UG. 21, 1909.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
29 d 
Northern pike. The judge told me he would 
; to get a spoon with the blade eight inches 
L He said he never saw a spoon large 
ugh to suit him and asked me to buy one 
ever came across one in my travels, 
e trolled for about two hours with never 
rike. I then suggested that we try casting 
a wooden minnow and see if it would not 
e more efficient. The judge assenting, row- 
js- into a bay where there were occasional 
;ers of floating leaves. I started the minnow 
after a few casts a fish seized it, and after 
tie playing we boated him. Greatly encour- 
1 we went at it again and in about an hour 
a half had five running from three to ten 
ids each. 
here is a weedless arrangement I have used 
i great success. I always use it when pos- 
j» when casting for bass, etc. 
weedless hook is attached to a three-foot 
o wire leader and the line tied to the other 
A large mimpw is hooked through the 
The reel is on a steel rod and the click 
The minnow is thrown over and thirty to 
jf feet of line payed out. Then the rod is 
down in the boat and no attention paid to 
inless the click sounds. The leader causes 
lo run deep and it. will seldom get fast. I 
(e added many a good bass and pickerel to 
.string in this way and it does not interfere 
1 the casting at all. 
,/hen I do not have a weedless hook handy 
ake one by taking a piece of soft copper or 
j;s wire six or eight inches long (size 26 
3 gauge is about right) and doubling it the 
1 is passed under the barb of a straight hook 
imerick, sproat or Aberdeen—and the wire 
vound around the shank of the hook at the 
and the ends clipped off. The part between 
barb and shank is then bowed out until it 
ers the point of the hook. It is as good as 
weedless hook I have ever used and works 
1 y well. A little work with a soldering iron 
improve it, but it is not essential. 
N. E. Spaulding, 
[to be concluded.] 
Australian Anglers. 
N its issue of June 2 the Sydney, N. S. W., 
feree, says: 
dr. Harry Chidgy, of Balmain, had just re¬ 
ined from a trip to New Zealand. While 
Ire he indulged in a little sea fishing, catching 
number of kawi and red cod. The kawi, 
'ich are similar to our salmon, take the fly 
y readily, and are also often caught by 
tans of a piece of white rag towed behind a 
nor launch. 
In the same boat which brought him back he 
t another member of the New South Wales 
glers’ Casting Club, viz., E. P. Andreas, who 
1 spent three months trout fishing there with 
lendid results, the average weight of the trout 
ight being 11 pounds. 
Vlr. Chidgy, who is a very clever rod builder, 
> just obtained from the publishers, The 
I rest and Stream Publishing Company, New 
' rk, a splendid little work called the “Ang- 
’s Workshop.” This book, which costs one 
liar, contains a vast amount of information 
how to build or make a rod. I strongly rec- 
imend it for a tyro in the art of rod making. 
Sanctuaries for Trout. 
Taunton, Mass., Aug. 14 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: The trout fishing season of 1909 ended 
with the last day of July and the results for the 
year have been both disappointing and unsatis¬ 
factory to the majority of our fishermen, very 
few large fish having been taken. The outlook 
this spring was most promising and some good 
catches were looked forward to. I have fished 
all of our brooks for a number of years and 
therefore can speak from experience. This year 
a State warden and myself commenced on the 
last Sunday in the month of March to, patrol 
the largest and most fished of our trout streams 
in search of those who might chance to fish be¬ 
fore the open season, April 15, and we con¬ 
tinued this work each consecutive Sunday until 
the opening day, and during the remainder of 
the season inspected the various catches of fish 
in order to find violators of the legal size law. 
OFF TO TRY ANOTHER LAKE. 
No persons were found who had violated either 
of the above State laws relative to trout. 
My own theory in regard to the scarcity of 
good sized fish in this well known stream, not 
only this year, but also for the past two or three 
seasons, is this: Our Massachusetts law allows 
the taking of any fish over six inches in length 
with no limit to the number to be captured. 
Our largest stream, the one mentioned at the 
beginning of this article, has more than five 
miles of fishing water, with several cold spring 
brooks joining it along its course, making it 
one of the best breeding brooks in the State. 
This stream has been heavily stocked both with 
fry and fingerlings each year since 1906, both by 
enthusiastic individuals and by the State com¬ 
missioners. Our local anglers have an unwritten 
law in regard to the fishing of this brook—to 
let the headwaters of the stream severely alone, 
to keep no fish under e : ght inches in length, and 
hut a moderate number of those. 
Four or five years ago one could, by carefully 
fishing the lower stretches of wide and deep 
water, obtain in a day’s fishing ten or twelve 
trout weighing three-quarters of a pound each 
and even heavier, and a small fish was seldom 
taken. Nearly all of the trout considered too 
small for the taking were found in the stretch 
of the brook from the headwaters down about 
two miles. 
By making this a sanctuary, these small fish 
were given a lease of life until they had reached 
a size sufficient to enable them to live in the 
larger and deeper waters of the stream. 
After all the sincerity shown by some of our 
local anglers, along come fishermen from a city 
more than forty miles away who catch and carry 
away the very same fish our own men have 
taken the pains to return to the stream. This 
spring I overhauled a basket containing thirty- 
six trout taken from this stream by a man from 
Boston, and of the entire lot there were four 
only fit for an angler to conscientiously keep, 
the remainder being six and seven inches in 
length, such fish as a friend and myself had 
returned to the brook that self same day. Our 
oldest and best fisherman says that nothing ex¬ 
cept the continued taking of large numbers of 
these small trout from the headwaters of the 
brook is the cause of this scarcity of large fish. 
Smali trout will usually take an earthworm 
greedily enough, whereas a trout that has once 
or twice been pricked by a worm-baited hook 
can be induced to take the lure only by the 
exercise of more skill on the angler’s part and 
consequently has more chance of attaining a 
decent size. A law forbidding the taking of 
trout less than eight inches in length and limit¬ 
ing the catch to fifteen fish in one day would 
much better protect our streams than the one 
now in force, and it is high time that our trout 
should be considered one of our natural re¬ 
sources worthy of conservation. 
Fishing is not all fish, but the pleasure of 
catching a few trout takes many a man into the 
rea’ms of birds and flowers where he forgets 
for a while the rush and whirl of the strenuous 
life and the fish is the incentive that draws him 
away to the “little rivers.” 
Bradford A. Scudder. 
Nice Brown Trout. 
Owego, N. Y., Aug. 10. —Editor Forest and 
Stream: Ten brown trout were caught in the 
Owego Creek near this place one day last week 
by Messrs. G. W. Smith, E. F. and W. E. Bar¬ 
ton. The ten trout weighed twelve pounds 
dressed and the four largest ones weighed seven 
and three-quarter pounds dressed. In point of 
size it is the finest catch of trout ever taken 
from any of our local waters. The day before 
making this catch the above mentioned anglers 
caught six other brown trout, a trifle smaller 
in size, but a fine catch nevertheless. These men 
are probably the most expert fishermen in this 
section, and they refuse to enlighten anyone as 
to the lure that they used in making these phe¬ 
nomenal catches, but it is whispered that City 
Clerk W. E. Barton caught the two largest, and 
that he used a live mouse for bait. 
Trout fishing in this locality has been very 
good this season, especially since spring hole 
fishing commenced, and several good catches of 
brook trout have been reported. The continued 
dry weather, however, has caused the streams 
to become very low and unless we have rain 
very soon a repetition of last year’s disastrous 
conditions is predicted. 
Bass fishing in the Susquehanna River is poor 
and few catches are being made. F. J. D. 
All the fish laws of the United States and 
Canada, revised to date and now in force, are 
given in the Game Laws in Brief. See adv. 
.I fir 4 
