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A Home-Made Pistol 
DEAR FOREST AND STREAM: 
I HAVE read your magazine for some 
time and certainly have enjoyed it 
very much. In looking over the vari- 
ous articles, one seldom reads anything 
about small-bore shot-gun pistols. The 
only one I know of is the Marbles 
Game Getter. Like many of the other 
boys who served in the World War 
overseas, I brought back as a souvenir 
one of those large signal pistols which 
were so numerous. Being a machinist, 
I decided to make a shotgun out of it. 
After procuring the necessary ma- 
terial, I made a barrel to fit the orig- 
inal and bored it to use 410 shot shells. 
I fastened it in securely with a knurled 
tape nut at the muzzle and made a 
longer extractor to reach the small 
shell. The barrel is only 9% inches 
long, which changed my opinion that 
a barrel must be long to hold the 
charge together and give it penetra- 
tion. 
I have killed running jack rabbits, 
squirrels, pigeons on the wing at 30 to 
40 steps, with as much accuracy as 
guns of larger bore and longer barrels 
using 7%c. shot. It also shoots with 
fair accuracy with ball cartridge. I 
have not given it any test for pattern, 
etc., but it seems to shoot as close as 
the usual small bore gun. One objec- 
tion is its weight, which isn’t neces- 
sary as there is so little recoil. Later 
on I am going to build another one 
lighter. After using it for some time, 
I let my father have it for about a 
year to shoot rats with. He would 
drive his car so the lights would shine 
between the grainaries, then sit in the 
car and shoot them as they came out, 
and it meant sure death for Mr. Rat. 
A number of my friends have used it, 
with the result they either want to 
buy or trade for it. But I intend to 
keep it for a souvenir and for my own 
use. 
I would like to see in your magazine 
other experiments along similar lines. 
If interested, will pattern it and send 
the results. 
CARL C. CHASE, 
Augusta Browntown Sta., Kansas. 
That Bass Fishing Trip 
DEAR FOREST AND STREAM: 
H AVING lived three years on Forest 
Lake and caught all kinds of fish 
that pertain to this body of water with 
comparative ease, that is, northern 
pike and bass of the larger variety, I 
turned my attention to the walleyed 
pike. An extremely elusive fish to con- 
nect with, I camped on Mr. Pike’s trail 
until I had about given up all hopes 
of ever making a pike fisherman. Go- 
ing out several times a week and per- 
Page 605 
haps getting one or two which would 
be the limit, always tempting them 
with nice three-inch shiners by still 
fishing, somehow they just were not 
in that spot or did not want anything 
to do with me. 
One day in taking a stroll down 
towards the lake, I hailed Walter Wil- 
son, who is as good a bass fisherman 
as ever cast a bait in this lake (and 
there surely are a lot of fishermen 
here), and asked if he was going out 
that day; he informed me he was, so 
I asked him why not go out together. 
Mr. Wilson doesn’t very often go out 
with anybody, preferring to go alone. 
He informed me he was going to fish 
for bass and made the remark to me 
that I would not fish anything but 
pike, not a very good invitation to go 
along; but saying I thought I might 
be able to catch a bass, he consented to 
make it a trip. 
Getting our rods and reels and also 
a long cane pole apiece, together with 
small frogs for bait, we soon landed 
on the fishing grounds. 
Starting out with the long cane poles 
(for we couldn’t use the casting out- 
fit), we tried the rushes most thor- 
oughly, but Mr. Bass was not there. 
Then we gave the deep underwater 
weeds a good tryout. No success. 
Then Mr. Wilson said they must be out 
in deep water on the rocky bars, so out 
there we went. The water was too 
deep for our cane poles so we changed 
to rod and reel with a heavy sinker to 
keep our bait near bottom. 
We hadn’t quite got off the bar 
where it drops into the mud when 
Mr. Wilson got a strike. He said, 
“Well, I guess we have them located,” 
and put his float out to mark the spot. 
He proceeded to land his fish which 
proved to be a bass of about 2% lbs. 
weight, and was to be the end of our 
bass fishing for the day, as the en- 
closed photo shows. 
Turning from the mud bottom back 
again on the bar, to our surprise we 

each had a hard strike at the same 
time. 
I didn’t know at the time just what 
kind of a fish struck my bait, but I 
think Mr. Wilson did. I lost mine but 
Mr. Wilson landed his, and it proved 
to be a nine-pound wall-eyed pike. 
From then on it was bait, reel in 
and sometimes land one, as we didn’t 
have a landing net along, which is a 
very necessary article. 
We stayed with the game until we 
had hooked thirteen and landed only 
five, but it was just as much fun tak- 
ing five as though we had landed all 
thirteen of them. The fish weighed 
from six to nine pounds apiece. 
In a few days we made another trip 
which gave us material for the en- 
closed photo. The ten largest weigh 
from seven to eleven and one-quarter 
pounds. The bluest day I ever saw 
was when Mr. Wilson asked me to 
make another trip with him just 
shortly afterwards and I had to work. 
For a partner that day, Mr. Wilson 
took his wife, and when they reached 
the fishing ground there were eight 
boats already there. 
Mrs. Wilson took quite a few right 
out from under some of the other 
boats and they were not able to get 
even a strike. 
This day, Mr. and Mrs. Wilson went 
home with nine, the largest average- 
size catch of the season, total weight 
78 pounds. 
For an all-round fighting fish, give 
me an eight or ten-pound wall-eyed . 
pike in preference to bass or northern 
pike. 
This fish is a hard fighter and while 
not as spectacular as the bass or pick- 
erel is never the less gamy and full 
of courage. Wall eyes usually swim 
deep, prefering to keep to large pools. 
They are sometimes called pike perch 
and in the north , Doré. 
FRANK HOWES, 
Forest Lake, Minn. 
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