Aprii. 20, 1907.1 
geon his business causes him to drive about the 
surrounding country and this gives him every 
opportunity to locate the streams. This knowl¬ 
edge he has used to good advantage and he 
does not believe in the decadence of Massachu¬ 
setts trout streams. 
The Sportsmen’s Show brought many visitors 
to Boston, some of whom do not visit the city 
very often. Among the number was L. T. Carle- 
ton, chairman of the Maine Fish and Game 
Commission. In conversation with him I learned 
that in addition to the regular $25,000 appro¬ 
priated by the Maine Legislature this year, they 
voted $10,000 for the hatchery at Rangeley, $10,- 
000 for the same purpose at Sebago, and $6,000 
more for Moxie Pond. This will be money 
well expended. The State should be generous 
in matters concerning her fishing interests, for 
the anglers of the country leave far more money 
among the people than any other class of visitors. 
Newfound Lake, N. H., once famous among 
the best New England fishermen as the right 
place to go for the early trolling, has lost its 
proud title. For the last three years the fish¬ 
ing has been getting more and more uncertain. 
As it used to be one w r as quite sure in advance 
of at least a fair catch of heavy salmon and it 
has become a subject of much wonder among 
nonresidents where these fish have gone. When 
the salmon are running up the streams every¬ 
body knows they are unprotected and helpless, 
and there are two streams at Newfound where 
the fish are able to go up a long' distance. It 
is said that these streams have been poached 
industriously and large numbers of salmon have 
been taken out and salted. Even the smelt have 
not been exempt from netting. The screens at 
the outlet are reported to have been in very bad 
condition for a long time and many fish are said 
to have found their way into the Pemigewasset 
River. All this if true sums up a heavy indict¬ 
ment against the State’s fish commission and'it 
is to be hoped that steps will be taken to bring 
Newfound back where it formerly stood. 
Hackle. 
Medway River Fishing Rights. 
. 
[ Liverpool. N, S., April 2 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: Will you kindly reprint the following 
communication which was published over my 
signature in the Halifax Herald, of March 30? 
“To the Editor of The Halifax Herald: Sir—- 
In your issue of the 26th inst. a correspondent 
named ‘Fisherman,’ of Milton, wrote about fish¬ 
ing on the Medway River and complained that 
‘it would be a great injury to the tourist travel, 
etc., if the rivers were in any way restricted,' 
and further ‘that sportsmen are refusing to come 
to Queens on account of the attempt of a few 
foreigners to reserve the Medway River,’ and 
he asks what the law is. 
“Permit me to quote him from the highest 
authority in Canada, the decision of the supreme 
court of Canada in The Queen vs. Robertson, 
6 S. C. R., page 52. The supreme court of 
Canada held : 
“(1) That the general power of regulating 
and protecting the fisheries, under the British 
North American Act, 1867, section 91, is in the 
parliament of Canada, but that the license granted 
by the minister .of marine and fisheries of the 
locus in quo was void because said act only 
authorizes the granting of leases ‘where the ex¬ 
clusive right of fishing does not already exist 
by law,’ and in this case the exclusive right of 
fishing belongs to the owners of the land through 
which that portion of the Miramichi River flows. 
“(2) That although the public may have in 
a river, such as the one in question, an easement 
or right to float rafts or logs down and a right 
of passage up and down in Canada, etc., where- 
ever the water is sufficiently high to be so used, 
such right is not inconsistent with an exclusive 
right of fishing or with the right of the owners 
of property opposite their respective lands ad 
medium filum aquae. 
“(3) That the rights of fishing in a river, 
such as is that part of the Miramichi from 
Price’s Bend to its source, are an incident to 
the grant of the land through which such river 
flows, and where such grants have been made 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
there is no authority given by the B. N. A. Act, 
1867, to grant a right to fish, and the Dominion 
parliament has no right to give such authority. 
“The part of the Miramichi River in dispute 
was at a place known as Price’s Bend, forty 
miles above the ebb and flow of the tide, there¬ 
fore non-tidal and it was navigable for canoes, 
small boats, scows, logs and timber, therefore as 
fas as the Dominion rights are concerned non- 
navigable. The conditions of the Miramichi 
exact!v correspond with the conditions on the 
Medway above the Mill Village bridge. 
“Let me say to ‘Fisherman,’ who does not live 
at Milton, but I think lives at Mill Village and 
owns a hotel, that sportsmen are not keeping 
away from the Medway on account of the reser¬ 
vation of the river by any Nova Scotians or 
foreigners, but they probably may be kept away 
from his hotel and provide their own lodges and 
club houses, and I think it will prove a fact that 
where he has in the past guided a dozen men 
for a few weeks to enjoy fishing over other 
people’s waters that in the future forty or fifty 
men will enjoy the fishing, with a dozen guides 
occupied, for the whole season. The merchants, 
traders, town hotels, livery stables, guides, boat 
builders, farmers and their wives all welcome 
the formation of any kind of a club that will 
develop the sport and bring sportsmen and put 
money in circulation whether it be the Yankee 
gold or the Canadian dollar bill, and I have had 
citizens of all the above classes tell me so quite 
recently. A sportsman is one who detests illegal 
fishing, while he is perfectly willing to let any 
man, be he foreigner or citizen, the latter par¬ 
ticularly, enjoy the fishing privileges at any rea¬ 
sonable time in a reasonable manner when the 
owner is not using them himself. Except the 
six and four rod reservations on the Medway 
at Greenfield town, the Government owns no 
lands bordering on the Medway River. I hope 
‘Fisherman’ will assist the Ponhook Fish and 
Game Club, Mr. Payzant, Mr. Silver, Mr. Dwyer 
and others, of Halifax, w T ho own beautiful pieces 
of fishing property on the river, to guard and 
protect the salmon fishing and will not write any 
more letters to foreigners or Canadians frighten¬ 
ing them away and telling them the river is an 
open river and not to join any club. I trust 
the Government will not give any large grant 
of wild lands to any company for shooting pur¬ 
poses, but it would be a wise move to set aside 
a large tract in north Queens for a park or 
home for the wild birds and beasts of the 
forest.” F. G. Forbes. 
Seining in Missisquoi Bay. 
Nothfield, Vt., April 12.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: The trout season begins May 15, which 
will have much to do in protecting these fish, 
as more trout are caught the first two weeks 
in May than all the rest of the season. It is 
reported that the speckled trout fry are dying 
ofif at the rate of 1,000 a day in the Roxbury 
hatchery, while the lake trout are doing well. 
There is much indignation expressed here 
against the Province of Quebec Government in 
issuing licenses to permit seining this spring 
is Missisquoi Bay, and in direct violation of its 
promise made to our State Commissioner. The 
inclosed letter shows that this matter is being 
taken hold of by the higher authorities, which 
may have the effect to make the Quebec officials 
respect their promise: 
“Washington, April 5.— There is now very 
good reason to believe that the matter of the 
violation by the Canadian Government of the 
promise not to permit spring seining in Lake 
Champlain will be taken up with Ambassador 
James Bryce by Secretary of State Elihu Root. 
Secretary Root has promised Senator Redfield 
Proctor that he will bring the matter very 
earnestly to the attention of the British Am¬ 
bassador at once. .Senator Proctor wrote this 
letter to Secretary Root April 2: 
“ ‘Confirming my recent conversation with 
you, let me say that the people of Vermont are 
very indignant at the action of the Quebec 
authorities in licensing seining in Missisquoi 
Bay, a part of Lake Champlain. I inclose you 
newspaper clippings which show that it is a di¬ 
rect violation of good faith, as Mr. Jean Pre- 
62 I 
vost in his letter of March 14, 1906, to our Ver¬ 
mont fish commissioner repeated, what he had 
previously declared on several occasions, that 
seining would be prohibited in the Province of 
Quebec after that year. This was from a Can¬ 
adian official, from the Quebec Minister of 
Fisheries, to our Vermont fish commissioner, 
as official a declaration as could well be made, 
and it has been directly violated. 
“ ‘At the session of our Legislature last No¬ 
vember, a bill passed the house by a very large 
majority authorizing seining in Missisquoi Bay. 
It would have passed the Senate, except that 
special effort was made against it on account of 
the promise of the Quebec minister that Quebec 
would not license seining longer. 
“ ‘There is a United States Government hatch¬ 
ery, built and operated by the United States 
Fish Commission, six miles up the Missisquoi 
River from the places where the Canadian 
licensed seiners are operating, and the Quebec 
Government, besides its shameful breach of 
faith, directly injures and insults our Govern¬ 
ment. by licensing seining to catch' the very 
fish that are on the way up to our hatchery, 
where their spawn would be taken and hatched 
and the young fish put back in the lake for the 
benefit of Canadians and Americans alike. 
“ ‘Does not this situation, Mr. Secretary, call 
for peremptory action on your part?’ ” 
Stanstead. 
A Bellied Salmon Line. 
“Whether the idea of placing a belly in the 
casting part of a salmon line be novel or not, 
it does not appear to be mentioned in any of the 
standard works on fishing,” says E. C. Rich¬ 
ardson in the London Field. “I discriminate, 
of course, between a bellied line, such as is 
described below, and the ordinary tapered line. 
The latter has indeed a belly in it, but the belly 
would not come into use until the entire forty- 
two yards of casting line were off the reel—a 
length which is quite beyond the capability of 
most people to handle. This distinction also 
applies to a line which was made some time ago 
by the Manchester Cotton Company, a descrip¬ 
tion of which appeared in the Field of July 16, 
1887. In this line the working part consisted of 
eighteen yards of tapered line, then ten yards 
of thick, heavy line, and then more tapered line 
to the middle, as in Fig. 1. 
Figurr f. 
A = End to which gut trace is attached. 
A to B=:18 yards tapered line. 
B to C = 10 yards heavy line. 
C to X, &c., is unimportant, being seldom 
or never cast in practical fishing. 
“I describe this Manchester line partly with a 
view to showing how my line differs from it, 
and partly with a view to indicating why it was 
not a success. 
“What, from a casting point of view, is the 
most important part of a salmon line? Clearly 
that part which extends from the point of the 
rod when the full length is out which the fisher¬ 
man is able to handle. The part which extends 
along the rod itself and the few yards extra 
which are pulled off the reel and are used for 
shooting, are also important. The rest of the line, 
as far as casting is concerned, may be anything. 
This leads us to the question, what is the maxi¬ 
mum length of line (counting from the tip of 
the rod) which an ordinary fisherman is able 
to handle? I place it at twenty yards. This 
does not, of course, imply a twenty-yard cast, 
for there is also the rod itself to be considered 
—say six yards—as well as the length of gut— 
say three yards— and the shoot—say six yards 
more-—in all thirty-five yards. Few people can 
in practice by the riverside cast further than 
this, and, indeed, it is seldom necessary or ex¬ 
pedient to do so. 
“Taking, then, twenty yards as the maximum 
length of line to be cast, we find that there are 
at present only two shapes for this length on 
the market, viz., the line which, from the top 
of the rod, tapers gradually from thick to thin, 
and the untapered line of even thickness 
throughout. The Manchester line above de- 
