I presume that readers of
Forest and Stream will remember that a few years ago a fish was
found on the surface of Lake Bomaseen, or on the shore, dead and in a more of
less decomposed condition. After much discussion in the newspapers as to its
identity, it was allowed to fill a rather uncertain position in fish history as
a large-mouthed black bass of over 20lbs. in weight.
Within
the past year I have heard that the giant bigmouth bass was nothing but a
sheepshead or fresh-water drum. Last evening Mr. Charles Pike, of the J. T. Buel
Trolling Spoon Co., confirmed what I had previously heard as to the species of
the fish. He said that Mr. J. T. Buel introduced the fresh-water drum into Lake Bomaseen from Lake Champlain. Mr. Pike said the weight was remarkable although
it was a drum; but as they grow to upward of 50lbs. there was nothing remarkable
about one of twenty odd pounds.
Forest & Stream,
June 30, 1892.
OK, I'm fudging again. This picture is not from the 1800's. This
one is from the September 1911 Recreation magazine. The title of the photograph
was "Bait-Casting for Large-Mouth Black Bass, on Lake Osakis, Wisconsin."
Note the wonderful lapstrake boat. Note the high waisted pants.
Note the suspenders. Note the hats. It's too bad we don't know what kind of
rods, reels, and lures they were using.
If you want to see what bass fishing was like before the days of
electric motors, high speed boats, and crowds of people, just take a look. And
then dream...
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I'm fudging a bit again, for the photo to the right is from the
April 1904 National Sportsman. My curiosity was tweaked when I read the caption
"A six and one-half pound small mouth black bass caught in Lake Kewoza, N. Y.,
one of the best lakes for these fish in the state." (click on photo to see a
full size image of this nice smallmouth). I wondered where this wonderful lake
was and are there still big smallmouth swimming its depths? I got out my atlas
and found no Lake Kewoza. I did a Google search and found no Lake Kewoza. I
tried my Delorme Street Atlas and Topo map programs with the same results.
However the Delorme programs did list a Kenoza Lake in New York.
I did a search for it and found a small lake near the Delaware River. It sounds
like the reporter could have miss-spelled the lake's name to keep away the
hungry smallmouth anglers, or the editor could have made a typographical error.
Regardless, it is a beauty of a smallmouth and a great photo.
Note the dress of the angler and the rod and reel in hand. It looks like a
bamboo bait rod with a small multiplier mounted on it. I see no evidence of an
artificial bait, so I would assume this lunker succumbed to live bait of some
kind.
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An angler complains in
one of the weekly sporting papers that American fly tyers copy only
English patterns of flies, whereas our natural insects should be
imitated instead.
White undoubtedly many
dealers do sell foreign patterns almost exclusively, yet some of the
manufacturers of flies make up a number of patters that are copied
from our natural insects. Besides which there are very many fancy
flies that are exclusively American.
Among the imitations of
our own flies to be had are the following: Bee, Seth Green or Gen.
Hooker, Beaverkill, Abbey, Queen-of-the-water, great dun, Cahill,
olive gnat, claret gnat, sand dun, dark coachman, black fly, yellow
May, Orange miller, orange black, red fox, dark fox, bright fox, royal
coachman, etc., etc. Among the fancy patters the famous scarlet ibis
had a wide reputation. Then there are the dark and light Montreal,
Canada, blue jay, Romeyn, toodle buy, Roosevelt, Holberton, Tomat Joe,
Lord Baltimore, Lottie, Brandreth, Beatrice, Imbrie, Rube Wood and a
host of others too numerous to mention. Many of these have proved to
be excedingly killing.
Some of the English
patters, such as the grizzly king, professor, gray and green drakes,
hawthorne, alder, coachman, March brown, red spinner, stone and the
various hackles have been favorably known for years and have proved to
be great killers from Mane to California.\The list of lies is so great
that we doubt if the angler can be benefited by any new designs, and
it would be hard to find a natural fly that could not be very nearly
duplicated in any of our principal tackle stores.
SCARLET-IBIS (pseudonym of Wakeman
Holberton, NYC tackle dealer and author of "Art of Angling", 1887).
Forest and Stream, December 11,
1890
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by A.B. Frost
Actually, I'm fudging a bit, for this wonderful bass
fishing print is from A Book of Drawings, by A. B. Frost. It was
printed by Collier & Son in 1904. It is a neat scene that shows the
fisherman's dress, tackle and boats of the period. However, the verse
that went with the picture is just as great. It was written by Wallace
Irwin, and goes as follows:
Black Bass Fishing
A THREE-POUND pull
and a five-pound bite,
An eight-pound jump and a ten-pound fight,
A twelve-pound bend to your pole-but alas!
When you get him aboard he's a half-pound bass
Been there, done that!
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This article appeared in The American Angler 118
years ago today - February 3, 1883:
THE LEAP OF THE
MASCALONGE - STILL AN OPEN QUESTION.
Lest "Old
Mossyback," of Mascalonge lake, Jefferson county, N.Y., should
think that the champion of his family has been completely
annihilated, or has laid down the cudgels at last, let me bring some
additional facts to bear on the question of whether the Mascalonge
is apt to show above water after being hooked.
Soon after my last
letter on this subject in the Angler, Gen. John Satterlee accosted
me on Cortlandt street, one afternoon, with the exclamation, in his
usual bluff and hearty way : "Thompson, you are right about the
MASCALONGE; stick to your text."
The General is a native
of Herkimer county, N.Y., and was a lumberman in the North Woods, in
his younger days when the game of forest and stream was very
abundant. Some of his comical adventures with moose, deer, bear and
panther, have given me many a stitch in the side. Spoon trolling for
pike and MASCALONGE in the St. Lawrence, among the Thousand Islands,
was a frequent diversion with him, and his reported catches seem
fabulous in these days, when it is by no means easy for the
Bonifaces of Alexandria Bay to keep their tables supplied with fresh
fish.
The General once had a Mascalonge
jump out of his boat after being placed on the bottom of it, and
wants to know why such a strong and quick fish should not leap out
of his element in his struggles to get free. The Irishman, to whom
was pointed out the immense volume of water rolling over the
precipice at Niagara, said: "And sure, what hinders it from
rowling?"
Uncle John, as his
friends familiarly call him, says that he has seen many a St.
Lawrence Mascalonge show above water after being hooked.
I noticed in the Angler
of November 25th last, the astounding statements of "G.
B." that the Mascalonge very seldom, if ever, leaps from the
water, differing greatly in this respect from the silvered or
northern pike, which almost invariably leap from the water on being
struck;" and again that, "the northern pike leaps
frantically from the water to shake himself from the merciless
hooks;" and again that "of the few hundred northern and
silver pike which we have killed with the rod, few have remained
under water, almost invariably leaping some feet above the water on
being struck."
I wrote to Charles W.
Crossman, Alexandria Bay, for the experience of the oarsmen there.
He writes in answer, under date of December 21st, as follows:
"let me premise that the northern pike, Esox lucius - Linn. -
is always called pickeral at that place).
"Last evening I
called a meeting of our best oarsmen and read your question to
them.
All said that a Mascalonge on being hooked, always came to the
surface and shook his head, white in many cases they leaped full
length out of the water. Pickeral, on being hooked, never leap out
of the water. Sometimes they come to the surface and remain there
like a log of wood, and are drawn into the boat with hardly a
struggle.
""The above
observations are by Henry Westcott, Andrew Duclin, Daniel Duclin,
Alex. Griffin, Jno. Hoadley, Jno. Dingman, and many others. You will
recognize these names as the men are sons of guides who were here
fifty years ago."
Although Charley
Crossman was trotted on my knee when a five year old, it is to be
hoped that he don't mean to insinuate that the subscriber trolled in
the St. Lawrence half a century ago.
I have in reserve more
facts bearing on the question whether or not it is of rare occurrence
for a Mascalonge to show above water after being hooked, and they
will not be withheld from the columns of the Angler, although,
forsooth! a phenomenal angler on the "bank of the St. Lawrence
near the Thousand Islands, who has never lost a Mascalonge," is
of the sapient opinion "that these fish when hooked can be so
mishandled that they will cut up rough, and among their capers, leap
part way out of water;" nor although another angler elegantly
stigmatizes those who speak of the mascalonge's leaping and other
acrobatic proclivities as indulging in "rot."
H. H. T., New York,
January 30, 1883.
I'd say we could still argue that one today. I know
that most of the Pike I've caught loved to jump. So did some of the
Muskies.
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THE SIX-INCH TROUT
LAW
A Correspondent send us the following notes from
the Watertown, N.Y., Times of recent dates: "Dr. Boyd, of Pulaski,
during a week's fishing at Redfield, captured 760 trout., Last week a party left
Pulaski for two days' fishing at Redfield Square, eighteen miles distant. During
the two days they caught sixty-two pounds of dressed brook trout, besides what
they required for eating. While Baldwin was hauling in a three quarter pounder
he had the misfortune to fall over backward into the water. He struck on his
back and went under. Sutton said to him, 'Save it George,' and as he came to the
surface with water streaming from his mouth and eyes, he answered 'You bet I
will, There are more down here." Our correspondent adds: "The trout in
Redfield and other streams of this locality have become small. I find six or
eight below six inches to one above and believe it must be so with others. Large
catches are freely mentioned. It is too bad, but the six-inch law seems to all
but a few to be a dead letter."
From Forest and Stream, July 30, 1885
This
is a thumbnail of an advertisement from the same issue for Thomas Chubb rods and
reels. Click on the ad to see it actual size.
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Artificial
Minnows
Artificial
minnows for trolling, spinning, or casting, are made of metal, glass, and
rubber, large and small, and gilded, silvered, or painted in attractive ways.
Some of them are quite successful as baits, while others are comparatively
worthless. They are made both in our own country and in England, and as their
numbers, and styles, and forms are constantly increasing, I do not deem it
advisable to particularize or give special description. While I have
experimented with many of them, I do not employ them in angling for the Black
Bass.
James
A. Henshall, The Book of the Black Bass, 1881
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Fishing
Notes From Ft. Wayne, Ind.
Messr.
Clark, McCracken and Carey of this city fished through ice from 24 to 27 inches
thick, on February 13, at Rome City, Ind., with live chubs and shiners for bait,
using 25 bobs, and took 60 fish. The kind taken were ring-perch (yellow perch),
strawberry bass and 5 small bass of the large-mouth variety.
The
weather on the 13th was warm, with sun shining brightly. On the 14th, raining,
and heavy fog. Rumors of large pike and bass being taken in great quantities,
led to the trip, but it was evidently set afloat by hotel keepers. After this
session of the Legislature the season for fishing in the state will be closed to
everything except hook and line.
J.
P. H. - The American Angler, February 17, 1883
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FOLLETT
REEL
With one of the highlights of a
past eBay Report being the group of important papers about the Follett
reel, and one of the reels, I thought we would start off with the following
advertisement. Don't you wish your great great grandfather had put away a stash
of them in the original boxes.
The American Angler - February 17,
1883
Click
on the thumbnail to see this original ad full size. Then click your browsers
return button to return to this page.
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THE
HISTORY OF A DECOY FISH
Did you ever fish through the ice with a decoy
Fish? I do not mean as the Indians do, down on your knees on the edge of a hold
in the ice with your nose within a few inches of the water and three or four
thicknesses of an old mackinaw blanket over you to shut out the light, and then
in that position play the fish with one hand and hold the gaff in the other
until you get so stiff and cold that when you want to gaff a fish you can hardly
use a muscle; but rather with a well constructed fish box and a spring spear
such as were often used thirty or forty year ago before their use was generally
prohibited? If not, you have missed an experience not only charming in itself,
but intensely instructive as to the habits of fish. Let me give you a little
experience of my own in the days "long gone by."
During the fall of 1856 and early winter
following, I happened to be in Fon-du-Lac, Wis., and at that time there were
many Indians still living in the neighborhood. The lakes and ponds abounded in
pike and perch, and during every winter the Indians were constantly fishing
through the ice with their decoy fishes and gaffs in the manner described above.
These decoys were whittled out of a pine stick, so as to resemble in shape a
fish about six or seven inches in length; the wood was then stained a dark
color, a few places were then scraped or chipped so as to give the fish a
mottled appearance, a couple of pieces of tin stuck in each side answered for
fins, and a grove was made in the fore part of the belly and filled with lead,
which was kept bright. With a string in the head the fish could be jerked to the
surface of the water and the lead would carry it down head first when the string
was slackened, and so a very natural motion could be given to it. What was most
remarkable was the fact that the less the decoy fish resembled a real one within
reasonable bounds of course, the more successful it seemed to be.
Some two or three years previously an old Indian
had whittled out a fish which soon had the reputation of being the
most
killing and successful decoy ever made in that vicinity, so successful, in fact,
that for a long time he refused to sell it on any terms, but at last a friends
of mine through the offer of a considerable sum, tempted its owner to part with
it and became its possessor. When the Legislature of Wisconsin soon after
prohibited the use of such fish, it was sent to me as a souvenir of my trip. The
record of one day’s sport will show the killing qualities of this fish. On one
morning in December 1856, I visited with a companion, Lake Horicon, a lake some
fifteen miles long situated a few miles distant, for a day’s sport at catching
pike. We cut a hole in the ice nearly four feet in diameter, and over it placed
our fishing box with the open side downs. This box was 4 ft. square, lined with
heavy paper to exclude the light; we entered through a door in the side which
was fastened with an inside button and sat opposite each other, each resting his
feet on the ends of the narrow boat occupied by the other; our spring spear had
a handle some 15 ft, in length which passed through a hold in the center of the
top of the box. The decoy fish was played with the left hand and the spear held
in the right. The water was about 10 ft. deep, and the light shone so clearly
through the ice that everything in the water, even to the smallest fish, could
be seen with perfect distinctness.
In four hours we took twenty-one pike, which
weighed a little over 70 lbs., and we took every pike that came within sight
except one small one. As I sat looking under the ice I saw a large pike chasing
a small one, which darted across the hold, but as soon as his pursuer saw the
decoy fish it ceased the chase and turned around and seized it with such force
that he came partly out of the water right between our feet, and I speared him
in the head above the water with the decoy fish in his mouth. His weight was
over 5 lbs.
During all this time two Indians were fishing
for pike only a few feet distant and on equally good grounds, and together they
took just two fish, their decoys failing to attract the fish.
The box, which to the fish appeared like a dark
spot on the ice, afforded an elegant opportunity to observe the habits of the
pike in taking its food. Once on this day a large pike missed the decoy and he
came with such force that he went perhaps 20 ft. beyond us, but he turned and
came back slowly near the bottom and stopped right under the decoy fish and then
began to rise very slowly toward it, but he was speared in deep water before he
had a chance to make a second rush. Usually, however, the fish would approach
cautiously until near the decoy and then make a sudden dash for it.
On Lake Winnebago, where we usually had good
success, my companion and I both took yellow perch quite freely and they
manifested none of the caution of the pike, but the black bass which abounded in
that lake never came near enough to be taken; curiosity sometimes led very large
ones to approach within sight, but they always kept close to the bottom and soon
slowly swam away.
I have never been able to reconcile the results
of my fishing with this decoy fish with the theory of may anglers for trout,
that the more closely we can imitate the flies which then abound upon a stream
or lake, the more sure we will be of sport, as in my experience the reverse is
very often the case.
I have often observed that when I have been
using a certain fly with success, the same fly has suddenly made its appearance
in large numbers on the water, and that immediately my sport almost wholly cased
for the simple reason that my fly then constituted but one of say 10,000 of the
same kind; and I, therefore, had but one chance in 10,000 that mine would be
taken, which was, of course, relatively diminished by the artificial character
of the fly. May it not be so with a decoy fish or artificial minnow? The closer
the imitation the more we put it in competition with the natural fish, which if
we use one which will attract although it is different from the fish inhabiting
the same waters, may it not prove to be very successful?
With this article I send to you for your
inspection this old relic of past sport, although I fear it will sorely test
your faith in the veracity of your correspondent.
V. C. – Poughkeepsie, N. Y., March 9, 1892.
From Forest & Stream, March 24, 1892.
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SALMON IN THE HUDSON
Several prominent gentlemen of
Albany have taken steps to form an organization to protect the salmon fry
recently planted in the Hudson River by the United States Fish Commission, and
have issued a circular in which they say: "Eight hundred and thirty
thousand salmon fry have been planted in the waters of the upper Hudson. The
possibility of seeing the river teeming with these noble fish has aroused
anglers to the necessity of having the laws properly enforced, and the necessity
of concerted action to obtain such additional legislation as may be found
necessary to that purpose." Last Friday a preliminary meeting was called to
discuss the project, and among those present were W.W. Byington, Ira Wood, Judge
F. M. Danaher, Abram Lansing, William Story, Louis D. Pillsbury, Gen. Robert
Lennox Banks, Erastus Corning, John H. Quinby and Amasa J. Parker, Jr. all of
Albany, and Mr. A. N. Cheney or Glens Falls. It was decided that an organization
should be effected at an early day, and the high character of the gentlemen
interested is guarantee that it will succeed and be a power for good.
Forest & Stream, December 3,
1885.
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