
shotgun had to be used to save the lives of the 
experimenters. 
But it isn’t to be gleaned from this article 
that all of the Uras Gyas family have an in¬ 
growing disposition that pains them. It is quite 
the contrary. Let any of them have a good look 
at you on the open beach and the chances are 
ten to one that you won’t be able to see them 
for flying sand. Men who have made a study 
of their habits and idiosyncracies claim that 
only during rutting season, or when they are 
suddenly surprised, are they dangerous. In the 
latter case it is the old, old primitive instinct of 
self-preservation that governs their actions, al¬ 
though it must be admitted that a bear has just 
as much right to own a “cussed” disposition as 
a man. And they have. Speaking from per¬ 
sonal experience, I’ll wager that the old fellow 
who took all of the bark off my shins as I shied 
up a cottonwood tree must have had a lot of 
domestic trouble or something of that sort to 
get him in such a bad humor. If he had shown 
me the slightest consideration—such as allowing 
me to get my gun off my pack-board—I wouldn’t 
have taken it so much to heart. 
But that’s not all he did. When corpulent Coe 
came clambering carelessly along in my wake 
his cheeks puffed out with the strains of a mar¬ 
tial air, why—but that’s a different story. 
Fly Fishing For Shad 
Editor Forest and Stream : 
Can you give me any information about the 
habits of shad running into the rivers of Con¬ 
necticut? Do they take the fly, and if so, at 
what season of the year? Would like to know 
kind of fly most suitable if caught in this way. 
Any information on this subject will be ap¬ 
preciated.—J. H. H. 
As to whether shad will be numerous in the 
Connecticut River this season it is impossible to 
say. None have appeared as this article is writ¬ 
ten, and we are afraid that the number will con¬ 
tinue to show reduction by reason of too much 
seining, too many dams, pollution of water, etc. 
Shad do take the fly while running up rivers. 
That much is certain. The best account of fly 
fishing for shad that we recall was contributed 
to Forest and Stream some years ago by S. T. 
Hammond, whose work as an author of a num¬ 
ber of interesting books is well known to older 
readers of this paper. He wrote of several ex¬ 
periences in this sport, and his conclusion was 
that May is the best month in the year for such 
fishing. Mr. Hammond preferred the use of the 
ordinary trout fly tackle, with a small light 
brown hackle for a leader, and a white miller for 
first dropper and a scarlet ibis for a hand fly. 
Some anglers use a hand line even when fishing 
with flies, but this method is not nearly so kill¬ 
ing, nor does it afford a tithe of the sport that 
is vouchsafed to those who wield a light, springy 
rod. Of his fishing in the Connecticut River, 
near Holyoke, he said—although of course what 
was reported then does not hold good today: 
“Many times since then have I cast my flies 
upon these pleasant waters, and many beautiful 
captives have graced my creel. While fishing 
with Mr. Chalmers one day he hooked three fish 
at one cast, and by great good fortune I suc¬ 
ceeded in landing them all—a grand trio of thir¬ 
teen and one-half pounds. Two years ago I also 
caught three at once, but they were not more 
than half so heavy. For the past few years so 
many have joined in the sport that there is 
scarcely an afternoon that you cannot see from 
a dozen to fifty, and on favorable days even a 
larger number of fishermen, eagerly engaged in 
the pleasant pastime. One evening I counted up¬ 
ward of a hundred of fish that I saw captured, 
and presume that there were many more that 
escaped my notice.” 
The method which was preferred in the Con¬ 
necticut River was to secure the services of a 
boatman and to get out where the shad were 
lying. The Editor certainly will be glad to 
record the experiences of other readers who 
have tried a sport that calls for all the skill of 
trout fishing, with the added dexterity that must 
be exercised in handling a fish with a soft 
mouth like that of the shad. 
