April, 1918 
F O R E S T A N D S T R E A M 
231 
FROM HERE AND THERE 
[Readers of Forest and Stream are invited to use these columns to express their opinions 
on various subjects, although their views may not coincide with those of the Editors .J 
TWENTY-SIX FISH ON ONE HOOK 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Perhaps you will be interested (even if 
they are quoted by a fisherman) in the 
following facts: 
While fishing through the ice this year 
on Mr. Konold’s Pond, Westville, Conn., 
I caught a pickerel sixteen inches long by 
measurement. About one and half pounds 
in weight, estimated. While dressing it 
I examined the contents of its stomach and 
he right well might be called a fresh water 
shark, and the Fish Commissioners ought 
to prohibit him from eating so much at 
one meal. For his stomach contained one 
bullhead two inches long and almost in 
perfect condition, and twenty-four roach, 
all but two in good condition from one- 
half inch, to one inch in length. I was 
surprised, first, because of the number of 
roach, and second, because I had never 
seen roach of that size only in the fall of 
the year. Wish I could have taken a pic¬ 
ture of the fish and contents. I can truth¬ 
fully say I caught twenty-six fish at one 
time, with one hook. Can you beat it? 
James F. Parsons, New Haven, Conn. 
worth picking up. So I give them “the 
cold shoulder” till they pass me and then 
a warm reception. The other was a tricky 
old cock in some thirty or forty acres of 
thicket. It seemed like “hunting a needle 
in a hay stack,” but my setter dog “Rex” 
knows his business. I was working him 
with a bell on his collar. When nearly 
through the thicket he came on point at 
the edge of a thick growth of kalmia. I 
called my friend, who came up a little dis¬ 
tance off, and just then a strange setter 
dashed down from above me and right up 
to Rex, who moved into the thicket. I 
thought the old cock gone and I walked 
past the dogs, not seeing them. I told my 
friend that I believed the strange dog had 
broken Rex’s point, but he said the. bird 
had not flushed. Turning, I saw the 
strange dog backing Rex and a young man 
came up. I asked the stranger to step in 
between us and as* we walked in the cock 
burst from cover and I dropped him with 
my little sixteen. Thus the arrival of an¬ 
other sportsman contributed to the bagging 
of a wise old bird. 
Ernest L. Ewbank, North Carolina. 
BAGGING A WISE OLD GROUSE 
Editor Forest and Stream : 
This winter has been the most severe 
ever known in these mountains. Below 
zero several times and for eight consecu¬ 
tive weeks only two days that the mercury 
was above 32 degrees, but I am glad to 
say that the Bob-white have pulled through 
very well and the grouse also. 
I bagged not long ago tw T o fine cock 
grouse and they were by no means thin. 
One came right at me. I turned my back 
at him and shot him after he passed. In 
the woods one runs the risk of either a 
clear miss or a bird shot to pieces. Un¬ 
less one quickly raises his gun enough so 
that he cannot see the bird, he misses; and 
if he hits, the chances are the bird is not 
I never shoot around this catch pen. I 
have a rope or lariat with which I make 
a noose on the end of a long pole and drop 
it over the wolf’s neck. By pulling him up 
for a short time it is all over with him 
and there is no smell of blood to drive 
the next visitor away. Once I got a large 
black bear in one of these pens. I had 
some trouble with him, but I got him 
choked after a hard tussle; by snubbing 
my lariat to a tree and side of pen it was 
all over wdth no shooting. 
I read Forest and Stream each month 
and enjoy the letters from other readers. 
I have followed the trapping and hunting 
game for twenty-nine years steady, having 
hunted and trapped since I was a boy of 
nine years. 
Edward T. Price, Michigan. 
FROM AN OLD HUNTER AND 
TRAPPER 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I am one of the lovers of woodcraft and 
will relate a few old-time ideas. One we 
used back in the seventies was to cut a 
strip of hide from a doe’s hind legs inside 
from gamble joint about four inches wide 
by eight inches long. This takes the tuft 
of hair on gamble joint and was laced on 
ball or instep of moccasins so when each 
step would leave the scent. Every buck 
that came across this would follow your 
track and after tramping around for a few 
miles we would build a scaffold up in the 
crotches of trees about 8 or 10 feet from 
ground and keep still. The bucks would 
walk up near you so it was an easy job 
to get a good shot. Wolves also will fol 
low you and lynxes, wild cats, bear and 
almost any large animals will do the same; 
but for wolf and coyotes I burn a chunk 
of venison on a live bed of coals just be¬ 
fore dark and hustle it out to a catch-pen. 
This is built of small logs, 6x8 feet by 
5x2 feet, with a pole and brush roof in 
which is a hole about three feet square in 
high side of peak of roof. I hang the meat 
up inside on top pole to one side of hole. 
The wolves smell this meat a long distance 
and will come around and jump inside. 
They can not get out and I have caught 
seven and eight at one time. It was com¬ 
mon to get one, two or three each night. 
OBSERVATIONS OF THE BLACK 
GULL 
Editor Forest and Stream : 
William Starr asks the following ques¬ 
tion in closing his article “A Clever Sea¬ 
gull” in the January issue of Forest and 
Stream: “Has any one else seen a gull 
as clever as this?” 
We just did. Wife and myself are 
“wintering” on the Sound. Perched on a 
twenty foot rock ledge stands our little 
10 x 12 cabin, fully exposed to the fury 
of winter storms. Today broke stormy, 
with a driving rain that kept us indoors. 
Sitting at the south window, my wife 
called my attention to the actions of a 
black gull hovering around an ice-hole cut 
for oyster dredging. The gull did exactly 
as Mr. Starr’s gull has done, with this 
exception, however, that it rose but three 
times into the air, on each occasion going 
a little higher. Judging from the window 
the gull rose about fifty feet the last time 
and then swooping down on its prey—in 
this case a mussel, claims are too precious 
to be thrown away just now—leisurely 
devoured it. 
Dekay, Farewell Island, Conn. 
LEARNING “ALL” ABOUT FLIES 
Editor Forest and Stream : 
1 have read many articles on fly-tying 
and I notice that the men who write them 
seldom divulge the exact feathers they use 
in special patterns. I would like to know 
all about the flies and think others feel as 
I do. Herbert Y. Gray, New York. 
[Dr. Holden has prepared an exact de¬ 
scription of the feathers used in nearly a 
hundred flies, which will be published in 
the May number. —Editors.] 
