Sept. 26, 1908.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
“Scissors,” to the Last. 
Ever since the “Old Angler,” Wm. H. Ven¬ 
ning, now eighty-six years of age, wrote his 
masterly defence of his sea trout theory in the 
f 1 orest and Stream six years ago ( Dec. 20, 
1902), he has appealed to me repeatedly for the 
sake of my reputation to recant my contrary 
opinion that the sea trout is more of a Salmo 
salar than a Salmo fontinalis, and he begs me 
now, at the end of life, when we are moribund 
and presumably in articulo mortis, not to die 
with this heresy on my lips, and so permit this 
| vexed question of thirty-five years’ discussion 
to remain open for generations to come. Hence 
on the strength of this emergency, I crave your 
space for a final word, which I hope will satisfy. 
I - 
Mr. Venning contends that sea trout confine 
themselves to their native fresh water streams 
and never range in quest of food beyond the 
salt estuaries into which those streams debouche, 
that they run down on occasion from the fluvial 
headwaters to meet the caplin and smelt which 
strike in from the ocean at certain seasons for 
spawning purposes, and as soon as the smelt 
return to salt water run back up stream and re¬ 
main in the river the year round. If these be 
facts beyond controversy, the “Old Angler” would 
seem to hold the winning hand; but, and if sea 
trout can be proved to be for a part of the year 
littoral and part of the year fluvial, in other 
words, anadromous, like the salmon, imitating 
salmon habits to the dot, not only as to habitat, 
but choice of food and the manner of seeking 
it and taking it, why, it should be conceded that 
they are more of the Salmo salar than they are 
of Salvelinus fontinalis or brook trout, whatever 
anatomists may declare. 
Videlicet: Both of them take artificial flies 
eagerly at times as well as a miscellaneous 
diet of anything edible, especially shrimps, 
prawns, annalids or sandworms, herring sile, 
smelts, caplin, cephalopoda, floating inverte¬ 
brates, mice, grasshoppers and insects of 
all sorts. Specifically the two fishes appear to 
be the closest kind of kin, and the onus of classi¬ 
fying them must fall on their scientific sponsors 
! an d the inventors of terminology. Intrinsically 
there is no intricacy in the problem if it be ad¬ 
mitted, as scientists generally believe, that the 
natural habitat of the entire family of Salmonidce 
is fresh water, and that it is the marine forms 
which have become erratic and not the land¬ 
locked varieties, of which there are many. Dr. 
Gunther has demonstrated how readily fishes ac¬ 
commodate themselves to either salt or fresh 
water, a faculty which is especially obvious in 
the smelt, the landlocked salmon and the ouana- 
niche, and vice versa in the sea trout and sea 
j salmon. 
L £ _ 
No one ever heard of netting brook trout by 
the barrel. 1 hey are not a commercial fish. 
But in Labrador, Newfoundland, and the Mari- 
i Provinces the coast dwellers who fish for a 
living depend upon the sea trout and their peri¬ 
odical appearance for their winter food supply. 
Sea trout are caught only at certain seasons. 
Brook trout are available everywhere the year 
round. The Labrador fishermen would not toler¬ 
ate the naturalist who averred that brook trout 
and sea trout are identical unless he would guar¬ 
antee his subsistence expenses. 
Charles Hallock. 
Fishing at Catalina Island. 
Avalon, Cal., Sept. 15. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: By long odds the best news that has 
come into Avalon during four years was the 
message brought to ambitious anglers by Con¬ 
gressman G. C. Conn when he bumped the club 
scales to ninety-four and one-half pounds with 
a blue tuna that, when taken, must surely have 
been a “button” fish. That Conn had to go to 
Anacapa, a barren little rock of an island sixty- 
eight miles from Avalon, was a secondary con¬ 
sideration in the general rejoicing at this defi¬ 
nite discovery of the tunas’ whereabouts, which 
question has been agitating the fishers most 
sorely. 
Congressman Conn recently bought E. H. 
Brewster s trunk cabin cruiser Nevada and has 
taken up his residence at Catalina for an in¬ 
definite time. He is in love with the marine 
big game hunting. 
Last week another amateur took a shot at 
Brewster’s record, Phil. S. O’Mara, of Salt Lake 
City, who was out with Chappie. At one stroke 
he raised the record to 240 pounds, and the day 
of heavy tackle butchery is done for the jew- 
fish. No longer can the angler earn even recog¬ 
nition except with nine-thread line. With the 
establishment of this new light tackle record by 
O Mara dawns a new era of popularity for the 
much-maligned jewfish, biggest of the bass tribe. 
1 hose who think his capture on light tackle not 
a meritorious accomplishment can have the ad¬ 
dresses of Spier and O’Mara on application. 
1 he latter finally won a four hour and thirty- 
five minutes’ battle in which the fish towed 
Chappie’s boat over five miles off shore. 
Prof. Holder and B. O. Kendall have been 
camping on the trail of the swordfish persistently 
of late and have hooked several, but landed 
none. The genial professor’s keen enthusiasm 
on the swordfish subject prompted Commodore 
Potter, Roy Shaver and a few other kindred 
spirits to frame up a new swordfish cup and 
club, the cards stating that Holder is president. 
501 
Shaver made up a toy rod about thirty inches 
over all, Potter dug up a tiny reel, filled it with 
No. 30 thread and exhibited it as the prescribed 
swordfish tackle with a No. 13 hook attached. 
I he funniest part of the joke is a reporter for 
one of the daily papers happened in, saw the 
rod on exhibition, read the card and took it 
seriously, writing an article at some length, 
speculating scientifically on how long it would 
take even a small swordfish to straighten out 
the hook. “More strength, less skill,” is the 
motto of Holder’s last club. 
Finally the campaign of the Southern Califor¬ 
nia Rod and Reel Club for another liberal plant¬ 
ing of striped bass is about to bear fruit. The 
fish commission has arranged to send 200 fish 
from a foot long upward in a special car to be 
planted in the waters of Alamitos and Newport 
bays. A previous planting of a handful of small 
fish has been responsible for quite a number of 
catches by sportsmen and seiners, so there can 
be no doubt that the fish will thrive if given 
half a chance in their infancy. It seems reason¬ 
able to expect that this splendid game fish will 
be added to southern California’s already long- 
list, even as it was added to the marine fauna 
of the North. The San Francisco plantings 
were very successful. 
Edwin L. Hedderly. 
The Cincinnati Casting Club. 
Cincinnati, Ohio, Sept. 14 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: The club held its regular contest on 
Saturday. The scores are as follows: 
Groesbeck . 97 5-15 95 14.15 
James . 90 6-15 96 3-15 
Murphy . 90 1345 92 14-15 
Lampre . 95 2-15 97 S-15 
Sheldon . 94 H -15 95 1345 
Latham . 97 445 97 
Kellog . 97 1345 97 7.15 
Hutchins . 96 3.15 
Harry Walter Hutchins, Sec’y-Treas. 
ANGLING IN THE THAMES. 
From Punch. 
