Marcu 24, 1906.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
469 

that original patriarch, I have caught many 
weighing from a pound to a pound and a half 
apiece. But trout of this size never come in 
large numbers from the Lamoille. You may 
get four or five in a day and you may get none 
at all, but nevertheless one enjoys such un- 
certain fishing more intensely, I believe, than 
the primeval sort where you catch dozens of 
‘big fellows in a few hours. We all long for 
that sort of thing occasionally and occasionally 
we are enabled to realize our dreams, but reali- 
zation soon brings surfeit and we spend most 
of the time-that we had intended to spend fish- 
ing in enjoyment of other charms of the wilder- 
ness. 
The uncertainty of a day on the Lamoille is 
well illustrated by another incident in my ex- 
perience. A friend and I had fished all day with 
almost no luck along the stretch of river below 
the “Bend.” At last in mid-after“oon we gave 
it up for a while. Seeking out'a smooth sand- 
bar in the welcome shade of the fringe of trees 
that almost everywhere lines the banks of the 
stream, we laid aside our rods, lit our pipes, 
and lying at our ease enjoyed one of those 
vacation talks so dear to the hearts of old 
friends, until such time as the sun should sink 
and afford us a better chance for a few fish. 
For perhaps two hours we lay there, listening 
to the sound of the mower in the field behind 
us, watching the birds and the woodchucks, 
and absorbing the fragrant breath of the new 
mown hay and the balsams on the hill. We had 
always had our greatest success on streams like 
the Lamoille in the gloaming, sometimes even 
after darkness had completely fallen. The pres- 
ent occasion bore out our former experience. 
The sun sets early in the valley and it might 
have been 6 o’clock when we stretched our- 
selves and proceeded leisurely down stream to 
the long pool formed against the railroad em- 
bankment by the confluence of the river and 
the outlet of Greensboro Lake. Removing our 
small dark flies, we substituted casts of a single 
light-colored fly of large size and began whip- 
ping the pool. For half an hour the fun was 
fast and furious and then the fish ceased to 
rise. But we had taken six trout ranging in 
weight from three-quarters to a pound and a 
half, and had lost in the gathering darkness 
several others in our efforts to get them into 
the net. Not a large string, but we were sat- 
isfied. Indeed so successful and so fascinating 
is this evening fishing that we have often post- 
poned our trips to the river until afternoon and 
returned at 9 or 10 o’clock, usually with some- 
thing to show. 
But if the Lamoille gives up no large strings 
of trout, it possesses compensations. Except 
in the swamps on the upper waters, there is 
almost always opportunity for comparatively 
open casting. The freshet bed of the stream is 
generally wide and although the fringe of trees 
and bushes at some points make trouble, yet 
they afford rather an incentive to the fairly 
skillful craftsman to try his hand at reaching 
out-of-the-way pockets in which fish may lie. 
And how often trout affect such nooks! I had 
whipped the lower end of a pool, on one oc- 
casion, very thoroughly as I thought, and had 
repaired to the ripple at its head. Suddenly 
my glance was caught by the glistening form of 
a half-pound fish as he threw himself out of 
water from behind a projecting root directly 
opposite the point where I had just stood. Re- 
turning to my former position I had him at the 
first cast. The corner in which he had lain 
was not two feet square, and the water was 
hardly a foot deep. This confirms the truth of 
a remark made by one of the best fishermen 
that I know. “Upon approaching a pool,’ he 
said, “cover all the nearer water, even if it seems 
too shallow to shelter a fish, before stepping 
forward to reach the most promising portions, 
and be sure that you do not leave a pool with- 
out testing thoroughly its edges.” This is par- 
ticularly good advice to remember on a well 
fished stream like the Lamoille. 
And then those lunches along the river! One 
o'clock draws nigh and the Vermont appetite 
begins to assert itself. We set our rods up in 
a neighboring bush, unsling our creels, and 
while one kindles the fire and produces the 
little blackened pail with its complement of tin 
cups and fragrant coffee and sets forth the con- 
tents of the lunch bag, the other posts off to 
the nearest farmhouse, which is never far 
away, and returns ere long with a quart jar of 
such cream as only Vermont can produce. Per- 
haps he has persuaded the farmer’s wife to part 
with a fresh-baked pie—for this is the pie-belt, 
yea, the very navel of it. “We get twenty cents 
a quart for cream,” says the good wife with a 
hesitating look that betrays apprehension lest 
you think it an overcharge. Some of the cream 
goes into the coffee, the rest is not wasted un- 
less drinking it clear can be said to be a shame- 
ful use of such material. I confess that clear 
cream is a little too much for my internal 
economy, but my companions have never 
seemed to worry about it. One of them, in- 
deed, attributes his annual summer gain in 
weight to his course of wadings in the La- 
moille followed by these draughts of cream. 
But this is in the nature of a digression, and the 
coffee is nearly ready. To my mind nothing 
can equal hot coffee for a man whose nether 
limbs have been immersed for several hours in 
the cold water of the river. It adds just the 
touch that turns a cold lunch into a most en- 
joyable spread. And so we sit about the fire 
discussing doughnuts and pie and coffee and 
some other minor appurtenances until the sup- 
plies fail and with a sigh of content we roll over 
on our backs and light our pipes. Now you 
can’t get cream and doughnuts and pie in the 
wilds of Canada. Here then, the Lamoille has 
an advantage that may compensate in large 
measure for some of the things that you do get 
in Canada. 
Such a lunch involves a postponement of 
activity for an hour or two, but trout rise poor- 
ly at noontide, and why be in a hurry? When 
your digestive apparatus, aided by good to- 
bacco, has gained the mastery to some extent 
over the cream and the doughnuts and the pie, 
it is time to proceed leisurely to work once 
more. 
The accessibility of all of its reaches is another 
advantage of the Lamoille. Throughout that 
portion of the valley of which I speak, you have 
at all times almost instant access to the road. 
You have hooked and lost a big fellow, let us 
say, up by the red bridge. It is of no use to 
keep at him. Give him a rest. Go on down the 
river for a quarter of a mile and then take the 
road to a point just above his hiding place. 
Ten to one you will get at least one more rise 
from him, unless he is a very wary old fellow 
indeed. But whether you do or not, it is easy 
to return and resume your fishing below. Or 
again a certain stretch of river proves unpro- 
ductive. Go up to the road and circumvent it 
either on foot or with your team, if you have 
brought one. Still again you may wish to have 
somebody drive down and carry you home when 
the day is done, but you don’t know where to 
tell them to find you—fishermen rarely do. You 
tell them to look for you “somewhere between 
East Greensboro and the ‘Bend’,” a three-mile. 
stretch. But the road runs within a stone’s 
throw of the river all the way and it will be 
easy to find you. 
At some points river, road and railroad go 
hand in hand, and you have two thoroughfares 
at your disposal. Fortunately, however, trains 
are few on the St. Johnsbury and Lake Cham- 
plain and the track is usually well away from 
the river. No fisherman likes a stream that 
hugs a railroad all the way, and yet we all have 
to admit that some of the best pools are often 
near the railroad or even under its bridges. 
Trout do not seem to mind the occasional 
rumble of a train. 
Like all hill-fed streams the Lamoille is sub- 
ject to sudden floods. At such times you can- 
not expect much luck nor can you wade it or 
cross it without risking a ducking. Probably 
the best stage of water is that which succeeds 
these floods, when the water has almost fallen 
to its normal level once more. But do not 
think that you can wade boldly into the Lamoille 
even at low water, This is a river that resents 
a bold approach. Such slippery rocks exist 
nowhere else on earth, I verily believe, and you 
must go gingerly, particularly when crossing 
a rapid, or you will surely come to grief. I 
count that day lucky indeed when I have re- 
turned from the river without having sat down 
in some very moist part of its bed, and one 
friend of mine went many times before he 
learned to keep dry even above the waist. He 
insisted in sitting down in the deeper holes. 
The rocks are covered with a thin coating of 
slime which renders them, already smooth as they 
too often are, more treacherous than glare ice. It 
is better to keep low, feeling your way between, 
not upon, the stones. 
In all that makes a landscape lovely the La- 
moille excels. No towering cliffs are in sight, 
no deep ravines or dizzy cascades. Grandeur 
is not there. But at every turn the calm beauty 
of winding stream and emerald meadow, waving 
corn and sheep-dotted hillside meet the eye, 
backed by the soft outline of maple-crowned 
hills, and in the dim distance the blue dome of 
some modest mountain. The river itself is 
rapid without being boisterous, speeding onward 
with an ever diversified succession of rittle and 
pool, here gleaming through some almost level 
expanse of field, there breaking past the shoulder 
of some encroaching hill. The dominant note 
of its song is peace—a note in full harmony 
with the quiet enjoyment of those who practice 
between its banks the gentle art. 
ARTHUR L, WHEELER. 
The Pennsylvania Commission. 
THE report of the Department of Fisheries 
for 1905 has gone into the hands of the Superin- 
tendent of Printing. It is one of the most im- 
portant and most interesting documents of the 
kind ever issued by the Fishculture authorities 
of the State. Commissioner Meehan, in his 
letter to the Governor, expresses confidence that 
more work was done and greater results ac- 
complished in 1905 than in any single year since 
Pennsylvania began the task of fishculture and 
protecting the fish. There was a marked in- 
crease in the number of game fish in all parts 
of the commonwealth, and the rod and line fish- 
ing was the most successful experienced in many 
years. 
The commercial fisheries on Lake Erie rank 
second among the States which border on that 
lake. The value of the catch in 1905 was $201,- 
085.04 for 6,380,757 pounds of fish. The catch 
of shad in the Delaware River was at least 929,- 
770 with a value of $424,556. The catch in the 
Susquehanna was unofficially stated to have been 
worth $100,000. The German carp industry 
in the whole State was about $300,000. The re- 
port of the eel industry was 158,729 pounds with 
a value of $22,500. The commercial brook trout 
industry $20,461.35. The aggregate commercial 
fish industry, excluding the Susquehanna shad 
report, was $771,241.94. 
Sites for three or four hatcheries authorized 
at the last Legislature were located and one 
put in operation with more than 2,000,000 eggs 
in the new hatchery on Dec. 1. Forty new ponds 
for breeding fish were built at the different 
hatcheries. 
There were hatched and distributed from the 
five hatcheries in operation 143,550,106 fish of 
different kinds, of which all but about 16,000,000 
were what are known as purely food fishes. The 
16,000,000 commonly known as game. fish. 
Among the game fishes were 10,200,600 chain 
pickerel. The first time that this species has 
ever been propagated in any fish establishment 
in the United States. Ninety thousand five hun- 
dred frogs were distributed. Pennsylvania is the 
pioneer in this work. Experiments in hatching 
other fish, notably yellow perch, rock bass and 
catfish were begun. Arrangements were made 
with the United States Government for the con- 
signment of large quantities of silver salmon 
eggs for introduction in the Delaware River, 
for a period of years. 
A new type of hatching jar was designed by 
the Commissioner, and, proving successful, was 
installed in some of the hatcheries. 
The department, through its authorized repre- 
sentatives, removed 29,905 German carp from 
the waters of the State. There were issued to 
fishermen in Lake Erie ror licenses, for which 
