PENM-SYLVANIA^ Anifw * Aw*^o- ft• t f M I 1 * ^V^ **-<*» fsF*"" •^ PENNSYLVANIA ANGLER OFFICIAL STATE VOL. XV—No. 6 PUBLICATION JUNE, 1946 OFFICIAL STATE PUBLICATION ,.q. PUBLISHED MONTHLY EDWARD MARTIN Governor by the PENNSYLVANIA BOARD OF FISH COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF FISH COMMISSIONERS CHARLES A. FRENCH Publication Office: Telegraph Press, Cameron Commissioner of Fisheries and Kelker Streets, Harrisburg, Pa. Executive and Editorial Offices: Commonwealth MEMBERS OF BOARD of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Board of Fish Com­ missioners, Harrisburg, Pa. CHARLES A. FRENCH, Chairman Ellwood City 10 cents a copy—50 cents a year + EDGAR W. NICHOLSON EDITED BY— Philadelphia J. ALLEN BARRETT, Lecturer MILTON L. PEEK Pennsylvania Fish Commission Radnor South Office Building, Harrisburg + W. M. ROBERTS New Castle R. D. #1 NOTE Subscription to the PENNSYLVANIA ANGLER JOHN L. NEIGER should be addressed to the Editor. Submit fee Scranton either by check or money order payable to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Stamps not CLIFFORD J. WELSH acceptable. Individuals sending cash do so at Erie their own risk. JOSEPH CRITCHFIELD Confluence PENNSYLVANIA ANGLER welcomes contri­ butions and photos of catches from its readers. CHARLES A. MENSCH Proper credit will be given to contributors. Bellefonte -K H. R. STACKHOUSE All contributions returned if accompanied by Secretary to Board first class postage. Entered as Second Class matter at the Post Office of Harrisburg, Pa., under act of March 3, C. R. BULLER 1873. Chief Fish Culturist, Bellefonte 17 IMPORTANT—The Editor should be notified immediately of change in subscriber's address. Please give old and new addresses. Permission to reprint will be granted provided proper credit notice is given. PENNSYLVANIA AN6LER Vol. XV.—No. 6. June, 1946 COVER "THE OPENING DAT" * Photo by Wm. R. (Bud) Tamblyn, Call- Ohronicle Photographer, Allentown, Pa. EDITORIAL In This Issue STREAM POLLUTION? Well What Are You Doing About It! NIGHT FISHING THRILLS Sportsmen the country over blow-off a lot of steam about pollution— By William Boyd but how many of them really and truly try to do something about it! They continually blast and damn big industry and ithe towns and cities which empty their poison and filth, into the creeks and rivers—but how much effort does the average sportsman lend to helping correct this RAISE CRICKETS FOR BAIT 'terrible evil. Under militant leadership Pennsylvania has just enacted and is now By E. E. Prather putting into full force and effect the greatest 'flesh-tearing' anti-pollution law ever to be adopted by any state anywhere and which will in due course forever solve the sickening stinking practice of recklessly dumping this poison and stench into the waterways of Pennsylvania. SOME FLIES FOR BASS FISHING What Can Sportsmen Do About It? By Thomas G. Norris There is a lot of pollution going into the streams and rivers and lakes of our state by way of garages, large and small. The careless practice of dumping oil and acid into the garage drain which certainly must arrive upon the waters of a watershed somewhere and where it will serve to cover a stream for hundreds of yards with a film of oil. Such an act BOTH SIDES OF THE STREAM WILL constitutes pollution in the fullest meaning of the offense! BECKON YOU Lyes and poisons of all types poured into kitchen sinks! Battery Acids! By Bill Watkins Poisonous orchard sprays too often are washed into streams with alarm­ ing results! Throwing garbage into streams—building public dumps along the banks! Unsightly trash piles which drain poisonous integration into streams and many more reckless practices of individuals—all mean alarming forms of BROWN TROUT BROUGHT HERE pollution! 65 YEARS AGO Here then is presented a most serious program for the attention of organized sportsmen's groups and individual sportsmen! By Edward Klein If the more than one thousand sportsmens' organizations in Pennsyl­ vania were to conduct intensive campaigns carefully designed to curtail and stop these practices, the results would be tremendous, I assure you. Aggressive committees delegated to search out and locate the sources of pollution in their respective locality and then by sensible and proper ap­ WITH THE SPORTS WRITERS proach point out the increasing danger to public health and sanitation together with of course, the terrible effect suffered by both fish and vegetable life in these streams. Such a campaign would not only serve to correct and improve our TIMELY TOPICS streams and lakes but would likewise win the esteem and admiration of the entire community. Improve public health and sanitation and restore the refreshing beauty of a pleasing landscape! Secondary of course, would also be the restoration of good fishing again! The state is determined that industry and municipalities must clean-up HOW TO RAISE WORMS FOR BAIT their back yards! What about you! By Henry Lesesne The state can't do it alone; It takes public opinion to support the state's action! What are you doing to help create that public opinion? STREAM POLLUTION? Yes, There's a lot we sportsmen can do about it. MAKE MINE NATIVES Sincerely, J. ALLEN BARRETT, Editor. By James R. Hayes 2 PENNSYLVANIA ANGLER JUNE Night Fishing Thrills By WILLIAM BOYD is the kind of a man who'd arrest his own brother if he was treading too hard on his toes." "Mr. Williams will get an unexpected bath in his own pond if ever he grabs me in the darkness," I assured Dad. I hurried home and told my wife about what Dad had observed. She's a cautious sort of person and didn't like any too well the idea of my fishing in the ponds, but she had known ' me long enough to realize that argument probably wouldn't do a bit of good. I put my trout rod together in the out- kitchen, attached the reel, ran the line out through the guides, and fastened a hook. Worms I already had stored in a can in the cool cellar. I had collected thean while digging garden with the thought of having them available whenever an urge to go fishing struck me. As soon as it was dark I walked down through my lot to the alley and made my way to the ponds. I stepped over the pipe which fed the ponds and dropped my worm* covered hook in the water, expecting in' Where Pine Creek joins the Susquehanna River a few miles south of Jersey Shore. Here the stant action. I was disappointed, for nothing author has had many pleasant and profitable days of fishing. happened. For perhaps ten minutes I fished in the one spot and didn't have anything •resembling a strike. The rain which the sultry weather of the preceding day had It was a sultry Sunday afternoon in late blossom on the water near the place where portended came then, but I have neve* spring. My bride of a few months and I the water from the feeding pipe splashed. been one to let a wetting keep me from had moved from our warm living-room to The wild carrot flower had no sooner fishing. the shaded front porch in search of greater struck the water than there was a swirl A few minutes later I was glad I hadn't comfort. Across the street little Alma was where a fish hit it. It gave me a thrill become too easily discouraged for I felt doing her best to catch a half-grown wild for I was quite certain that hungry fish a slight tug on my line. When it came again rabbit which had its home somewhere in was a good-sized trout. My wife, too, had I attempted to sink the hook but missed. one of our gardens. I had told her to put seen the action in the water and I could This happened two more times and then I salt on the rabbit's tail and it would be tell by the way she smiled that she knew decided to try something else. I disconnected easier to catch, and there she was with a what was in my mind. the tip of my rod and tied to it a short salt shaker in her hand attempting to ap­ "I'll try it tomorrow evening," I remarked. length of line I kept in my pocket as a proach close enough to dust salt on the fish stringer. rabbit. While the pond owner didn't have the place posted against trespassing, I 'knew him as a Fishing in this way, my hook wasn't more After a time the child concluded that stern, forbidding sort of a fellow who than six feet out in the water in front putting salt on a rabbit's tail was too much wouldn't take kindly to encroachment on of where I squatted. In fact, it was almost for her and I proposed to my wife that we his private fishing preserve. Oddly enough, under the end of the pipe from whicn gushed the spring water. It was only a feW take a short walk. Only about a hundred it was late afternoon of the following day e yards west of the dead end of the street that I learned for certain that he was seconds until I felt that hungry fish strik on which we lived were two large ponds catching fish from his ponds. again. The sensitive rod tip was just th* thing to hook 'him and I did just that. When excavated in a bit of swampland by a My dad, whose home fronted on the street businessman of the community who had I flopped him out on the bank I discovered immediately south of the one on which I I had one of the largest and prettiest broo* intended to harvest natural ice in the lived, was working in his garden when I wintertime.