The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-04-19

Good "NIess" Will Make.
 A rightly contrived portion of fried saltwater eel has the pleasing quail ties of rich color, engaging odor and grateful relish. Without, the tinting is that of an oxidized silver, incrustate and margined with modulated gold and bronze; within there is the washed whiteness of the oysters shell. Its sub stance is at first sufficiently firm to of fer an agreeable resistance to the teeth and then melts into flavor of succu- lent juices with the wholesome savor of salt-sea nourished food. The salmon clogs the stomach before the palate Is satisfied; the shad provokes desire but baffies attainment; the eel makes a sa- worry promise and honest fulflment. That food is godly food which grati- fies the appetite its chase and capture creates.
 The love of saltwater and of fresh air constrains many to angling. There are others who write of taking fish; but eel-eatching by the common meth of of fire-lighting has so far escaped the notice of the scribbler that 1 recall no magazine pages made interesting by it's description. Perhaps this is not strange, for the calling is nocturnal one and followed only by men who take their living from the water. Besides, one has to know how. There are a few business and professional men in New York city who were initiated when small and have not forgotten and who now spend an occasional stolen night in rubber boots and old clothes, hunting the flats. This accounts for the private lockers of saltwater outfits kept with friendly, discreet baymen, in readiness against a possible day or night wild and free.''
 Just before our Connecticut rivers and smaller streams reach the Sound, they spread over areas of mud-dats up- grown into bogs, or hummocks, sedge- covered and separated by bewildering labyrinth of small water ways. There are also reaches of firmer bottoms, somewheres covered with eel-grass, otherwheres partly bare. These are the feeding grounds of the eel, and when the larger animals seeks food he goes to the table of the smaller.
 At high water there may be a square mile or more of this perplexing subma- rine territory; perhaps but few hun dred yards at low tide, It will be your | business to know this ground, and to know it so thoroughly that ill a dark night you can find your way to any part by the light your lantern throws on the bottom. The cells frequent diff ferent places at different stages of the tide; if you don't know the bottom and | just when and where to hunt it, you will get nothing. If you don't know the intricate system of channels and flats, you may get stuck on the falling water a quarter of mile from the main channel and not be able to drag | your boat out.
 A slSiff, flat-bottomed and so of light draft and easily pushed over shallow places, an eel-spear,-no later Purdy shotgun Mercedes motor car ever yielded such fruitage of delights as yonr first Sag Harbor'' .spear-and the lantern. The lantern is a box with front and ends of glass, containing sev- eral lamps with good reflectors, and is securely fastened across the extreme end of the skiff. Such lamp will flu minate distinctly, through two or three feet of clear water, all the bottom eight | feet ahead. It is fastened securely be- cause you stand up on the seat directly behind it, propelling the boat by shov ing with the spear; and if your skif | grounds abruptly, or you miscalculat the depth of water when you strike a fish, or the bow hits the bank during a sudden swing, you will probably gC overheard; and 1t is better not to takt the light with you-you will need i later to find the boat with.
 The elements of eel-catching must b, learned by experience; and wlthou
 them you will get no cells. Besides minute knowledge of the ground, vol | must observe the tide and weather 1 When the tide is rising, the water i
 always thick and covered with scun 1 through which you cannot see; there i
 also a steadily increasing depth owe your hunting ground. The fish ar