
‘here still 
'to wade 
Dec. 7, 1907.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 

gOl 



through reindeer moss and heather all the way 
above timber line down to Lake Linderman, long 
and narrow, like a rockbound ditch of the giants, 
down the long shore of gusty Lake Bennett, 
through scrub and swamp, birch and_ bramble. 
No wonder so many took to the ice, rotten 
though it be in the early summer. No wonder 
so many tried to make rafts of logs, when the 
wind blew in the same direction. On and on 
down the straight shore of Lake Bennett, two 
days’ march it may be, then you come to Caribou 
Crossing. The caribou is the riative reindeer, 
and here in the interval between Lake Bennett 
and Lake Tagish, with Lake Marsh beyond, is 
the only place for five hundred miles where a 
herd of caribou can cross the Yukon River. Let 
us cross it quickly, too, for the water is very 
cold, and deeper than a man or a caribou likes 
Here at Caribou Crossing lived and 
for a generation Father Bumpus of 
memory, bishop of the: Yukon. And 
lives his charming wife, born to the 
soft skies of England, and the gentle ways of 
English society, but here a power for good in 
the wilderness to which she gave her life. It 
worked 
blessed 
}seems to me that if the Church of England were 
| Canterbury, 
| 
| 
| 
j 
| 
| 

‘in two perhaps, 
Some men, 
to 
all wise it would some time send his grace, the 
bishop of Canterbury, to exchange places with 
the bishop of Yukon for a year. The bishop of 
the boundless hills would learn something in 
no doubt, but consider what the 
bishop of Canterbury would learn were the seat 
of his diocese for a year at Caribou Crossing! 
From the Caribou Crossing the river curves 
through the fir woods to the right, for we are 
| below timber line again. Then it bends for- 
|ward through a couple of lakes into a_ swift 
gorge—the famed and fated White Horse Rapids 
|—below which it widens out into the immense 
Lake Lebarge, which runs to the northward as 
far as the eye can see and a good deal further. 
about one in ten perhaps, preferred 
take their chances in running the White 
Horse Rapids rather than to carry their belong- 
ings over the Caribou Hills. Some of them, one 
got through safely. The rest 
| went to swell the romance, the terror, the tragedy 
Vee 
pin, 
of the gold of the Klondyke and the White Pass 
of the Yukon. 
3ut the Caribou Crossing is full of fish, and 
some of these, lake trout, cisco, pike, ling, scul- 
take the hook when it is properly baited. 
You can stand on the little wharf of the bishop’s 
‘house, or on the bank in Skookum Jim’s door- 
land woods and a 
| 
|you 
yard and cast for grayling, and the grayling will 
respond. Better than this, you can cross_ the 
|river and go a couple of miles through the fields 
around a bayou where the thicker 
Tn the little glade of the woods 
and at the foot 
forest begins. 
will find a roaring brook, 
}of a cascade you will find the grayling as eager 

as you are, and if you are contented with a 
reasonable basket you will fish awhile there, lie 
down on the heather, and take for yourself 
something better than many fishes, that which 
Wordsworth called, “the harvest of the quiet 
eye. 
Striped Bass in California. 
Los ANGELES, Cal., Nov. 10.—Editor Forest and 
Stream: The Southern California Rod and 
Reel Club is making a vigorous campaign in 
behalf of the striped bass. These fish were 
planted here a few years ago, and apparently 
they thrived very well, inasmuch as some spec- 
imens of eighteen and twenty pounds weight 
have been caught by local sportsmen. The 
National Fish Commission and the State 
authorities have been indisposed to ship any 
fry, however, and the club will have to over- 
come these obstacles before anything much 
can be accomplished in the striped bass line. 
Black bass also are to be introduced; the Bolsa 
Chica Gun Club put many of them into its 
ponds, and they thrived very well indeed, club 
members having excellent sport in fishing for 
them. They use artificial lures altogether, ex- 
cept in the minnow season, when a sort of 
fish like a stickleback can be had. The bass 
become fat, are of good flavor as a rule, and 
excellent table fish, only occasionally one 
being taken which has a muddy flavor. 
German carp were introduced here not many 
years ago—another bright thing that the Fish 
Commission did do—and have proved an un- 
qualified nuisance. Before bass were put in 
the Bolsa ponds the carp used to eat out 
most of the duck feed, and kept the water 
nasty and roiled, but members believe the bass 
have conquered the carp. 
Epwin L. HeEpperty, 

The English Fly-Casting Tournament. 
TuE London Telegraph comments as follows on 
the proposed tournament in connection with the 
International Sports Exhibition: 
“Tt is announced that an international fly- and 
bait-casting tournament is to be held next year 
in connection with the International Sports Ex- 
hibition and Olympic Games at Shepherd’s Bush. 
Some people look askance at tournaments of this 
kind on the ground that they are not fishing. 
Yet they have their uses. They serve as a 
pleasant excuse for anglers to meet one another, 
and they provide a good deal of interest and 
amusement. To see a champion like John En- 
right casting an amazingly long line is a liberal 
education. And one learns even more, perhaps, 
from seeing how it should not be done. A 
nervous competitor, acutely conscious of the facts 
that he has only a miserable five minutes to do 
his best in, that the wind is all wrong, and that 
his line ‘is getting into an unholy tangle, is a 
solemn warning to the angler. For such a state 
of things is not confined to the tournament plat- 
form, but is often to be found in actual fishing. 
A feeding Thames trout, for instance, is calcu- 
lated to make one do most of the things one 
ought not to do. One knows that he will not 
feed for long, one gets flurried, and the result 
is trouble. 
“Tf only as an exercise in nerve control, there- 
fore, the tournament has its value. Undoubtedly, 
also, it has a stimulating effect on the tackle 
trade, and tends to the improvement of rods 
and gear. The light rod movement, for which 
many a fly-fisher is now grateful, owed a good 
deal to the last tournament at the Crystal Palace 
and the discussion which ensued as to the ability 
of English makers to turn out light rods as good 
as America’s. That question has now been 
settled satisfactorily, and no doubt the English 
light rod will be prominent at the new tourna- 
ment. It is to be hoped that America may be 
better represented in the matter of competitors 
this time. It would be very interesting to see 
such a caster as Mr. Mansfield at work. He 
would find a worthy opponent on this side in 
the amateur classes in Mr. J. H. Lawrence, who 
achieved a distance of thirty-four yards with a 
Ir foot 6 inch trout rod at Hardy Brothers’ 
private tournament in 1904. He had not 
entered for the international tournament shortly 
before, and his performance was as unexpected 
as it was startling. It is to be hoped he will 
enter next year.” 
Early References to the Reel. 
THe Sporting and Dramatic News of London 
is authority for the statement that the earliest 
book reference to the use of a reel in angling 
is found in the “Gentleman’s Recreation,’ by 
David Cox, dated 1721. He says: “There is a 
way of fishing for salmon with a ring of wyre 
on the top of the rod, through which the line 
may run to what length is thought convenient, 
having a wheel also near the hand.” Before reels 
were invented pike fishers used the rod tcp ring 
and held some loose line in the left hand to 
save being smashed up by heavy fish. 
December. 
Tue fine, dry snow flies here and there, 
Gay bittersweet to the leafless sumach clings; 
bush, 
rise from the 
A chickadee calls from the cedar 
The mountains, cold and blue, 
And winter now is on. 
lake— 
restless 

THE Forest AND STREAM may be obtained from 
any newsdealer on order. Ask your dealer to 
supply you regularly. 
A Fishing Experience in Florida. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The ketch Osprey had been anchored inshore 
off Matanzas Inlet for three days, and the crew, 
consisting of captain and owner and Plinius, who 
acted in the capacity of mate, deckhand and 
cook, had had little success in catching channel 
bass or redfish, which was their object in these 
waters. 
The channel bass, like the Indian, is very un- 
A day when you least expect his visits 
be seen darting through the breakers 
to some inside channel and running along the 
surf in pursuit of small fish. The young or 
small mullet seem the most attractive lure to 
this gamy fish which is second to none in the 
Southern waters. As a food fish the flesh is 
firm, white, and of the texture and flavor of our 
Northern striped bass, but only a trifle coarser. 
During a cold norther in March, they keep to 
the deep warm water off shore, but after a few 
days of warmer weather and sunshine seek their 
food in the inlets and rivers running into them, 
such as Matanzas, where they are taken in shoal 
water on mullet bait. 
We had been fishing on the inside bar during 
the last of the flood and first of the ebb tide, 
taking only two bass of eleven and sixteen 
pounds when the sharks became numerous. They 
took our bait and tackle clean away and we de- 
cided to up anchor and leave for other grounds 
inshore, trusting to kill some sheepshead, whit- 
ing, sea bass or some other small fry. 
I was fishing with a two piece bass rod, butt 
and tip, with a reel holding two hundred yards 
of line, and a piano wire snell on a large sized 
bass hook. I was reeling in slowly while the 
crew was getting up anchor, when something 
took the bait with a rush that would have sur- 
prised a tarpon and started for the ocean. Away 
went fifty yards of line before I could put on 
the drag or get any pressure on the leather stop 
on the reel. A little thin smoke appeared as the 
line went spinning out under the leather. I had 
on every pound of force I could exert on the 
reel, without any apparent result. Plinius had 
taken in the anchor, so we were afloat as well 
as the fish. I was advised by the mate, cook and 
certain. 
he will 
hand to cut loose and save what line I could, 
it being a twenty-one thread tarpon line that 
had done excellent service in taking those fish. 
Although I thought it might come in handy 
later in the season I determined to lose all or 
none on that fish.  Plinius, who was keeping 
the boat headed toward the fish, called out, 
“Shark or devilfish.’ Whatever it was it was 
going through the water at a great clip and had 
carried us for four hundred or more yards to- 
ward the mouth of the inlet when he seemed 
to consider that the strain on the line was a 
little more than he cared for or expected, and 
changing his tactics he took to the air. Out he 
came, leaping some six feet or more clear of 
the water, his body bent in a semi-circle. 
At different times and places I have taken 
various sharks of all sizes and kinds; in fact, the 
killing of sharks is only a matter of having 
plenty of line, a good rod and reel, and giving 
him time. I have seen sharks ten feet long killed 
on a tarpon rod at Boca Grande on the west 
coast after cutting in half a 40-pound jewfish 
with one snap of his jaw while being hauled up 
from the deep water on the line of the fisherman 
without his knowing it, except by the lessening 
of weight, and as the angler said to me, “It was 
like cutting tissue paper with a pair of shears.” 
Most of the sharks I have taken run deep except 
the little gray shark, averaging some _ thirty 
pounds, who leaps several times on_ being 
hooked. These sharks are common and are a 
nuisance to the tarpon fisherman, and are found 
at Fort Meyers and in all the bays running into 
Charlotte Harbor and the inlets on the west 
coast. They make excellent fishing, on a bass 
rod if one is after shark. 
The shark I had hooked now was of a dif- 
ferent variety from any I had tackled in my 
previous experiences. On taking his first jump, 
and viewing his surroundings above water, he 
acted as if he wanted to stay there. Plinius 
looked on with deep interest and surprise to find 
that after every jump I still had the shark on 






























































































