26o 
[Aug. 15, 1908. 
Lafayette Fishing. 
Brooklyn, N. Y., Aug. 8.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: Your article in to-day’s issue, on “Ang¬ 
ling for Lafayettes,” prompts me to send a few 
lines to you anent the method employed by my¬ 
self for capturing the lafayette. 
I use an extremely light bait-casting rod; in¬ 
deed, I have used it for fly-fishing for trout, and 
only this past summer I caught a fine 12-inch 
specimen of Salvelinus fontinalis —but that is an¬ 
other story. My line is the thinnest braided silk 
bait-casting line obtainable—my reel, a multi¬ 
plier, No. 3. The water simply swarms with 
lafayettes, and one cannot fail to catch them if 
he drops his line anywhere in the salt water. 
I go to Bergen Beach, take a boat, bring my 
sand worms with me from the city. I use one 
No. 12 hook and a barrel-shaped sinker of the 
smallest size. 
When the tide first turns after the low-water 
slack, I find they bite vigorously, but as it grows 
stronger they move further away from the boat 
and can be caught fifty feet behind the boat, 
biting not quite so vigorously. At this time I 
place a small running float on the line and allow 
it to run out slowly—this does the trick and al¬ 
lows me to catch them at all tides. I generally 
fish in Island Channel, just off the lower (south¬ 
ern) end of Bergen Beach—about 800 feet out. 
I have caught them on strips of killy-fish, sand 
and blood worms, shrimp and strips of snapper 
bluefish; but sand worm is the bait par excel¬ 
lence. 
I agree with the writer of the aforementioned 
article—they are a game fish, when treated as 
such. 
Go light—one hook is enough for sport—fish 
on bottom, or near it. I have taken them within 
two feet of the surface, but most are taken on 
the bottom. They run only about six or more 
inches down here and afford real sport, when 
one is properly rigged. They like a moving bait 
and I always cast out seventy to ninety feet, then 
troll in slowly, and rarely get in ten or more 
inches of line before I am fast to a little kicker; 
in fact, when they slack off biting I coax them 
up in that way and catch them at all stages of 
the tide. 
For one situated as I am, in the city, with no 
prospect of getting away, I can manage to find 
all the amusement, exercise and fresh air I de¬ 
sire at a minimum expenditure of time and 
money. 
The trolley runs right to my fishing place, 
and the only objectionable feature is that one 
must take his sand worms with him, to avoid 
disappointment. 
George W. Beatty. 
Fish Protection in North Carolina. 
Raleigh, N. C., Aug. 7. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: Governor Glenn calls a State conven¬ 
tion to protect and promote the fish and oyster 
industries, this to be held at Morehead City, 
Aug. 26-27. It will be the first of the kind ever 
held in North Carolina. Both Oyster Commis¬ 
sioner W. M. Webb and Fish Commissioner 
Theodore S. Meekins will be present, and they 
will submit some interesting facts. There will 
be strong opposition to pound nets, which many 
claim are destroying or driving away the fish. 
The Governor names sixty delegates, covering 
thirty counties, and these are asked to specially 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
invite fishermen and oystermen in their respect¬ 
ive counties. 
Elias Carr, secretary to the State Board of 
Agriculture, has returned here from Virginia 
Beach. There is a lake in the rear of the 
beach, into which salt water is pumped. He 
there saw a fisherman using a very small hook, 
with worms as bait, taking in numbers the fish 
known as “jumping mullet.” Mr. Carr went on 
to speak of the taking of shad with the hook 
and says he and his father, the late Governor 
Elias Carr, knew of the taking of two white 
shad in this way, near their home, Greenville, in 
Tar River. Fred A. Olds. 
Good Fishing in the St. Lawrence. 
Clayton, N. Y., Aug. 5.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: In the International Park of the St. 
Lawrence River at the Thousand Islands the 
fishing is better this season than it has been for 
many years, owing to the fact that we have 
driven the netters out of the American and 
Canadian waters. There is a large drain upon 
the resources of the fish in this park, when it is 
taken in consideration that there are days when 
from 500 to 1,000 boats are out fishing, and if 
they only catch a few fish—say from two to six 
to a boat—they are catching tons and tons of 
fish from our St. Lawrence River park. We are 
stocking the park every year with muscallongc, 
but we are not able to stock it with black bass 
and have to depend for the stocking of black 
bass upon the natural reproduction of this gamy 
fish, and not- any artificial way of stocking our 
park. We have good pickerel fishing and they 
reproduce themselves. Wall-eyed pike are quite 
plentiful this season, but we have been stocking 
our park with wall-eyed pike fry for several 
years. R. P. Grant. 
Singular Accident to an Angler. 
A curious accident lately befell an angler who 
was fishing in the Isar, not far from Munich. 
On casting out his line, the hook came in con¬ 
tact with the main cable of the Moosberg Elec¬ 
tricity Works. The angler received a severe 
electric shock, his body being so seriously burnt 
that he had to be taken home on an ambulance. 
The silken line is an excellent conductor of elec¬ 
tricity, and its conductivity is increased by mois¬ 
ture. The Allegemeine Fischerei Zeitung, which 
records the incident, advises anglers to be on 
their guard against similar accidents; but the 
warning seems hardly necessary. 
Trout at Saranac. 
Saranac Lake, N. Y., Aug. 7. — Editor Forest 
and Stream: Trouting within a few miles of 
town has been fairly good. Most of my trips 
have been confined to the afternoon, and rarely 
have I fished more than four or five hours, and 
yet I have never failed to bring home a string of 
a dozen or two, usually including a few fish 
twelve inches or more in length. All of my fish¬ 
ing has been done on the brooks and with the 
fly. I have found the cowdung and coachman 
tied on No. 10 hooks the best flies. 
A. L. W. 
The Forest and Stream may he obtained from 
any nezfjsdealer on order. Ask your dealer to 
supply you regularly. 
Solidly Wound Rods. 
The Toronto Times says that a man in that 
town has “invented” a new rod and grows en¬ 
thusiastic over it, while the London Fishing 
Gazette copies the yarn without comment. “The 
inventor,” says the Times, “has profited by his 
long experience in fishing, and has been enabled 
to remedy many defects in rods. We all know 
how the joints open in a split bamboo when it 
gets wet by rain, or even by a heavy dew if left 
out over night. This has been overcome by this 
new rod, which is completely wound with fine 
silk from tip to butt and then covered with 
waterproof varnish, and has improved water¬ 
tight lock joint ferrules, thus making a rod not 
only impervious to damp, but practically un¬ 
breakable, and still retains its featherweight 
qualities.” 
And all this “value” for five dollars. As a 
matter of fact, rods wound solidly with silk have 
been made in the United States at various times 
during the past thirty or forty years, and about 
ten years ago a patent was issued at Washington 
covering a rod which is solidly wound and as¬ 
sembled by means of two splices. The late 
Judge Kenyon, of Toledo, obtained the patent, 
and rods are still being made by one of our 
large manufacturers, who, we assume, holds the 
patent. Rods, solidly wound with silk, have 
been made and advertised by several firms in 
recent years as well. A New York maker of 
salt water rods winds washaba tips with black 
silk, then varnishes them, and split bamboo salt 
water rods have been made in tills way for so 
many years that they are no novelty. A braided 
silk covering is put on some American rods. 
Buggy whips are made in the United States of 
six or eight strips of cane cemented over a 
core of steel or other material, then covered with 
braided linen or cotton and varnished. Some 
are wound in the same fashion as in rods, and 
some of cane strips without cores. 
In view of the fact that wood or cane rods 
solidly wound with silk thread lose their elas¬ 
ticity and become logy—soft is the angler’s term 
—we asked an old rodmaker several years ago 
why it would not be a good plan to wind salt 
water rods with narrow silk ribbon instead, var¬ 
nishing as usual. We had in mind the very 
fine silk ribbon known in the trade as baby 
ribbon. It is about a quarter of an inch wide, 
thin but strong, and can be wound spirally with 
sufficient tension to make it very strong. As 
it will take varnish nicely, our theory was that 
it would protect the wood, furnish an excellent 
holding ground for varnish, and keep out mois¬ 
ture, but we believed then and believe now that 
it would not make the rod soft. 
The veteran replied that he had handled sev¬ 
eral rods during his long experience that had 
been solidly wound with either tape or ribbon, 
and that the method never impressed him favor¬ 
ably. In common with other rodmakers his 
opinion is that winding with silk in the usual 
way, at intervals of one-half to one and one- 
half inches is the most satisfactory method 
known. When waterproof ferrules are used on 
a first class split bamboo rod, there is no danger 
of damage if it is used in the rain or exposed 
to dew, but it is not wise to leave good rods 
outdoors over night or to expose them to either 
rain or hot sunlight. They are made to with¬ 
stand hard usage, not abuse. 
