



















































































































378 
FOREST AND STREAM. 

[SEPT. 7, 1907. 

natural color, copper and nickel finished, and 
really esthetic in their appointments, yet not 
too much 
I am a believer in the solid comforts, so long 
SO. 
as they do not interfere with the artistic and 
eternal fitness of things. The seats in these 
boats are cane-seat office chairs cut off, and 
some mounted on a screw, so that one ¢an turn 
in any direction. ‘There are two, one behind 
the other. Then, when your five- or six-ounce 
rod becomes a burden, you can drop it into the 
rod holder. The floor of the skiff has an 
artistic rug for my lady’s feet, and in all that 
dainty craft there is not a false note, a scale 
or any disturbing element to conflict with its 
cleanliness if indeed one is looking for this 
elysium. 
When Bill nets a bass it is killed at once, 
washed, hooked upon the scales that you may 
note its exact weight, then he opens a drawer 
which fits into the space beneath his seat and 
stows the fish away among fern leaves and 
covers them with canvas. The boat is a long 
racer, so deftly built that the slightest touch 
of the oar sends it ahead; then there is a sail 
to be put up when coming home if you are 
weary. Every morning you may see a dozen of 
these long, low, attractive craft being towed 
up or down the river by launches going to 
some good fishing grounds, perfect for these 
waters, impossible on the ocean and rea'ly im- 
possible to some anglers who do not care for 
things so esthetic when fishing; yet I believe 
the St. Lawrence skiff of the finest build is a 
type peculiarly adapted to the great river and 
out of place anywhere else. The most extra- 
ordinary incongruity I ever saw was a St. 
Lawrence skiff in the waters of Santa Catalina 
at once unsafe, impossible and out of place. 
CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER, 
) 

Fishing in the Willimantic. 
SPRINGS, Conn., Aug. 23.—Forest 
Malicious tongues have said that 
doctors and lawyers were unnecessary. Now 
that’s libel!’ For I would not now be penning 
this letter on a big boulder, using a smaller 
stone for a seat, with the wind sighing through 
the cherry trees overhead, a crow raucously 
cawing at the edge of the mowing-lot, with the 
fair village of Stafford Springs spread.out in 
panorama in the valley below, and a wholesome 
country dinner awaiting me at a real farm- 
house, were it not for the kindly offices of the 
family doctor. And so, from now on forever- 
more, I am the staunch defender of that craft, 
and will hear no syllable againt them. 
Just imagine a whole month with nothing to 
do but eat, drink, smoke, sleep, tall and—fish! 
Yes—and a few woodchucks thrown in. Also 
botanizing ! 
Just imagine being suddenly metamorphosed 
from high-pressure, hysterical Manhattan to a 
village where the traveler asks the station agent, 
“Is the train on time?” He answers, “She’s 
an hour late,’ and nobody seems to care. We 
wanted the 10:25 train to get to some pickerel 
fishing; she arrived at 11:20 and nobody kicked! 
The mail train was due last night at about 7— 
she whistled in at 11; and nobody murmured! 
Isn’t that the kind of a place for a4 sick man to 
vacationize? 
As to the fishing. Did you ever fish for 
pickerel in a pond or cove where there was not 
a foot of open water in the lilypads? Nothing 
to be done but skitter. Now skittering is all 
very nice; but Mr. Picker-el (as the natives call 
him) has a foolish fashion of grasping your 
minnow by the middle, sidewise, moving Off a 
distance, and swallowing him—when he is ready 
So there you be, by heck! Your fish rushes. 
takes most likely a middle hold, and you must 
strike at once. for you dare not allow him to 
get into the lily stems. Yet if you strike, you 
miss your fish, which probably has your. bait 
amidships, and pulling merely jerks it from his 
mouth, So I tried letting him have it. He has 
it yet—or part of it—among the beautiful’ but 
tenacious lily-stems. 
Uncle Jim, whose forte is “picker-ell” fishing 
—he says “Ye have to walk too far for those 
darned trout”—claims I’m too liberal with the 
STAFFORD 
and Stream: 

small 
and 
off a chunk of liver 
enough that he must get the hook 
ye’'ve got him.” Will try that to-morrow. 
But there were compensations aplenty. The 
banks of the Willimantic River are beautiful be- 
yond description. Lobelia cardinalis so vivid 
against the green, that I was sorely tempted 
to stop fishing to gaze, and gaze, and gaze 
again. Steeplebush (Spirea tomentosa), joe- 
pye weed (Eupatorium purpureum), meadow 
sweet (Spirea salicifolia), golden rod (Solidago 
canadensis), boneset (Eupatorium perfioliatum) 
and many others in profusion, but chief among 
them all the startling cardinal flower, and in the 
coves a florist’s display of waterlilies. Oh! 
the sacrilege of wading through and over thou- 
sands of the beauties to catch a few shovel- 
nosed pickerel! 
One experience 
makes me take some off stories of frog’s 
voracity I’ve read with more composure. As 
my shiner went spattering about over the lily- 
pads, innumerable frogs were scared into the 
water with the usual affrighted squeak. One 
fellow, however, hardly bigger than the min- 
now itself, started after it like a bull-pup; and 
when I brought it past him again, leaped upon 
it bodily, backed up and seized it head first, 
half swallowing it before I could bring him to 
his senses with a jerk. If my pickerel had 
been nearly as thoughtful as to their method of 
striking, I should have had a fine basket. 
Lastly, I came within an ace of being a 
nature fakir. As the fish paid no attention to 
frogs, and my artificial abortions were imprac- 
ticable, I put on a No. 9 sproat with worm to 
fish for shiners. As I stepped into the river the 
first rush of water from some up-stream dam 
came down and the fish all seemed to become 
crazy it once. Big suckers-went flashing about 
bait. “Gut “im 
so 
was and 

unique—for me 
the holes, shiners seemed to snap at pieces of ° 
wood and at the flotsam as they whirled past, 
and as my line disappeared beneath the surface 
of the pool, there came -a vicious strike, a 
struggle and a series of lightning rushes back 
and forth the width of the pool that, I mur- 
mured, could only emanate from one source. 
I was thinking, “The trout season closed 
July 15,” when, after a few minutes, was landed 
a huge, thick, heavily-scaled fish, which I dis- 
gustedly threw upon the bank without a second 
examination. In with the line and the same 
occurrence, except that two other big fellows 
got hold somewhere along the leader or on the 
captive himself, and I had to wait till they 
sheered off before the captive could be landed. 
“There,” thinks I, “is a story my friends won't 
believe! Suckers striking and gaming it out 
like trout!” It was only when about tg clean 
them that I found my apples were pears. My 
suckers were dace! And the best of it is that, 
had I thrown them right back at the time. I 
would’ have written of them as suckers in good 
faith and resented contradiction. 
We contemplate a trip to Square Pond (now 
fashionably called Crystal Lake, a name not 
nearly so bucolic in my estimation, and ex- 
tremely commonplace), which contains real live 
bass! And there I intend to try out my clothes- 
pin bait, which is resting calmly and uninitiated 
in-my tackle box. Dartus DALRYMPLE, 

A Tragedy of the Drouth. 
Roscor, N. Y., Aug. 28.—Editor Forest and 
Stream: When I was at this place ‘in May I 
heard several times of the success of a young 
man named Dodge who had established a fish 
hatchery near Rockland, Sullivan county. Dodze 
lived with his aged mother on a little place 
where he had carried on a chicken farm for some 
time. Four years ago he constructed a trout 
pond and a hatchery, and in May T was told that 
he had sold five hundred dollars’ worth of finger- 
lings for stocking purposes during the past year. 
Then the drouth came and his brook dried up, 
and the trout in the pond began to die. Dodge 
lost heart and to-day, when I inquired about him, 
I was told that there was no longer any hatchery 
and that Dodge was dead as the result of his 
own act. The old lady, eighty years of age, lives 
alone. Ve By aR 

— 
New England Anglers and Angling. 
Boston, Aug. 26,—Editor Forest and Stream: 
Newfoundland is still claiming a large percent- 
age of Boston sportsmen, many of whom are 
leaving at this time with the idea of getting the 
September fishing and later on big game shoot- 
ing for caribou. 
‘It is a matter of record that the fly-fishing 
in Square Lake, Maine, and in adjacent waters 
is better in September than it is in any other 
part of the State, and the trout average larger. 
In many of the Maine lakes the salmon seem 
to be rising to bait unusually late this season. 
In addition to several large fish taken at Sebago 
lately I have just heard of an 18-pound fish 
taken from the water in the town of Union by 
George W. Clous. The outlook for September 
fishing all over Maine seems to be very bright. 
The only thing needed to make conditions just 
right is some cessation of the rains which for 
some time have covered the State. The water 
in Moosehead at present is said to be higher 
than ever before known, and many other lakes 
are away above their ordinary level. 
Devotees of bait-casting—a method of angling 
which is fast increasing in popularity around 
Boston—seem to have chosen Horn Pond in 
Woburn as the proper place to practice the art. 
The wooden minnow seems to be the favorite 
lure, and I understand that quite a large num- 
ber of bass have been taken there lately with 
this style of fishing. The pond is easy to reach 
from Boston, a line of electric cars running near 
to it and there is a good boat livery there. 
Sebago Lake, Maine, is claiming a large 
number of bass fishermen this year, and nearly 
all of them seem to be satisfied with results. 
For some reason the salmon seems to be tak- 
ing the bait exceptionally well this summer, a 
time when it is generally very hard to get them. 
I am told that several big fish have lately been 
taken within four or five feet of the surface of 
the water. Last week a Mr. Merrill, of Bos- 
ton, landed two salmon, one weighing 1614 and 
the other 14 pounds. Another angler is said to 
have landed a giant that tipped the scale at 
22% pounds. 
Parties who have lately returned from Round 
Mountain Lake, in Maine, say the fishing has 
never been better in the lake, and in Blanchard 
Pond and Alder stream. 
Bluefishing off Nantucket is reported to be a 
flat failure this year. It is said there are al- 
most no fish at all. If these waters—famous for 
a century—fail the salt-water angler, he is 
indeed at a loss where to cast a line, for it 
has been the custom to go there without 
question, HACKLE. 

Bass in Ohio Waters. 
CotuMBus, Ohio, Aug. 23.—Editor Forest and 
Stream: Conditions for bass fishing in central 
Ohio for the past few weeks have been fine. 
Most all the anglers have had good catches 
Aug. 12, two fly-fishermen brought in -twenty- 
two rock bass or goggle eyes and six smail- 
mouth bass, for five hours’ fishing on the Scioto 
River, seven miles. north of Columbus. Aug. 
14, one angler caught seven bass on Darby Creek, 
twelve miles west of this city. He was using 
crawfish for bait. - Aug. 17, three fly-fishermen 
brought in forty-five. bass and rock bass from 
Big Walnut Creek. Two fly anglers fished on 
Alum Creek Aug. 18 and caught five nice bass, 
one weighing 3% pounds. This stream had not 
been in shape for fly-fishing this year until the 
last few weeks, and if the weather stays clear 
we may look for some good catches. My fish- 
ing partner and myself got sixteen rock bass and 
eight bass in the Scioto on Aug. 18. 
CENTRAL Ouio. 

Game Laws in Brief. 
As now revised the Game Laws in Brief con- 
tains all the amendments of 1907 with the excep- 
tion of North Carolina county laws. South Dakota 
(which has been held up by the referendum 
system) and Nevada. The Brief is sold every- 
where or will be sent postpaid on receipt of 
price. 



