3 S ° 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept. 5, 1908. 
Bluefishing in Old Times. 
Gravesend Beach, N. Y., Aug. 28 .—Editor 
Forest and Stream : My thoughts go back to my 
apprenticeship of five years. Date 1840. Shop 
Eleventh street and Third avenue, New York 
City. Terms $20 per year, boss to board me. 
We used to go fishing and bathing, summer even 
ings, at Sandy Gibson's, corner Thirteenth street 
and Avenue B. 
1 his love of sport seems to follow man from 
youth to old age. Well, I love it yet. But, alas! 
where are the fish? Forty years back, bluefish 
were plentiful and were then caught by trolling, 
or in the absence of wind, by throwing and haul 
ing the squid. As an ed'ible or saleable fish they 
were scarcely marketable. But the mode of 
catching for the past forty years has been by 
chumming or baiting. In a conversation with 
that noted smack fisherman, the late Capt. Hiram 
Bebee, he told me how this mode of baiting blue- 
fish was found out. It was thus: After catching 
in the smack a fare of sea bass, porgies and other 
marketable fish, and when the smack’s crew were 
washing the decks, the large bluefish were seen 
feeding on the scraps of bait. So Captain Bebee 
would drop a line and baited hook and haul in a 
few for market. Thus, I am informed, this 
mode of fishing was introduced. 
Let us go on a bluefishing trip. Time, thirty 
years back. We have a boat, say 40ft., with liv 
ing accommodations on board and provisions. 
There are four of us on this trip. We get 500 
mossbunkers for bait from pound nets in Graves¬ 
end Bay. Then we sail outside of Coney Island 
Point on the ebb tide as we sail off shore. We 
wish to anchor inshore off the lightship, or off 
shore of the wreck of the Black Warrior. We 
grind out bait in a mill, thus making our moss- 
bunkers into sausage, or fine ground fish. We 
do this grinding as we sail out for the fishing 
ground. 
And now the order is down jib and stow it 
away, round up in the wind and drop anchor, 
down mainsail and stow it. And now a guess as 
to how long before we can draw the fish to us 
and get them to bite. I say fifteen minutes. As 
I generally feed the bait overboard with a spoon 
I could, most times, get the first fish. But to-day 
we have a novice at this mode of fishing. I see we 
have a nice tide to carry the bait so I bait my line 
and give him the best place, and alto try to instruct 
him how to act in fishing. I11 about ten minutes 
I see the wake of the fish which have found our 
feed, and I tell him the fish are around. Then 
I see him snatch and haul in his line as if his 
own life depended on it. As I stop him he finds 
there is no fish on his hook, but he tells me 
what a bite he had. I tell him not to snatch his 
line, but if he feels the fish working at his bait 
to pay out his line and the fish will take the bait 
in, and when hooked will pull in earnest; then to 
pull him on board. In a short time he said he 
felt a fish at his bait. I told him to pay out his 
line. He did so, and now he has an 8-pound 
bluefish. But what an exciting time until he gets 
him. into the boat. And as he admires the fish 
he asks how it will be known from the other 
fish. I cut a notch in this wonderful fish’s tail 
so that it can be known. And thus we fish, some 
days catching five to 200, and then, as we read of 
fishermen in the wonderful Book catching noth¬ 
ing, so the same with us. 
I am writing of thirty years back, when fish 
were plentiful. They now make it a game fish 
by using rod and reel. But the fish of the past 
would have broken fancy tackle. 
We formerly caught bluefish by trolling. I 
often think of and laugh over the tricks and 
pranks we used to play on each other, especially 
on a novice at trolling. It used to be great fun, 
when you had 150 feet of line out, and thought 
you were pulling in a large bluefish to lift in a 
couple of bricks or a bottle, or two dead fish on 
one hook. And how the man knew it was not a 
fish on his line. 
The late C. G. Gunther (ex-mayor) was a 
MRS. MACKENTHUN AND HER CATCH. 
noted one for pranks when out with a party of 
friends. As he owned a small steamboat he was 
often out trolling. Once as I lay baiting fish I 
saw him with friends trolling for bluefish; 
and as his boat passed my own his friends and 
himself were shouting, and the water was flying, 
and what they thought was a large bluefisfi on 
their lme I saw was a large iron frying-pan. 
But how that fish did skip and jump; and what a 
time when his friend lifted it into the boat. But 
I must stop this rambling, and if worthy of a 
reminiscence to you, you are welcome to it; and 
if not, these thoughts have brought to me pleas¬ 
ant memories of the past. John Bateman. 
In his account of hunting mountain lions and 
bobcats in Colorado, E. F. Randolph in his forth¬ 
coming “Inter-Ocean Hunting Tales” paints a 
vivid picture of the pursuit of these cats and of 
the excitement felt when one of them is brought 
to bay. So eager are the dogs that on one occas¬ 
ion one of them came near knocking the hunter 
down over a cliff and on to the lion which had 
sought temporary safety on a ledge below. 
Fish and Fishing in Canada. 
Quebec, Canada, Aug. 29. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: Thousands of anglers in different parts 
of the world, who have made the acquaintance 
of the ouananiche at Lake St. John, will learn 
with much regret of the recent destruction bv 
fire of the luxurious Hotel Roberval. The hotel 
was the property of H. J. Beemer, the American 
contractor who constructed the railway from 
Quebec to Lake St. John, and who also built 
the Island House at the Grand Discharge. In 
the opinion of many business men as well as 
of anglers the Grand Discharge would have been 
a more desirable site for the big hotel than 
Roberval was. 1 he latter mentioned locality is 
too far away from the center of the ouananiche 
fishing for a large hotel intended chiefly for the 
accommodation of anglers, and so has never 
really paid. It is true that there is good ouana¬ 
niche fishing at Roberval in the spring, but this 
is earlier than American anglers seem to care 
to come to Canada for fishing, and there is a 
variety of trout fishing to be had within a few 
miles of Roberval. But the best of the ouana¬ 
niche fishing is at the Grand Discharge, and 
there it is necessary for anglers to stay while 
enjoying their sport. The manager of the Hotel 
Roberval has now removed his staff to the Island 
House and there is promise of a large attend¬ 
ance of sportsmen there during the month of 
September. Some of those who have already 
booked for this month there, including Mr. and 
Mrs. St. John, of Hartford, Conn., will wind 
up their fishing tour with a descent of the rapids 
of the Grand Discharge from Lake St. John to 
Chicoutimi by bark canoe. This is a thrilling 
sensation, especially the shooting of the Gervais 
rapids and of those of the Vache Caille and of 
Isle Maligne. 
One of my American correspondents writes 
me regarding the September fishing in the Grand 
Discharge and inquires specially about tackle and 
flies. The information which I sent him may 
prove useful to readers of Forest and Stream 
who may contemplate a trip to the Discharge 
and who have yet to make an acquaintance of 
the ouananiche. The fishing in September, like 
that of late June, is usually the best of the sea¬ 
son. J he fish that spawn in the feeders of the 
big lake are now ascending the rivers to their 
spawning beds, and those which spawn in the 
shallow waters of the Discharge in October and 
November arc arriving in the heavy rapids and 
will h( - feeding there during the month of Sep¬ 
tember. -The size of the flies for this fishing 
must depend much upon the condition of the 
water, and as this cannot be calculated in ad- 
3 ance, I advise all inquirers to supply themselves 
with different sizes from Nos. 3 and 4 down to 
8 or 10. If the weather is clear and the water 
low, 8 and ip will not be too small, but heavy 
rains during the month may make a great deal 
of difference. 
As to patterns of flies, I strongly recommend 
the standard salmon ones, especially the Jock 
Scott and silver doctor. After these the most 
killing are usually brown hackle, coch-y-bond 
dhu, coachman, B. A. Scott, General Hooker, 
professor and grizzly king. The fish are likely 
to be found in almost every part of the Dis¬ 
charge, and I hear that quite a number of grilse 
have been killed both in the Metabetchouan 
River and in the Discharge during the present 
