Sept. 4, 1909 ] 
FOREST AND STREAM 
379 
An Oklahoma Lake. 
Muskogee, Okla., Aug. 10. —Editor Forest and 
Stream: Not back to the pines, but back from 
the pines, and the move is not at all agreeable. 
From days and days of walking by and wading 
through the crystal waters of Barren Creek, 
shaded by high wooded bluffs or huge syca¬ 
mores, to an abnormally dusty town and the 
strife for sordid gain, with Sundays only for 
recreation, is a change amounting almost to a 
shock. 
To crowd the maximum amount of effort into 
our Sundays has been the aim of three or four 
of our set for the past month, and we have not 
entirely failed. Quick action was also an im¬ 
portant factor, so we selected Ross’ Lake as the 
scene of our operations. This body of water 
is termed a lake because it is nothing else. 
Originally it formed the bed of the Grand 
River at a point about three miles from its 
'[juncture with the Arkansas. A great flood un¬ 
doubtedly prevailed at the time during which, 
by one of those freaks of swift water, the out¬ 
let was closed by gravel and eroded soils; the 
river forced another “mouth” and left about 
two and one-half miles of itself stranded there 
on the flat prairie. It ranges in width from one 
hundred feet to three hundred and fifty and its 
depth is two or three feet at a point four feet 
from the bank, rapidly increasing to as much 
as twenty-two feet at some places in its center. 
This water is reached by a six-mile drive from 
Muskogee, through scented alfalfa farms, past 
healthy and vigorous cornfields, across the 
muddy Arkansas and lastly through a private 
road to the lake’s banks, which are low and 
grassy, as are the banks of some rivers. The 
geniality of the farmer at this particular poinr 
is what attracted us, and, although unexpected, 
bis loyalty to sportsmanlike methods of taking 
fish is what cemented our mutual agreeableness. 
Upon our first arrival there early one Saturday 
evening, Mac, the farmer, aroused our am¬ 
bitions by relating how a bait-caster with r 
wooden minnow had landed a six-pound striped 
bass only last spring. N«, he did not think all 
the large ones had been taken out, because very 
few people came there to fish as we did, those 
frequenting the lake being mostly negroes fish¬ 
ing for buffalo and catfish with set-lines and 
trot-lines. Besides, averaging twice a year, 
Mac further consoled us, the Grand overflowed 
into it, and from this one could argue to suit 
lone’s desires—it allowed more fish to come into 
the lake, or, it allowed those in the lake to 
go out. We argued more along the lines of 
the first mentioned hypothesis." 
This being the time of year in this water 
when these bass will not be lured by any kind 
of artificial bait, we seined some very small 
buffalo and hickory shad and had our first try 
from the bank just as a big red sun went down 
behind the edge of the prairie, blushing at what 
he thought would be our discomfiture. Nabers 
was the first to let out one of those stifled 
cries which, under the same conditions, in 
women, we call screams. Nabers is a recent 
pupil of mine in handling a rod and a reel and 
you must not censure him for being somewhat 
hasty and in bringing that one up on the bank 
more by force than by strategy. It was a two- 
pound striped bass with most beautiful colors, 
and judging from the splashing, must have re¬ 
gretted very much coming out of water that 
was so fine. Only a short distance away, 
Warner was the next heard from. I im¬ 
mediately rushed upon the scene to bawl in¬ 
structions into unhearing ears and make 
gestures for eyes which had already the bulge 
and glare of a fanatic’s single-mindedness. The 
slender nine-foot steel rod he was using pre¬ 
vented him from imitating Nabers’ act, and he 
had five minutes of unalloyed joy before the 
spell was broken by the prick of a fin from 
another striped beauty weighing about one and 
one-half pounds. Warner’s sigh of relief, or 
whatever that emotion is, sounds like a horse 
with the heaves. 
This ended the sport for that evening; ended 
the sport, but not the pleasure, because the fish 
were made edible over our camp-fire; Mac pro¬ 
vided heaps of roasting-ears, and just before bed¬ 
time strolled in again with a big bucket of 
clabber-milk. 
Early the next morning, from a boat, I suc¬ 
ceeded in landing the largest one yet taken. I 
was using a very light 55-inch split bamboo 
bait-casting rod, rigged with cork, sinker, 
Cincinnati bass hook and live minnow. We 
had learned from MacDowd where two or three 
patches of gravel bottom were to be found, and 
it was over one of these, close to the bank, 
where my cork was taken under. The bait be¬ 
ing larger than usual, I gave plenty of line, 
which, as is nearly always the case in these 
lakes, straightened away for the center and deep 
water. At what I divined to be the psychological 
moment I allowed the line to grow free of 
slack and gave a quick, sharp, but not hard 
snap. The barb had sunk into the roof of the 
fish’s mouth, and while I did not know it at 
the time, I had him where it was a case of go 
to a finish. Fie broke water once; that was 
right after his first wild plunge to the bottom. 
Thereafter he was game, except for a few sec¬ 
onds, when he went to the bottom for the sec¬ 
ond time and sulked. The pouting period did 
not last as long as I expected, or, maybe it 
lasted longer; even yet, in some instances I 
cannot recall all details coherently. I know 
that sulking will get on my nerves quicker 
than chewing a rat-tail file. However, his 
little trick availed him naught, for soon after 
this whipped-schoolboy act he surrendered and 
lay in the bottom of the boat, showing big red 
gills which looked like the striping on a pleas¬ 
ure boat, and a mouth big enough to camp in. 
His weight was tfA pounds, a striped bass. 
Bassett it was who brought home the bacon 
that day, landing three nice ones, the others ac¬ 
complishing nothing. And although we have 
gone to that place frequently since, and have 
.A 
had uniformly fair success, my record is still 
“bogey” for the course. But this record can¬ 
not hope to stand. We are making an earnest 
study of the three miles of water with a view 
to locating the haunts of the big ones and ot 
course each of the four hopes to be the lucky 
one in bringing in that six-pounder. 
Paul H. Byrd. 
Hook Releasing Devices. 
In Ireland, when an angler’s hook catches in 
a root under water, he cuts a willow sprout, 
bends it into a hoop, and passes it over rod and 
line and lets it float beyond the obstruction, 
when a sharp pull on the line generally frees 
the hook. 
In England an angler has improved on this 
method. In his kit he carries several of the 
wire paper clips used in filing letters. If his 
hook becomes snagged he attaches the clip to 
a bit of brush, then springs the clip over his 
line and when the branch has floated beyond 
the snagged hook, the clip acts as a pulley in 
freeing it. He says it is an effective and cheap 
clearing ring, and it is not heavy. 
SCALE OF A GRILSE CAUGHT IN A NEWFOUNDLAND RIVER DURING THE LATTER PART OF JULY. 
Weight of fish, 3Ms pounds. The magnification is in this case considerably less 
than in that of the smolt scale. The rapid growth during the spring, summer and 
fall is well shown by the broad spaces between the lines, while the narrow band of 
close lines near the center of the scale indicate the slow growth during the winter. 
The winter and summer growth as a parr is not shown on account of the low 
magnification. 
