2 20 
FOREST AND STREAM 
[Feb. g, 1907. 
spinners or spoons, changing flies is often ad¬ 
visable, and this is especially true when single¬ 
hook lures are used instead of the now too com¬ 
mon trebles. Some bait-casters remove all treble 
hooks from artificial baits and discard them, 
equipping the lures with bare or dressed hooks, 
these to be changed to suit conditions. If this 
practice is followed, it is handy to keep a few 
lures unmounted, attaching a bare hook and a 
minnow, or an eyed bass fly as required. In 
this connection it is worthy of note that few 
of our hooks of 2/0 size and thereabout have 
eyes large enough to go on the wires with which 
the majority of our spoons and wooden minnows 
are fitted, necessitating the use of steel split 
rings to attach eyed single hooks to the lures in 
a proper manner. Perry D. Frazer. 
Private Fish Ponds. 
Fish Commissioner Meehan, of Pennsylvania, 
is formulating a plan outlined in his recent an¬ 
nual report which, if it can be carried out, he 
believes will add largely to the output of useful 
fishes and without any cost to the State. The 
plan in brief is to make the artificial ponds pri¬ 
vately owned, auxiliary breeding ponds when¬ 
ever the owners signify a willingness in writing 
to have them so used. For more than a year 
the Commissioner has been receiving numerous 
letters from gentlemen owning ponds of this 
character in which was expressed a desire to 
secure fish for them, and in most cases offering 
to pay for the fish. Under the existing laws 
owners of private waters cannot secure fish from 
the State. 
An interesting feature of most of the letters 
was that the fish inquired about were not gold 
fish, such as were the fad a few years ago, but 
for species like black bass, pickerel, yellow perch, 
sunfish and even catfish. The letters almost uni¬ 
formly indicated a warm interest in the subject, 
and it was these letters which gave the Commis¬ 
sioner the idea that these ponds might be util¬ 
ized for the benefit of the State and without any 
cost except to stock fish. As an experiment he 
took two ponds owned by Mr. Bromley Wharton, 
private secretary of ex-Governor Pennypacker. 
In one was placed black bass and in the other 
blue-gill sunfish. From the black bass were 
hatched several thousand young fish which were 
planted in the Neshaminy Creek, except a few 
retained for breeding purposes. From the sun¬ 
fish there were also produced a large quantity of 
young and these are being held in the pond until 
spring to ascertain how they will carry over the 
winter and then be planted. 
The Commissioner’s idea is to have the owners 
engage themselves to permit the ponds to be 
used as above indicated and the Commissioner 
then to stock the ponds with a suitable species of 
fish, and when they spawn to take about 75 per 
cent, of the young for breeding in public waters. 
When the young left in the ponds have reached 
mature age it is proposed to permit the owner 
of the pond as compensation to catch and dis¬ 
pose of the old fish which would be of no further 
use to the department. A hint of this plan hav¬ 
ing become known, several gentlemen have al¬ 
ready offered to place their ponds at the disposal 
of the State for breeding purposes if the plan of 
the Commissioner can be carried out. 
Horsehair Leaders. 
Theodore Gordon advises against the use of 
horsehair leaders as being unsatisfactory com¬ 
pared with good silkworm gut. He might have 
added the fact that the old-school anglers of 
Great Britain, who favor horsehair casts, advise 
the selection of perfect hairs only, discarding 
such as will not feel perfectly smooth and free 
from knots when drawn through the fingers. 
Hair from the tail of a mare, they claim, is of 
no value to the angler. 
SPORTSMAN’S SUPPLIES. 
New York, Oct. 31, 1996 .—Forest and Stream: We have 
been continuous advertisers in Forest and Stream since 
its first issue, and have never found another medium that 
has given us such satisfactory results.— Henry C. 
Squires & Son. 
Do Salmon Fast in Fresh Water? 
In Forest and Stream recently The Old 
Angler, in commenting on a statement made by 
Mr. W. B. Mershon that he had killed a salmon 
on the Grand Cascapedia River which had been 
feeding on insects, and in whose intestines were 
found a number of flies or water bugs, which 
were submitted to Dr. Weir Mitchell for ex¬ 
amination, on making which the doctor stated 
that: 
“Food is often found in salmon which they 
probably bring in from the sea or possibly take 
after reaching fresh water, but it is never di¬ 
gested after the fish reaches fresh water. There 
is no question about a salmon’s digestive ap¬ 
paratus becoming useless after coming into fresh 
water.” 
The accuracy of this statement by the doctor 
The Old Angler questioned, and asked for further 
evidence in the matter, declaring that the opinion 
thus expressed conflicts with hundreds of facts 
which have been recorded in relation to salmon 
feeding in fresh water. 
In treating of this matter subsequently The 
Old Angler in a letter to the writer says: 
“Of all the errors that have been held about the 
salmon none is more widespread than that of its 
living more than half its life without eating, and 
that half being the one on which the greatest 
call on its vital powers is made, that of develop¬ 
ing and maturing ova and milt and depositing 
it safely.” 
Until within a very few years I, too-, was of 
the opinion that our Atlantic salmon does not 
feed during its sojourn in fresh water, for on 
examining the stomachs of numbers of fish which 
I killed in the upper reaches of the rivers I 
could find no trace of food, nothing being pres¬ 
ent but mucus and a yellowish fluid, but that they 
will come to the bait, either natural or artificial, 
has been often proved, and if they come to- the 
bait surely it must be for the purpose of feed¬ 
ing. Of course I am now speaking of salmon 
either fresh run or those which have not been 
in the streams a considerable length of time, and 
not of kelts or spent salmon which as everyone 
knows will eagerly seize almost any bait that 
may be offered them. 
From my own experience in relation to this 
matter I will call a few incidents which may 
serve to show that The Old Angler’s claim is 
not erroneous. On one occasion as I was fish¬ 
ing the Jacquet River in New Brunswick I found 
that large sea trout had come into the river in 
pursuit of smelts, and when I use the term sea 
trout, I desire to be understood as referring to 
the speckled trout, (Salvelinus fontinalis ) which 
during a portion of the year descends to salt' 
water, and not the European sea trout, which 
has not, I believe, been taken in our waters. 
Although I was very anxious to capture a 
few of those beautiful trout, I failed to move 
them with the artificial fly, and as a last resort 
my guide selected from my kit a medium sized 
bait hook to which he affixed the posterior half 
of a smelt and asked me to cast out into the 
pool. Curious to see what the outcome would be 
I followed his advice, and in a short time suc¬ 
ceeded in taking two- or three trout whose aver¬ 
age weight was close on to three pounds, the 
Jacquet in those days being celebrated for its 
very large sea trout. 
Finally we removed to the further end of the 
pool where, making a long cast, I rose and 
hooked a salmon that would weigh from 12 to 
14 pounds; he took the smelt as sharply and 
quickly as would a large trout and without doubt 
took it for food. Unfortunately while playing 
the salmon the gut snood on the hook, which 
was an old one, parted and the fish went on his 
way rejoicing. 
That was a fresh run salmon and not a kelt, 
for the spent fish in that river, which is a small 
one, return to the bay before winter closes in, a 
kelt never being taken in it, so far as I am 
aware, in the spring or summer months. It may 
be said that the salmon just having come in from 
the salt water would naturally be in pursuit of 
the smelts, but the pool I refer to was consider¬ 
ably above tide water and the fish must have 
been preying on the smelts for food. 
On another occasion as I was fishing the same 
stream my flies failed to evoke a response from 
the fish which were lying in one of the larger 
pools, and my guide selecting a bait hook at¬ 
tached to it a strip of skin from the belly of a 
squirrel which he carried in his pocket for bait, 
and requested me to cast with that. This I did, 
and in a short time it was seized by a salmon. 
I struck too- quickly, however, and the fish dis¬ 
appeared with the bait. 
“Ah, ha!” exclaimed my guide, “he thought 
he had a mouse then; sure, the salmon will often 
take a squirrel skin bait thinking it is a live 
mouse.” 
Now, my brother anglers have probably noticed 
that small sea trout, or parrs, or smolts are very 
rarely found in pools frequented by salmon. Sea 
trout weighing a pound or more may be there, 
but small ones very rarely; for prudential rea¬ 
sons or for instinctive feeling that if they ven¬ 
ture where the large fish are they are likely to 
be pouched, they keep well up into the shallow 
water and in feeders of the rivers. Occasionally, 
however, a parr or other small fish imprudently 
trusts himself in the deep water where his larger 
relatives are sojourning, and when he does so 
he usually comes to grief. 
As I was playing a salmon which had been in 
the river a long time, I noticed that it dropped 
from its mouth, as it was struggling at my line, 
a small fish which on being secured proved to 
be a parr that the fish had pouched. This was 
at that time the only instance of similar char¬ 
acter which had passed under my notice. 
That the salmon during their sojourn in the 
river wholly abstain from food is not proved by 
the fact that their stomachs, when the fish are 
killed, are found empty, for even if their maws 
were well packed with minnows or other small 
fishes, they might, probably would, eject them 
while on the line, precisely as the bluefish empties 
its stomach when it is being hauled into the 
boat from a long trolling line. 
That the Atlantic salmon will take the angle 
worm in fresh water almost every Canadian 
guide knows. I have conversed with a number, 
all of whom assured me that such is the case, and 
I referred to it in “With Fly-Rod and Camera.” 
I have given the above personal experiences 
believing that they are more valuable as fur¬ 
nishing proof in the direction I have named, than 
would be mere hearsay evidence, of which I 
could furnish a considerable amount. I find in 
“The Scientific Angler,” by the late David 
Foster, the following: 
“It is often asserted that an anadromous fish will 
not feed except in salt water, and that their in¬ 
ternal fat sustains them when absent from it. 
This is most certainly erroneous, as migratory 
fish are not more given to fasting than are any 
other fresh water species when food is plentiful. 
The young of both grayling and trout suffer 
greatly from the presence of salmon in the tribu¬ 
taries of our rivers, the former particularly are 
sought after and taken by them.” 
Numerous other examples given by English 
writers show that the Atlantic salmon accepts 
various kinds of bait while sojourning in fresh 
water; that this is the fact there can be no ques¬ 
tion, and if it accepts the bait it must certainly 
take it as food, and if the fish feeds while in 
the river it must digest the aliment thus taken. 
Dr. Mitchell’s statement that the salmon’s di¬ 
gestive apparatus becomes useless after entering 
fresh water is not wholly correct, for I have 
killed salmon in pools well up the rivers in whose 
stomachs were found capelin, sand launces and 
various salt water Crustacea; and that such 
would not be digested no matter how long the 
salmon remained in the fresh water is quite im¬ 
probable ; in fact, I have a few days later killed 
fish in the same pools which were evidently of 
the same run in which those containing food 
came up from the sea, and their stomachs were 
entirely empty. ’ Edward A. Samuels. 
Silkworm Gut. 
An old method for removing the gloss from 
new silkworm gut consists in rubbing it lightly 
with a dock leaf, the juices of which act at once. 
Perhaps a mullein leaf will effect the same 
change, and cold tea is a standard remedy. 
