
The result of a day’s fishing trip, though not 
caught with rod and reel. 
He Went Fishing But Caught—?P 
DEAR FOREST AND STREAM: 
OE FUNKEY’S friend came up from 
Chicago in May and wanted Joe to 
take him out fishing. Joe, being an 
ardent fisherman himself, readily con- 
sented, and left the management of the 
hotel of which he was proprietor, in 
Iron River, to other hands, while he 
and his friend took a day or two off 
to try their hand at the playing of the 
speckled beauties, of which there were 
a goodly number in the Paint River 
which flows through Michigan and 
Wisconsin. 
‘After stowing away a good break- 
fast in the kitchen of Joe’s hotel, they 
cranked up the old flivver and started 
for the Paint at a point where it 
crosses one of Michigan’s trunk-line 
highways, M-12 at Elmwood. Arriving 
here they left the car in the yards of 
the pulp wood company who had a saw- 
mill there and started up the river. 
Fishing wasn’t extra good that day 
and along in the afternoon interest had 
begun to lag at a remarkable rate. Joe 
and his friend had become separated 
and Joe was making one last try in a 
likely-looking riffle when he happened 
to look across the opening through 
which the river flowed. On the other 
side of the clearing a sight met his eyes 
that made him forget all about fishing. 
Two little cubs, not over three weeks 
old, were playing on the old pine that 
had blown down a year previous. Joe 
having been born and raised in north- 
ern Michigan, knew fully what was 
likely to happen to him if the mother 
of those cubs happened to scent him 
while he was around there. 
But he reasoned out that as long as 
he was going to put that part of the 
country and himself a long ways apart, 
he might as well take the cubs with 
him. Laying down his rod he crossed 
over to where the cubs were and 
reached out and grasped one in each 
hand and started for the tracks of the 
railroad which he knew was but a short 
distance away. As soon as the cubs 
sensed that they were in another grasp 
than their mother’s they set up an aw- 
ful cry. As Joe put it when he was 
telling me about it, it sounded for all 
the world like “Mama, mama, he’s got 
me, he’s got me!” Joe kept up his fast 
pace till he came out at the station back 
on the main highway. Leaving the 
cubs in the hands of the mill foreman 
there he tried to borrow a rifle; for his 
friend was back there somewhere near 
where he had kidnapped those cubs and 
the she-bear might return at any mo- 
ment from her search for food, and Joe 
knew very well what a rumpus that 
old she-bear would make when she dis- 
covered her cubs gone and the man 
scent so plain around there. Arriving 
back where he had found the cubs, he 
called and called for his friend, but no 
answer. Visions of his friend torn,and 
perhaps mortally injured by that she- 
bear began to flit across his mind, 
added to a touch of remorse for being 
so hasty as to try to kidnap cub bears 
and leave without his friend knowing 
miles to where we would find them, 
nevertheless I was anxious to go, so we 
started for the spot. We arrived in 
good time for them to be out feeding. 
The guide told me to sit down most any 
place I liked and I would see one before 
long. I picked a place that suited me 
pretty well and began to watch. I 
waited about ten or fifteen minutes 
and my first black squirrel appeared. 
I made up my mind that I would kill 
the first one I saw. He was quite a 
distance away when I first saw him, 
so I sat still until he worked his way 
up close enough to be in shooting 
distance. Arrived at this spot, he ran 
up a pine tree, so I awaited my chance 
and when he came around in view I 
let him have the contents of one barrel 
of my 20 gauge and down he came and 
today I have him, mounted, hanging 
in my home. We stayed in this place 
one hour and I killed three more. It 
was pretty late and we started for 
camp, arriving there a little bit after 
dark, well pleased with my first black 
squirrel hunt. 
The next day was not a good one for 
bear hunting, so I went back for some 
more black squirrels and it was while 
there that I saw two grey and one 
black go in the same hole in a large 
beech tree. The three were playing 
in the tree when I saw them and I 
worked myself down close to the tree 
and sat there, watching them to be 
sure that they were playing and not 
fighting. They would run one another 
around the tree; first the black one 
what had happened. After some time. _ 
he succeeded in getting an answer and 
found Charley calmly fishing, as the 
cubs and she-bears were on the other 
side of the world from him. After 
hearing of the experience of Joe, they 
both made rapid time in getting back 
to Elmwood, and tying up the cubs to- 
gether in the back seat of the old Ford, 
started back for Iron River. The day’s 
fishing yielded quite a bag at that! 
A. B. SCRIBNER. 
Grey and Black Squirrels Frater- 
nize in. Pennsylvania 
DEAR FOREST AND STREAM: 
| HAVE just read Mr. Newman’s let- 
ter in regard to the grey and black 
squirrels denning together, so I will 
tell of my experience in hunting them. 
I have hunted squirrels since I was 
14 years old, but never had the oppor- 
tunity of seeing a black squirrel until 
the fall of 1922, while hunting bear in 
Potter County, Pennsylvania. 
After coming in one afternoon, about 
three o’clock, our guide told me he 
would take me where I could shoot 
some black squirrels. It was about four 

‘Perfectly contented. 
737 
