

SEPT. 14, 1907.] 
Pores) AND or REAM: 
421 

their fish almost entirely raw, cut off in thin 
slices, and dipped in their appetizing soy, im- 
ported from Japan in fifty-pound tubs, a clear 
claret-colored liquid brewed from barley and col- 
ored beans grown in Japan. This is salted in 
preparing, and costs here 50 cents a gallon. It 
is quite palatable and is universally used by the 
Japanese. 
The variety of fishes in the bay of Monterey is 
extensive, there being more than two hundred. 
In the salmon fishing many other kinds of fish 
are taken; this year a good many sea bass; but 
not the striped bass which has become very plen- 
tiful on the coast further north. This Atlantic 
fish was introduced by the federal fishery bureau 
in the Bay of. San Francisco in 1879, and has 
not yet come so far south. The scaly, light-col- 
ored sea bass, indigenous to the coast, is solid 
and good eating, is powerful on the line and 
weighs from 15 to 40 pounds. Yellowtail are 
caught, but not so plentifully as later on; so are 
codfish, mackerel, and a local bluefish will occa- 
sionally strike on. A shark of moderate size is 
a nuisance, and will often cut the line unless 
the latter is wired. It is very annoying to get 
one on when the salmon are plentiful, as hap- 
pened to me a few days ago, It weighed 90 
pounds, and consumed half an hour of my time, 
but I finally brought it up to the side of my boat 
with my eleven-ounce steel rod, so I could give 
him a blow with a club, and got him in the boat. 
At the wharf a Jap offered me a dollar for it, 
but I gave it to him for a six-pound grilse for 
my breakfast broiling. J. PARKER WHITNEY. 

Chicago Fly-Casting Club. 
Cuicaco, Aug. 28—Editor Forest and Stream: 
The scores of the participants in the regular 
club contest, August 24th, were as follows: 
Quarter-ounce bait: 
Re-entry. 


SI PE MSCs a 5 tiie or a ciety cle Haiwcls's a's, Sit 
PUT eRe ESLOW SL Corda thie cclniere'ed Roeieeiadis 97.4 
IE Sg 8 AS POR Se ee a 97.6 
Moe Peco CCEUCRSIAA IN. 0 02.5 :0'e Si a;e, aie sis\erataie eo Kateiase 98.7 3 
OLAS 20% TOs Ss ee ee 98.9 97.7 
BEES ECL ROR AR Cito cite Gh/etihWele croiciore Sie «10 98.7 98.5 
BPN eS ctenete fais 0 cia) Sialate's isso; sjeid sialelaje%elnce 98.1 
WSs ME OES ER EM rast orate its'aseisisintiie ciaiaive aie p-eiareve 95.8 Bigie 
RTF PINON DETR eae sis.ce ben oe ousce ooo 96.6 96.3 
High score, O. J. Loomis, 98.9. 
Delicacy fly: 
1D) ogif Coe Nes Gy gr eee eee ee 97 12-30 
PM Ge PRESEOM int nieve s cieieie scan clwe oes 97 2-30 + 
Raed WA MPABeVONENS oly, Cte cindy sie ose ae'sis's 97 1-30 98 15-30 
ERS BWSR ORG. de cinainnds v0 oscieshandsce 97 10-30 97 25-30 
i i 8 ae ee 98 26-30 
ERE WREPIDEDIY Wee wiaiclostel ca coe ceon 97 20-30 
High score, F. N. Peet, 98 26-30. 
Re-entry for distance and accuracy fly: 
By Pa ODEERI .cikas 97 11-15 INDE a Plestoni-ae.c.0 98 9-15 
As announced at the beginning of the season, 
the handicap allowances assigned each contestant 
in any event will be determined as follows: The 
average of the two highest scores in said event 
made during the season by said contestant will 
be taken, and the full difference between this 
average and 100% shall constitute the handicap 
allowance of the contestant in said event. 
Any member who has not completed two or 
more scores in an event during the season shall 
be assigned the same handicap as the member 
having the least allowance. 
The date for the fall Interclub Contest has not 
yet been set. The team will be chosen imme- 
diately after the re-entry day when the re-en- 
tries have been completed and the date will be 
announced one week in advance. 
Georce A. Davis, 
Secretary-Treasurer. 
A New Tuna Club Button. 
PHILADELPHIA, Pa., Sept. 5—Editor Forest and 
Stream: At a meeting of the directors of the 
Tuna Club, held at Avalon, Cal., on August 24, it 
was decided to award to any angler (male only) 
taking a tuna of not less than 80 pounds, upon 
light tackle, a diamond button. 
This requires a rod, the tip of which must 
measure not less than five feet nor more than six 
ounces. No restriction upon weight or dimen- 
sions of butt. Line to be standard nine strand. 
No such catch has ever been made at Catalina, 
and consequently there is much eagerness to win 
the new decoration. F. L. Harprna, 
Corresponding Secretary. 




OccASIONALLY one of the large jobbing houses 
in New York city receives from an out-of-town 
customer an order for a birchbark canoe.  Per- 
haps the house handles no sportsmen’s supplies, 
but is accustomed to filling customers’ orders 
for such goods as are required. The letter may 
be handed around until someone is found who 
is more or less familiar with sportsmen’s goods, 
and he goes out to the largest dealer and states 
his errand with perfect confidence. 
“A birchbark canoe!’ exclaims the dealer; 
“Why, we have not had one in stock in years and 
years. Why don’t you get a rag canoe?” 
“But my customer says very plainly ‘a birch- 
bark canoe,’” the buyer repeats; “he has several 
canvas-covered canoes, for we got them for him.” 
“Well, I am sorry. You might try Blank. He 
used to keep a few years ago, but I doubt if he 
can fill the order.” 
Blank sends the buyer elsewhere, but his 
errand proves fruitless, and finally he is <2 .s- 
fied with the name and address of some Jiu.an 
who, it is rumored, once made birchbark canoes 
at some remote settlement in the backwoods of 
the North or East. 
In one case that has come under my observa- 
tion, a prospective buyer was sent to a man who 
was said to be a builder of birchbark canoes, 
but who on demand handed out several of the 
little toy canoes that are sold at fairs and sports- 
men’s shows. 
* ok Ox 
Did you ever waste an hour trying to see if 
you could find parts of two or more fishing rods 
whose ferrules would fit and thus give you in- 
terchangeable parts that, in an emergency, might 
be utilized? It is an interesting but a disappoint- 
ing pastime, however. Take a half dozen rods 
of all sorts. On looking them over it occurs to 
one that a short tip from one rod might be an 
advantage at times if it would fit the middle 
joint of another one. But it will not; the dif- 
ference in ferrule calibers is slight, but sufficient 
to prevent any combination. Try the middle 
joints; no use. Exasperated, one takes up other 
parts. I have seen an angler try every part of 
a dozen or more rods and fail to find a single 
combination that would enable him to even test 
the balance of a rod with a middle joint or tip 
that did not belong to it. Of course this does 
not apply to two rods of the same model, whose 
ferrules are exactly alike, but to the ferrules of 
rods of different makes and styles—rods one 
happens to pick up during an idle hour. Hun- 
dreds of combinations are possible with a few 
rods whose ferrules are alike, but it is seldom 
that any two can be found which will fit. This, 
too, despite the fact that ferrule makers list their 
goods in sixty-fourths of an inch. Seldom is it, 
however, that any ferrules said to be say 9/64 
will interchange with those of another maker 
who lists them as 9/64. Of course the reason 
for this is not far to seek, and is found in the 
fact that even if all ferrule making tools were 
alike in the beginning, they will vary in time, 
just as gun boring and rifling tools vary. 
* Ok Ok 
Why is it that certain waters acquire a repu- 
tation for one style of fishing and not another, 
so that any angler suggesting another form is 
advised not to try it, yet no satisfactory reason 
is given? Not long ago I visited a pretty lake 
that has a reputation for an abundance of small- 
mouth bass, and it at once occurred to me that 
it was ideal water for fly-fishing. I asked sev- 
eral veteran anglers of the vicinity about it 
They all agreed that bass had never been taken 
there on the fly and that no one ever tried that 
form of fishing. Why? Because there was no 
use. That settled it. I strung up my fly-rod. 
put on a Reuben Wood bass fly and got a rise 
at the first cast. There was only one spot avail 
able for casting, and that was from shore over 
a bed of lilypads and water grasses, so that it 
was necessary to cast sixty or more feet, then 
retrieve the moment the fly began to sink, else 
it would catch in the tough stems of the lilies. 
Time after time small bass rose to the fly just 
as it was receding over the vegetation, two were 
hooked but got away among the pads, and three 
were landed in the very brief time I was enabled 
to cast. The old anglers were astonished, and 
they are probably still talking about the stranger 
who took bass on a fly instead of the wooden 
minnow and short bait-casting rod they all em- 
ploy now. 
* * * 
These rods, many of them, are simply ridicu- 
lous. In local tackle shops in the Middle West 
one sees scores of rods ranging from 3% to 5 
feet in length, with the majority around the 4 
foot mark. They are the result of the short-rod 
fad of several years ago, when it was believed 
by many that good work could be done with 
such weapons. Those who have tested rods 
carefully have settled on a length between the 
extremes, and for light lures, as small spinners 
and spoons, they employ rather flexible 
of 6 or 6% feet, seldom longer. For the heavier 
wooden minnows the rods are a trifle stiffer and 
shorter, the majority averaging 5% feet, per- 
haps, but judging from what I have been able 
to glean, it seems the range for all bait-casting 
rods is centered around the 6-foot mark, show- 
ing a slight increase in length in the last two 
years. Certainly there is a vast improvement 
in these beautiful little rods. Instead of being 
so stiff that bass can be yanked in just as fast 
as the reel handle can be turned, the game is 
now killed on the rod, as in fly-fishing, and the 
fight is sportsmanlike, with the chances more or 
less evenly divided between angler and bass. 
rods 
ee 
A good story is told by a friend of mine who 
is on the staff of a magazine that is constantly 
bombarded with poems, few of which appear in 
its columns. Recently, however, some verses 
were accepted. 
“These verses,’ said he, “were intended to be 
run serially, one in each issue. They were put 
in a drawer with other copy, and a verse w1s 
taken out and sent to the compositor as required 
“In the same drawer there was other copy, 
stories, essays, fiction, fact. One night a mouse 
got into the drawer and made a bed for itself 
in One corner. Later on its work of destruction 
was discovered, a pinch of cayenne pepper sprin- 
kled about and it now lodges elsewhere. 
“That mouse was particular. For its nest it 
selected the paper on which the verses had been 
written, but not all of it, for certain parts were 
untouched and others totally destroyed. Then, 
as if the mouse had used up all of the poem copy 
it considered unavailable for publication, it 
selected an Indian story, but got only half-way 
down the introductory paragraph when it stopped, 
and rummaging about, found a bear story, 
sampled it, but went no further than the cap- 
tion. Then it tried a story entitled, ‘My First 
Deer, and finished its nest without disturbing 
other manuscripts.” 
at ae 
One of the San Francisco daily papers recently 
published a half column interview with a busi- 
ness man of Oakland in whose office there is a 
large collection of big game heads. Among 
them there was a caribou head. According to 
the interview, the owner “drew attention to right- 
pronged antlers of an elk that shows a horn 
growing right down the middle of the face and 
actually turning over the nose in such a way 
that it almost enters the mouth and touches the 
upper teeth.’ So much did this head impress 
the man that he had it photographed and a re 
production was printed in his paper, over a cap- 
tion referring to it as an elk. “The luxuriance 
of the growth of antlers,’ said the interviewer, 
“is remarkable.” And so, too, is the illustrated 
description, which should be framed, as a mute 
tribute to yellow journalism. 
GrIzzLy KING. 

