LETTERS—QUESTIONS—ANSWERS 
GOVERNMENT HUNTER 
KILLS HUGE BEAR 
Dear Forest and Stream: 
When Daddy went a-hunting, ac¬ 
cording to an old nursery story, the 
best he could do was to get a rabbit 
skin to wrap the Baby Bunting in, 
but a Government hunter went a-hunt- 
ing the other day and got a bearskin 
big enough to wrap the automobile in 
—and it was a seven-passenger tour¬ 
ing car, too, that the bearskin made 
a top for. 
It happened in Arizona on the reser¬ 
vation of the Moqui Indians. This 
900-pound brute, forsaking the whole¬ 
some habits of the ordinary black bear, 
turned cattle killer and stirred up 
anew all the Black Bear superstitions 
that the Indians ever had. When he 
wanted a steer for dinner or a calf 
for breakfast, he went out and got it, 
and there was no Indian hanging 
around to cry scat or shy a rock. 
Then the Government hunters—those 
wizards of the wilds that the Bureau 
of Biological Survey of the United 
States Department of Agriculture em¬ 
ploys to protect the Nation’s live¬ 
stock interests from predatory animals 
—went on the job. They have all 
sorts of aids, those hunters—guns, 
traps, poison—but this time they took 
along a pack of wire-haired fox 
terriers. 
Fox terriers cannot kill a bear, but 
—Wellington could not defeat Napo¬ 
leon. All he could do was to hold him 
till reinforcements came. And this 
pack of terriers did as well as Wel¬ 
lington. They got on the track of the 
bear in the snow, near the scene of 
his latest steer-killing operation, and 
trailed him to the place where he was 
getting ready to “hole-up” for the 
winter. The den was not complete and 
extended only a little way into the 
earth. The dogs blocked him in—900 
pounds of bear, equal to about 40 dogs 
in weight—and held him there for an 
hour. 
Finally, the bear made a dash for 
liberty—but Blucher had arrived. In 
fact, half of him arrived too early. 
900 POUNDS 
One of the hunters—there were five 
of them on the hunt and two had come 
up with the dogs—had the temerity 
to come very close to the mouth of the 
den just before Bruin made his grand 
rush. When the whirlwind broke, 
bear and dogs in a mighty mix-up, the 
big brute was almost on top of the 
hunter before he could move, and his 
gun was useless. The other hunter, 
standing to one side, got in a shot 
and dropped the bear only four feet 
from the man he had charged. 
The bear fell without a struggle and 
rolled down the hill with all the ter¬ 
riers nanging- on. 
This was the first black bear killed 
by Government hunters in' that region 
for a long time. They have orders 
from the Biological Survey not to 
molest the black bear unless he be¬ 
comes a stock killer. Indeed, it is 
the universal policy of the Government 
hunters to leave the general run of 
wild animals alone and go after the 
outlaws tnat are destroying property. 
BIG LAKE TROUT FIGHTS 
TWO HOURS 
Dear Forest and Stream : 
It has been my pleasure for several 
years to angle with C. G. Alford of 
New York, who has been a regular 
visitor to the Adirondacks, each 
summer for thirty years. The number 
and size of the trout he catches, clearly 
demonstrate his prowess as an angler. 
The other day we caught a brook 
trout of four and one-half pounds in 
weight. This I believe to be one of 
the largest trout that may be caught 
in the Adirondacks to-day. Mr. Alford 
was using a six-ounce lancewood rod 
and flies, the lower one of which was 
a red ibis. As we moved through the 
pond Mr. Alford was dragging the flies 
behind the boat in a manner which 
some will call trolling. The trout rose, 
struck and was hooked at the first 
snap. 
The battle that ensued lasted for up¬ 
ward of a half hour. The trout was 
chunky, of thick build, well fed and 
heavy. He was one of the handsomest 
I have seen in a number of years, and 
his speckles proved him to be a full 
brook trout of unusual size. 
The lancewood rod which landed 
these large brook trout, is the same 
rod with which Mr. Alford successfully 
handled a sixteen-pound lake trout 
while angling in the water of the 
Upper Saranac Lake near Birch Point 
some years ago. Mr. Alford was in¬ 
jured in a runaway accident in New 
York and for three days lay as one 
stunned. At the end of this time he 
expressed a desire to be removed to 
the Adirondacks, and he reached 
Saranac Lake one morning in the 
spring. I made a bed for him in a 
boat and rowed with him through the 
lakes to the Saranac Club, where we 
arrived in the afternoon. 
The next morning I asked him if he 
wished to go fishing and he said that 
he did not; that he was not feeling 
strong enough, but in the afternoon 
he directed me to get his lancewood 
rod ready for a little fishing in the 
lake. 
Page 309 
Government Report. 
(Continued on page 314) 
