
Sea and River Fishing. 
FISH IN SEASON IN DECEMBER. 

SOUTHERN WATERS. 
Pompano. Trout, (Black Bass.) Sheepshead. 
Snapper. Drum, (two species.) Tailorfish. 
Grouper. Kingfish. Sea Bass. 
Rockfish. Striped Bass, Rockfish. 
—We attach much value to the information printed on 
the first page of this day’s issue, and trust it will be appre- 
ciated by all our readers and prove of essential service to 
anglers who contemplate a journey to Florida this winter, 
We think, with the writer, that the edible and game 
qualities of our southern coast fish are not sufficiently es- 
teemed, doubtless because they are so little known. 
Printed information on this subject is most meagre, and the 
investigations made by naturalists in this department and 
locality are very limited. We have always been surprised 
to discover, from personal inquiry of southern gentlemen 
who are considered proficient anglers, their ignorance of 
the habits and modes of capture of the numerous varieties 
of fish within their own waters. The pastime or business 
of fish-catching seems to be abandoned to the negroes; yet 
there is a spacious field for the enjoyment of scientific ex- 
perts, and we shall very much wonder if those gentlemen 
whose experience has been confined to our northern waters, 
do not find in the rivers and estuaries of Florida and other 
southern States a new sensation whenever they enter the 
lists to test the strength and cunning of the finny inhabit- 
ants that abound there. The character and disposition of 
the forces with which they will have to deal are very nicely 
indicated in the article we publish. It is no child’s play to 
handle one of those monster fish, and we can fully appre- 
ciate the anxiety and pity the perspiration of the angler 
who is hooked to a fifteen pound grouper or pompano, pulling 
straight for his lair in the mangrove roots, when it comes 
to the desperate alternative of break tackle or lose fish. 
The writer gives sufficient data as to the selection of tackle 
and bait and choice of ground and tide, to enable the intel- 
‘ligent and experienced angler to practise his rudimentary 
lessons with prospect of success. 
In angling for the bass (misnamed trout) of the St. John 
River and favorite localities, we will give one hint from our 
own experience which, if followed, will render success in- 
fallible. The angler is supposed to be ina skiff easily 
handled by a practised oarsman. If the water be smooth 
and unrutiled, the experienced eye will easily detect, at 
frequent intervals, little jets of spray shoot up from the 
surface to the height of a foot or so. This means fish. In- 
stantly the angler must cast his fly or draw his trolling 
spoon over the spot, just as he would naturally do when a 
speckled trout breaks in our northern waters. He will 
seldom fail to hook his fish, if the plash of oars does not 
frighten the game. A quarter ofa mile below Palatka is a 
sand-bar which is a favorite locality in December and Jan- 
uary for ‘‘ those who know,” and the best fisherman and 
boatsman there is George Lucas, whom we are pleased to 
recommend. : 
Speaking of Palatka, it is one of the very best headquar- 
ters for the sportsman, being centrally located, with fine 
shooting and fishing in the vicinity, and accessible by 
steamboat from above and below, with daily mails from 
Jacksonville. There are two excellent hotels here and 
sundry boarding houses. The ‘St. John’s Hotel,” kept 
by the Peterman brothers, is as comfortable as could be 
desired, with n.ost excellent table, and many ‘‘ modern 
improvements” not often found in Florida. We are free 
to designate this hotel, because we wish to advise so as to 
ensure the fullest satisfaction of sportsmen who place con- 
fidence in our recommendation. If the hotel-proprietors 
can profit thereby, they certainly deservetodoso. Palatka 
is healthy, and the ground absolutely Azlly for flat Florida, 
three-fourths of which, we believe, is actually under water. 
Steamboats run to Enterprise, and thence to Salt Lake, 
~ from which there is short transit to Indian River; also to 
~ Tokoi, from which St. Augustine is reached by a sixteen 
mile railroad of the worst possible description and most 
tedious rate of progress. 
One cannot be too careful in selecting his abiding place 
in this Land of Flowers, especially if he be an invalid. 
The four healthiest localities, and affording the greatest 
abundance of game and facilities for sport’are St. Augus- 
tine; Palatka, Lake Monroe, and Indian River. At Enter- 
prise, on Lake Monroe, which comprises merely a very 
good hotel and outbuildings, and a court house located in a 
swamp and wholly isolated, is most excellent deer, quail, 
turkey, and snipe shooting; but from Mellenville, on the 
- opposite side of the lake, one can go back thirty miles over 
a settled and cultivated country, abounding in large orange 
groves and banana patches, traversed by good roads, and 
interspersed with beautiful lakes. Game is plentiful, but 
not so abundant as in the vicinity of Enterprise. We shall 
give a brief sketch of the St. John River route in our next 
number, 
—The half-dozen attentive friends who have kindly sent 
us printed accounts, clipped from Hartford papers, of the 
fish-way at Holyoke Dam over the Connecticut River, will 
find a full description of the same in our issue of Nov. 18th, 
page 218, three weeks ago. We fully appreciate the im- 
portance of this great and useful work, and have anxious- 
ly noted the laborious efforts of the Massachusetts and 
Connecticut Fish Commissioners, from the first inception 
of the enterprise, through all the phases of opposition®and 
litigation with which it has struggled, up to the final con- 
sumation last October. When the fish-way became a 
| finality, we were immediately advised thereof, and waited 


FOREST AND STREAM. 
We trust that our readers will not only examine our 
columns carefully hereafter, but learn to look to us for 
latest information in matters cf this sort; for we claim to 
be a live paper, and our business relations with Govern- 
ment and State Fishery officers enable us to obtain early 
possession of facts of interest and value. We hope for 
great results from the construction of this fish-way to man- 
ifest themselves at an early day. The Connecticut is the 
best adapted river on the Atlantic coast for the propagation 
and preservation of salmon and shad; it is the longest, the 
most broken by rapids, the coldest at its sources, and con- 
tains the clearest and purest water. It was long ago the 
natural spawning ground and birth place of salmon, and 
only became depleted by those causes inseparable from in- 
creasing population and ignorant and insufficient legislation. 
Now for five years past the fishery officers have been assi- 
duously employed in restocking its waters, and the results, 
so far as investigated, have proved eminently satisfactory 
Hereafter, with an unobstructed pas- 
‘sage from the ocean to its mountain sources, the salmon 
They can plant their seed 
ad libitum on chosen spots, returning periodically to their 
native spawning grounds—and with both fish and ova pro- 
tected by judicious laws and watchtul wardens, they must 
continue to increase and multiply until the heart of every 
angler is made glad, and the poor leap for joy at the abun- 
and encouraging. 
and shad will have full range. 
dance. 
—Seth Green, who is at present in charge of the New 
York State Hatching House at Rochester, begs us to inform 
our readers, who may desire to experiment in the business 
of hatching out eggs of the salmon trout or white fish, that 
he will, on application, send afew hundred eggs on the re- 
ceipt of fifty cents to prepay the cost of mailing them. His 
object is to teach the American people the art of fish-breed- 
ing and to have them learn how easily this may be accom 
plished, so that every river, lake or pond may be made to 
These will soon be 
ready for transportation, and all that is necessary to watch 
the process of their growth is to place them in a shallow 
wooden box with gravel on the bottom and allow a stream 
from spring or even hydrant water to flow gently over 
During the 
season of 1872 and 1873, he made an extensive distribution 
abound with fish, as in former times. 
them from one end of the box to the other. 
of eges 
ggs, and wishes any person who received them at that 
time, to report the result to him or to the columns of some 
newspaper near at hand. 
—Down at Smithfield, Long Island, not far from Hemp- 
stead, is the trout farm of Mr. Thomas Jeffrey, who in- 
formed the writer that he was one of the very first to 
handle and strip a trout on Long Island. His place lies a 
little off the main road, about a mile and a half from 
Smithville. Hehas aseries of ponds for fingerlings, year- 
lings, and two year olds, also a mixture pond with all sizes 
and ages. As we saw it, no doubt during the worst part 
of the year, it struck us as having a decidedly antiquatéd 
appearance. The ponds were full of dead leaves, and 
other decayed vegetable and fish matter, including large 
dead shiners, evidently in a decomposed state, which: he 
had forgotten to cut into pieces so that the fish could eat 
them. It was a marvel to us how the fish could live at all; 
as it was, the yearling fish did not weigh two ounces, and 
the two year olds not more than a quarter of a pound; all 
of them were dwarf fish. Mr, J. effery, who is now getting 
infirm and quite old and afflicted with rheumatism, evi- 
dently cannot pay that proper attention to the water and 
fish which is essentially necessary to success; but with all 
these drawbacks he has not only built his house, purchased 
all necessary tools, cut dams and sluices, gravelled and 
sanded ponds, but also derives a considerable income from 
fish culture. We asked Mr. Jeffery the reason why heal- 
lowed all the debris of vegetation, uneaten and rotten fish 
He replied: 
“Oh, the first rain will clean it all, andI am getting old 
and sick.” We badehim good day, thanking him for his 
attention, and at the same time repectfully suggested ‘‘that 
if the preserve was worked on half shares it would relieve 
him of the burden of labor, and he might still derive the 
tosink to the bottom and poison the water. 
same increase.” 
—The fishermen on the south side and at the east end of 
Long Island are having remarkable success this season. A 
great many codfish are being taken off Fire Island and at 
other points on the Great South Bay, and on Thursday 
morning one thousand bass, estimated to weigh at least 
four thousand pounds, were taken at one haul at the Poose 
off Southampton. 
—Ralph Keele, in Harper's Magazine, says of Lake Le- 
man, Switzerland: 
“There are said to be twenty-one species of tish in the 
lake; but of its thirty-six leagues of shore, according to 
my authority, thirty leagues are so rocky as to give hardly 
any plants or insects for their food. Leman, therefore, is 
not so well stocked with fish as many of the Swiss lakes. 
The professional fishermen go out in their boats at dark 
and are generally gone all night. The unprofessionals of 
the Swiss shore are, I think, the most patient people on 
earth. I have seen hundreds of them in the course of the 
summer holding their lines from bridges and quays at all 
hours of the day and night, and have never yet seen them 
catch a fish. The hotels of Geneva, at least in the “orand 
season,” are mostly supplied from the sea. The Terra 
which is nearest to the grayling, but, I believe, a species 
peculiar to this and one or two other of the Swiss lakes, is 
the fish oftenest met on the table. There is a magnificent 
kind of salmon-trout, called trwite du lac, weighing often 
twenty,or thirty pounds, which sometimes graces the din- 
ners of the Beau-Rivage or De la Paix at Geneva. On 
days when this fish is served he is paraded in all his superb 
proportions around the dining-room by a white-gloved 
waiter, in a sort of glorified triumph of sauce and silver, 
in the genteel lull between tlie soup and the first wine, 
267 
WILL BLACK .BASS TAKE AFLY. 
Rocuestrr, N. Y. 

Epiror Forusr anp SrREAM:—_ 
I HAVE read with increasing interest each article on this 
subject. I was astonished that such w question should 
ever suggest itself to a follower of Father Isaac. I have 
taken black bass from Canandaigua outlet and Genesee 
river for years with a fly, and I find that I have better suc- 
cess every year. Not by trolling as is the custom, in the 
St. Lawrence from a boat, but by casting from a boat or 
wading as the water will permit. Either I have become 
more experienced or as I have heard said in regard to trout, 
they have become educated and will take a fly better from 
year to year if the waters are humanly fished. I have made 
it apractice to return to the water all small fish and I believe 
that I have been amply rewarded this year. I never had 
better fishing in these waters. 
The hint that I have aided in the increase of this splendid 
fish seems insignificant; but if you will think for just a mo- 
ment and see what the increase would be by returning fifty 
or one hundred of these fish to the water, you will not be 
surprised or wonder at my insinuation. 
Tf all anglers would just keep this in mind, return all 
small fish to the water, there would be no danger of our 
lakes and rivers being depopulated. 
A little care, and a little humanity on the part of the 
true angler would in a great degree make up for the whole- 
sale slaughter of the pot-fisher, But never mind that, I 
have thrown aside my bass rod and tackle as a whole, 
with the exception of dressing my flies especially for bass. 
I tie my own flies as every angler should who wishes to 
drink in the whole enjoyment of angling. 
In its place I have adopted my Conroy trout rod and trout 
tackle as a whole, and find that it gives me infinitely more 
pleasure than the heavier one, 
Now in regard to flies; I have tried the scarlet ibis, grizzly 
king, and many others with some success, but none with 
the success that I have had with a brown one which I have 
made and named king fly. In this locality Ihave taken 
them from the first of June to the first of October, with 
this same fly. I think it superior to any other for the 
reason that I have put others on the same cast and would 
in nine cases out of ten find them fast to this fly. Also I 
have taken off the other flies and put on just two of these 
and would take time after time two bass of a pound and a 
half or two pounds each ata single cast. That is what 1 
call genuine sport. This fly might not do for other locali- 
ties, but for these two that I have mentioned, I am certain 
it has no equal. 
These magnificent fish seem to be yery gamey here, giving 
almost as much play as a trout. It is seldom that I let my 
flies sink below the surface of the water. It is not 
necessary to with this fly, but the instant that it touches the 
water, if they are atall inclined, it is greedily taken, in fact I 
have seen them jump clear out of the water to seize the 
supposed prize. It looks too much like bait fishing to let 
them sink below the surface precisely as though it wis 
really bait. When I bait fish I want to bait fish, and when 
I fly fish I want to fly fish. 
Let it then be the aim of every trueangler to exert all his 
influence to keep our lakes and rivers from being depopu- 
lated of this magnificent fish. If every angler will catch 
his fish artistically there need be no fear. If there can be 
no better laws, let what we have be enforced, and it will 
greatly aid us in our work. F. L. Kine. 
—_—___ 
Wuar a FReNcHMAN Knows ABOUT SHOOTING IN 
AMERICA.—In the May number of the Bulletin of the 
French Société D Acclimatation, we find a report by the 
Count de Montebello, First Secretary of the French Lega- 
tion at Washington of what he knows about game in 
America, and we present some of the principal points of 
this communication for the edification of our readers! 
Speaking of the wild turkey, which he Says is found in 
considerable numbers in Virginia and Maryland, he states 
that it is an animal which is likely to disappear, as it is very 
easily taken, especially in the snow. He remarks that he 
has never hunted the wild turkey, although he has been in- 
formed of a flock in the vicinity of Washington, because 
its pursuit has not the least charms for him, as this simply 
involves lying in wait and shooting from a covert, 
The venison found in the Washington market, he tells 
us, generally comes from Vermont, the deer being found in 
large numbers around Lakes George and Champlain, as also 
in the woods that border the Hudson. He has heard a good 
deal of the caribou, the moose and the elk, but has not seen 
any of these even in skins. He apologises for not being 
able to tell more about the birds and beasts of America, as 
he is closely tied down in Washington by his official duties, 
and it is very difficult to learn anything vf the animals in a 
country where all the birds with red plumage are called 
red birds, and all with yellow feathers, yellow birds; and 
as far as game is concerned there are as many names for 
each kind as there are States or even Counties! 
He regrets his inability to visit Philadelphia, for the pur- 
pose of there meeting Prof. Agassiz, who was not in the 
city when he had visited it some time previously. If he 
could only see the Professor he has no doubt of being able 
to obtain some useful information! 

———— +o 
—The Palatka (Florida) Herald Says that never since the 
early settlement of this country has the fruit prospect been 
more flattering. From all sections of the St. John’s 
Indian and Halifax rivers, and from the interior portions of 
east Florida, it has most glowing accounts of the bountiful 
yield of the orange, lime, lemon, guava and shadddek, 
