980 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Dec. 17, 1910. 
air is your mirror, the sky the reflecting medium. 
Is it any wonder our quarry is difficult of 
capture on a bright, clear day? Of course, dif¬ 
fusion upsets this law altogether. It is only 
apparent in some states of the sky and atmos¬ 
phere, the sky especially. There are tests in 
proof of this too intricate to go into here! 
As to the far-sightedness of fish, anglers as a 
whole are persistent unbelievers. The following 
is an example which recently came under my 
notice: We were jackfishing (on an English 
river) from a boat. Thirty yards out rested a 
float with a lively dace attached six feet deep. 
For a long time it had remained perfectly still, 
so had we. My friend wishing to smoke stood 
upright in the boat to get his cigar cutter from 
his trousers pocket. “Look at that,’’ I said, in¬ 
dicating the float. It was bobbing about just as 
the angler likes to see it bob, but from another 
cause. “That’s strange,” he said. “The moment 
I move he sees a jack. Look out, we shall have 
a run.” I agreed with him that the bait saw a 
jack, for my friend’s name happened to be John, 
but he did not agree with me that another 
syllable might be appropriately added. Nothing 
would persuade him that his manly form had 
frightened into fits that quicksighted little dace 
thirty yards off and two yards under the water’s 
surface. When he had done glaring at me for 
talking “such rot as that,” I calmed him into a 
disposition to repeat the process. We sat per¬ 
fectly still again for five minutes, then up jumped 
John again. When he saw the violent bobbing 
as before he was another man, quite a humble 
convert. With clear water and the sky for -a 
back ground I would double the distance and 
expect a similar result. It is nothing short of 
piteous to see during one year, say, hundreds 
of anglers fishing from bank and boat in full 
range of the fish’s vision, and then at the end of 
the day hear them railing against their “bad luck.” 
I am not pretending to compass an exhaustless 
subject. My few words touch but a point or 
two and those only lightly. But I would like to 
relate a recent little experiment proving unques¬ 
tionably what I have so often suspected. A 
trout’s eyes are not only wonderful in their 
power of penetration, but of discrimination also, 
and in discrimination between man and beast he 
draws the widest and most absolute distinction. 
Verily a man seems an appallingly fearsome 
thing to the denizens of forest and stream alike, 
but not till recently was it clear to me that any 
creature was so fine and unerring in its instincts 
as to distinguish from a distance the top portion 
of a human face from that of a dog’s or a 
sheep’s. 
Through a hole in a thatched hurdle fixed on 
the edge of a low bank I watched the habits of 
a trout for some days for the purpose at first 
of testing his behavior at certain noises, an ex¬ 
haustive test which taught me that fish are as 
sensitive to sound as to sight, and hear by vibra¬ 
tion as distinctly as we do, but that is not the 
subject in hand. The stream was about twenty 
yards wide. On the opposite bank I arranged 
first for a dog to be allowed to sniff about for 
water rats, then that sheep, cows and horses 
should suddenly appear in succession. In no in¬ 
stance did my trout take the slightest notice be¬ 
yond a slight quiver at any very sudden appear¬ 
ance. Then I got my man to crawl stealthily 
upon his stomach. As soon as his face was 
visible over the top of the bank my trout be¬ 
came agitated, stopped darting from side to side 
for the food that had purposely been thrown in 
and was coming down and seemingly watched. 
At the next slight movement of that face he was 
gone like a flash. These experiments were re¬ 
peated till quite conclusive from both banks, 
when my own head rose above the hurdle, which 
my colleague declared did the most terrorizing, 
adding “naturally” there was invariably a still¬ 
ness, then a bolt, but when a dog or a horse 
looked over, my trout was undisturbed and con¬ 
tinued to feed. Here again is a field for a re¬ 
search — how much instinct, how much heredity. 
A vast deal may be said for either, but as re¬ 
gards vision itse.f I hope my few remarks will 
give many anglers pause and lead to an increase 
in the weight of their panniers. The words of 
one with fifty years of unbroken experience be¬ 
hind him so thickly interspersed with failures 
and seeking^ for the reason why should have 
some little weight. J. Berryman. 
Fishing on the West Coast. 
San Francisco, Cal., Dec. 12 .— Editor Forest 
and Stream: The striped bass season this year 
has not been a very satisfactory one to date, the 
fish being apparently very migratory, and in 
places w'here good catches were made one day, 
no fish at all could be secured a day or so 
later. But few of the fishermen who have gone 
to the regular grounds have been meeting with 
success, the best fishing having been in out-of- 
the-way places not often visited. At one time 
bass were to be found in large numbers along 
the Marin shores and in Raccoon straits, but 
this season scarcely any have been taken there. 
Early in the season some fish were taken off 
San Pablo, and later anglers thought they had 
found the feeding place of this fish in Carquinez 
straits, but these grounds are deserted now. 
That the use of crude oil for fuel around the 
bay is having something to do with the scarcity 
of bass is the belief of many, and this theory 
probably has a basis on facts. Considerable oil 
has been allowed to escape on the waters of the 
upper bay in the vicinity of Point Richmond, 
and the few fish taken in those waters have 
been almost worthless for food. Oil has been 
found floating on the surface of many of the 
sloughs formerly frequented by bass, and there 
is every reason to believe that this is keeping 
them away to a Jarge extent. 
At the present time Napa Creek is the favorite 
lounging ground of this fish, and it is pointed 
out that no oil is to be found on the water there. 
The run of striped bass in this creek is as heavy 
as it has ever been, and local anglers are com¬ 
mencing to give up hopes of enjoying sport in 
the old-time fishing grounds, and are making- 
trips to Napa Creek, which is reached by boat 
as well as by rail. The largest fish that has 
been taken in that locality this season was se¬ 
cured recently in Fagan Slough, and it weighed 
fifty-two pounds. It measured four feet in length 
and was landed only after a struggle that lasted 
forty-five minutes. Max Kavanaugh and J. E. 
Demond, of Napa, were the anglers making this 
catch, and on this occasion took nine others 
ranging in weight from six to twelve pounds. 
On the following day two other Napa anglers, 
Frank Horstmeyer and E. Manasse, succeeded 
in taking twenty-five fish, all of fair size, but 
none approaching the big one secured the day 
previous. 
The success that has been met with of late 
on Napa Slough and vicinity is interesting local 
sportsmen to the extent that plans are being 
made for the erection of a club house near the 
Santa Rosa drawbridge, and this will probably 
be ready for use next season. 
Oakland anglers were surprised recently to be 
informed that striped bass were to be found in 
large numbers in Lake Merritt, one of the sights 
of the, thriving San Francisco suburb, and a 
great rush was made to secure fishing permits 
from the Park Commission. Within a few days 
almost 500 permits were issued, and practically 
every boat-on the lake was pressed into service. 
The fish were first discovered by Henry Smith, 
1412 Echo avenue, and he succeeded in landing 
a number of fine ones before announcing his dis¬ 
covery. It is believed that the fish were driven 
into the lake by a whale which has been in the 
bay for some time. The lake is connected with 
the bay by an estuary and occasionally striped 
bass make their appearance there. 
The season has been a disappointment at Wingo 
Slough, where large catches are usually made at 
this season, and recently when about forty ang¬ 
lers were busy there a total catch of twelve fish 
resulted for the day, the largest being a ten- 
pound bass. At San Antonio and Schultz 
sloughs similar experiences were recorded and 
these places will be but little visited from now 
on until a run of fish is reported. Practically 
no steelhead fishing is now being enjoyed, and 
there will be but little attention paid to this fish 
until the commencement of the spring season. 
A. P. B. 
Greenheart. 
While greenheart suitable for fishing rod¬ 
making is scarce, at least on this side of the 
Atlantic, there seems to be an abundance for 
other purposes. According to Consul Clare, of 
Georgetown, greenheart timber from British 
Guiana was used in the construction of the fifty 
large pairs of lock gates in the Manchester ship 
canal. Practically all the lock gates of the 
Bridgewater canal, and for the past fifty years 
all the dock gates in the Mersey Harbor have 
been built of that wood. It is being extensively 
used in the new naval docks at Methil in Scot¬ 
land, and it has been specified for use as sills 
and fenders in the lock gates of the Panama 
Canal. 
The durability of greenheart is well known. 
A leading authority says that it is hard to fix 
a limit to the durability of lock gates built of 
greenheart. The only element in their construc¬ 
tion limiting their age is the iron bolts and other 
fastenings, which are usually renewed without 
serious difficulty. It is said that in rebuilding 
the gates of the Canada dock in 1894, it was 
found that the greenheart, after thirty-eight 
years’ use, was as good as at first, and it was 
again used in the construction of the new gates. 
Every wharf in the port of Georgetown is 
built on greenheart piles, which successfully 
withstand the attack of the pile worm. Teak 
and oak or any other hard w'ood would be de¬ 
stroyed in a few years. The immunity of green¬ 
heart from the teredo is said to be due to the 
large quantity of the alkaloid bebeerine found 
only in this wood. 
