Piute l.y II. J. Myt-rs A Member of the Bullfrog Chorus # OFFICIAL STATE NOVEMBER, 1933 PUBLICATION ^ANGLER? Vol. 2 No. 11 PUBLISHED MONTHLY Want Good Fishing? by the OBEY THE LAW Pennsylvania Board of Fish Commissioners # W E3E3E2 COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA BOARD OF FISH COMMISSIONERS Fire cents a copy «~» 50 cents a year OLIVER M. DEIBLER <*• Commissioner of Fisheries KEJJ3 £3 S3 S3 ALEX P. SWEIGART, Editor Members of Board South Office Bldg., Harrisburg, Pa. OLIVER M. DEIBLER, Chairman Greensburg JOHN HAMBERGER GEORGE GRAY, I.ustrafor Erie M. A. RILEY Ellwood City J3 H £3 DAN R. SCHNABEL Johnstown LESLIE W. SEYLAR NOTE McConnellsburg Subscriptions to the PENNSYLVANIA ANGLER EDGAR W. NICHOLSON should be addressed to the Editor. Submit fee Philadelphia either by check or money order payable to the KENNETH A. REID Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.*^ Stamps not ac­ Connellsville ceptable. ROY SMULL •f Mackeyville PENNSYLVANIA ANGLER welcomes contribu­ H. R. STACKHOUSE tions and photos of catches from its readers. Proper Secretary to Hoard credit will be given to contributors. C. R. BULLER All contributions returned if accompanied by Deputy Commissioner of Fisheries first class postage. Pleasant Mount IMPORTANT—The Editor should be notified immediately of change in subscriber's address Permission to reprint will be granted provided proper credit notice is given PENNSYLVANIA ANGLER play an important part in providing necessary to take a trout under the con­ better fishing for the fishermen of Penn­ ditions just described is by no means sylvania. unlike the accuracy of the shot required The number of trout a stream can to bring down the head of big game you carry depends on the condition and have stalked. amount of food in the stream. Many of But the greater sport to be had from ^ANGLER/ us older fishermen remember when the fly fishing, and especially from dry fly streams of Pennsylvania carried many fishing, is by no means the only reason times the number of trout most of them for practicing it. Trout hooked on a fly NOVEMBER, 1933 do today. Stream improvement can are usually hooked in the lips. They bring back the carrying power of our are seldom hooked in the gills, and the VOL. 2 No. 11 streams. We cannot afford to neglect fly is never swallowed. That means that it any longer. little trout can be returned to the water In many parts of the State stream im­ unhurt, when hooked on a barbed fly. provement projects which will definitely But if a barbless fly is used, if you better the fishing have been undertaken have either pressed flat or broken off the on trout waters. Dams, boulder and log barb of your hook with a pair of sharp- EDITORIAL deflectors, and additional covers are nosed pliers, then you can return to the easy to build and are of real practical water entirely unhurt at least 95 per advantage. Valuable work in stream im­ cent of all undersized trout. In the provement was done by a number of great majority of eases you need not Citizens Conservation Corps Camps dur­ touch the fish at all, merely turn the The Sportsman's Part ing the summer. hook point downward and the fish falls in Fish Conservation Stream improvement does three off. things. It provides food, because more I have been fishing for trout, bass, and By Gifford Pinchot, insects a<re produced in streams that pickerel only with a fly, and only with Governor of Pennsylvania have been improved. It gives cover to a barbless hook, for many years. I find ETTER fishing is not the result of the fish, and it secures better water the barbless hook makes almost no diff­ B any single cause, but of a lot of temperature in trout streams. It is an erence in the amount of my catch. Cer­ causes working together. established fact that trout food is in­ tainly I save five fish for every six I Mass production of fish as practiced creased, better cover is made available, would have saved fishing with a barb. in Pennsylvania by the Pish Commission and the water is cooler because speeded But it does make an immense difference is absolutely necessary to meet the con­ up through the instalment of stream in my ability to turn back unhurt young stantly increasing demand for better improvements. fish either below the legal limit or below fishing. As industries spread and as The second way by which fishermen the higher limit I have long since estab­ more and more fishing waters are taken can improve their fishing is by using the lished for myself. up by clubs and private preserves, it artificial fly instead of bait, and par­ Every year countless thousands of is obvious that the waters available to ticularly the barbless fly. There are two young trout, bass, pickerel, and other fishermen must grow steadily less. With­ reasons for using the fly. game fish under legal size are destroyed out intensive stocking each year these One is because there is immensely in bait fishing or in plug fishing. In waters cannot yield good fishing for the more sport to be gotten out of fishing another year many of these fish would great army of licensed fishermen. with the fly than fishing with any kind have reached legal size. Many of them And that means a balanced system of of bait. The fight a trout or a bass would have survived to be big fish. fish propagation. It means the raising taken on a fly makes against a light fly There is probably nothing which more not only of the kinds of game fish, such rod is one of the most fascinating things effectively prevents better fishing in as trout and bass, but also the produc­ I know. Ply casting is full of interest. Pennsylvania streams than the loss of tion of great quantities of sunfish, cat­ Whether you catch anything or whether these young fish. fish, perch, and other lesser species. you do not, every cast is a little enter­ I do not overlook the necessity for in­ Somebody likes to catch every kind of prise all by itself, and the satisfaction creased production of fish. Two new fish there is. of making a really good cast is reward hatcheries at Huntsdale, Cumberland enough for making it. But mass production of fish standing County, and Spring Creek, Centre alone is not enough. It is the conduct Again, when a trout or a bass takes a County, have recently been developed, of the average fisherman that holds the fly it is taken on the surface. That to and many more warm water species of key to better fishing. What the fisher­ me is forty times as interesting as a fish will be grown at other hatcheries of men do with the fish or for the fish after strike under the surface which I cannot the State Pish Commission. Pennsyl­ they are distributed is a good deal more see. vania hatcheries are producing more important than how many fish are Moreover, dry fly fishing is the only and more fish. But when all is said and planted. sport I know that is hunting and fish­ done, the fisherman himself is the key The fishermen can increase the sport ing too. A trout rising in still water in to better fishing. they get in two principal ways: The the middle of the day under the bright Better sportsmanship on each fisher­ first is by stream improvement. sun is fair game for a dry fly. It would man's part means better fishing for him So far we have given very little at­ be hopeless to think of taking it with and for everybody else. No amount of tention to stream improvement, but I a wet fly or with any kind of bait. stocking will take the place of good am glad and proud to say that under In dry fly fishing you see your game sportsmanship on the stream. "Better the direction of Commissioner Deibler and then go after it as you do in stalk­ fishing for every fisherman" is in the stream improvement is beginning to ing a deer. The accuracy of the cast hands of every angler. 2 PENNSYLVANIA ANGLER When Red Men F nPO Pennsylvania's first fisherman, the red -*• man, catching fish was more than an art. It was a major source of livelihood, for he relied upon the water courses in his quest for food. Evidence is not lacking to confirm this fact. Preserved In the charcoal of fires that had once burned in Indian villages, whether they were located on the shore of some great waterway or miles away from it, were found many bones, and predominat­ ing were the bones of fishes. Then, of course, the supply of fish was so vast that incur­ sions of the Indian, no matter how heavy, had little appreciable effect. An early historian, commenting on the great migrations of shad, herring and stur­ geon in the Susquehanna and Delaware Rivers, observed that "so immense were the multitudes of these fish that the still waters seemed to fill with eddies while the shallows were beaten into foam by them as they strug­ gled to reach their spawning grounds." In {FROM AN OLD PRINT) the colder streams of mountain and lowland INDIANS COOKING FISH were charr or brook troTit in abundance, while smaller streams, tributary to the great rivers, abounded in suckers, pickerel, catfish, and other native species. Here was a mam­ fishing. The children relied chiefly on bows one of the first settlers in New Jersey fur­ moth source of food supply, and to the red and arrows in taking fish, and were excep­ nishes interesting sidelights on this system man, dependent as he was upon the crop of tionally adept in their use.