March 30, 1907.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
5 °> 
for their sport. Hon. Prevost, Minister of Fish¬ 
eries, who was also the president of the associa¬ 
tion, pointed out that it would be an extraordi¬ 
nary procedure to confer the powers of a judge 
upon those who would be naturally the prosecu¬ 
tors of offenders against the fish and game laws, 
and suggested the better course of making ex- 
officio justices out of the paid guardians of the 
rivers, who were also under oath to perform their 
duties faithfully and impartially. This suggestion 
was accepted by the salmon lessees present as 
perfectly atisfactory. E. T. D. Chambers. 
A Few Words of Caution. 
Ham monton, N. J., March 18 .—Editor Forest 
and Stream: The opening of the season for 
trout fishing is not far distant and I wish before 
it is too late to address a few words of caution 
to brother anglers, and to ask them to moderate 
their enthusiasm and keep down the size of their 
creels as much as possible, for the reason that 
the past winter has been particularly hard on 
the brook trout, correspondents from Massachu¬ 
setts to Pennsylvania asserting that many of the 
brooks and streams have frozen solidly, which 
has forced the small trout to descend from their 
usual hiding places into the deeper pools and 
recesses where the larger trout hide, in which 
the fingerlings and even the fry have been de- 
strovd by their older relations. 
The outlook for the brook fishing is far from 
flattering, and all of us should be sparing of 
trout life for this reason at least, and at the very 
best there is not much doubt that many of our 
brooks will, in consequence of the destruction 
which has been wrought, have to be restocked. 
There are probably not many anglers who re¬ 
alize what a record of from thirty or forty zero 
days in a winter really means to the denizens 
of the small brooks, and for that matter to the 
streams of larger size; but when they learn of 
ice forming from two to three feet in thickness, 
freezing the streams solidly to the bottom, they 
will appreciate what havoc must thus be wrought 
to fish life. 
Apropos of restocking brooks and other trout 
waters. I have just been reading an account of 
the work done in this direction by the Massachu¬ 
setts Fish and Game Protective Assotiation in 
the year 1906, and I must say that the record 
is one of which the old Bay State should be proud. 
The growth of the association in recent years 
has been very great, indeed, and it seems almost 
incredible that the old Anglers’ Club of Massa¬ 
chusetts, from which the present association 
originated, can have obtained its present ditnen- 
I sions. 
The title of the association was changed to its 
present one in order that the society might have 
a wider scope in its objects, but its struggle for 
life was not very strenuous, and in 1883 and 
1; 1884 it was in such a precarious condition that it 
was almost impossible to obtain the small quorum 
of seven for business meetings, etc., the mem- 
bership not numbering much over one hundred, 
1 and there were practically no funds in the 
treasury. 
In January. 1885, I accepted the presidency of 
I the association, and in my first annual address, 
i delivered Jan. 21, I urged the members with all 
1 the earnestness at my command to push the 
work of the association to the utmost, saying 
that unless “this is done we have no business to 
exist as an association.” 
During my first year of office some of the older 
members put their shoulders to the wheel, and 
thanks to their efforts the association took new 
life and energy; the good work kept steadily on 
and when I retired from the office after seven 
I years of service, the association numbered, I 
believe, about seven hundred members apd there 
I were several thousand dollars in the treasury. 
Many of the members of the “old guard” no 
longer answer to the roll call, and some of them, 
whom I cherished as among my best friends, 
have passed to the “great beyond,” but if they 
were alive to-day what a triumphant pride they 
would feel at the magnitude and importance of 
the work that is now being done by the associa- 
1 tion whose existence they were so instrumental 
in prolonging. Edwarb A. Samuels. 
THE TOP RAIL. 
A bear story that has the earmarks of truth, 
and is therefore unusual, came from Mount Pico, 
Vt., the last day of February. It is stated that 
“two wood choppers, armed with axes, had a 
battle with a huge black bear and four partially 
grown cubs on Mount Pico recently. They 
killed two cubs, but the mother and other cubs 
got away. Luther Weeks and his son Clinton 
felled a large tree and it crashed down into 4 
clump of bushes. Angry growls followed, and 
the five bears, which had been hibernating under 
the bushes made for the men. 1 he men fought 
and won. The cubs that were killed weighed too 
pounds each. The men declare the old bear w;* 
fully eight feet long and would weigh about 500 
pounds.” 
Generally winter bear stories are not plausi¬ 
ble, as they tell of ferocious bears roaming the 
woods at a time when these animals are more 
anxious to sleep through the cold days and 
nights, and with the mercury below zero, as it 
has been in Vermont of late, no bear is likely 
to choose a fight in preference for sleep. 
* * * 
It is only two or three weeks ago that I quoted 
an old New Yorker who was talking about the 
hidden waters of this city, and last week ac¬ 
counts were printed in the city newspapers of 
waters springing out of the earth from some un¬ 
known source and flooding the tracks of the 
Lenox avenue division of the Subway, threaten¬ 
ing to reach the third rail and so stopping the 
railroad. The gentleman whom I quoted about 
the Minnetta Brook tells me that he well re¬ 
calls a system of ponds and streams lying in and 
north of what is now the easterly side of the 
Central Park. “I lived on the upper end of the 
island,” he said, “and as a boy often rode and 
drove down to the city through the then newly 
established Central Park. There was a pond 
called Gold Fish Pond which lay between Sixth 
and Seventh avenues, about where 118th street 
is now. From this pond a stream called Harlem 
Creek ran southerly and westerly to Fifth avenue 
where it ran into the pond which is now con¬ 
fined to the northeast corner of Central Park 
known as the Harlem Mere. 
“There were many other ponds and streams 
north of Central Park which have now disap¬ 
peared, the ponds having presumably been filled 
up and the streams turned into the sewers. 
“Many of the ponds up there had fish in them, 
gold fish and what we boys used to call silver 
fish, which I presume were chubs or dace. We 
often went fishing for them. As I lived near 
the river, however, I used to do my fishing in 
the salt water either from the ‘Sugar House’ 
dock, or in ponds cut off from the river by the 
road bed of the then not long built Hudson River 
Railroad.” 
;jc >}c ijc 
Said a friend who had just come from Madi¬ 
son Square Garden, “The fly-casting was very 
ordinary.” Yet the exhibition he had witnessed 
caused many an old angler to wax eloquent over 
the good work done in that event. My friend 
had watched several of the best fly-casters in 
the east casting for distance with rods weigh¬ 
ing four ounces and less, and as no one sent 
the fly to the far end of the tank, he carelessly 
concluded that the affair was not worth watch¬ 
ing. I mention this just to show how difficult 
it is for anyone not thoroughly conversant with 
delicate fishing tackle to appreciate the best skill 
of competitors, unless these men are engaged in 
long distance casting with rods, lines and leaders 
on which no limit is placed. The lay brother 
then grows enthusiastic, for he can see and hear 
the swish of the big line as it is whisked through 
the air; he listens to the whiz of the eleven foot 
rod as it propels. 90 or 100 feet of line like a 
giant whip, and goes away pleased, little think¬ 
ing that half the distance with a three ounce rod 
is not to be laughed at. 
* * * 
Here is another bit of testimony regarding 
peculiarities of tidal currents. It is from H. G. 
Smith, of Norfolk, Va.: 
“Noting the experience of a correspondent, of 
the tide on the flood reversing, would state that 
I witnessed the same phenomenon, in one of 
the creeks of Elizabeth River. I was closely 
watching the water getting sufficiently high to 
bathe. The water mark was a large log slant¬ 
ing out of the water. The log was smooth, be¬ 
ing without bark, when within ninety minutes 
of full flood, the water began to recede, and 
continued for about forty-five minutes, falling 
about four inches. It then again began to rise, 
when it reached its normal height.” 
have never known anything over which dis¬ 
putes and mistakes occur so frequently as high 
tides and freshets. < Here is an example: I 
went ashore one spring day during, an unusually 
high tide, and cooked luncheon in a favorite 
spot, but had to move further back ere the meal 
was ready. The water reached the highest point 
in my experience, and I marked it, for my own 
satisfaction 
About a month later I again stopped for lunch 
on the same beach, and while eating along 
came an old waterman very fond of talking. 
Asking after the health of himself and family, he 
cDmplained bitterly of various things, and 
among others said that that morning the tide 
was so high that it filled his cellar, etc. It 
was the highest tide, he said, that he had seen 
since 1834. As a matter of fact that tide was 
not within two feet of the place I had marked 
only a few weeks previously. The question is, 
did he forget the tide of a month before, or did 
he confuse it with the high tide of the ’30’s? 
Another high-water yarn is this; At a cer¬ 
tain place on the Missouri River lay a long 
barge, afloat. A flood was on and- the water 
rising. Several men disputed as to whether 
the water was still rising or was stationary, 
when one of them pointed to a railway spike 
protruding from the side of the barge at the 
waterline and declared that he had driven the 
spike that morning and had been watching it 
all day, hence he was positive the water had 
not risen at all! 
* * * 
A Colorado correspondent and reader of thirty 
years’ standing writes me about mountain sheep 
as follows: “Fifteen years will see them as scarce 
as the Labrador duck. Their most remote feed¬ 
ing grounds are being occupied by flocks of tame 
sheep which are forced to the mountains by the 
rapid settlement of the open grounds of the west. 
Four years ago the Legislature first prohibited 
the killing of elk and mountain sheep. But we 
were too late. The law is not being enforced 
against ranchmen who kill for family consump¬ 
tion, and while they are not the only offenders 
they are the principal ones at the present time, 
market hunting being something of the past. 
“Snowslides, starvation and mountain lions 
naturally prevent a rapid increase of mountain 
sheep, but when we add the depredations of 
illegal head hunters and isolated miners and 
prospectors, the outlook is not encouraging. 
“I may be mistaken as to the number of moun¬ 
tain sheep at large in Colorado, but I think 400 
' a fair estimate, and I do not believe they are in¬ 
creasing. It is probable that the Legislature now 
in session will continue the close season for 
some years, which will possibly enable the sheep 
and elk to keep good their present numbers. 
We all realize, however, that it is only a ques¬ 
tion of time when they will all be found in 
private and Government inclosures.” 
Grizzly King. 
1 
