Oct. 5, 1907.] 

hirty to sixty feet in circumference, and from 
wo to three hundred and fifty feet in height. 
atlas-like they seemed to support the sky, stu- 
endous creations, monuments to the duration 
f time, and the passing ages. It is a sacrilege 
> talk of economics in such a connection, but 
fter lying down and looking up at one of these 
rees one can realize the meaning of the state- 
aent that it is 300 feet high and _ represents 
00,000 feet of timber. Men knew this, as some 
ractical land grabber—the last of his race let 
s hope—was ready to reduce these trees to tim- 
er when it was rescued, and now nearly all 
he big trees belong to the Government or State. 
When the sun dropped in the west and 
hadows began to fall on the river I left the 
lark forest, and finding a trail dropped down 
he face of the cafion to the river again. Wad- 
ng slowly I came to a long reach of water, the 
l'reat trees cast dark shadows all about, and 
pon one side rose abruptly for several hundred 
leet, while on the other a little beach came 
lumbling down to the water. I had a strike in 
lhe best of places and held my fish for a moment 
in the very joy of conquest, literally forced him 
ip into the air, where I could see him gleam 
igainst the green bay leaves, and could catch 
‘he musical splash of his return. I followed 
bn and on, giving and taking, now wading 
tround a point of rocks or out upon the little 
)each, back again into the pool to see him jump 
ind go blazing across the water. By dint of 
nard coaxing I gradually brought the fish in, 
weld the net out of sight that it might not 
alarm him, and then when finally beaten, but 
liot conquered, I made sure of him. He looked 
live pounds, but I did not weigh him. I gave 
1im and myself the benefit of the doubt. 
| The deepening shadows of the afternoon, the 
lwind that caught the little stream at various 
langles, and made riffles everywhere, brought the 
ilimax of this fishing day, guileless of any 
thought of butchery. 1 might have become a 
very Volscian in Corzoli, as every drop of the 
‘ly was followed by a strike and I repeatedly 
jerked my lure from fingerlings and offered it 
to their betters, and so, working slowly down 
from pool to pool, filled my creel, not to the 
‘legal, but to the conscience limit. 
I would not create the impression that the 
langler is always so favored in the San Lorenzo 
lor Soquel. I never failed to take a reasonable 
‘catch in either stream, but they do not always 
run large. So beautiful and accessible a trout 
region is the mecca of scores of anglers, and 
no streams are so assiduously fished as these. 
They are not only restocked annually by the 
\State of California, but the county maintains 
la fine hatchery at Brookdale, and when the sea- 
son opens in April the sport is at the best. The 
|habitués of the streams catch the hard fighting 
steelheads, and it was my good fortune to see 
‘them in many places. I found a small school 
lof possibly three-pounders lying beneath_ the 
shelter of a bunch of sea weed off shore at Capi- 
'tola, and in September stood on the sands at 
this attractive hamlet where the Soquel has 
broken down the cliffs and made a little laguna, 
and saw them entering the stream from the sea, 
collecting for the long run up stream, then I 
found the Soquel under the shadow of the red- 
woods five or moré miles up from the laguna 
land fished it up and down even in the pools of 
its branches which rose in the very heart of 
the Santa Cruz range. 
This little stream is not so large as the San 
Lorenzo. It has cut no deep cafion to compare 



to the former, yet it has many delights and 
charms. The San Lorenzo seeks the deep and 
dark nooks and corners, lies in a deep cafion, 
while the Soquel is more often in the open sun- 
light, though it does not entirely lack abysmal 
gorges in its upper reaches, but the portions 
most to my fancy were the open reaches where 
it seemed to flow through little meadows, yet 
was always in a cafion far below the road. The 
little stream had a marvelous faculty of taking 
you by and into little hamlets, and through 
ranches where you could see the marvels of 
California, oranges and apples growing in one 
| door yard, redwood and arctic spruce, banana 
and rubber tree cheek by jowl with cherry 
and plum. A fruit lover's paradise was this 

FOREST AND STREAM. 
539 

trout stream, running through some of the finest 
orchards in California, where ranches had trees 
centuries old in their gardens. In fishing you 
waded down through ranches and farms, through 
the town of Soquel, then to Capitola by the sea, 
where from the fine beach the bay of Monterey 
and the finest salmon fishing on the coast 
reached away for fifty miles. The trout (Salmo 
rivularis) which found a place in my creel, were 
attractive in appearance on the line or served 
after the fashion of the mistress of the little inn 
not two minutes from a trout pool of the Soquel, 
and they told me on the ranch that in “old 
days” twenty-pounders were not unknown in the 
mouths of many streams from the Santa Inez 
to the Russian River, and in many of these 
streams this fish rises to the fly under some new 
name, as in the Fraser it is the stilse and in 
the splendid reaches of other streams of the 
range the kamloops. Indeed, the keen discern- 
ment of a magician is required to distinguish 
rivularis from the rainbow or the Kamchatka 
trout. 
The fishes which enter the little lagunas at 
the mouths of these southern California rivers 
linger in them until the rains of the fall or 
winter begin to fill them. Perhaps they have 
learned this in southern California, where before 
the rains the San Gabriel ends after six or eight 
miles in sand, the river running along beneath 
the surface, but after the rain a wide and often 
turbulent stream reaches far back into cafions 
of the Sierra Madre, and up this the steelhead 
goes to spawn and then returns to the sea. 
In April or March, the rivers being protected 
during this time, the fry of these fishes, often 
of several seasons, remain in the pools and 
reaches of the river, lying in the shallowest 
riffes until they are fingerlings, when they go 
down stream and lie in the lagunas or the salty 
waters at the mouths of the rivers, going up 
stream with the adult run of fish in the fall, and 
in the following spring going to sea, from which 
they doubtless return the following fall as adults. 
In nearly all the streams, particularly those of 
central and northern California, there are two 
runs, those fish which enter the streams in Sep- 
tember and October, ranging from one to three 
or four pounds. My catches in ‘the Oregon 
streams in October, one hundred miles from the 
sea, and among big salmon, were three- and 
four-pounders and hard fighters, but in mid- 
winter—and it should be remembered that winter 
here is like an eastern October—another run 
begins of larger fish from eight, even twenty- 
pounders have been claimed by _ enthusiastic 
anglers. Those fish are called silver-sides by 
some fishermen, as, big and fresh from the sea, 
they have a splendid luster in sharp contrast to 
the smaller trout of the fall run whose gleam- 
ing sides have been dimmed by their stay in 
fresh water. CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER. 

A Train Wreck and Trout Fishing. 
BatsAM GrRovE CAMP, Transylvania County, 
N.C., Sept. 4.—Editor Forest and Stream: The 
past week was a little out of the common with 
me. On Monday Capt. Barnett came into my 
office and extended to me an invitation to join 
him on Friday morning at Brevard, and go up 
to his camp in the Gloucester Mountains, four- 
teen miles west from Brevard, bringing my fish- 
ing rod with me. Now, the Captain is one of 
these big-hearted men who enjoy making others 
happy, and he knew of my fondness for fishing. 
He controls a stretch of trout stream which is 
protected; a stream I am familiar with, but 
most of which is owned by Geo. W. Vanderbilt, 
which hence I could not fish. 
I had business up the railway at Rosman, so 
on Wednesday I left Hendersonville on a train 
for Rosman station, ten miles above Brevard. 
While the train was going along at about twelve 
miles an hour, the rails spread while on an em- 
bankment and the cars turned over. About 
four-fifths of the 200 passengers were women— 
a few children among them. 
When I felt the bumping on the cross ties, I 
knew a wreck was coming and tried to get those 
near me to remain quiet, and not get frightened; 
but nearly all began to rise and scream at once. 
It is a queer feeling to have a car turn over 
with you! Two little girls across the aisle from 
me came tumbling over on me, and I told them 
to keep still a moment till 1 could open my 
window. Seeing that I was “taking it easy,” 
they did so too, and I dropped them to the 
ground, about three feet, and they got out un- 
scratched. Sixteen persons were injured, but 
none seriously. It was miraculous! The hold- 
ing of the couplings alone saved heavy loss of 
life. The engine driver, Mr. Black, having full 
control of his engine, stopped quickly. Both he 
and Capt. Lowe, our conductor, did well. As 
good fortune would have it, Surgeon Cheatham, 
of the Southern Railroad, was aboard with his 
instruments and within five minutes was at 
work, and soon that grassy slope looked like a 
hospital. 
As soon as I saw I could do no service, having 
given Dr. Cheatham a bottle of whiskey which 
I had, I gathered my heavy satchel and rod and 
carried them a mile and a half to the nearest 
station toward Rosman, there leaving it, and 
going a mile and a half further to a telephone 
station to call up Hendersonville and make 
known my safety. Then catching an engine 
passing, going for orders, I got aboard and 
went to Rosman. I went back to Brevard by 
buggy and was able to keep my appointment 
with Capt. Barnett. 
Friday afternoon I left camp with rod and 
creel and went over to this beautiful mountain 
trout stream and brought in fourteen for supper, 
and fully twice that number I returned to the 
water. I got a good ducking, too, just at the 
time of the afternoon rise, but this I did not 
mind. 
Next day I caught all we needed and returned 
to the water many more than I put in my creel. 
I am not of the variety of sportsmen that want 
all the fish in the stream. “Live and let live” is 
a pretty good guide—a good motto in shooting 
and fishing, I think. 
Some of my best fish I caught with a fly sent 
me by a contributor of FoREST AND STREAM, 
Mr. Gordon. 
Up here, about 4,000 feet above sea level, it 
has been raining nearly every day. This morn- 
ing it stopped, but doubtless will be showery 
this afternoon. Earnest L. EwBANK. 


Anglers’ Club of New York. 
On Sept. 28 the members who assembled at 
the Pool, in Central Park, again had to contend 
with disagreeable weather conditions. The little 
lake lies below the heavily timbered _ hills, and 
every wind that blows eddies and circles back 
and forth across the water, making high scores 
extremely difficult. Only in a flat calm can 
creditable accuracy or distance casting be done. 
For example, in the salmon event the highest 
score was only 102 feet, the wind holding the 
leaders back so much that it was impossible to 
lay the lines out at all straight. 
"Rain fell in showers, and at the close of the 
second event it drove all hands out of the park. 
The bait accuracy event for the cup, given by 
George LaBranche, was postponed and will be 
held to-day, Oct: 5, at Prospect Park, Brooklyn, 
together with the accuracy fly event for a cup 
given by Mr. E. H. Myers. 
The second contest for the 16-strip salt water 
rod given by John R. Cushier was won by R. J. 
Held. who averaged 160 feet in five casts with 
half-ounce weight. The scores: 
Average, 
Feet 
Re Ju Ebeld:. jccstovetestens 168 158 163 154 157 160 
George La Branche......- 138 140 1387 1386 123 134 4-5 
Harry Friedman ......... 107 *95 128 *72 105 101 2-5 
M. H. Smith, Edward Cave and Perry D, Frazer with- 
drew. 
*Backlashes. 
The first salmon event to be contested under 
the new fifteen-foot rule was held in the rain, 
with two cups for prizes. It was won by Perry 
D. Frazer. George LaBranche won second prize. 
The scores: j 
Feet. 
Perry D. Frazer 102 
George La Branche 
We RR. Grimw00d..cccssecuseuciceciancions 95 
W. J. Ehrich 
R, J. Held 



