Campirvg ar\d Hvirvtirvg ir\ 
New Brunswick 
The Story of an Amateur’s First Success as ^ 
Caller for Moose 
By FRED TALCOTT 
I'red Talcott was born in 1S50, near Rockville, Conn., where his father 
was the manager of a small woolen factory. In 1868 he graduated from 
Williston Seminary at Easthampton, Massachusetts, and the following 
winter taught school in Litchfield county, Connecticut. Employed as sales¬ 
man and accountant for ten years, he had gained a general knowledge 
cf business, when, in 1880, his attention was called to the inventions of 
Thomas A. Briggs, of Providence, R. I., who was trying to build an 
automatic label printing machine, and with him Mr. lalcott entered into 
partnership. 
The development of this machine and the management of the business 
connected therewith has occupied his time since then—a work that has 
been profitable and has given Mr. Talcott the satisfaction of feeling that 
he has had a small part in the great development of labor-saving machinery. 
While his ancestors were of the Puritan type people who gave little 
time to sport or recreation of any kind—Mr. Talcott says that he has 
inherited the ideas of his people in many things, but as to the desirability 
of sport, he differs with them. 
“At six years of age,” he says, “I caught my first trout, and have 
been a sportsman ever since. My sport I have found wholly in the 
East, and recall ten trips to the woods of New Brunswick, five to Quebec, 
and ’many to Maine. Forest and Stream was the pioneer paper devoted 
to the clean sports of the open and eliminating the race track and prize 
ring. As such it appealed to me. My first article for its pages was 
contributed, I think, in 1877, and at intervals since then 1 have sent in some story of wilderness travel or natural 
history observation.” 
FRED TALCOTT. 
O N the fourteenth of September, 1899, E. 
L. Johnson, of Providence, R. I.,‘and 
myself, with two guides, left Blackville, 
on the Miramichi River, in New Brunswick, 
for moose calling on the Renous River. We 
had traveled by way of Fredericton, and thence 
eighty-eight miles by rail to this point of de¬ 
parture for the big woods. 
From Blackville to the lakes, sources of the 
Renous where we planned to camp, is about 
forty-five miles—fifteen miles over a fairly good 
road to Coldpaugh’s, the last house—thence 
thirty miles by a bad tote road. 
For transport, Joe Grady, the head guide, 
had provided a pair of stout horses and a 
woods wagon. The main portion of the load 
was food for the horses. For them Joe took 
twelve bushels of oats and two bales of hay, 
yet this quantity, together with the grass that 
could be found in meadows and around lum¬ 
ber camps in the woods, proved insufficient. 
To realize how much two big horses require 
for food, try feeding them two weeks far from 
supplies. From Coldpaugh’s all our party were 
to walk except Joe, who had the harder task 
of driving. The horse food weighed about 800 
pounds, and the camping outfit and provisions 
for four men for two weeks 300 pounds, and 
this load was quite enough over such a road. 
A party going into the woods is usually in 
good spirits, and we were no exception. The 
country and guides were new to us, but we 
liked all from the first. The guides were new 
to us, but we liked all from the first. The guides 
were Joe Grady, a Scotchman with an Irish 
name, and John Underhill, an Irishman with a 
Scotch name, but both were full of bright Irish 
wit and solid Scotch worth. 
The first night opt from Blackville camp 
was made on a beautiful hardwood ridge seven 
miles beyond Coldpaugh’s; the second night 
fifteen miles further up the Renous, and the 
third day in the early afternoon we came to 
Joe’s lumber camp near Renous Lakes, which 
was to be our home camp for a week. As we 
had come soft from city offices, the thirty miles 
of tramping made us glad to rest; in fact, put 
us in condition where it was pleasure enough 
to just sit still for a time. Therefore, as we 
arrived on a Saturday afternoon, Sunday was 
made a day of rest. 
Thus far no large game had been seen, and 
only partridges killed along the way, but 
moose tracks were numerous in the roads, and 
our hopes ran high. Clustered at the head of 
the Renous River are several lakes surrounded 
by dry bogs and barrens marked with old and 
then unused caribou roads. Of this cluster of 
lakes one that is deeper and bluer than any other 
is called Louie Lake, after Louie Bear, an 
Indian who long ago camped and trapped on 
Renous waters. In this lake are fine large 
trout, and when we were there, beavers had a 
dam at the outlet. 
Such woodsmen as those with us are im¬ 
patient of inaction, and in good season Sun¬ 
day morning they started off to spot a line to 
a lake on Bamford Brook-Dungarvan waters. 
Just at sundown they came into camp excited 
from having seen a big moose in a logging road 
as they were returning. This looked favorable and 
yet not wholly so, for if the moose was much 
frightened, he would move out of the section, 
and big bull moose are not very numerous, so 
that driving one away might ruin our chances., 
Previous to this I had some experience with a 
moose caller, and this trip planned to rely on 
my own ability to call a moose. With this in! 
view, I had been practicing for three months. 
Practice on the call is necessary to get always 
the same note and to strengthen the voice to 
stand the considerable strain of repeated calls. 
Monday morning our whole party took the 
trail for Bamford Brook, carrying blankets anc 
provisions for a day or two. At the brook 
there was a good logging camp with a stove 
in it. From here an old logging road run- 
back to an open bog, in the midst of which i 
a small pond. It is a wild and undisturbec 
place—just where a moose would be likely t(> 
come to a call, so Mr. Johnson and I locates 
ourselves there for a night, while the guide 
returned to Renous to take care of the horses 
In the late afternoon and early evening th 
call was tried without success, and then a fir 
was started and we made our tea, and as th 
country was very dry and the fire had 1 
tendency to run under the surface, we ex. 
tinguished it later. The evening was warm an 
we settled into our blankets for what promise 
to be a comfortable night. 
About midnight falling rain awakened us 
and from then till morning dawned the rai- 
was heavy and continuous. A small rubbe 
blanket stretched on poles over us was our onl 
shelter, and under this, wrapped in our woe 
blankets, we waited in an increasingly mob 
condition till daylight should make it possib! 
to find our way back to Bamford Brook cam} 
A few calls in the morning met with no rt 
sponse, and we started back. The old loggin 
roads were grown up to maples on which tl 
leaves yet hung, and each leaf carried it 
quota of water to add to our wet condition 
we passed. As we were making ourselvt 
comfortable in the Bamford camp, our guide 
