JUNE 30, 1906.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
1035 


As remarked by one of our hotel men who has 
been active in the development of the North 
country, “the present law is an example of class 
legislation.’’’ It allows a man to fish when his 
box is empty on his neighbor’s place, and take out 
his best fish that the neighbor has perhaps hatched, 
protected and fed; but it will not let the neighbor 
in return take the thieving fisherman’s chickens, ° 
which have, perhaps, gained half their living 
scratching in the neighbor's garden. 
These protected waters are of the greatest value 
to the public, as they form sources of supply from 
which the fish go out into all the connecting 
streams. 
One of the most popular resorts in northern 
New Hampshire serves trout to its guests daily 
from the opening of the hotel until the close 
season begins. Why? Because for five years au 
artificial lake on the property was kept closed, 
stocked from the State and a private hatchery, 
watched by an efficient game-keeper and the trout 
systematically fed.. To-day the lake is swarming 
with great trout, weighing from an average of a 
quarter pound up to big fellows weighing two or 
three pounds, with half a pound the average 
weight of the tamest. The fishing is almost all 
done by guests who like the sport, and every 
breakfast and nearly every luncheon sees trout 
on the table for those who wish it. All because 
the waters were watched, protected and made 
what they should be—a legitimate source of 
supply, and incidentally a great revenue, through 
satisfied guests, to the hotel. 
Fishing Reels. 
New Lonpon, Conn., June 7.—Editor Forest 
and Stream: Mr. Edward Breck asks in a late 
issue, “Are manufacturers practical sportsmen?” 
and seems to be of the opinion that they are not. 
I quite agree with him. I have made a collection 
of sixty-five of the best and most costly American 
fishing reels, not one of which is, in my opinion, 
fit to fish with on account of the following reason, 
which, if the makers were practical sportsmen, they 
would have discovered and remedied years ago. 
All the reels I have seen in America have the 
plates as sharp as a knife on the inside, conse- 
quently, when a three to five dollar line is put 
on the reel, it’s no time at all before the beautiful 
finish or enamel is completely scraped off and the 
costly line completely ruined. Indeed, I have had 
them cut clean in two as by a knife with this 
sharp edge. If a person always pulled the line 
off the reel straight in the same direction the 
rod pointed, there would not be so much damage 
done, but it is quite natural, in taking line from 
the reel, to pull it to the left, then it is sure to 
pass over the sharp edge of the reel plate and be 
ruined. 
Some of our reel makers, not content with the 
knife-like edge of their reel plates, mill or check 
the edges and top sides of the plates, thus making 
matters much worse. This is particularly true of 
the otherwise fine reels made in Kentucky. 
Reels, under all the circumstances, should be 
made perfectly smooth on the edges of the plates. 
I have, however, never found but one firm, and | 
that an English firm, that seemed to appreciate 
this fact and made them smooth. The rest of 
the English makers make them as badly in this 
respect as Our own. F. C. Fow er. 
The Depleted Mirimichi. 
List to the woebegone! 
It is sad to read the story of reprisal, selfish- 
ness and neglect which hangs like a pall over 
this beautiful river. How different the recitals 
in Gov. Gordon’s “Wilderness Journeyings” 
forty years ago, in the days when our few surviv- 
ing salmon anglers of the old guard who used 

to fish its broad and streaming waters, and of 
of a century ago! 
which the still lusty wielder of the two-handed 
rod, Mr. Charles Hallock, wrote so charmingly 
and accurately in his “Fishing Tourist” a third 
Here is the picture of the 
river to-day as presented by Wm. H. Venning, 
of Sussex, New Brunswick, who was Fishery 
[ 
Inspector for the Province for twenty-eight 
years: 
“The Southwest Mirimichi when I used to fish 

A FAIR ANGLER OF THE SKYKOMISH. 
it was, all things considered, the most beautiful 
and the best salmon river in New Brunswick 
(and I have fished them all), and the best 
stocked with fish—both salmon, grilse and sea 
trout—from Boiestown to the Forks above 
Mirimichi Lake. It now belongs to the past. 
For some years the clubs, proprietors and 
lessees of the pools have not visited them, and 
the whole stream, from Renous to the Forks, 
has been an open poaching ground for nets, 
spears and traps. My old warden wrote me 
last month that only two small salmon were 
caught with the fly at Burnt Hill Pools (four 
in number), and none at all at the Rocky Bend 
and Clearwater pools, once so famous. There 
are six fine pools at these places, and here Jefferson 
-had his bungalow, now rotting down. 
“You will ask, why this state of things? It is all 
very simple. When the Fisheries Department 
Photo by A. Curtis, Seattle. 
controlled the inland fisheries, two overseers and 
six wardens were on the river from Docktown 
upward, and all the clubs had their own guardians 
as well. When the decision of the Privy Council 
of England gave the inland fishings to the several 
provinces, the department no longer protected 
them. As all the fishings on the Southwest Mir- 
imichi from Beauchar’s Island to its sources were 
in riparian ownership, the provincial government 
would not pay for protecting private property, 
and so the only guardians on the whole river 
were those paid by the clubs (Jefferson paid two), 
but the whole river between Boiestown was a 
poaching ground, and no fish, or very few, ever 
got up to Boiestown, where the angling com- 
menced. As the private guardians could not en- 
force the law below, and as the provisional gov- 
ernment would not, so few salmon reached the 
pools that it was not worth the expense to go 
