7 8i 
ij May 18, 1907.] 
if___ 
jthe small-moutli bass of his native State. One 
bf his Boston friends told him the Grand Lake 
jsalmon could show him a few tricks worth 
mowing, so the two gentlemen left for eastern 
1 Maine May 10 to try the matter out. 
Mr. Herbert B. Eaton, of Calais, Maine, 
passed through Boston last week bound for 
home. He has been spending the last two 
months in New York and in this city, and now 
hat the fishing is beginning, is anxious to be on 
J [he ground. He had planned with a large party 
I to leave for Moosehead Lake on May 15, but 
; because of the ice not going out, the party will 
delay their departure for a few days. Living 
i|so near Grand Lake, Mr. Eaton fishes and 
l shoots over the entire region and knows it as 
1 few do. He also has a camp on Meddybemps, 
where some of the very best of bass fishing can 
be had. Hackle. 
L&te Angling Season in Canada. 
Quebec, May ir.— Editor Forest and Stream: 
j \ steady continuance of exceedingly cold weather 
{ during the last month has contributed to make 
he present one of the latest spring angling sea¬ 
sons ever known in Canada. Lumbermen, ex¬ 
plorers, railway engineering parties and others 
j laving business in the woods report that it will 
| ie the end of the month before all the snow has 
i disappeared, and this not only applies to the 
! northern districts of Quebec, but even to the 
woods drained by the Miramichi within a com¬ 
paratively short distance of Newcastle, N. B. 
1'he continuance of ice in the gulf and lower 
St. Lawrence and the knowledge that it will be 
well on into June before all the snow water will 
j be out of the rivers makes it a certainty that the 
1 ^almon season will be considerably later this year 
han usual, even though perhaps not so much so 
is the spring fishing for trout and ouananiche. 
There will be very little of this latter to be had 
n the northern lakes before the last days of 
(May. Even the lakes in the immediate vicinity 
j >f Quebec had furnished no trout fishing up to 
he middle of the month, and. those further north 
ire still covered with ice, including Lake St. 
; lohn and Lake Edward. The earliest trout fish- 
ng of the season hereabouts was had in the 
I second week of May in the Montmorency. River, 
1 few miles above the falls, where a few small 
! ish were taken on fine days amid the floating 
; ce; the fly in some instances being seized after 
t had been slowly dragged over a piece of ice 
! nto open water. 
About the earliest trout fishing in the country 
torth of Quebec will be that of Lake St. Joseph, 
md the best fishing of the year should he had 
here in the first three weeks of the season, as 
he water grows warm there fairly early as a 
I'ule, while for several days after the breaking 
f tp of the ice the large lakers are near the stir- 
ace of the water and may be taken by trolling, 
md even with a partly submerged fly. Inquirers 
1 nay rest assured that I shall notify them as 
| iromptly as possible in this column of the rnove- 
! nent of the ice from the northern lakes. 
E. T. D. Chambers. 
I 
— 
Seaconnet Salmon. 
New Bedford, Mass., May to.— Editor Forest 
1 ind Stream: This may interest your readers. 
; peaconnet is in Rhode Island. The clipping is 
rom the New Bedford Evening Standard of 
j Vlay 8: 
“A big speckled salmon weighing 22 pounds 
vas the prize catch which fell to the lot of Capt. 
• A. Pettey when Monday morning he pulled 
| n ins seine at Seacotmet Point, hauling in as 
-veil a fine mess of tautog, flatfish, setip and 
< on ger eels. Although salmon weighing as much 
’ r more than this one are commonly caueht in 
1 daine waters, Capt. Pettey’s find is unusual, for, 
)n account of the muddy waters, salmon very 
1 'eldom poke their noses into the fresh water 
t breams in this vicinity. So far as is known no 
! ’ a lmon of this size has been caught at Seaconnet 
| )r thereabouts in forty years. The fish found 
1 1 ready market at Providence and yielded steaks 
| l h e rate of eighty cents a pound. ” 
I Fred. S. Potter. 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
Brown vs. Brook Trout. 
Williamsburg, Pa., May 10 . — Editor Forest 
arid Stream: After reading the article by Mr. 
Harry Chase concerning the brown trout ( Salmo 
fario) and having unexpectedly dropped on a 
stream that had been stocked with a few of these 
fish, it may interest some of your readers and 
angling friends to read what a Pennsylvania 
fisherman has to say concerning them. Some 
few days ago in company with a friend who 
wished to observe how fly-fishing for trout was 
done, we wended our way over the green fields 
in the afternoon about two and a half miles from 
town, and on reaching the stream, rigged up a 
■suiable cast of flies. This done, it was not long 
until the little five-ounce bamboo rod was 
swishing through the air, and presently I had 
a trout on the grass, but what kind was it? 
Never having seen any like it, I concluded it 
must be a hybrid between the brook and the 
California trout. During the afternoon I suc¬ 
ceeded in taking eight ,trout from the stream, 
six of which were brown trout, as I afterward 
learned. 
On my return home I looked up the report 
of the fish commissioners, and there found a 
colored cut of the brown trout. To make sure 
of my conclusions, the following week I re¬ 
turned to the stream and secured a fine speci¬ 
men about 10 to 12 inches long and at once em¬ 
balmed it in formalin, 1 part to 20 parts water, 
and sent it to W. E. Meehan, State Fish Com¬ 
missioner of Pennsylvania, who at once wrote 
me, saying it was a splendid specimen of the 
brown trout. 
The stream from which I took these fish has 
always been a trout stream, but of late years, 
notwithstanding the constant stocking every 
year with brook trout, they grow scarcer. The 
conclusion I have come to is this, that from the 
size of the fish I caught I judged they had 
spawned two seasons, as they run along from 
6J-2 to 12 inches, and the stream seems to have 
quite a lot of the smaller fish in it. The ratio 
seems to stand six brown trout to two brook. 
In regard to the fish for table use, I would 
just as soon have them as the brook trout. 
Their manner of taking the fly is far ahead of 
the brook trout, and for gaminess, they re¬ 
mind me more of a black bass than a trout. 
If these fish grow as fast as Mr. Chase claims 
they do, I conclude they are the fish to stock 
with, for these reasons: You get quick results, 
you have larger, gamier, stronger fish than the 
small brook trout, and the angler will use 
heavier flies and stronger tackle, and will not 
be so likely to catch the small fish. 
S. D. J. 
France Waking Up. 
A commission has been appointed to inquire 
into the condition of French inland fisheries, to 
consider what improvements should be made in 
the laws governing angling, to discuss the preb- 
lems of fish culture, river preservation, and re¬ 
stocking, and generally to go into the whole sub¬ 
ject of fishing and fisheries, and the prospects o-f 
bettering them. The commission will, it is stated, 
consist of the Minister of Agriculture, presi¬ 
dent ; the Director-General of Woods and 
Forests, three Senators, five Deputies and 
others, among whom are to. be ten representa¬ 
tives of angling and restocking associations, and 
six specialists in fishing and fish breeding. 
“This news,” says the London Field, “will be 
welcomed by all who realize the difficulties which 
our angling friends across the Channel have had 
to put up with in the past, and who know how 
much their beautiful rivers have suffered from 
inadequate protection, and antiquated statutes 
which in some cases are little better than none. 
That the Government should have at last re¬ 
alized the importance of the question is undoubt¬ 
edly a great step in advance, and a great deal of 
credit is due to the devoted band of anglers who 
have for a long time been working to this end. 
The commission can hardly fail to- do good, and, 
though official processes are necessarily slow, in 
a few years possibly France may become what 
she was intended to be by nature, one of the 
finest angling countries in the world. Among 
other matters, doubtless the commission will con¬ 
sider the question of close times, and it is to 
be hoped that some sort of order will be intro¬ 
duced into a condition of things which to us 
looks somewhat chaotic, and that all the depart¬ 
ments will ultimately be in accord on such a 
point as whether trout and roach need to be 
protected at identically the same time.” 
Fishing for Trout at Night. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The following account of fly-fishing by night 
is from “My Life as an Angler,” by William 
Henderson, and the scene the Black Forest in 
Germany : 
“The night w r as pitch dark, and distant thunder 
gave the proverbial warning that all fishing was 
out of the question. Still, mad as the idea 
seemed, I determined to make an essay in front 
of the hotel. So black was the night that a 
lighted lantern was necessary to- guide me in ar¬ 
ranging my rod and tackle at the door. This 
done, 1 sought the edge of the lawn, by the side 
of which rushed a rough rapid stream, which 
sped from a mill immediately above. 
“Scarcely had I taken my position near to the 
top of the stream than the lightning blazed forth 
illuminating the pine-clad hills and making a 
sudden glare far exceeding that of the brightest 
sunshine. Each tree of the forest might be dis¬ 
tinguished, while the lightning quivered the sky. 
and then followed a darkness so dense that I 
could not see the rod, and could scarcely dis¬ 
tinguish my hand. The dark intervals betw-een 
the flashes might be five minutes, and it was be¬ 
tween these that I cast my flies straight across 
the rushing mill stream. The instant the flies 
fell on the water I felt a tug, then a rush, and 
all was quiet. 1 was amazed, but at length con¬ 
cluded that a passing stick had struck my hook. 
Another cast of the line, and here was no room 
for doubt; a heavy fish was pulling violently. 
It was long before the strength of the current 
allowed me to land my prize; indeed it was only 
by the lightning’s flash that I could judge where 
or how to do this. 
“I fished the stream steadily downwards for 
about a hundred yards. The lightning showed 
me where to throw my flies ; all around was inky 
blackness. I cast and rarely failed, either, to 
hook a fish. The strength of the current enabled 
many a fish to break away, but at the end of 
half an hour my basket held eight fish, and when 
these were tabled at the hotel they proved to be 
three trout, three graylings, and two fish resemb¬ 
ling chub. The least was three-quarters of a 
pound in weight and the largest a pound and a 
half.” Mattapan. 
A Walton Portrait? 
Within the present month a very old water 
colored portrait of Izaak Walton has come to 
light. It was found among a collection of family 
portraits in a portfolio belonging to a spinster 
lady, who recently died at the age of ninety. 
There is clear evidence that these portraits can 
be traced back to an English bishop, who was 
one of Walton’s contemporaries, and they were 
all painted by a member of the bishop’s family. 
If this proves to be a portrait of Walton, taken 
from life, says the London Illustrated News, it 
reveals a different type of face to that which we 
all associate with the author of the “Compleat 
Angler.” This picture was evidently painted in 
his very old age, but the face is soft, and almost 
feminine in its outlines, and the eyes are blue. 
I am by no means deeplv versed in Walton’s 
portraiture—or literature—but my “find” may be 
of interest to that section of our readers whose 
tastes incline that way. 
The Ice Going Out. 
Sebec Lake, Me., May 6 . —Editor 
Stream: The ice went out of Sebec 
day. May =;, and the salmon fishing 
in goed. A number of good catches 
to-day. B. M. 
Forest and 
Lake, Sun- 
has started 
were made 
Packard. 
