1aY iS, 1907.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
779 
he Anglers’ Club Tournament. 
'HE second fly- and bait-casting tournament 
r the Anglers' Club of New York is being 
l| 1 this week, but Forest and Stream goes 
ij press too early for any of the results to be 
. en in this issue. The tournament opened on 
I -irsday afternoon at 3 o’clock, continued all 
Friday, closing to-day, Saturday. As 
est and Stream will be in the hands of its 
Jers in New York city and vicinity about 
time the tournament opens, a few details 
not be amiss. 
he tournament is being held on Harlem 
! re, just inside Central Park at the corner of 
h avenue and One Hundred and Tenth 
et. At this point the lake is wide enough to 
nit the contestants to cast either north or 
, th, according to the direction of the wind. 
walk running north and south parallel with 
j h avenue is very near the shore of the lake 
the east side, and the platform was placed so 
the distances to the north and south shores 
hat point are about equal, or nearly 250 
T giving ample distance for the fly- and’bait¬ 
ing. If the wind is south, the measuring 
will be stretched from the platform to the 
1 them shore; if north, it will be laid out 
j 11 the platform to the wooded point south- 
lid. 
his casting line deserves mention, in view of 
| fact that so many clubs are taking up cast- 
It consists of about 100 yards of one- 
til inch cable laid galvanized steel wire fitted 
| ■ pine floats, as follows: Fifty feet from the 
j which is made fast to the platfrom, there 
I n egg-shaped float 2(4 inches in diameter, 
ted red. Surmounting it, with “50” in black, 
ij thin disk fastened to the float with a dowel. 
I make this disk remain erect, a two-ounce 
i lk” sinker is suspended from the lower side 
j he float by means of a screw-eye. One foot 
1 this red float there is a white float ipj inch 
iameter and 2 inches in length. There are 
j of these, then a large blue float, marking 
1 foot from 50 to 55- d hen follow four small 
j s and another red one, marked “60,” and so 
| ip to ico feet. Beyond that distance the red 
| s are marked 10, 20, etc., signifying no, 
feet, etc. Thus the judges, who hover near 
1 hoe in their boat, can accurately determine 
i how far the cast is. If the fly falls midway 
| een the 85 and 86 foot marks, however, 85 
j 6 inches is the score, but if it falls nearer 
j then that score is recorded, it being im- 
j ible to give the exact number of inches. 
line is used only for distance casting. 
| the 2 ^ 4 -ounce salt-water event this line 
] be stretched due west, so that there will be 
| fiance of injuring any person should a line 
i k, as the lake is wide there. Fifty yards of 
} will be added to the measuring line,, so that 
narks will commence 150 feet from the plat- 
1 and continue to 400 feet. 
r accuracy casting there is a large target made 
Tow tubing, moored between a point no feet 
j nt and the platform. The center is a water- 
metal buoy 9 inches in diameter, painted 
H- .One foot from it there is a circle, and 
A inside it counts perfect; a second circle, 
.foot away, counts 1 demerit; the next circle 
J Only the white target is visible from the 
| ' r m, the rest of the target being painted 
!l j and partly submerged. It is moved from 
distance to another by means of heavy line 
1 erly marked. 
L r t ' le dry-fly casting 30-inch wooden hoops 
•rred with white muslin are used, one at each 
I nc e to be cast. 
le arrangements are as follows: Alongshore 
j are two long, narrow platforms provided 
j seats for contestants and their friends. 
I rom shore there is a large platform for 
actual contestants and their paraphernalia, with 
a rack on one side for rods. A runway con¬ 
nects this with the casting platform, 70 feet from 
shore, devoted to the use of each contestant 
and the referee, while the two judges occupy 
a boat. 
In the half-ounce distance and accuracy bait¬ 
casting, the new aluminum weights adopted by 
the National Association of Scientific Angling 
Clubs (of which this club is a member) are be¬ 
ing used. I hese, as well as 2(4-ounce weights 
and all flies, are furnished by the committee. 
The committees are as follows: 
1 ournament—G. M. L. La Branche, Charles 
Stepath, R. J. Held, Perry D. Frazer. 
Programme—G. M. L. La Branche, R. I. 
Held, Perry D. Frazer. 
Arrangements—R. J. Held, H. B. Leckler, 
Edward F. Todd, Harry Friedman. 
1 he best way to travel to the tournament 
from down-town points is by the Lenox avenue 
express trains in the Subway to One Hundred 
and Tenth street, three blocks from the plat¬ 
form; or Sixth and Ninth avenue elevated trains 
to One Hundred and Tenth street, a little 
further away. Madison and Eighth avenue sur¬ 
face cars to One Hundred and Tenth street are 
also convenient. 
Opening Day. 
New York City, May 10 .— Editor Forest and 
Stream: We tried the fishing in our vicinity, 
but old Roaring Brook refuses to deliver up any 
of its intimate associates. In plain English the 
trout "ain’t bitin’.’’ However the day is never 
entirely wasted that is spent outdoors, and, 
though there may be no trout at all in the stream 
from indications, the woods that border thereon 
can always be depended upon to make up for 
Roaring’s shortcomings, or latecomings! 
Quaint Dutchman’s breechers, fragile wood and 
rue-anemone, spring beauties (how apt are some 
popular names), liverwort (how unapt are 
others), marsh marigolds, golden club, adder’s 
tongue, hellebore, skunk cabbage, bloodroot, 
calamus, violets, entertaining frogs, erratic newts, 
timid snakes, wonderful snails, cheerful birds, 
free sunshine, blessed fresh air—all these and 
more are to be had for the seeking. And any¬ 
body who asks for more had better buy his fish 
at the butcher’s, for he misses the target com¬ 
pletely ! 
I have just received word from that blessed 
country down east, short but very sweet: “The 
fish are biting and the weather holds good. When 
are you coming?—Will.” 
When am I coming? Why, instanter ! Now! 
And when we return, whether the beauties favor 
us or no, we will return better, happier and 
surely broader men. Also the business, which 
palls so now, will be child’s play then, and our 
friendly though rival business antagonists will 
have reason to wonder at our mettle and acumen. 
Darius Dalrymple. 
Sail Water Angling. 
The New York anglers who- visit the various 
fishing grounds in the Lower Bay and along the 
New Jersey and Long Island coasts, have been 
out in force almost daily since the first of May. 
The steamboats which cater to these fishermen 
leave the lower part of the city early in the 
morning and return at night. At present they 
are always comfortably filled with salt water 
anglers, and despite the unseasonable weather, 
the catches are satisfying. Codfish, blackfish and 
pollock are the principal fish being caught at 
present. 
Peculiarities of Eggs of Fishes. 
Bozeman, Mont., May 4.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: Fishes constitute the oldest as well as 
the most numerous forms of vetebrate life, 
which might naturally be inferred when we 
consider that nearly three-fourths of the sur¬ 
face of the earth is covered with water, and 
that all of this “world of waters,” from the 
vast depths of the boundless sea to the tum¬ 
bling rill of the mountainside, is inhabited 
with fish life, from the huge vampire or devil¬ 
fish, measuring twenty feet across the wing¬ 
like pectoral fins, to the little naked stickle¬ 
back, or from the cruel, rapacious scourge of 
the ocean, the man-eating shark, to the diminu¬ 
tive transparent darter of the spring brook, 
barely an inch in length. 
We might also infer from this great differ¬ 
ence in the size, form and habits of fishes the 
fact^ that there is more diversity in the eggs 
of fishes than in any of the oviparous verte¬ 
brates. While most all of the sharks and rays 
are viviparous, all of the true fishes, with very 
few exceptions (which bring forth their young 
alive), are oviparous. I shall allude to some 
of the peculiarities of the eggs of but a few 
of the multitude of piscine species inhabiting 
the waters of the earth. 
Among birds, from the ostrich of the old 
world to the hummingbird of the new, we find 
a close similarity in the form and construction 
of their eggs. Likewise, in regard to the eggs 
of reptiles, we observe the same general like¬ 
ness—those of the turtles resembling each 
other, as do those of the serpents. The egg« 
of batrachians approach more nearly those of 
fishes in appearance, but they still preserve a 
general and characteristic similarity. 
The eggs of all of the true fishes are spher¬ 
ical in form, though in some of the related or 
lower forms they are oval or semi-elliptical. 
The eggs of certain species, as the salmon, 
trout, grayling, shad, etc., are separate, and 
apparently smooth on the surface, like so many 
pellets of shot, while those of other species 
are provided with minute threads or filaments, 
by means of which they become attached to 
each other or to foreign substances. Some 
adhere singly to weeds or other objects, some 
float singly, some sink to the bottom singly, 
while still others are held together by strips 
and bands of adhesive or glutinous material 
by which they become attached to plants, 
sticks or pebbles, or float on or near the sur¬ 
face, and some are carried about by the male 
fish in various places or receptacles of his body 
until they are hatched. 
Not only do the eggs of fishes differ in ap¬ 
pearance, but there is a great diversity in their 
size, and consequently in the number of eggs 
produced in the various species—thus in a 
marine catfish the eggs are as large as robin 
eggs; in the salmon they are one-fourth of an 
inch in diameter; in the brook trout one-fifth; 
in the grayling one-sixth; in the shad, one- 
eighth, while in the eel they are almost micro¬ 
scopic. The number of eggs produced by the 
female of fishes varies according to its age 
?.nd weight. In several familiar fishes the 
number of their eggs has been ascertained by 
careful and accurate calculation, as follows: 
Brook trout, 200 to 2,500; salmon, 5,000 to 
15,000; grayling, i.oco to 5,000, and black bass, 
3,000 to 15,000. Among salt-water fishes the 
number of eggs is largely increased, as in the 
shad from 30,000 to 150,000, striped bass about 
2,000,000, and in the codfish about 10,000,000. 
It has not been many years since all fishes 
were supposed to deposit their spawn upon the 
shoals of the sea shores or upon the beds of 
shallow inland streams, where the eggs rested 
