1022 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Dec. 24, 1910. 
account of the record salmon for Newfound¬ 
land. Very large salmon have been caught in 
nets along the coast and some pretty “sizeable” 
salmon have been seen in the rivers from time 
to time, but during the season just passed, the 
largest 'salmon ever caught in the pools have 
been landed — and lost. 
One lovely evening last summer I was fishing 
in a beautiful pool at the foot of the Steel 
Mountain in Bay St. George. ( We were fortu¬ 
nate enough in our party to hook three salmon 
weighing about four or five pounds each, but 
didn't we enjoy it then, and do we not now in 
retrospect any time the winds howl outside and 
the pipe is lit? 
In 1907 Dr. Thompson, of Lynn, at the Red 
Bank Pool, Codroy River, hooked and landed a 
36-pound salmon. Dr. Thompson fought the 
good fight, and was ably assisted by F. J. Dag¬ 
gett, of Boston, who waded in to his neck and 
rendered first aid. They conquered after a 
three hours’ running fight. Many fish since then 
averaging between twenty and thirty pounds have 
been taken. 
There were several large fish taken on Little 
Codroy this year in the neighborhood of thirty 
pounds, and Mr. Wagstaff, of New York, for 
a time was champion of Newfoundland, when 
he had succeeded after a four hours’ fight in 
landing by moonlight a noble 3314 - pounder. Mr. 
Wagstaff’s matter-of-fact description of the kill 
was a veritable prose poem, so romantic is even 
the most modest account of a great angling- 
feat. Then came Mr. Walker. Certainly the 
stars were propitious, and the gods beamed on 
him, and the luckiest moment of his angling life 
was when on that fateful day he dropped his fly 
in the swirling eddies of the Codroy. 
Some anglers have a great gift. They can 
picture in their mind’s eye the cast, the leap, the 
fight and the kill, and enjoy it nearly as much as 
the victor. In the long winter nights, when it 
is too stormy to get outdoors, this is indeed a 
great compensation to the angler who is “cribbed, 
cabined and confined.” 
I would like very much to hook a forty-pound 
salmon. Who knows, it may be my turn or 
yours, dear reader, next season. Every angler, 
like Napoleon’s private soldier, with the mar¬ 
shal’s baton in his hat, may have his forty- 
pounder-— in his mind—between the puffs. Did 
I say I would like to hook a forty-pounder? 
Well, fearing that anyone may think that is my 
limit, I will here frankly confess that a twenty- 
pounder would delight me, and a ten-pounder 
even would give me great pleasure, and I have 
spent one of the very pleasantest half hours in 
my whole life in a wordless altercation with a 
modest five-pounder. And now with a pipe and 
a book before the glowing birch logs, while the 
unkindly wind clatters outside, I can enjoy my 
Christmas fishing without exertion. And when 
the sport tires me, with a nod of head I can 
dismiss the genial fellows that kept me com¬ 
pany. I can say with Red Spinner: “The pipe 
is smoked, and I find that the knocked-out ashes 
are just enough, by economy in use, the adoption 
of plain letters without flourishes, and the assist¬ 
ance of a small disgorger to inscribe to one and 
all ‘a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.’ ” 
W. J. Carroll. 
The Forest and Stream mav be obtained from any 
newsdealer on order. Ask your dealer to supply you 
regularly. 
THE TOP RAIL. 
The patient compositor is accorded the full 
blame for many of the disappointments of man¬ 
kind. Sometimes he deserves censure; again, 
he does not. “Once,” says a writer in Bailey’s 
Magazine, “when I had been describing some 
memorable fight with one of the big fish of the 
past, I wrote: 
“ 1 live over those tense moments again and 
again.’ 
“Did the printer so interpret me? Not at all. 
What he preferred was: 
“ 'I lie over those tense moments again and 
again.’ ” 
>k * * 
Out West, there was a Scotch-Irish-Canadian 
who, because of his red hair, his eloquence and 
his fondness for heated arguments, was dubbed 
“Razzle Dazzle,” and most of the other men in 
camp knew him by no other name. Above all 
things he hated ungrammatical expressions, which 
led to many an unpleasant situation. One day 
when there was an argument on regarding the 
correctness of some expression, Razzle was 
asked, “Which is correct: five and three is seven, 
or five and three are seven ?” 
“Five and three are seven,” replied Razzle in 
a flash. 
It was too funy for words to see the hot¬ 
headed fellow put up a dollar to back his opin¬ 
ion, and to hear his tormentor drawl, “Five and 
three are eight, Razzle,” then disappear behind 
the others. But it was the only time any of us 
ever got the best of him in a game of words. 
Razzle was an inveterate smoker, but he never 
bought any tobacco. He would buttonhole you 
and puff you up with some compliment until you 
would pass out your tobacco pouch and a match 
as though a favor were being conferred on you 
by his acceptance. Razzle’s pipe tobacco was 
always called “O. P.” meaning “other people’s,” 
and in time we came to leaving half-filled pack¬ 
ages in conspicuous places, as if carelessly, but 
really so he would use it, which he did. What 
was in these packages he never seemed to know 
or to care, so long as the stuff wou’d smoke. 
Finely chipped rubber, leaves, paper, sawdust- 
all went into these sacks, and although none of 
us could bear the odor of the mixture in his 
pipe, Razzle smoked it in apparent comfort when 
he could not borrow something better. 
* * . * 
It may be considered lese-rriajeste to discuss 
—in Germany — the Kaiser’s physical shortcom¬ 
ings, hence the frequent denials that such an un¬ 
fortunate thing exists. Although all photographs 
of the Kaiser are so made that the deformed 
left arm does not show to disadvantage, so little 
has appeared in type regarding the matter that 
the following paragraph from Reynolds’ News¬ 
paper may not be without interest: 
“The Kaiser,” it says, “has become more ex¬ 
pert than ever with the rifle. He has had a new 
steel hand or fork fastened around the elbow of 
his short left arm with the express purpose of 
serving as a gun rest. He is thus able to regu¬ 
late his rifle solely with his right hand. So de¬ 
lighted was he with the new apparatus and the 
good results he achieved in shooting that he 
embraced all his friends.” 
ij« :•< 
A curious statement appears in a recent issue 
of the Field, as follows: 
During the present season I have had brought to my 
notice by shooters three instances, in each of which a 
20 -bore cartridge had accidentally been placed in a 12- 
bore gun. In two of the instances the shooters pulled 
the trigger, and, finding that no discharge resulted, 
opened the breech, and, concluding from seeing nothing 
in the chamber that they had omitted to load, inserted 
a 12 -bore cartridge. Fortunately the shooters in both 
instances, considering it strange that they should have 
so far forgotten themselves as to attempt to use the gun 
without loading, took the trouble to examine the cham¬ 
bers before firing, and found both the 20-bore and the 
12 -bore cartridges. Jn the third instance the error was 
discovered before a second cartridge was inserted. In 
view of the enormous danger attaching to it, perhaps 
it would be well to elicit some expression of opinion 
respecting a remedy. Could not the 20 -bore cartridges 
of every maker be of the same color, and be recogniz¬ 
able by that color? 
If the shooter of every gun of twelve-gauge 
is to be assumed to be stupid, no doubt some¬ 
thing should be done to save him from accident, 
but that is not true. Neither is it fair to be¬ 
lieve that he is content to close the breech on 
every object that can be dropped into the cham¬ 
bers of his gun. One’s sense of touch is suffi¬ 
cient to prevent him from putting twenty-gauge 
shells in twelve-bore chambers, so much smaller 
and lighter are the former shells. Regulation 
shells drop into the chambers with a sound, and 
a “feel” that become very familiar to the shooter 
who would detect on the instant the unusual sen¬ 
sation caused by the insertion of twenty-gauge 
shells, and would at once investigate the cause. 
The bore of a modified choke twelve-gauge 
gun is approximately three-quarters of an inch; 
that of a twenty-gauge is only five-eighths. The 
exact figures are .729 and .615-inch, respectively. 
Despite its rim, a twenty-gauge shell will slide 
down a twelve-gauge barrel to the end of the 
chamber or further, depending on the style of 
choke, imparting meanwhile a hollow ringing- 
sound totally foreign to one’s sense of the fit¬ 
ness of things. Who, then, would close the 
breech and slide the safety forward when cer¬ 
tain something was wrong? Who would close 
the breech without knowing that the shells were 
in proper position and—what that implies—in 
sight? Any man who smokes may, now and 
then, strike a match and attempt to light an 
empty pipe, but I doubt if he is ever so absent 
minded as to close his gun, thinking it is loaded, 
when there are no shells in the chambers. 
* * * 
That misfortunes never come singly was 
proved in one case at least last week. Mrs. 
Annie Edwards was in a motor car which was 
being driven along the bank of the Tchefuncta 
River, in Louisiana, when the machine skidded, 
throwing out its three occupants. The other two 
were more fortunate than Mrs. Edwards, for 
they fell on dry land, while she dropped into 
the river with the machine. It was then, accord¬ 
ing to the story told in New Orleans, that she 
was fatally bitten by an alligator. This, how¬ 
ever, is not in accord with the belief that all 
alligators are sluggish, if not sleeping, in the 
winter season. Grizzly King, 
