JUNE 2, 1906.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
875 


things actually grow and expand. A few hours 
made a perceptible difference. How delightfully 
some of those old-time frontiersmen write. I 
have been enjoying “In the Lodges of the Black- 
feet” in Forest AND STREAM so much. This is 
an unwarranted digression, but one thinks of 
many things when resting idly by the water side. 
I trust. that Decoration Day will be fine. It is 
for many men, and has been for me until this 
year, the only day that one could be sure of for 
the pursuit of Master Speckles and his wife. With 
the present advanced methods of fishculture there 
is no good reason why trout should not be abun- 
dant in all our pure ‘streams. For some years 
past old depleted waters near New York have 
been improving and now afford good sport. The 
cost of restocking is not great and the results are 
usually entirely satisfactory. THEODORE GORDON. 
Bass Fishing at Rideau Lake. 
New York, May 22.—Editor Forest and 
Stream: In the Forest AND STREAM of May 19 
appeared an article on the effects of motor boats 
on fishing, and particularly in regard to the 
Rideau Lakes. In reading this article one is 
apt to get the impression that the sport there is 
poor. Possibly the experience of two greenhorns 
at Jones Falls and Portland on the Big Rideau 
last year may interest those who are familiar with 
the waters and others who contemplate a visit 
there. ; 
On July 3 of last year myself and wife arrived 
at Kenny’s Hotel, Jones Falls, and engaged Bill 
Mason as guide. We remained a week and went 
out each day. We had absolutely no previous ex- 
perience, and on no day during our stay did we 
catch less than thirty bass, and frequently as 
many as fifty. Please remember that all fish ex- 
cept the few badly hooked were immediately re- 
turned to the water. I have seen a dozen boats 
come to the hotel at night, and I doubt if the fish 
brought in would average four to the boat. They 
are good sportsmen on the Rideau, and only the 
largest fish were kept. They looked for size 
rather than numbers, and it was unnecessary to 
bring in a boatload of fish to prove that all had 
good sport. I used a six-foot rod and Redifor 
reel, and, after a little practice, had no difficulty 
in casting a fair-sized minnow eighty or ninety 
feet and gradually improved until I reached con- 
siderably over 100 feet. 
There is plenty of water around Jones Falls, 
and during our seven days’ stay we never fished 
in the same spot twice, and although a dozen 
boats left the hotel each morning, on but one 
occasion did I see any of our fellow-guests until 
we returned to the hotel at night. 
The fish caught were large and small-mouthed 
bass, and probably two-thirds of the total were 
large-mouthed. But, on one occasion, we re- 
quested our guide to take us to a spot where we 
caught nothing but small-mouthed bass, the larg- 
est of the day weighing 4% pounds. 
caught by my wife after a struggle of about 
twenty minutes,-and it now hangs in my dining 
room. Our experience at Portland with Lou 
Kennedy was on the same lines. 
The Kenny family at Jones Falls will do every- 
thing possible to make their guests’ stay agree- 
able and successful. The lakes are beautiful, and 
the guides obliging, capable and good cooks, The 
boats are comfortable and supplied with all the 
necessities for a good dinner on shore at noon. 
We brought some canned soups from home and 
Joe Kenny supplied young broilers, pork, flour, 
eggs, bread, butter, cheese, etc. Our dinner, 
cooked by Bill Mason, consisting of green turtle 
soup, fried bass, broiled chicken, dessert and 
coffee, was certainly satisfying. I forgot to men- 
tion a very large and pleasing milk pail contain- 
ing a cake of ice surrounded by an array of bot- 
tles filled with whatever one’s taste dictated. 
I don’t know anything of the effect of motor 
boats on fishing, but I do know that the Rideau 
Lakes are fairly alive with small and _ large- 
mouthed bass. Several parties of Americans at 
the Falls last season, who had fished in the Ka- 
wartha and Muskoka lakes, the St. Lawrence 
River and various Ontario waters, informed me 
that never before had they experienced such suc- 
cessful fishing as they had on the Rideau in the 
This was. 
early days of last July. It certainly proved all 
that I had looked for, and June 15 will find me 
there again. 
In conclusion let me say that in my two weeks 
on these waters I saw but three motor boats. 
James M. GIBLIN. 
Motor Boats and Fish. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I po not read Forest AND STREAM as_ thor- 
oughly as I used to, when even the advertise- 
ments were carefully studied, but when I read 
your editorial on “Motor Boats and Fish” I 
looked up the two articles referred to, and I 
agree with the writers that motor boats spoil the 
fishing. The theories advanced by these writers 
are undoubtedly correct for their localities and 
conditions, but I desire to state another cause 
which I believe to be tenable and which I have 
observed on our lake here, Chargoggagoggman- 
chauggagoggagungamaugg, a beautiful sheet of 
water of two square miles surface, of which the 
poet sings: 
I sadly needed rest, 
And thought it would be best 
For me a trip to take 
Down to that famous lake 
Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggagungamaugg. 
And for about a week, 
That name I used to speak 
Five hundred times each day, 
Till I could glibly say 
Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggagungamaugg. 
One day I thought I’d take 
A swim in that old lake, 
But scarcely had I been 
Three seconds swimming in 
Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggagungamaugg. 
When I began to sink, 
And would have drowned, I think, 
If then there had not been 
Some boatmen rowing in 
Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggagungamaugg. 
That name fixed in my head, 
Caused it to sink like lead. 
Unrescued I’d have been 
Devoured by fishes in 
Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggagungamaugg. 
If you a trip should take 
Down to that famous lake, 
You may fall in some day, 
So pray don’t learn to say 
Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggagungamaugg. 
—John Wenzel in Light. 
These noisy, ill-smelling motor boats have a 
habit of running close to the shore of the lake, 
and, going swiftly, throw up ‘quite a wave be- 
hind, which rolls up the shore quite a distance. 
The shores of the lake are slanting, sandy or 
gravelly, and as the lake serves as a reservoir 
for a factory and can be drawn. off four feet, 
these sandy shores are exposed from the middle 
of summer to freezing time. 
When the fish fry begin to start out in life 
on their own hook (not the fish hook, whose ac- 
quaintance they make later, provided they live) 
they frequent these sandy shores, and may be 
seen in water one inch or so deep. If now these 
motor boats come along and roll their waves 
upon the shores, hundreds and thousands of the 
little fry are thrown high and dry upon the sand 
and perish, and this happens every hour and 
every day for four to six months every year. I 
have seen whole schools of little hornpouts, with 
their mother, thrown out on the sand by these 
boat waves, and very few regained the water. Is 
it therefore any wonder that the fishing gets poor 
if the fry is destroyed by wholesale? 
The fishing faine of our lake is fast waning, 
and I lay it entirely to these motor boats. Sail- 
boats and passenger steamers have very little 
effect, as they keep to deep water, but these nasty 
little nuisances of motor boats, running along 
shore and into every nook and corner, do the 
business. And it seems that every young man 
earning $10 a week is bound to have one of them. 
They are more numerous than agreeable, and, 
like their brothers, the autos, they have no re- 
gard for anybody or anything. Get out of their 
way as quick as possible is the only safety. 
I do not doubt at all that the noise and roar 
of these boats scares the fish, but their most de- 
structive effect is the killing of the fry. 
AN QOtup READER. 
Beche De Mer. 
NEw York, May 20.—Editor Forest and 
Stream: In a recent Government publication I 
found a note which gives an account of the over- 
looking of a valuable food product on the North- 
west coast. The case is one of an animal, which 
has long been perfectly well known to exist but 
whose money value has been quite unknown. In 
a recent Consular report Gen. Henry B. Miller 
speaks of the export of béche de mer, or trepang, 
from Japan to China, and adds the following 
note: 
“Several Japanese who have lately returned 
here from Sitka, southeastern Alaska, report that 
on the shores of Baranof Island, on which Sitka 
is situated, they found large quantities of tre- 
pang, or béche de mer. The men brought sam- 
ples with them which they claimed they fished 
up on the shores of Whale Bay, Baranof Island. 
These samples are of excellent quality, and the 
Japanese who brought them here state that 
they exist there in great quantities. They further 
state that no one in that vicinity seems to know 
the value of this article, and that no attempt is 
made to fish for or collect them. 
“Trepang, or, as they are called in this coun- 
try, /riko, are being caught in large quantities 
in this vicinity, and, after being prepared, are 
shipped to China, where the present market price 
is about 40 cents in United States gold per pound. 
They are from three to four inches long, about an 
inch in diametér, and covered all over with short 
prickly projections. The preparation required is 
simply to boil them for about fifteen minutes and 
then dry them, after which they are packed in 
boxes and shipped to Shanghai, where there is a 
constant market for them. If this article exists 
in the vicinity stated, and I have every reason to 
believe it is there in quantities, as the Japanese 
who brought the samples here have been at this 
office inquiring if they could fish for them or not, 
it seems to me that it would be well worth the 
while of American citizens in that part of Alaska 
to look this matter up, as no doubt a large and 
lucrative business can be “built up with this 
article.” 
It has long been known that holothurians or 
sea cucumbers were abundant on the Northwest 
coast. The animal is not at all confined to Alaska 
waters but occurs at least as far south as south- 
ern British Columbia, and this fact was mentioned 
in your paper something like twenty-five years 
ago. Permit me to quote from page 424, Vol. 
XVII., Forest AND STREAM, where in the Tenth 
paper of a series entitled “By-ways of the North- 
west,” it is said of Burrard Inlet, in southern 
British Columbia: “Here, too, I noticed for the 
first time a number of great holothurians or sea 
cucumbers lying on the bottom. One of these, 
being brought to the surface with the spear, 
proved to be ten or twelve inches long; an unat- 
tractive creature, brown in color, and studded 
with great warts. The Indians eat them, as they 
do also the octopus, and pronounce them excel- 
lent; but none of our party seemed inclined to try 
them.” 
These béche de mer, according to the account, 
are about three times as long as those found on 
the Japanese coast, and therefore might very well 
be worth much more money should a market be 
found for them. OLp READER. 
[The holothurians—related to the echinoderms, 
sea eggs and starfish—are common in temperate 
and tropical waters, and are eaten by many peo- 
ples dwelling on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. | 

“T am not in the habit of boasting of my conquests,” 
said Gayboy, ‘but you ought to have seen how I im- 
pressed that striking looking woman with the wonderful 
eyes and the hair like a raven’s wing at the swell re- 
ception last week. By Jove, she couldn’t keep her eyes 
otf me.” 
“T noticed it,’ said the other man. “That was Miss 
Linksigh, the female detective. She was there to watch 
the jewelry.”—Chicago Tribune. 
