FOREST AND STREAM. 
[July ii, 1908. 
Fishing in California. 
Redondo Beach, Cal., June 20.- — Editor Forest 
and Stream: Over two hundred anglers for¬ 
mally opened the alongshore fishing season on 
May 24 by partaking of the club’s beef and bean 
barbecue and fish fry, followed by a casting- 
tournament in which the experts did very credit¬ 
able work under adverse conditions of course 
and cross wind. 
The liveliest enthusiasm was manifested, al¬ 
though it was an off day for fishing. The 
longest individual cast went to E. L. Hedderly 
at 217 feet 4 inches, he using a six-thread line 
and a 2 l / 2 ounce sinker. This was by no means 
the longest cast made. The same caster had 
another just outside the marks that was nearly 
250 feet, and Ellsworth Salyer, Sherman Baker 
and Roy Shaver all got out in splendid shape. 
Alongshore fishing has opened up well, all 
things considered, large catches of corbina and 
other fine game fish having been made. Troll¬ 
ing outside for rock bass is improving steadily, 
and the anglers who have been experimenting 
with the wooden minnows with propellers at 
each end have found them a very good artificial 
bait for these fish. 
The native fishermen at Redondo have evolved 
a unique type of outfit for their rather unusual 
requirements in fishing for yellowtail from the 
wharves at that point. Usually there is a big 
crowd to contend with, and one has to get a 
line in edgewise or not at all. Yellowtail are 
lusty, free-running fish, and when one is hooked 
the idea of the fishers is to get him in as quickly 
as possible before he tangles up many lines. It 
is infinitely better to let the fish make his run 
out to sea as he generally will do if given a 
chance; but the Redondo idea is to get a line 
heavy enough to hold him, say a thirty or thirty- 
six strand Cuttyhunk (whaling tackle, that), and 
it takes a big reel to hold a hundred yards of 
it. The natives use a cane pole fifteen feet 
long or so and a huge hook. A live sardine 
is put on, and heaved overside without a sinker, 
to be kept separate if possible from the hun¬ 
dred others near it. By and by along comes 
a school of yellowtail. Everybody has a strike; 
everybody hangs on like anchor man on a tug- 
of-war team. Hand lines of members of the 
“light clothes line club,” reel lines and other 
gear soon are interlaced in a fabric that gen¬ 
erally takes the better part of half a day to 
unravel, and sometimes defies the efforts of all 
but a knife. Usually the rod and reel men 
lose their yellowtail about the time the maximum 
tangling has been accomplished, and draw up 
their free lines through the mess to repeat the 
performance another time. No wonder the hand 
liners hate these innovations. And the funniest 
part of all is these rod and reel “experts” call 
themselves users of “light tackle.” 
Edwin L. Hedderly. 
San Francisco, Cal., June 27.—. Editor Forest 
and Stream: A 1 Cummings, who has just re¬ 
turned from a fishing trip to the Klamath Falls 
district, says the sport to be found in northern 
California and southern Oregon is the best it 
has been in years. The trout streams there are 
abundant, though the fish are small, as the run 
of the big fish up into the creeks has not begun. 
The Klamath River is full of the larger game 
and they will soon be in the anglers’ streams. 
There are few experienced fishermen in this part 
of the country who are not landing the limit 
each day, the fine speckled trout rising to the 
spoon well, but taking the helgramite bait more 
readily. In the smaller streams the fishing for 
mountain trout is good. 
The fish commissioners gathered about a mil¬ 
lion and a half spawn from Shovel Creek in the 
district during February and have recently 
turned about 100,000 fry back into the stream. 
The results are expected to be good. 
At Monterey the season is in full swing and 
fishing of all kinds is good. Good sport is to 
be had there taking salmon and barracuda with 
a small line, while those who are going after 
bass are having great luck. The usual summer 
crowds are beginning to arrive. 
From the Southern waters reports of the most 
glowing kind are coming. In a few places there 
have been off days and some varieties are getting 
scarce, but there is sport for the most particular 
followers of the piscatorial art. 
While fishing in San Pedro Bay has been a 
little off color for several weeks past, there is 
still good sport to be had at intervals. Spotfin 
croaker are getting scarce, but the China croaker 
is still putting up a lively fight. Small yellow- 
fin, weighing from half a pound to three times 
that size, are fairly plentiful, but for some un¬ 
known reason the big fellows do not come into 
the bay. 
The corbina fishing has not been so good dur¬ 
ing the past week and few notable catches have 
been recorded. ♦ A. P. B. 
Bass Fishing in Oklahoma. 
Muskegee, Okla., June 27. — Editor Forest 
Stream: In extreme northwestern Arkansas 
clear, cold springs in hills, which are a part of 
the Ozark range of mountains, form the head¬ 
waters of a pretty stream known as Barren Fork 
of the Illinois River. The latter is probably the 
finest fishing waters in the Southwest, and a 
number of liberally patronized club houses are 
to be found along its banks. It was in the 
former, however, that I spent a few days fish¬ 
ing recently, attended by a lack of success which 
does injustice to the creek. The moderate catch 
was doubtless due to the recent continued high 
waters bringing down an abundance of tender 
spring buds, etc., to say nothing of the bugs 
with which the fish had gorged themselves. The 
bass, small-mouth and yellow, struck with little 
energy and almost invariably submitted tamely 
when hooked. Earth worms and live minnows 
were used when the water was high and muddy; 
artificial minnows and buclctails—white and yel¬ 
low—when it was low and clear. We camped 
at a sawmill owned by my friend, E. C. Jones, 
of Muskegee, who fished with me, two miles 
from the railroad station of Christie and a mile 
and a half from the stream. 
Barren Fork flows in a general southwesterly 
direction, albeit very crooked, hugging the base 
of either range of hills which form a valley, 
and when normal is a series of rock and gravel 
bottom riffles and deep pools. It is fed at in 
tervals in its course by clear water brooks which 
have their source from springs in the hills. 
Near Tallequah, Okla., it empties into the Illi¬ 
nois River. From this point to the station of 
Westville, Okla., it is paralleled, as the topog¬ 
raphy of the country and the stream itself will 
permit, by a branch of the ’Frisco railroad, which 
runs from Muskegee to Fayetteville, Ark., 
where connection is made with the main line 
to St. Louis, Mo. At no point along this route 
is the creek a greater distance than two miles 
from the railroad, and almost any spot along¬ 
side its banks is suitable for a fine camp. 
Fifty miles from Muskegee, a mile from the 
railroad station of Welling, and four miles from 
its mouth is located the Walhalla Club, com¬ 
posed of members from Muskegee. Three miles 
above is the Ozark Club, established and patron¬ 
ized by people from Fort Smith, Ark. These 
clubs jointly place in the stream yearly 50.000 
each bass and crappie, but no one can explain 
satisfactorily why a crappie is so seldom caught. 
Paul H. Byrd. 
The “Biggest One” Did Not Get Away. 
St. Louis, Mo., July 1. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: On June 19, with my son, I took a 
trip to Wolf Lake, in Illinois, and as this time 
the “biggest fish” did not get away, the incident 
may be worth relating. 
We had fished a little on Friday afternoon, 
but with the mercury at 98 degrees in the shade 
there was not much enjoyment and few fish. 
After supper we tried it again, and from sun¬ 
set till dark the fish rose quite freely to the fly, 
but no large ones were taken. 
Saturday continued very hot, so we loafed in 
the shade until after supper, when we again 
tried the fly and the fish took it fairly well. A 
number of sunfish and small bass were taken 
and several big ones got off, I having failed to 
make the proper connection with them, at which 
the boy was much disappointed. 
Finally a short time after sunset I had a good 
strike, and this time the hook was set where it 
would do the most good, and the “differkilty,” 
as Kingfisher used to say, was on. At the first 
rush for the lilypads I knew it was a big one, 
and the boy backed the boat out toward deeper 
water, but the bass did not care to follow, and 
went down into the moss. After a few moments, 
which tested the rod to the utmost, I got him 
to the surface only to find a bunch of moss 
about two feet in diameter was over him. 
Whether I had fish or only moss was now the 
question, as no motion could be felt on the line. 
The boy touched the moss with the landing 
net, when there was a mighty swirl, and the fish 
went to the bottom, pulling the line through the 
moss. In a few moments more I had him in 
clear water, and it now became merely a ques¬ 
tion of endurance between rod, line and fish. 
The rod won, and I slipped the landing net 
under him and lifted him into the boat. 
“Good Lord! what a fish,” said the boy. I 
replied: “That’s the time the biggest fish didn’t 
get away.” 
“You bet your life,” was the emphatic re¬ 
joinder. 
“This pays us for the hot weather, mosquitoes 
and all other troubles,” said I, and the boy re¬ 
plied again, “You bet!” 
The fish was a big-mouth bass 21 inches long. 
15 inches in girth and weighed full 8 pounds! 
after being out of the water half a day. This 
was the largest bass I ever caught, but I hope 
to do better, as I am confident there are still 
larger ones in that lake. 
It may be of interest to remark that I used 
a rod purchased through an advertisement in 
Forest and Stream. The fly was a professor 
tied on a 2/0 hook. P. H. Felker. 
